Critical News Top Headlines of the Week from Around the Industry
Good Ubisoft PR Man On Why Beyond Good & Evil Got Left On The Shelves (Jump Button Mag) An honest (in fact somewhat confessional) and depressingly straightforward summing up of why Beyond Good & Evil failed at retail. It seems that, come Christmas time, a fresh new title like BG&E is practically irrelevant to retailers desperate to make room for Electronic Arts' latest. Having played the game through for a second time only the other day, I still don't think it is quite the forgotten masterpiece that it is sometimes made out to be, lacking the cohesive greatness of other underselling classics it is often mention in the same breath as, like Rez and ICO. But it is undoubtedly a fine game, and one that I think is close to many gamers hearts simply because it embodies the kind of accessible, smooth game experience and well told storytelling that you can recommend to almost anyone (girlfriends, nephews, non-gamers) and know that they'll enjoy and appreciate, perhaps even love. In fact it's the perfect mass-market blockbuster that only hardcore gamers bought. -Andrew Fletcher >>talkback
Good Bully Mini-Site Posts First Trailer (RockStar Games) So it seems Bully isn't quite the game it was made out to be, for better and worse. The trailer and new game description succeed in throwing the moral majority off the scent (unless they're prepared to take issue with Dennis the Menace as well), but instead of tackling the issue of school bullying with tact and insight, the game appears to be a mostly harmless roughhousing comedy and a playful caricature of school life, with an oddly noble and heroic main avatar. No doubt this will please fans of Spectrum classic Skool Daze, but I can't help thinking an opportunity has been missed for games to prove themselves worthy of handling difficult subjects, rather than just playing the fool for schoolyard kicks. -AF >>talkback
Good Boy Trades Halo 2 Skills For Hamster (GamesRadar) I've used the same tagline for this story because I just found it hilarious; mainly for the fact that the hamster is totally irrelevant to the story—a more amusing journalistic eye-grabber than the similar, but reprehensible, "Xbox Murders" fiasco. I personally find it incredible that someone would pay to be tutored on how to play a videogame, and by an eight year-old boy too! But then if people take piano lessons to help them become more proficient at their hobby and consequently enjoy it more, why can't the same be true of the more competitive or complex games? -AF >>talkback
Good The Twenty Gayest Videogame Characters (GayGamer) What, no Luigi? Surely Ryo from Shenmue? Not even the announcer for Super Monkey Ball 2's mini games? Oh well, this is still a fun tongue-in-cheek (*checks spelling*) look at the blatant androgyny that pervades so many game character designs. [Update: SPHINX! Sphinx from Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. Gay as a window, I'm telling you.] -AF >>talkback
Good Game Discs Obsolete By Playstation4 Says Sony's Phil Harrison (GamesRadar) Now that Steam and Xbox Live Arcade are in full effect, this isn't really the future shock it might initially seem, but I liked Phil's observation that our current game buying habits will seem laughable years from now. This does, however, raise the possibility of the second-hand market also becoming obsolete, with strictly regulated prices and copyright laws exerting ever more control over our gaming habits. -AF >>talkback
Good Majora's Mark Revisited/Retrospective (IGN) I guess this means another playthrough before The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess arrives. It's heartening to hear the forum posts respond with such affection for the Nintendo 64's second Zelda masterpiece. Personally so because it is one of my all-time favourite games, but also because it was such an experimental riff on the standard series formula that there was always a fear in my mind that it may have been forgotten, and unfairly belittled as Ocarina of Time leftovers—a viewpoint popularised by Miyamoto's own early descriptions of the game, before it transformed into something altogether different. After the fuss so many kicked up over The Wind Waker, I wonder if we'll ever see this kind of freewheeling treatment of the Zelda recipe again? -AF >>talkback
Good Nintendo Asks Fans To Vote For Tingle (4 Color Rebellion) Another Zelda reference this week, but a significant one because there is a game at stake here. Why would anyone want to stop this game reaching the west is beyond me. Of course, fresh from receiving the Gayest Videogame Character title, it seems Tingle is certainly an acquired taste. The forum posts tell this story themselves, really. Personally, I found the little guy hilariously twisted when he first cropped up in Majora's Mask ("...don't steal them!"), but arguably he suited the surreal land of Termina a little too well, and his character has proved of dwindling interest since then (especially when tied to the lacklustre GBA-GC link up feature in The Wind Waker). He's probably the unlikeliest of spin-off characters, but surely still deserves a chance to prove himself in his own game. Besides, regardless of the main character, quirky Nintendo RPGs are traditionally fantastic. -AF >>talkback
Good Looking Back On 10 Years Of E3 (GamesRadar) A dry, nostalgic, but patently irresistible retrospective covering the last 10 years of major gaming revelations. Choice quote: "The 1997 show should also be remembered as the first time Grand Theft Auto appeared, with attendees being proudly told that to drive from one side of the game's city to the other would take players around three minutes." -AF >>talkback
Bad Microsoft And Nintendo Prepare To Fight Patent Infringement Allegations (Gamesindustry.biz) It's interesting to note gamers' reactions to these patent lawsuits. On the one hand the gaming community has always been lightning quick and vocal in geekily pointing out copycats and rip-offs, but as soon as (apparently) faceless, non-gaming corporations muscle into our industry and try to suck money out of the major players for using their ideas, a sense of solidarity seems to form against the "bloody leeches", as one forum dweller put it. My sympathies lie within our creative industry, naturally, and despite patents being a perfectly valid way of protecting and even fostering creativity in some cases (usually other industries that rely less on collective creative evolution than ours), one wishes that the patents offices were a little more strict on what they decide is an unimpeachably unique and monopolizable idea. -AF >>talkback
Bad Top-Selling Handheld Games Of The Last Six Years (Next-Gen.biz) Another fun list from Next Generation, with fairly on-the-ball game summaries. However, I can't forgive the comment next to The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: "the last really full-fledged overhead Zelda being released in 1991 (Link's Awakening and the Oracle series being given to the vagaries of their underpowered systems like they were)." Hey, Link's Awakenings tops my All-Time Favorites list for a reason, jackass! (Why don't people check with me before they write these things?) -AF >>talkback
Ugly No Ugly News Today Better luck next week. >>talkback
