Warning: System Warrior Rant Incoming

Picking up this blog thing again, I may start doing weekly reviews of tables on The Pinball Arcade and/or Pinball FX 2 if anyone's interested. 

Anyways, I want to vent a little bit on the whole Xbox One/PS4  system wars thing going on. To the guy on twitter going by the alias ManaByte, this is for you. 

I just seem annoyed by a couple of themes from PS4 fanboys. The big one is resolution, and honestly, I don't see the big deal. Yes, 1080p is nice, but you know what? It's early. Developers are still getting the hang of the new hardware. If this is still an issue a year from now, then it may be a concern, but for the love of all that is holy, it's still early in the game, so to speak. I remember ManaByte mocking the Xbox One over the newly announced Alien Isolation game, but Creative Assembly confirmed that the Xbox One version runs at 1080p. It's going to improve over time. And frankly, I prioritize higher frame rate over a higher resolution, but that's another story. 

And the sales? Again, it's early. The consoles launched in November. They have been on the market for a little over a month and a half. Declaring the PS4 the winner because of a 900,000 console sales lead during that time is stupid. Sony will probably get more sales once Japan gets it and constraints are dealth with, but Microsoft will get more sales once they rollout sales to mainland Europe and Asia. Let's see the sales for all of 2014, then we can draw some conclusions. 

I guess I wouldn't be so annoyed if there were some more games that interested me, but I don't see much. Killzone and Knack don't set my hearts on fire. MLB 14 is the only baseball game coming out this year, but I can get that on my PS3. DriveClub is going to live or die by the online community, and I fear that Sony isn't marketing it enough and is sending it out to die. Infamous has what looks like the most unlikeable protagonist in a game this year. Watch Dogs isn't exclusive, most of the indie games Sony is touting can probably be found on Steam, and so on. 

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong. 

And you know what? That's okay. I won't judge anyone if they buy a PS4 over an Xbox One. I just wish that other people would do the same. But asking for civility on the Internet is asking for peace in the Middle East, it's not going to happen. 

Maybe the Xbox One's price will go down. Maybe the PS4 has a breakthrough hit that I need to play. But they both just launched. Can't we have some level headed conversations?

Child of Sticker Shock

"I'm sure we'll always argue when it's the wrong or right time to criticize a game's length, but Child of Eden's got to be the wrongest."- Ray Barnholt, probably thinking the opposite of what I'm about to say

Hey guys, what's going on? It's a beautiful day here in Florida, and I'm inside on my computer, blogging. Priorities, people.

So, a video game came out on Tuesday. No, I'm not talking about Duke Nukem Forever, although I did receive my Xbox 360 Balls of Steel Edition version today and will talk about it in the future. I'm talking about Child of Eden, that Kinect-enhanced rail shooter from Ubisoft and Q Entertainment. If you've played Rez, then you'll recognize the themes coming from the same cloth.

I've been reading the reviews, and a lot of the same words keep coming up. "Beautiful". "Awe-inspiring". "Memorable." "Oh, and each level takes about twenty minutes to complete."

wat

::checks Amazon and Gamestop for price::

$50 for a game that I can beat in an afternoon? Wow, Ubisoft made a dick move that Bobby Kotick thinks is dickish.

I have no problem with the game itself, mind you, don't get me wrong. I have a problem with the price.

The thing I have about the price is the relative value in comparison with some other shoot-em-ups I can buy. I look at XBLA, and see plenty of good ones for $10, like CoE's spiritual predecessor, Rez, Ikaruga, and the like. Hell, I still think that the $15 that's going to be charged for Radiant Silvergun is reasonable. Why? I guess it could be the value proposition. It'll take a couple of hours to beat those games, too, but it's easier to rationalize spending $10-15 on something that long compared to $50. $30-40 might be pushing it a little bit, but for a retail title as opposed to an XBLA title, I'd consider it. $50 is right out until I can find a deal where I can go ahead and bite.

"But wait", you say, "what about the replay value of shoot-em-ups?" That's a good question, but Child of Eden, much like Rez, relies heavily on the audiovisual experience. The first time you see it, it's probably going to be awesome, the second time, you're like "the awesomeness may wear off a bit", and so on. That's just the way video games are built, that's all. Once you memorize all the patterns and unlock all the unlockables and achievements, you're probably just only going to bring it out once in a while to impress friends and show off your AV setup.

Will I buy Child of Eden? Eventually, but only once the value proposition comes into play. I actually heard that K-Mart is handing out $15 gift cards if you buy this game, I'm going to go see if I can still do that.

I hope this makes a little sense, I leave the floor open for comments.

The sky isn't falling

Wow, so everyone's ragging on the Heat for blowing a 24 point lead to Orlando yesterday. So?

The season's not over, guys. Don't be so goddamn fast in writing the obituaries.

I'll see you Heat haters in the playoffs. Don't count 'em out, unless you're jealous.

What the hell was Penny Arcade thinking?

I just want to throw in my two cents on Dickwolf-gate. If you need to get up to speed, click here. If you want the NeoGAF thread, click here.

Anyways...

If you play with fire, and get burned, don't act suprised. That's my thought on this whole Penny Arcade controversy. Let me explain.

It's pretty apparent that Penny Arcade prides themselves on shock humor.* The whole point of the original comic was to be intentionally tasteless to make a point about just doing the bare minimum to complete an objective in a video game. That's okay, I admit to laughing a lot at humor like this. But when Liss complains about it, the response is where things start to go wrong.

Liss is a rape victim, so she has every right to be offended. Do the PA guys have a right to use shock humor? Yes. But to pile on with a response that's juvenile at best and offensive at worst? My mom would say that's not thinking with your head.

Amanda Marcotte's response, to me, is telling, and is about where I stand. I have no problems with the comic, I just think that the response is, for the lack of a better word, stupid.

It's like the Groupon Super Bowl ad that mocks Tibetans. Who approved this? Did anyone think ahead?

If you use shock humor, and someone objects, this is a textbook example on what NOT to do. Just apologize and move on, instead of piling it on.

And that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.**

*Yes, I linked to Wikipedia, bring on the [citation neede] jokes!
** Apologies to Dennis Miller.