Gaming
Is Buying a Pre-owned Game Wrong?
If your the same as millions of other gamers in the world, you’ve probably bought a second hand game at a cheaper price, a couple of weeks after the initial release, knowing fine well that the game will be £10/$15 cheaper than its brand new price.
If you are, then you probably don’t realise it but games companies think your being a bit rude. Think about the amount of times you’ve been into your local swap-shop and the friendly chap behind the counter says to you, as you walk toward the counter with a brand new box, “Do you know we’ve got a pre-owned version for £32 instead of £45?”
“I’ve been in a shop where I’ve tried to buy a copy of a relatively recent game, and I’ve taken an empty box off the shelf and they’ve given me a pre-owned copy. That, I think, is disgraceful,” said Elite Founder David Braben recently in an interview.
But is he right? Are games companies the ones getting harmed? The way i understand it, is that retailers buy directly from the publishers, in bulk and at trade value, so they are still getting the money they rightly deserve. Surely the only ones losing money are the retailers themselves.
Well, not so, the idea from a retailers point of view is that they encourage you to buy pre-owned as they make more money on them than brand new. Think about it. Lets say the a retailer buys the game at trade value, say £25 (i’m guesstimating). Customer A buys the brand new game in 2007 for £40. He trades it back to the store in early 2008, and gets about £12 from the shop, which he instantly spends back in the store (if you imagine most retailers give you credit notes as opposed to cold hard cash). Customer B wanders in and sees the now pre-owned title, and buys it for say £25. So now the shop has made £52 from these two exchanges. Now i’m no mathematician but that’s much more than if customer A had walked in, bought the game and never came back. If he’d have done that the shop makes £15, and customer B won’t exist.
Its just a simple case of win win…er…win. The publisher wins from the cash from the retailers. The Retailer wins, due to the infinite selling capabilities, and the customers win because we have the right to choose to buy a low cost game if we want to.
Developers have started using sneeky tactics to force gamers to buy brand new games. For example, if you want to play the extra multi-player level on Gears of War 2, you’d better buy it at full price, as it comes with a one-time download. And you can expect a whole lot more of that, as developers try to fill their pockets in the middle of the global credit crisis.
Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
After months of waiting, for the game to be released, I’ve finally got my grubby little mitts on a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii. I chose to buy it for the Wii purely because of the unique control system. The idea of wielding a lightsaber, and slamming people around the place really appealed to me more than the Xbox 360 version, yes I know it has far nicer graphics, but c’mon people, you get to wield a frickin’ lightsaber!
Well as you may of guessed, I was really looking forward to the game, and in some aspects my dark side’s thirst was quenched, but overall i was quite disappointed.
The control system for the Wii, at first, is enjoyable. Using the nunchuck for movement, and force powers is efficient, however the thrusting forward of the nunchuck to open the countless barriers on your missions gets very old, very fast. The Wiimote functions as your lightsaber, which is something that should have been immensely enjoyable;, however there is no skill involved, you just shake it around and the game does everything for you. It takes away from the fun quite considerably, and has ruined the game for me.
The missions themselves are extremely linear, there is nothing that particularly stands out, and the storyline is pretty average. Multiplayer is not much better. When you expect greatness - lightsaber duels with your mates - its hard to not be critical. I played a few games various different characters, of which there is no difference. After a few trials it would appear that all the development team has done is overlayed a different skin over the basic framework rather than provide the character with plus and negative points. The levels themselves got pretty boring after about ten games, and I have no desire to re-visit them.
I want to play the game on the Xbox360, more to see how the controls differ than anything else, but i’m a bit annoyed about wasting £35. I love Star Wars, but i think the franchise needs to stop churning out games that are pretty average compared to the marketing departments hype.
My Score Card for Star Wars: Force Unleashed
Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 6
Storyline: 6
Multiplayer: 4
Overall: 6/10
Command and Conquer FPS Bites the Dust
Ever vigilant blog Kotaku has found out that EA LA has suspended work on the Command and Conquer first-person shooter, that reports said was due out in 2010.
Here’s the vital bits from the memo from C&C boss Mike Verdu:
“I’ve consulted with Nick Earl and Frank Gibeau at the EA Games Label and together we have reached the conclusion that given the time and resources remaining, we will not be able to deliver this product to an appropriate level of quality.”
“The game had fundamental design challenges from the start. We fought to correct the issues, but we were not successful; the game just isn’t coming together well enough to meet our own quality expectations as well as those of our consumers.
“Unfortunately, this action will result in several individuals on the team being released. We will make every effort to place affected individuals on projects within the studio - and where that isn’t possible, to connect them with opportunities in other teams at EA.”
When early screen shots appeared, I have to admit to getting pretty excited, it looked pretty nice, but I guess when you compare it to the upcoming graphics orgy that Gears of War 2 will be, developers must be feeling the pressure to perform.
The memo continued:
“Moving forward, we need to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I believe we are already doing a better job of engineering success in from the start…The quality bar has been raised. Now we need to step up our focus on great design and execution, catching any problems early and correcting them quickly.”
Who Remembers the Atari 1040 STe?
Hands up if you remember the Atari 1040 STe? I have some awesome memories of the computer/console that sucked me in to a gaming world i’ll never leave!
Released in 1989 (when i was 8 years old) I remember the day it arrived well. My parents had taken a bank loan (i’m not even kidding) to buy it, because at the time it was the ultimate toy, and i think they physically couldn’t handle my begging any longer (sorry mum).
The feature-rich personal computer was the most awesome thing any of us had seen, and it was mind boggling to my young mind. I remember being fascinated by the 4096 colour output (the funny thing is that it could only ever display 16 colours at one time through its grainy 320 x 200 resolution).
The first game i evr got to play was one that still stands the test of time (well kind off) Double Dragon. I kicked, punched, batted, stabbed, dynamited so many bad guys in that first day that my head was spinning (probably from the grainy screens glare) but I was instantly hooked. Untill that point, i’d never understood the satisfaction of winning, but being natrually un-athletic, this game gave me an odd bout of confidence that I still have today.
My first sense of gaming disappointment was the awful Ninja Rabbits. Anyone who owned this game will understand. Compared to Double Dragons smooth-ish movement, and cool weapons/moves, Ninja Rabbits was the biggest load of crap ever, and is in my top three worst ever games list, and the developers themselves would probably agree.
After a a couple of years, playing various other games, and getting frustrated with load times and that horrible sreen, I moved on to NES, and my sort of-PC gaming history were pretty much dead.
Rubbish Video Game Characters in Fight to the Death
We love games, and we love all the heroes of these games. Who can’t love Mario, Sonic, Snake, and other iconic characters. But have you ever met a terrible character in the game that you wish you could pit in a battle to the death against another such bit part player? If so, how would the fight do down? Who would win? Well wish no longer as I present: The top five rubbish video game characters in a fight to the death.
Round 1.
The dog (Duck hunt) Vs One of the Rabbids (Rayman Raving Rabbids)
Both of these characters would start their battle by hiding, neither of them wanting to appear unless they can cause maximum annoyance to each other. After a while the rabbid would get impatient, call for back up, and send wave after wave of little white critters yabbering toward our hapless hound (who’s still hiding as ever), before the mutt realises going on, he’s pounced on by hundreds of rabbids who disco dance there way over his face, trying to smash Fido into submission. But its not over yet, our faithful mutt calls on his own backup, and a spotty 13yr old takes aim with his plastic NES laser gun, and after years of torment takes aim and blows man’s best friends stupid little head off.
Winner: Rabbids › Continue reading
Bungie Post new Teaser Trailer
All it says on Bungie.net is this:
“We hope you haven’t dedicated too much time and stress to this 12-hour long countdown event.
We’re excited to finally share this with you.
This is will be available on Marketplace shortly.”
I’m excited, but i don’t know why…
Smash Bros Brawl: Overrated
We all know what hype does, it builds and builds a product or idea until our brains are ready pop before it even lands on our shop shelves. well my friends, i generally try to avoid hype - especially in the gaming world.
It happened mildly with Halo 2, then subsequently 3, as Microsoft/Bungie tried to make the Master Chief synonymous with the word ‘gaming’. On every bus in the land was plastered ‘a hero never dies’, the same went for billboards, bus shelters and magazines. The result was a buzz that made the mole on Sarah Jessica Parker’s face seem insignificant - people started to believe in the hype, and if I’m being totally honest i was sucked into it as well.
Now we all know what happened next, yes it sold millions of copies to people who would probably have never picked the title up in the first place, but as a fan of the first one, and a bit gutted at the second, i had some pretty high hopes that the developers would do right, and not release a polished looking version of Halo 2…what they did? Shit.
Thats right, although the mass media thought it was groundbreaking, the gaming community were overall disappointed. Yes, i know the games magazines gave the game nines out of ten, but with a marketing budget that large, i think its fair to say people were bought off…
Now that I’ve set a back story for my gear grinding rant, i want to mention why I’ve titled this literary outburst “Smash Bros Brawl: Overrated”. Its quite simple really. When the game came out in Japan, people went daft fro it, proper excitement ensued, and natrually the hype-y band wagon came over here and was plastered all over the gaming mags (OK not to the same extent as Halo 3, but you couldn’t miss it) .
Now, although i have a history of manly games playing with my Xbox, and Playstation variations over the years, I’ve become (after buying one for the missus) a bit partial to the odd bit of Wii action. I’ve got Mario Kart, which is a nice nostalgic number, that although has its flaws avoids any flack from me. Smash Bros. Brawl on the other hand is a pile of crap. Its a painfully boring game, with each character (of whom only about 3 are worth playing as) have only a few limited moves. The story line is OK, but having to essentially repeat the same combat situation over and over and over again totally blows.
The characters themselves are terrible - picachoo: stupid rodent, completely unfun to play, and he’s yellow. Kirby: Pink thing, reminisent of a ballsac. there are others, but to be honest i don’t want to talk about it.
The main reason for this rant of sorts, is that I’m just plain fed up with over-hyping stuff. I understand the need for advertising, but when it becomes more important than the product itself, that surely can’t be a good thing. Maybe game developers need to remember why it is we play games.
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