The Masked Carnie

Gaming's been around for a long time, now.  The NES debuted in America in 1985, the year of my birth.  I am now 26.  We've grown up, many of us have kids of our own and they're starting to play games, too.  I heard a story about how my friends love to play Fruit Ninja, while their kid just loves watching the fruit fall and gets upset when someone cuts one.  Video games have passed generations, and upon this thought, I also came to realize that I'm actually a 2nd generation gamer, myself!

My roommate recently picked this up.  I've been trying to get him into board gaming, and since he's a big fan of GoW, this seemed a natural intro.  Honestly though, I expected this to be a big bomb.  It seems like just a big cash grab.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  We tried it with my game group and it was a big hit.  They're gonna need a few more copies to sell.  I don't know if this is going to be a staple for us, but it's really looking good.

  Hey guys, we all love Arkham City.  It's a truly great game.  I figure the adjustable difficulty levels would allow it to be accessible to everyone (wouldn't know, I don't try them) and it's really hard to find something wrong with it.  I take that as a challenge.  Here, then, is a list of the things I found upsetting about the game.

One thing developers often use to inflate play time is to have players do a variety of things not actually related to the story.  This offers a little something for those players who consider themselves more "hardcore" and want to get 100% completed (or whatever strange number is the maximum, like 200.6%).  Though sidequests do fall into this category, and are sometimes even hidden just as remotely, this chapter is going to address the idea of just finding junk laying around the game.  Junk collection like this can be as meaningless as just collecting them for the sake of collection.  They can also offer minor assistance to your character, which can pay off big once you have them all.

Remember, game companies want you to have fun.  It is in their best interest that your experience be as enjoyable as possible.  Because video games are an interactive media, you're actually involved in that experience.  It is therefore vital that the developers know you understand how to use the system, or at least how to get the rewards they most want you to get.  This can sometimes be a challenging task.  The Xbox 360 alone has 4 main face buttons, 4 buttons for your index fingers on both hands, 2 center buttons used more for minor functions, and even the 2 analog sticks can be pressed for further functionality.  Sometimes games will use both analog sticks while incorporating the D-Pad, essentially making 4-8 more buttons.  That's as much as 20 functions (plus sticks) to manage on a controller!  This is obviously an extreme example of how complicated controllers can get (run a search for Steel Battalion if you really wanna see crazy), but even ...

I've had an idea floating recently about writing a book about gaming.  I've done plenty of it, so I'd say I'm rather qualified to say something on the subject.  Specifically, the book would be about elements commonly incorporated into games, perhaps how to best work with them.  I guess the idea would be like what you thought you were getting in the old days that suggested they'd make you good at games (though they really just offered cheat codes or game-specific notes).  I don't know how realistic it is, but I figured I might as well make my notes here.  Yeah it's public, but so's David Sirlin's Playing to Win .  Besides, I'll be able to work on it anywhere and easily recall the progress I made.

  It's been a long time coming that I play this game.  I've been interested in it since the day of its release, mostly because I'd heard a lot of comparisons to Metroid Prime.  This thing really is the holy grail of Batman games, at least it is for my generation of Batman.  It plays very well both in combat and in stealth, truly representing what the character really is.  My only real complaint is in the marketing.  I had come to expect that every major enemy of Batman would be here.  Although they are all referenced, many of them are not present.  Still, a great game.  Hopefully this will serve as a good reminder for people on what they can expect.