The 'Sim City' of Today

Due to unforeseen situations, I was able to obtain an iPad recently, which came with good timing, as it wasn't but a few months ago my iPod Touch gave it's life so that I could have $80 at Gamestop. Thinking it was a cool thing, I have spent these past two weeks looking for games to play, and it has been an arduous search.

There are the "staples" of mobile gaming that have critical acclaim, such as Angry Birds and blah, blah, blah. The million-dollar IPs. It wasn't until my recent search that I came to realize two shifts that have occurred in this market:

1. Everyone is making "city building" games.
2. The new App Store blows.

Now, don't get me wrong. As a kid, I had some secret love for Sim City on the SNES and PC, and even the obscure sim titles, like Sim Ant and countless others. They were great fun, building, creating, micromanaging until I was content with the layout and town rating or whatever other rating you could get.

Well, more often than not, I would just destroy parts of the city, launch a coaster car off the rails, and call it a night.

Regardless, clearly the genre is a popular thing -- simulation of these things really is fun! So, despite knowing what modern city building games are about, I downloaded two.

PARADISE COVE

A GAME THAT TAKES AGES

Paradise Cove? More like Gonorrhea Cave

Paradise Cove was the first game I tried out and was kind of hooked for the first bit. The game presents you with this giant map that has landmarks you're trying to build to, while systematically fending off pirates and searching for treasure.

The problem? The game quickly forces you to pay to expand your land. First off, I am someone who hardly pays for apps, much less will I ever pay "$0.99 for a BASKET OF CURRENCY PUPPIES". I know that these options are for the impatient and overly-excited and that all content can be unlocked with hard work and opening your iPad every few hours minutes to click things. Now, I thought with land starting off at 43 some odd coins to buy a small square, I did not expect a massive exponential growth for the cost. I was initially peeved that you pay that money, then you wait for some little dick to explore it. If you try buying another piece, that smug asshole comes back up and offers to sell you other god damn explorers.

No. Fuck you, Paradise Cove, I'm going to do this the hard way.

The problem I'm trying to get around to is that I'm 16 explored squares in (not all of them I purchased), and land now costs 2.071 coins, which is double what the last square cost. At these quickly rising prices...how am I going to explore all the land on this fucking map?

That fog is so selectively thick!

And that's cutting out a large portion of the top part! I don't want to eventually be forced to pay a number that doesn't actually fit on the screen.

To be honest, I shouldn't be surprised. It would really be okay if it wasn't for all the waiting involved. 8 hours here, 4 hours here, 2 hours here, 24 hours here...it's all so random and not at all easy to remember. Like...Tiny Tower for example -- times were all over the place, but they were easy to see and there were some reasonable times! This is unreasonable in it's times and money earned: a single house takes 8 hours to build and it's revenue is 4 coins every two minutes? No. Screw you...Parasite...Blows!

Yeah! Bitch.

While this game continued, I also chose to partake in this little "gem".

THE SIMPSONS

FUCKING GET POKED

I don't even know the Simpsons!

This fucking game I heard about from a bunch of news sources. Like, game journalist sources. That means it has to be different, right???

Wrong. This is the same of game, but with a tutorial that holds your hand like your fucking mom.

That kind of mother. Fuck that mother.

While it lacked the energy bar that Paradise Cove has (thank Christ), it demands that you connect to their servers and it took me half an hour to do so for the first time. Then it's another half hour for the tutorial! Once started, there's a short cartoon that sets the scene. The Simpsons then come out throughout this game, and tell you what to do through humorous little banters with themselves and others. It's all very decently written and it looks good, like the show does, which is so much better than Paradise Cove's art style -- inconsistent styles with people that, really, just exist to look dumb. But despite being comical, it has way too much dialogue and it gets boring, fast. It's the Super Paper Mario problem; it may be well written and a joy to read, but it's getting in the way of the game.

Once past the tutorial (which I don't think actually ends, just becomes sporadic), I'm introduced to several different kinds of currency. After a day passes, I've racked up a good amount and should be able to buy some nice shit, right? NO FUCK YOU!

Most everything in this game is handed to you through this extended tutorial by "story quests", and most of the items are inaccessible until you reach a very specific level, wherein the game will then teach you how to buy it and AUUUGH!

------------------------------------------------------

It was at this point I realized why these games exist. To start, if you download all of them (and there are a goddamn lot of them), you'll never leave your iPad again. Who the fuck needs a real life when you've got so many VIRTUAL ONES to take care of?!?! I found myself switching frequently between just these two, most of it was pointless, but dammit! These games are meant to played with other versions of these games. And they rightfully should be, lest you be tempted to pay for what the game gives you in small doses, which is an evil that will condemn you to a special circle of hell, reserved for people who like pressing on things repeatedly.

But, ultimately, I come to the final point: I can't help but feel like these types of games are dismantling the genre they are loosely based off of. "You're just fucking ridiculous," you might say to me. "You just can't understand the realism these games provide," says another, more annoying person. "Shut the fuck UP!" I retort.

Look, imagine if you bought Roller Coaster Tycoon today. That's a game we've all played, right? It's a hella-awesome simulator game. The standard in today's market requires, if you want to sell it for a dollar or give it away free, that there are micro-transactions inside of your micromanagement, otherwise you won't make much money. And if you release it as a full product at a full price? Well, fuck you, IT WON'T SELL.

You'd be forced to charge a few dollars for the steel mini coaster design. Or a dollar for a "Concession Stand Special Pack!" that includes necessary things to keep guests happy, like bathrooms and food. That would bring in the money, right? And hell, let's just make our own currency too! "EVERY 100 ROLLAR COASTER TIKETS GETS YU A FWEE COASTER!" Price a bundle of those babies at $1 for 10 and you'll be able to swim in your profits. Fuck yeah. Money swimming is where it's at.

I found myself pining for those types of games, where it wasn't about waiting for things to get built or for villagers to finish tasks. It was about the management of the whole clock, from the gears to the faces. Not just the management of the individual cogs, hoping that you eventually have something that resembles a clock WITH THE 12 IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

The line was drawn a long time ago -- you can micromanage and wait, eventually getting the best rewards later. The option to pay is there, but it detracts from the challenge of building the empire! I just can't help but feel the line is getting closer and closer. Now...now it's almost becoming a necessity to pay into these systems, unless you want to sit in the corner of the employee Christmas party, telling Homer to make another snow angel, because your time is important, god dammit, and you're going to get that yellow house, even though it costs 143 donuts and you've only got 32 of them, and it only gives 2 Santa coins per 6 hours.

There's just so much missed opportunity here because the market is so ripe for these in-game currency deals. The ultimate question is this: At what point would you pay for a rocket mounted onto your queen ant's back?

Well, fuck, IMMEDIATELY DUH

Ms. 'Splosion Man

Fuck this game

God. What can I say about such a frustrating game? I have a lot I wanted to say while I was playing through it, but now I just don't know how to put those thoughts into words.

Ms. 'Splosion Man comes to us from Twisted Pixel, exclusive to XBLA. Now, to preface, I want to say that I highly respect Twisted Pixel as a game developer. I don't want to delve too deep into their history or anything, but they are pretty adamant about adding humor to their game, whether said humor has a place or not.

I got this game on a whim, as I liked the demo for both it and it's predecessor ('Splosion Man). It was also on sale, so that always helps. I enjoyed it's retro charm and I'd heard a lot of things about it and whatnot. I mostly heard the talk about how challenging it was, which is usually an open challenge to me. So I 'sploded right in and now I'm burnt out and withered.

First off, it's a game that considers itself to be a "puzzle game". While I would agree to some degree, I would have to say that someone needs to explain to Twisted Pixel what a puzzle is and what "time trial perfection" is. Braid managed both, and while Ms. 'Splosion Man starts off well, it takes a turn for the worse around World 2.

I need to say at this point that this game borrows a lot from games like Sonic and Mario. There were many times that I recognized a gimmick from one of those games and found myself wishing I was playing that. The way things spin and bounce and need controlled is reminiscent of those games. But like those classics, the jumping felt right and true.

Here, in the 'splosion world, you get three jumps until you have to recharge by remaining on the ground for a select number of seconds or by other means. The first jump never feels strong enough and you're always left floundering the other two jumps (which are even more unsubstantial) to no good cause. More often than not, I kept running into instances where my jumps just didn't work or she just wouldn't recharge in the short window of time I had been given for her to recharge.

See, where this game falls short is not in its challenges. It's challenging, let me assure you. This challenge, though, falls not on clever level design or exciting gimmicks or required fore though. It, instead, takes the challenging road of trial and error and perfect timing. Timed puzzles are one thing, but when you require platforms to have rotated X number of times while beam A has started moving left, it stops being fun. Then come the falling levels, where all you do is fall, and I was pretty much already tired of this game.

I'm not one to usually even mention the visuals as a detracting point, but this game deserves it. The main character is pink, so you'd want to stay away from pink and related colors for your environments, right? Wrong. She glows pink and gets lost so easily in a blue/purple/dark world. It's always so all over the place, half the challenge was keeping up with her. Not to mention the camera not only frequently zoomed out, but it also refused to show an efficient amount of space ahead of me, leading to more frustrating "challenge".

The last thing I want to mention is Twisted Pixel's "humor". What I found myself laughing at early on was quickly annoying and stupid after the tenth time. Take Ms. 'Splosion Man herself; she never shuts the fuck up. She dribbles on and on, quoting 90s songs, 90s shows, and a whole host of other girl cliches. My wife even said, "This game is horribly sexist," and she has never been one to even mention the battle for equal rights. Needless to say, when I looked and found out you could turn it off, I did. Immediately.

Something, however, kept me going. It was the idea, from some website, that this game had the best ending ever. I had to know without throwing away my hard work on Youtube, for some unsatisfying reason. But...shit was the ending amazing. Both my wife and I were astonished and were laughing through it. Just thinking about it makes me want to watch it again. Included is the original game's ending too, which I liked too.

Final verdict? Avoid it if you aren't the Super Meat Boy type, but watch both endings online. So wonderful.

Pros:
- Varied animations
- Lots of content
- Awesome ending

Cons:
- Hard as shit
- Not the conventional "fun" challenge either
- Colors could have been not awful
- Camera is nutso
- Level design is so bland and simple

E3 - Micronydo

After much deliberation over whether or not it was honestly worth it write 3 different articles that would all show the same disdain and angst towards what is largely the same problem, I have elected to write one article. So, you get one semi-interesting read, rather than three boring, whiny article.

Microsoft - The Propagators

I struggle even caring about their conference. It's clear that I don't fit in any of the companies demographics, but this was the most droll. Essentially, one company got up there, screaming about their motion control, while bragging about their exclusives, which are almost all shooters. I really have the least to say about the Xbox 360. Whilst I would say it's my current favorite console, I would regard "favorite" as a word that I have to use to describe what console I spend the most time with. All in all, their hand revealed they are the propagators of the industry's rut. Exclusivity, followed by DLC, followed by sequel makes for a very boring, repetitive market. If you didn't see any of those sequels coming, you are not good at anything.

Sony - The Ignorant

What was Sony trying to prove? Their glorified audio books weren't that impressive, being more for children and total gimmicks, and they also showed predictability in their lot. I'm going to throw it right up and say that I am definitely Sony biased, but I really can't see anything that came out of their conference as really exciting. Where was The Last Guardian?

Both of these companies took their show to prove they had nothing really interesting and that they have new consoles in development, which is really what they were lacking. Any sort of showstoppers. At the other end of the spectrum...

Nintedo - The Soulless

The Wii U is still coming! And it looks even worse than it did one year ago! I had a hard time keeping my mouth closed during their show. Not because of surprise or excitement, but in total disbelief people cheered at all. From Nintendo, we got the same old shit they've been slinging since the end of the Gamecube. Nothing they were producing was new or innovative or creative. 4 new Mario games, all continuing already established "spin-off" titles, with Wii Sports getting a re-release and being retitled as "Nintendoland", which is...just an awful name. Oh, but look! Nintendo is finally getting into the ONLINE scene! Just like the HD party, they show up years late and with what? An online community that functions identically to Twitter and Facebook's awful spawn? Maybe I'm being preemptive, but I just don't think it's going to pan out like they touted it. Hardly any of my real world friends play the same exact games I do, and hardly any of them give a shit enough to post tips about how to beat "a particularly difficult boss". How do I know? Because I don't give a shit to help them; I'll go immediately to GameFAQs where someone who has been writing many FAQs already has posted three different ways to beat said level, or boss, or collection fest -- after all, this is Nintendo we are talking about here!

These..."innovations" in the industry are actually, I believe, deteriorating the word "innovative". The Kinect would be awesome if it worked well at all, the Move is just too much stuff and shares all the same problems, and the Wii offered a controller that did something whenever you moved the slightest bit. Now I'll have an iPad that's white and has buttons and Nintendo's logo on it? No, I just can't believe this is at all worth getting excited about.

Maybe it's not the companies I have a problem with, but rather all you little shits you eat this shit up. There's an unpleasant expectation of the next thing to come when the current thing just came out, and it's this consistent future thinking that makes people who work on these creations feel like shit. Remember that one time you made a macaroni picture for your mother and she hung it up on the fridge just last week? What if, instead of believing it was at all anything impressive, she instead looked at it, sold it to the first bidder, and asked, "Alright, so when will the next one be done? And I think you should honestly make the graphics better this time, while also improving the gameplay. And what the fuck was up with the ending? It wasn't how I wanted it to end, so try to conform to my standards perfectly, or I'll tell all my friends you smell like shit and have no talent."

""It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming."  -  Masahiro Sakurai, after his resignation from Nintendo dev HAL Laboratories as a result of the consistent sequelization.

E3 2012 - What Happened?

Though our E3 coverage was slim to none (I don't believe many were planning on getting their news here anyway), we are planning to discuss E3 in the coming days, now that all the festivities and embarrassing moments are all over.

I think it can be agreed upon that E3 2012 was a flop. Hope in the industry was not renewed when the twenty billionth sequel was announced for all the yearly (/bi-yearly) titles. On top of that, new hardware was nowhere to be seen, with the Wii U disappointing in droves. So, as I sit back, as an adult, and wonder what happened to what used to be the most magical week of my year, I would like to begin our week-long E3 deliberations by stating what seems to be the problem with our once beloved trade show.

A Bad Economy


Suffice to say, all industries are still feeling the world-wide recession, and while some are recovering well, the games industry to feeling a bit campy. The amount of sequels and prequels alone makes one hark back to the '90s, when the movie industry began to capitalize on sequels like never before. Original thought always takes a hit when parent companies are feeling unsafe about the waters, and this E3 was a testament to that fact. Gears of War and God of War are both seeing prequel releases, and very few new IPs made appearances. So, until the industry as a whole finds its footing again (or a newer, better business model arises), you had better buckle up for a very safe ride.

No Good Models To Follow

Now that it's on the table, if I didn't know better, the games industry is following the movie industry's decades model, but at an alarmingly quick rate. Chalking the time shift up to swiftly advancing technology, we're already seeing "innovations" on tried and true ideas. Motion controls, peripherals, and touch screens, oh my! Just as 3D has attempted to innovate the film world for what amounts to more than a century, so will these things. While it is true that people will go and see a movie in 3D because it is "new" and "cool", very few people desire to see every one of their movies in 3D and I feel the same concept can be applied to video games. I can't stand the thought of owning a console where most games have some sort of motion control gimmick to them. A fad is a fad because it catches on as quickly as it dies off, and nothing could describe Nintendo's precious Wii better.

Am I saying these "innovations" need not exist? No, but I do believe developers need to see past what they are and either develop a game around them or develop a game around a traditional controller. "Innovations" added to an already finished game will feel like gimmicks when they don't actually add anything but a new way to do something in-game (here's to you, Arkham City: ARMOURED EDITION).

The E3 Audience

I remember growing up and dying to go to E3. It was just a really cool event with big surprises and a lot to see. When press conferences started airing on TV and the internet, it was even better! Shortly after, though, it seems like they stopped making the show for me.


Gone were the subtle hints, surprises and fan service, while the eras of spectacle, big budgets and bad comedy were Ushered in. No I don't want to see a concert at my E3. That is not the time, nor the place.

With what three audiences do the events strike out with?

The casual audience - the same people who like big, gaudy, over-the-top events where the actual talent being shown is sub-par. Yes, you, Usher fans. These are the people those in charge of the conferences hope to attract because they have the biggest, and stupidest, disposable income. Yet, they don't care enough because they can get the same news from E3 in their "Suggested Articles" on Yahoo! News.

The gaming press - Let us face the facts. If you want to be a "games journalist", it is usually because the actual rules of real journalism were "too hard" and "took too much out of game playing time" when you started your "Gamez Blogg" that you decided to say, "Fuck it, I'll just write about what the fuck I want. AP Style makes me want to take a poopie and I can't be bothered with re-reading my articles for typos." I have respect for only a few "games journalists" and most of what I can't stand can be found on Kotaku. While I could berate these people for days, I just want to narrow in on one point; this particular audience now makes up a large part of who attend E3. So, a bunch of people who love playing their favorite games are handed a pass which makes them feel entitled to play the "my opinion matters" card and thereby pass judgement upon all seen at E3, with all their massive biases intact. Kotaku is a good place to find bias and opinion in a topic that deserves tact and fact.

Finally...the shareholders - the silent audience. The ones that are not watching because they care or because they plan on playing anything fun ever. I don't believe they even watch. What they will watch, however, is the public's interest, thus resulting in an investment into stock, or, even worse, selling of stock. In an ideal world, the stock market is meant to be a good way for new companies to bring in investors and old companies to offer something to employees. However, what we experience today is a far more twisted system. Another reason sequels were the free flavor for this year's E3 was because sequels perform well. And when a company performs well, their stocks perform well. It does not bode well when it is clear that very few companies are willing to take risks with new IPs because they might fail and lose investors. I know that I am most likely over-playing this fact, but it's something no one really talks about.

All in all, this E3 wasn't bad as much as it was boring. But it's hard to spend a lot of money on a glorified press release and subsequently make it entertaining and fun and surprising. It's just a shame that this difficulty also results in fear over what to release.

Stay tuned this week for our review of each of the big E3 players' conferences (...and Ubisoft's)!

Draw Something... ya dick

Screw WWE. DrawSomething is awesome and here's why. It's a fun IOS game you can play with your friends. It's basically like pictionary. You are given a word and you draw that word and your opponent has to guess the word. Coins are then awarded accordingly. It's great! The game is also free (currently) and AD FREE (for the moment) AND THE BEST PART..... IT WASN'T MADE BY ZYNGA!!!! HOORAAYYYY!!

Get this game.

Pros:
Fun game to play with friends
You get to draw silly picturers terribly
You get to see your friends' terrible drawings
It's free
No ads
Works with Facebook
Zynga was not involved!! :D

Cons:
You may need an IOS5 to play but I'm not entirely sure

UPDATE:
this game is developing some bugs due to so many people downloading and playing it in such a short period of time. I'm also finding it that it isn't always free. I got it for free. So yeah, when it works, it's great! But there may be some problems with games not loading or just being removed all together, but honestly, the point system is just for fun anyway, so none of that really matters.

UPDATE 2!!!!!:
Zynga has purchased this company. NO LONGER BUY OR PLAY THIS GAME!! Show Zynga no support as they are an overbearing EVIL in the game world! Buy Connectrode for IOS instead. That is a game made buy a guy who quit OMGPOP after Zynga purchased them. THAT MAN and his games are what people should be supporting. Fuck Zynga. Fuck their shit. They have never made a single original game in their existence. I used to think that Farmville was originally, but I soon learned that even THAT was ripped off from a Chinese game developer. Zynga are a bunch of uncreative fucking fucks. Give them NO MONEY EVER!

thank you

WWE12 - Bad, Badder, Baddest

I’ve been planning this review for a while now, but I have held off in order genuinely think everything through before I say it.

First of all, I want to mention that I have bought and played every WWE title since Here Comes the Pain on the PS2. I am a big fan of the series. But with just about everything we love, we find things to hate. WWE12 has a lot of things to hate. However, I will also be talking about this games production, what has gone wrong, and what they can do to fix it.

Fans of the WWE games will enjoy this game. I want to throw that out there before anything. This year, like every year, there is a slight learning curve. THQ has changed the buttons around (again) and the matches have become more difficult because of it. It’s not THAT much harder than it used to be, but it is a step up.

The AI is still very cheap though. Two new things they added this year is the “comeback moment” and an updated “finisher reversal”. Basically, when you beat your opponent down enough, they have the option of a “comeback” which will start a chain of moves that result from button presses. If you complete them all, you get a finisher. This sucks when you are facing a really strong opponent and you get them weak enough to pin, hit your finisher, and they comeback only to hit a finisher on you and win. You do have the opportunity to break their comeback combos at least, but you have to be quick about it. Quicker than your opponent at least. You can also reverse a finisher and then automatically receive a finisher of your own. This can also get annoying when you work for a while to finally build one up and your opponent reverses it and uses it on you. Finishers can be VERY difficult to reverse, but the computer seems to be able to do it quite flawlessly. Whenever I play, the AI player will always reverse the first finisher I throw at it, but succumb to the second, so I literally have to build up 2 finishers, have them reverse the first, and hit them with my second one before they can use the one they stole. It’s just kind of dumb that it’s THAT predictable.

A feature they added they I actually love is the wake-up taunts. When a player has a finisher built up and the opponent is on the ground, you can hit a taunt and the player will groggily rise into position for your finisher. As nice as it is though, it’s only cool when it works. It can often times be annoying when an opponent uses it on you and you fail to reverse their finisher. It’s also a pain when you get them to stand up and they reverse your finisher, hit you with it, and win.

All of the AI problems can be solved however if you play against human players, which leads me to my next point: online servers. I’ve played the WWE games mostly on Xbox over the years, but this is the first one I bought for the PS3 with the sole purpose to take advantage of Playstation’s free online. I was sick of having to pay for Xbox’s live service but I really wanted to play online matches. PS3 is great for that!! And all the better, THQ announced that WWE12 would be running on their own personal, brand new servers which would theoretically get rid of all the lagging server problems of the past. The problem is, THQ was completely unprepared for this kind of deal. It has been months since the games release and their servers are still constantly down. The matches I did get to play online actually played fairly lag-less for the most part, but only if I played a 1 on 1 match up. 4 or 6 player brawls lagged so bad I could barely move. The shittiness of the online experience after all of the hype from THQ is something I will get into more later.

Other things I like about the game is as follows: The gameplay is still fun, basically because it’s the same gameplay as it’s always been. The roster is decently large and has just about everyone on their roster. The amount of DLC this year was also pretty sizable. Create an Arena is a nice touch. Being able to string together names for your custom characters to be called as they come to the ring is awesome (my college professor Ricardo Washington actually has his name in the game! :D) The overall graphic design and look of the menus is also very nice as compared to previous years. And of course there is Universe Mode which has improved from its amazing debut last year. This time around feuds actually build and carry over from week to week and can actually be pretty exciting.

Now lets get to the bad stuff! This game can be glitchy as hell. I’ve always seen horrifying glitches from WWE games in the past, but I’ve never really experienced anything that bad when I’ve played. I honestly think they are worse on the PS3 for some reason. Probably because the games are made for the 360 and are ported over to the Playstation. However this can be chalked up to the amount of time THQ has to make these games, which is less than a year. That’s fucking ridiculous for a videogame and is mainly the reason why these games come out so unpolished every year. I don’t usually play sports titles, but I can only assume all sports games end up like this, which is dumb.

Good, polished games can take years to produce. THQ and Yukes get not even a single year to produce these WWE titles EVERY SINGLE YEAR! I want to tell WWE to just stop and release a game once every other year, that way they can actually go through and fix the bugs and release a title that actually works. The problem with that plan though is that the fans are so blinded by whatever it is they are blinded by, that they go gaga over these games and simply overlook these glaring problems. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to pay 60 bucks for a game, I want it to work! If I bought a piece of electronics for 60 bucks and it didn’t work, I could return it and get one that would. Why should I put up with this kind of shit in a video game?

The time constraints and budget also result in models and animations getting over used year after year after year. Some characters get revamped while other brand new characters get made very quickly. Sin Cara was added to this year’s game at the last second. His model looks like trash but his finisher looks good and his entrance is spot on amazing! But if they can make Sin Cara so quickly, why can’t they do that with everything else? How come Santino has the same entrance and model from 5 years ago? How come goddamn Chris Jericho isn’t in the game at all even though he was in last years game!?

A lot of these problems is a result of time and budget and frankly a bunch of miscommunication between THQ and WWE. There are a couple things that I think are just pure laziness on the part of the production team. Two of by biggest gripes this year are art related. First of all, JR is a downloadable character. Great! Awesome! But there’s one thing: his sleeves. I know this is a small problem, but it’s proof of the laziness I am suspecting here. In JR’s profile image, he is wearing a long sleeved, white shirt with a red football jersey over top of it. His in game model however has the sleeves modeled, but they are the same red as the jersey! Does anyone else not think that just looks weird? It looks bad! It looks like someone didn’t finish the fucking texture job! I could go in and drop in some white on those sleeves in literally 10 seconds, but NOOOOO! That’s just too much work for THQ. “Just ship it as is! Fuck it! No one will even care.” I paid money for this game’s DLC and I get unfinished character models. Great!

The second art related mishap is Booker fucking T! They ROYALLY fucked up this time. JR got off easy with his untextured sleeves. At least he LOOKED like fucking JR! Booker T looks NOTHING like himself!!! WHAT!? You are going to seriously add a character into this game, a character that hasn’t been in a WWE title in a number of years; you’re going to make a big deal about him and have a big reveal only to have his model look like utter shit!?

………………………………............................................

Here’s the thing: THQ is going out of business. Their stock is plummeting. It’s bad news. But frankly, I hope they lose WWE. I think they currently have a contract with them through 2014, so they’ll probably have to go out of business in order for this to happen, but so be it. As much as I hate to say so, EA might be able to do a better job with this franchise than THQ. EA at least has teams of fucking amazing artists who would actually be able to bust out exact depictions of all the wrestlers, as well as not be ok with releasing half-assed animations and gameplay glitches. Of course, WWE would probably have to pay a little more money to make this happen, but I think if anyone could talk them into it, it would be EA. WWE hasn’t a clue what it takes to make these games! EA makes nothing BUT these kinds of games.

The only thing THQ still has going for it is their marketing team, which I will admit, is golden. These guys can feed you shit and make you like it like nobody else. They tagged WWE12 with the tag line: “BIGGER! BADDER! BETTER!!!” Whoo! That’s great! They built up the hype so strong! They admitted that past years have been iffy but this year, OH! This year would be different. This year is the betterment of “core gameplay”. Revamping the whole structure to make the best experience ever.

Then the game is released.

THQ goes silent.

THQ quietly apologizes for the bad servers.

THQ somberly releases its DLC.

And then……. WRESTLEFEST on the iphone!! Hey everyone! Look over here! New WWE game for IOS!! Look at this! It’s a throw back to wrestling games of old! Best experience ever!!

Hey! What about WWE12!? You guys aren’t going to do anything about this?

No THQ. No. Fuck you. Fuck all of your and your shit. Fuck. Your. Shit.

THQ: You may have thousands of other people fooled, but you haven’t fooled me. You can expect to keep taking money from those thousands of other people, but you aren’t getting anymore money from me. I’m publicly announcing in this blog that I am not buying another WWE game from THQ. As much as I loved AllStars and as much as I will probably continue to play WWE12, enough is enough. It’s seriously bullshit.

Pros:
The game is still enjoyable, especially if you are a fan of the franchise
AI is more competitive than previous years
Couple added perks as well as updated Universe mode

Cons:
Stupid, lazy mistakes
Still glitchy
Booker T is ruined (I can’t even play as him because I’m so disgusted, so it’s as if he isn’t even in the game)
The relationship between THQ and WWE is a complete failure

Sonic Generations -- A Study of Being Biased

I'm going to be upfront about this -- I'm a longtime Sonic fan. Everything about how I feel about Sonic Generations can be summarized in a simple statement; I loved it because I love the series.

I bought this game on release back in November, but something's been troubling me when I try to review it. I fully enjoyed this game and I wanted to sing its song of praise. However, my problem is that I can't get on here and give you, the reader, a confident review. My experience will explain my feelings.

I let my brother borrow it, who is a tried and true "remake Sonic 3 in 3D" type of Sonic fan, while I'm more of a "I enjoyed the last decade of Sonic (2006 being an exception)" type of fan. So, it was much to my dismay, when I thought he'd love it because it harks back to old design concepts, that he actually didn't like much after the first three zones. I brushed it off for a bit, chalking it up to his cynical nature and my overly optimistic attitude towards any Sonic product. Flashback to this week:

I rented the game for the PS3 to play with a couple friends (long story short, my living situation kind of disables me using my 360 in this situation), certain that they would be impressed and whatever. However, they had the same feelings my brother had. Where I was excited to press on and experience the rehashed levels, they were frustrated by the difficulty created by "off" gameplay decisions. It was then I realized that the only way for someone to really have a great time with this game requires them to have enjoyed Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors.

So, my review.

This game clashes together black-eyed, chubby Sonic of old and green-eyed, svelt Sonic of new. Playing as each type of hedgehog harks back to the era from whence they came -- "Classic Sonic" playing strictly in 2D with a focus on platforming while "Modern Sonic" playing like his Sonic Colors self, a eclectic mix of 3D and 2D platforming and speed-racing.

The levels are all references to 9 different levels of Sonic's past, with a lot of fan service thrown in. Changeable music, new remixes, lots of memorable moments, and more. Experiencing the collapse of Sky Sanctuary and the truck race of City Escape in both 3D and 2D is a thrilling, breathtaking experience for me. All in all, I flew through the game in less than six hours immediately after the midnight release and thought it was great.

Playing through it a second time was more difficult and opened my eyes. These experiences are great revisions and recreations, but without the shit around it (i.e. context), there is nothing on the line. What made the original run through Speed Highway so great was the Sonic Adventure idea that Sonic spent all night looking for a kidnapped Amy, to no avail. What Speed Highway brings to the table to a fun level, but no motivation. Sure, Sky Sanctuary's destruction was a great experience, but it lacked the emotion from the first go round -- Sonic just kicked the shit out of Knuckles, who came to realize the truth, and now you were taking the battle to the newly risen Death Egg with Mecha-Sonic trying to stop you at every turn. When you put it in that context, the game I played was largely uninspired.

The story is mostly throw-away -- Sonic gets sucked back in time to realize he has to race through time and space to restore it and stop 2 Eggmen this time. I didn't expect anything on par with Sonic Adventure 2, but I thought it was an opportunity missed. I was secretly hoping for recreations of cinemas-past, getting the chance to see the silent emotion on Knuckles' face as Sonic races off, or the dire situation of the Perfect Chaos battle. Instead...there's some cutesy cinemas that remind me that SEGA has actually started doing what Nintendoes. That is, making an interesting game with an incredibly boring subtext with very little to nothing at stake.

There is one cinema from Sonic Adventure 2 that opens the game and sets the stage for the story; Sonic busts out of a military helicopter, ripping a piece of it off and using that to "snowboard" around San Francisco with a plank of metal. That situation set up City Escape, which is in this game.

I think Sonic Generations is yet another step in the right direction. It just wasn't the long jump the series needs to compete in today's market. Sonic and Mario belong to a dying genre and the two really have to provide a meaningful and "ageless" experience to compete with a market that is both growing up and just starting. I can't stand the direction of the market currently, which is why I play Sonic games. They offer a type of gameplay not really offered elsewhere. But the room I give the developers for uninspired development is getting really small.

I do recommend this game, highly, but when I realize I can only recommend it to long-term fans of a 20 year series, or children, I realize that's a small pool to recommend a fun game to. My problem lies in the fact that Sonic Team had a really great opportunity here that they used to play it safe and try things that most likely won't be tried again. Sonic Generations represents a neatly written love letter with no substance, save for a single fun-sized candy bar to the fans, who the publisher needs to survive.

Pros
Fun early levels
Lots of fan-oriented content
Represents a hopeful direction

Cons
Levels begin to get really frustrating in a shoddy way
There is some terrible acting and writing (again)
The story is lacking purpose and emotion
Represents a genre and character largely forgotten, who needs a break