Video Games Archive

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As If The Writing On The Wall Weren’t Any Clearer

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 18, 2008Posted in: Music, Video Games

NPD just released their year-end figures for 2007 video game sales:

1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360) – 4,820,000
2. Wii Play with Remote (Wii) – 4,120,000
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) – 3,040,000
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS2) – 2,720,000
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) – 2,520,000
6. Pokemon Diamond (DS) – 2,480,000
7. Madden NFL 08 (PS2) – 1,900,000
8. Guitar Hero II (PS2) – 1,890,000
9. Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360) – 1,870,000
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) – 1,820,000

Now, let’s compare these figures to Soundscan’s 2007 year-end figures for music cd sales:

1. “Noel”/Josh Groban: 3,699,000
2. “Soundtrack”/ High School Musical 2: 2,957,000
3. “Long Road Out of Eden”/Eagles: 2,608,000
4. “As I Am”/Alicia Keys: 2,543,000
5. “Daughtry”/Daughtry: 2,497,000
6. “Soundtrack”/Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley: 2,489,000
7. “Minutes To Midnight”/Linkin Park: 2,099,000
8. “Dutchess”/Fergie: 2,064,000
9. “Taylor Swift”/Taylor Swift: 1,951,000
10.”Graduation”/Kanye West: 1,892,000

I wonder which industry is doing better.

I’m going to point out a couple of obvious things. The average price of one of those video games is about $50. The average price of one of those CDs is about $10.

A scant few years ago this sort of thing would be UNHEARD of. Music is universal. You can play music CDs on pretty much any modern device anywhere (car, stereo, computer, alarm clock, etc.). To play any one of those video games you need to make an initial investment anywhere from $130-$400. AND you need to be at home or near a TV you can hook it up to.

The music CD is dead, people. We need a better way to buy our music and we need it now.

Oh, and video game industry? Don’t make the same mistake the record labels did. You’ll be facing the same problem very soon when it’s technically feasible for big budget games to be as easily consumed as music is currently.

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Individual 2007 Top Ten Lists

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 11, 2008Posted in: Articles, Comics, Movies, Music, TV, Video Games

Indulge me as I’m in a list making mood. After the jump I’ll list my lists. They’ll include top tens for music, comics, video games, movies, and television shows. Since I’m too burnt out now to write something for each entry, I won’t. I’ll be happy to conduct a civilized conversation in the comments or email though. Oh, and the lists will contain only things I have experienced in ’07. Stuff I didn’t get to until after the new year, but released near the end of last year (e.g. There Will Be Blood) will go on next year’s lists.
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Top Ten Entertainment Experiences Of 2007

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on January 10, 2008Posted in: Articles, Comics, Movies, Music, Sports, TV, Video Games

2007 was pretty lopsided for me in terms of where my quality entertainment experiences came from. It was a phenomenal year for video games. Perhaps the best single year of new releases for the medium since 1997, if not better. Conversely, there just wasn’t much there in terms of great music. Some solid releases, sure, but nothing that remain etched in my mind as transcendent. Live shows definitely resonated better for me than the album experience did. For sports, I’ll preface my conclusion by saying that I only regularly follow the MLB, the NFL, and the NBA. Besides the lone entry on the list, there were no other truly memorable moments for me this year. Television was fairly solid, despite the writers strike putting a damper on my mood late in the year. Comics had some pretty high moments, and also some pretty “meh” ones as well. Finally, 2007 was just not my year for movies as I wasn’t motivated to seek out much other than the obvious films. While some were fairly entertaining, I just couldn’t argue for their inclusion on this list over the items picked.

Without any more ado, here’s my top ten entertainment experiences of 2007:
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Review: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 11, 2007Posted in: Reviews, Video Games

Naughty Dog’s inaugural Playstation 3 effort, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune has been hotly anticipated as one of the pillars of Sony’s 2007 holiday lineup for the embattled system. The creators of Jak and Daxter continue their tradition of creating new franchises for new generations of Playstation hardware by putting forth one of the best titles of the year on any platform.

Uncharted combines intense cover-based combat with fluid platforming to create a gameplay experience that’s just plain fun. It also doesn’t hurt that the game boasts some of the greatest graphics in a video game this side of Crysis, along with a stellar presentation comparable to a summer blockbuster film. The game is definitely the best single-player game released on the Playstation 3 thus far and a good reason to “play b3yond.”
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Activision Blizzard

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 2, 2007Posted in: Video Games

This morning, a wholly unexpected press release went out announcing that Activision and Vivendi/Universal Games (including Blizzard entertainment) are set to merge, creating the largest game-publisher in the world. The new company will be boringly named “Activision Blizzard”.

So now we have Activision Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, THQ, and 2k Games.

Hmm… this uncannily looks like Universal Music, Sony Music, BMG, EMI, and Warner…

RUH ROH SHAGGY

Read the press release [busineswire]

Read the Blizzard FAQ [blizzard.com]

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Review: Assassin’s Creed

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 2, 2007Posted in: Reviews, Video Games

Odi et amo. I love and I hate. No blockbuster game this holiday season has created a big of a schism between gamers as Assassin’s Creed has. Much brouhaha has been unleashed upon the internet gaming community between the two entrenched camps of people who either loved the game or hated it. Regardless of critics’ opinions of the game, the fact remains that Ubisoft Montreal’s big-budget production is one of the most anticipated games of 2007.

From the time I viewed the incredible initial trailer of the game, I had it filed away under my short list of “must purchase” game titles this year. As release date neared, though, the increasingly negative buzz that emanated from early reviews and word of mouth nearly swayed my decision. However, after tempering my expectations and finding a great deal on the game ($39.99 from Fry’s), I took the plunge anyway. I’m not regretting the purchase one bit.

While being far from perfect, Assassin’s Creed is still a genuinely entertaining video game title. The presentation, graphics, animation, and plot are some of the best seen on the medium. However, several flaws keep it from being the true “must-play” experience it was hyped up to be. Nevertheless, Ubisoft has a great first entry in what should become one of their flagship franchises.
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Indie Game Spotlight: Undertow

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on November 21, 2007Posted in: Indie game spotlight, Video Games

Welcome to the inaugural entry in a new ongoing feature series highlighting gaming’s best independent titles. If music and movies can have their “indie” titles be cutting edge and hip, why can’t games? The advent of digital distribution and micro transactions in the gaming industry has allowed more independent developers a shot at producing quality titles without a huge budget. While you may or may not have heard of the titles featured in these spotlights, rest assured that they come wholly recommended and are solid purchases for your gaming library.

Undertow is a new Xbox Live Arcade game from Chair Entertainment available for purchase today for 800 MS points ($10). The developer is best known for employing many of the driving forces behind the 2005 adventure game Advent Rising. They are also involved with Ender’s Game author, Orson Scott Card, in developing games based on the author’s Empire universe.

The game is essentially a 2d Battlefield 1942 that plays like Geometry Wars. Players use the left thumbstick to move their character and the right thumbstick to shoot in 8 directions. In addition, players can drop depth charges (read: grenades) with the left trigger and dash with the right trigger. Each team starts off with a certain amount of “tickets” with the goal being to deplete the other team’s ticket total. To accomplish this, teams vie for the control of several “bases” on the map. The more bases your team controls, the faster the opposing ticket count will decrease.

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Review: Super Mario Galaxy

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on November 21, 2007Posted in: Reviews, Video Games

Super Mario Galaxy is the best Mario title in over 15 years. It may very well be Nintendo’s finest achievement in video game creation. It is certainly the best game available on Nintendo’s Wii and is reason enough to justify owning the system. The game adeptly captures the essence of what makes video games fun and does so without compromising gameplay variety, difficulty, or control scheme.

I wasn’t originally planning on writing a review for this game, but my time with Super Mario Galaxy last week quickly transformed from a perfunctory interest into a burning desire to fully complete every level and obtain every star. And obtain every star I did. I write to you now the triumphant collector of all 120 stars in Galaxy and feel adequate enough in writing a review on the game.
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Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Demo Impressions

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on November 9, 2007Posted in: Articles, Video Games

Sony has done a lot to piss gamers off since the Playstation 3’s launch, but they seem to finally be getting their act together by concentrating on fixing the biggest problem – the lack of good fucking games to play. Since waking up at 6am to fight the holiday shopping crowds for a Playstation 3 last December, I’ve used my PS3 very little. There’s a layer of dust over the system that I could draw pictures on with my finger. That’s changed the last month, though, with the release of Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Uncharted has been on and off of my gaming radar over the past year or so. I first saw a trailer of the game late 2006. The graphics looked pretty impressive, but I had no idea what the game played like. Other people were immediately slapping “game of the year” and “Sony’s best first-party title” labels on it. Shills they may be, but the hype at least piqued my interest in the game.

Fast-forward one year later and I still had no idea what the game was like. Reading the interweb only gave me the impression that the game was “Tomb Raider, but with a dude instead of Lara’s tits”. Fortunately, the 1200MB demo hit the Playstation Network earlier today, allowing me to finally see if this game was worthy of the hype.

The short answer is yes.

I’ve had a chance to go through the demo a few times and have been quite impressed. The game combines tight, responsive controls with gorgeous graphics, realistic human animations, and challenging (but winnable) combat to create one of the best games I’ve played this year. A simple way to describe the gist of the game would be to say that it’s an amalgamation of Gears of War, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. If the full game delivers on the puzzle solving element and continues the solid combat and platforming from the demo, I’ll be ready to proclaim it the best title on the Playstation 3 thus far and the best reason to finally take the PS3 plunge.

Read my detailed impressions after the jump

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Really Potty Guy Plays Crysis On Three Monitors

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on October 30, 2007Posted in: Video Games

Now I’ll be the first to admit to being an uber-nerd for buying a $400 graphics card specifically to play the most beautiful video game ever. But this awesome mensch manages to beat me in every possible way by rigging Crysis to run on THREE 24″ LCD Monitors at the same time.

Bob Lefsetz would have to blow his wad SEVERAL TIMES to FILL the real estate of these DISPLAYS.

Watch It.

(the embedded code isn’t working for now so just click through to it)

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