My problem is that she targets the game, and the method of input. I disagree with the priorities of people that consider particular games like Manhunt 2, or movies like Saw, to be problems, but not aspects of the culture in general. My problem isn’t the existence of games where you can kill others (in this case, it’s even self-defense!) Hell, I don’t even care if someone does make Murder Simulator 2020. My complaint is the culture of gaming (game developers and gamers themselves,) that is so dependent on violence as content that it’s largely retarded growth into other areas that games could gain from. And of course this is because after graphics, physics are the next easiest part of programming to improve on. Games are just advancing along the path of least resistance.

Y’know, I just hope that in the end, games can drive people to kill, to love, to loathe, to orgasm, and to regret. Not due of repetition and warping of the player’s sense of ‘normalcy’, but because of passion and persuasiveness. Because after playing the game, the player actually cares enough to act, in some way. Of course, I’d rather players try to save the world…

Nintendo had already announced that each Wii controller will contain a separate profile, so that instead of having to assort your relevant game saves on a single memory card and take the card and a controller to your friends house, you can just pick up your controller. (This may not seem like a big deal, but for many it’s the small things like this that matter.) Now Nintendo announces that the “Wiimote” will have a customizable caricature of the player attached with it, but what info will be included in the profile has not yet been finalized. I’d like to suggest some information to be included as a profile. It started as something I called ID-Gamer, (herein .IDG,) but I never finished. I thought it would be a fun tool for Interactive Fiction at least, if not typical games, (easily supportable in arcades with SD cards or USB drives,) but like any good project I started to set my scope too large to keep my attention for that particular task and lost interest. This may make me interested in it again, though. What basic info could developers use to incorporate a properly similar-yet-just-generic-enough avatar for every gamer?

First, middle, last, and sur-names.
Preferred title (Mr., Ms., etc. Player picks from a field.)
Nickname.
Email address (arguably could get ugly, but I trust most devs.)
Date of birth (Date, month, and year.)
Gender.
Skin tone.
Eye color.
Height and weight (proportion and body tone would be easy enough for Nintendo to program, though I never touched it.)
Strength (derivative from height, weight, proportion, and body tone.)
Speed (derivative from height, weight, proportion, and body tone.)
Reflex speed (easily measurable with a Wii minigame.)
Hair color, length, and style (choice from a field.)
Favorite color.
Favorite number.
(Of course as a programmer you’d also want a ‘version number’ of this information in case this was ever extended.)

Sure this adds up to lots of info housed for a single player, I think it entirely reasonable given the possible uses of the data and how I think it would help in the interactive experience from which games derive their exclusive artistic approach. Players are starting to get over the idea of graphics being the driving force of a game. Let’s woo them with the amount of non-physics/graphics game data that can be juggled.

I’d love to open a new game and instantly be able to be myself. Sure this is an obvious choice for sports games where you already spend a lot of time creating a character, but how great would Guitar Hero 2 be if you could choose someone who already looked like you to rock? In the first one I wanted to be the other hippie guitarist like everyone else, but even more I’d like to be Harmonix’s version of me! Or to be the space marine Jeff “Jeffool” Bridges who shares lots of my features in some FPS! (Developers could choose to have me a little thinner… I don’t want to be too easy a target.)

And how about including information from other Wiimotes on my games? Want to add a friend as a supporting character in your game? Have them bring over their Wiimote and go to a Wii system menu and choose ‘import->ally’ and have your friend point/click at the screen. Done. Then in games you could simply toggle a “.IDG support” option which replaces in-game characters with your friends. I could even add my brother, and have him used for any game in which the main character has a brother. (Could you imagine Bad Dudes with you and a brother/close friend?)

But, I’ve probably just got my hopes too high. I’ve already written negative articles about Sony and Microsoft. Sadly I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until Nintendo messes up… But here’s hoping they don’t.

Ah well. I guess I’m off to email them all. I wonder if one mass emailing is overly unprofessional? And if that fails, I could always stand outside of their houses holding a 80s style boombox over my head, a la Lloyd Dobler. After all, to know Jeffool is to love him, right?

Note to self: This is the perfect chance to snag Brett Douville a Wii devkit! Anyone else want one?

First a lecture telling us that you’ve sold over 100million PS2s and other numbers. (As if about half of those weren’t people rebuying the system after their died.)

-Gran Turismo 4, slightly retooled for the PS3. Gran Turismo HD? The same game running in HD and you gave it ten minutes? Seriously Sony, what the fuck?

-+EyeToy. A new EyeToy game isn’t a game so much as a nice side item to the game, like R.O.B. the Robot. While you’re playing a CCG, EyeToy sees the cards you play, airing that on TV, with monsters appearing over them and fighting. Interesting, but not really ‘fun’.

-PS3 will have a MySpace-esque service. Yay?

-The online system is referenced as a good place for ’shopping’. A decided boo goes here.

+A brief glimpse of games not expected at launch like Lair and Afrika. Also games from London Studios and Naughty Dog look fun enough.

And then there was your wannabe Wii controller. You claimed your new “innovative” controller will have ’six degrees of freedom’, but by the horrible display given on-stage, it seems that it really just recognizes pitch, yaw, roll, and vertical change. So, if you moved the controller to the left without tilting it, the game would never know. It then doesn’t even have knowledge of where it is in relation to anything. So, it can’t do any of the things that the Wii can so far as gameplay. But the question isn’t ever “is the product better than the original,” only “is it good enough?” And to that I still laugh. In fact, the entire chatroom laughed the whole time until the very end when the controller was revealed, and then everyone laughed again.

Yes, when Kutaragi revealed your controller, which looks like a Dual Shock 2 with an Xbox ‘Guide’ button, the audience actually snickered at the man. Then they grew silent, and then made polite applause. And when he said “that’s not all,” I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew what he was going to do; we all did. But I felt like I was in the theater at a horror movie when the young blonde, before the opening credits, gets the phone call from inside the house. You shout “No! Don’t do it! You’ll die, and you’re not really that bad! Don’t get yourself killed!” But Kutaragi couldn’t help himself. It was bloody. And thank you from that Sony. Thank you.

-Jeffool.

Don’t believe me? Grab it from torrent, (here.) I’m grabbing a copy to watch again to see if I missed anything when I was nodding off from boredom.

Nintendo has announced that their next console (codenamed ‘Revolution’) will in fact be named Wii. Now, is anyone who likes the idea of the Wii, or anyone who likes Nintendo, not going to get this system because of an odd name? No. Just want to get that out of the way. Face it, a bunch of fans will be waiting overnight to get it on launch day. This is a given, accept it and move on. Now, let’s move on to nongamers.

I think that this oddly named product has the potential to make the word ‘Nintendo’ ubiquitous to gaming again. The Wii’s ability to take players in a new direction (yes, thanks to the controller, its ability to offer add-ons, and an assumed retained focus on gameplay) will make it different from other systems, which has long been Nintendo’s “Blue Ocean” strategy. They want to the the iPod to Sony’s discman and Microsoft’s… Well, ‘other discman.’ (To stick with the comparison.) To do that, they’ll need a new type of gaming to go along with it. Let’s hope that Red Steel is only the tip of that iceberg.

There are also those who game, but don’t really care. Let’s call them non-fans. I have no problem with people like that, as I’m sure Nintendo hopes to make a killing off of these people! They bought Guitar Hero because it was new, and fun. They bought Halo when they heard that fun coop had came back to gaming. They buy whatever console or a PC and play the games they like. To those, normal, people, gaming is similar to TV and movies. They play a game and then go about their day and I commend them for it. Gaming doesn’t have to be an all-encompassing way of life.

But the haters? The ones who actively hate on Nintendo, not just because of the name, but call them ‘too kiddie’ simply because their games don’t contain more violence/blood? The people who will surely be using the term ‘Wiitards’ in the coming years? Y’know, those people who you (I) secretly hate because they think of themselves as hardcore for getting into games because of Final Fantasy VII? People who have never so much as heard of M.U.L.E.? They’ve pushed me over the edge. After constant complaining about how gaming has been ruined by marketing and graphics-whoring games, which they themselves buy every year, they have the nerve to bitch when a large company finally makes a move to be independent of that type of shit. To reference RvB, they could bitch about anything.

I’ve never owned a Gamecube. It didn’t strike me as something I’d like at the beginning due to the games released on it, and I never got around to picking one up after games I thought I would enjoy finally came out. But a while back I picked up a Nintendo DS and it all made sense to me. It just felt ‘right’. Before, I was just ‘really interested’ in the Wii. Now I’m drinking the Kool-Aid. I’m in Nintendo’s boat and sailing off into the Blue Ocean with them, because I desperately want greener gaming pastures.