Someone Spiked the Kool-Aid

As a general disclaimer, I don't really have any strong feelings toward award shows or industry acclaims other than mine and my friends'. There's a good bit of difference between general exclamation and private acceptance. Whether a game is the "best thing ever" otherwise known as "GotY" or just a drop in the puddle, it all boils down to personal preference and the like. So when I tear into these award nominations, that's where I'm coming from.

So here we go: the Spike Videogame Awards. With so many online publications and blogs disclaiming their own listing of these nominations with "okay so the awards were terrible in the past, but now that we're on the judging panel the people's voice is heard!", I expected much more. Or rather, I expected more obscure games that the general public may have not heard about to be represented. That said, let's jump straight into Game of the Year. I'm skipping the "Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew" because I hate the stuff and it's an arbitrary award anyway.

Game of the Year

• BioShock
• Halo 3
• Mass Effect
• The Orange Box

This won't be the first time I point out the obvious bias in the selection here. Could these awards be any more heavily sponsored by Microsoft? I'm not saying that the games mentioned here aren't good. In fact, they're all great games. However, there's a serious lack of anything not on a MS platform.

Should have been nominated: Super Mario Galaxy. Where is it? The "not released yet" card can't be played with anything nominated considering that Mass Effect has yet to be released or even played through in full. Another addition I would have liked to see is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Judging from the demo alone, it's going to be one of the most engrossing adventures in quite some time.

What will win: BioShock. The reception from both fans and press alike is pointing favorably to this game taking the gold. It's hard to argue with it, though depending on the crowd involved in the voting process Halo 3 could take it simply because it's Halo and people like to orgasm over it.

What should win:  The Orange Box, for Portal alone. As I mentioned earlier on this blog, Portal is one of the games that's changed my perspective on gaming. For that reason alone, I'd give it the highest award of the year. Additionally, the Half Life franchise is wonderful and continues to deliver. And then the added bonus of my 2nd favorite multi-player experiences this year in TF2. It's one hell of a package that, if not entirely new, blew me away.

Best Shooter

• BioShock
• Halo 3
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• The Orange Box

Amusingly enough, I only had to change one of the entries there from the "GotY" award. Yeah that's right, America loves FPS games. I don't. That's where my bias comes into play, especially when considering the "best of" awards. However, due to the title of this award "best shooter", I think there's going to be a different outcome.

What will win: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game really is good enough to win it, and I think the fact that it's very much a straight-ahead shooter will give it the edge over the competition in this award. BioShock, while amazing in its own right, is more of a Metroid Prime style adventure-with-shooting type of game. The Orange Box's Portal is more of a puzzle game, TF2 falls more into the "multi-player" category, and Episode 2 isn't substantial enough to be considered for the award.

What should win: Orange Box's Portal, because I'm bias. I don't know actually. Given my reasons above, I'd be willing to say CoD4 as well. There's lots of shooting, even if I don't personally agree with the morality behind it all.

Best Action Game

• Assassin's Creed
• God of War 2
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Alas, gone are the days of the sub-genres "action-adventure" and "platformer". With such a heavy focus perspective these days, the two major categories might as well be divided into two: "First Person Action" and "Third Person Action". Which then brings to mind a curious experimentation: "Second Person Action". I'd love to see someone try it! It's totally possible. But I digress.

What will/should win: If all is good and well with the world, Mario Galaxy. Ratchet is an amazing game, but it pales in the shadow of Mario's superiority of the platforming genre. Assassin's Creed and God of War 2 are in much different genres, in my honest opinion, but they do deserve a solid nod from the nomination squad. If pitted against each other in a battle royale, I'd likely give the bonus cookie to Assassin's Creed for being so different and starring a male character that isn't fueled solely on adrenaline.

Best Rhythm Game

• Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s
• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
• Jam Sessions
• Rock Band

It's amusing that this genre isn't called "Best Music Game", because if so I'd imagine the Singstar titles might stand a better chance to get nominated. Either way, this award is really a competition between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. GH Encore is just an expansion pack, and Jam Sessions has nothing to do with rhythm. Seriously, you just stroke chords to suggested lead sheets. So, established franchise or a worthy step in a new direction.

What will/should win: Rock Band. Guitar Hero is a great franchise. It established the US interest in peripheral-based rhythm games. However, GHIII is really just a riff off of what made it great in the past. Rock Band is the true new evolution and it shows it off with its rocker customization, full band playability, a career mode in the vein of an EA Sports title, and a promising downloadable content plan that combines the accessibility of iTunes with a total music experience.

Best RPG

• Eternal Sonata
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
• Mass Effect
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Ah, the first evidence of Japanese games (other than Mario)! 2007 may have been a great year for gaming, but it certainly was lacking in quantity for quality RPGs. It seems to always happen with the beginning of new generations of console releases, so 2008 and beyond will most likely look more solid. There are some curious omissions here, however.

Should have been nominated: Jeanne d'Arc. While I love the hell out of Final Fantasy Tactics, it remains that the game is 10 years old rather than the rest of the titles here. Jeanne, on the other hand, is an awesome new SRPG that does some new things for the genre while maintaining the integrity of what has come before it. Also receiving the snub is Folklore, a game I am enjoying far more than most reviewers seem to have. Yes, it's an RPG. You level up. It's also very fresh and new. Plus, where is Blue Dragon? Did reviewers get so turned off by the boss battle music and art direction to totally put it off in favor of the stereotypical trash that encompasses most of Eternal Sonata? Sorry, that's a harsh word. However, I think regardless Blue Dragon would have been a more worthy nomination.

What will win: Mass Effect. The unfortunate truth is that, when given a light-hearted and fun RPG (Persona 3) versus a hardened and epic RPG (Mass Effect), the epic one will come out on top. Who's to say which is better? I'd be pretty torn if I were on the voting committee. Cinematic and operatic. Quirky and Japanese. Both solid games. I'd give it a tie.

Best Driving Game

• Colin McRae: DiRT
• Forza Motorsport 2
• Need for Speed ProStreet
• Project Gotham Racing 4

Not my thing, really. I have no idea what will win or should win. I hear Forza 2 is pretty sweet though, if only for its livery customization.

Best Military Game

Why is this even a category? If so, where are the best Fantasy games or best Sci-Fi games? I don't even want to bother listing the nominees here.

Studio of the Year

• Bungie Studios
• Harmonix
• Irrational Games
• Valve

The Studio award is much like the 'Director' award in how it relates to "Best Film". It usually, if not always, gets given to the studio that developed the best game of the year. Therefore, I'll predict that Harmonix doesn't stand a chance and that depending on what the "GotY" is, either Bungie (Halo), Irrational (BioShock) or Valve (Orange Box) will get it.

Best Graphics

• BioShock
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Crysis
• Mass Effect

What a loaded category. Really, this should have been titled: "Best Graphics, Realistic". Sure, BioShock has a bit more of an artistic spin to them, especially in the enemy department, but on the whole this award seems to be only recognizing developers' abilities to render digital actors and movie sets.

Best Graphics, Artistic: Super Mario Galaxy, Ratchet & Clank Future, Folklore, Heavenly Sword. Let's not be limited by hardware here, people. When judging from an artistic point of view, the lack of HD simply does not matter for Mario. The game is beautiful in its design and presentation. Ratchet & Clank was given accolades for its "near-Pixar beauty", and really deserves a nod. Folklore is simply gorgeous, with one of the coolest art styles yet represented in a game. And then Heavenly Sword failing to get any recognition for its beautiful cutscenes, art direction and most importantly its animation... it's simply criminal.

What should have been nominated: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Come on guys, it's coming out on the same day as Mass Effect. It looks brilliant. It's just as realistic as all the rest on the list. Why the snub?

What will win: Crysis. It's a no-brainer really. Especially in this crowd of realism emphasis, Crysis takes the cake with its mind-blowing rendition of reality. Depending on the voters love for military games, CoD4 may get the nod since more people are likely to have the consoles to play it versus Crysis' intense PC requirements.

What should win: On a purely technical standpoint, Crysis. But when you add in artistic flavor into the mix, both Mass Effect and BioShock look more appealing in terms of creating new environments that are iconic of the game. I'm personally split between the two, if given the choice of the nominations.

Breakthrough Technology

• Crysis
• Halo 3
• Portal
• Rock Band

What shouldn't have been nominated: Rock Band. Harmonix, I love ya, but it was done almost 10 years ago. The drums, almost 9. The Karaoke, since the dawn of time. That's not breakthrough technology.

What will win: Crysis. With such a heavy emphasis on on graphics in the new generation of consoles and PCs and the like, I think it's an unfortunate victory that will likely go to CryTek's solid engine.

What should win: Portal. It changes gaming. 'Nuff said.

Best PS3 Game

• Heavenly Sword
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
• Warhawk

There they are! I found them! Heavenly Sword, yum. Uncharted, yes. Warhawk, hell yes. Why these games aren't nominated for anything else is just silly. Yet here they are, head to head in a battle for obscurity.

What will/should win: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. This game, while unreleased, seems prone to be delivering the best performance out of any PS3 game this year. I'm anticipating it hotly, and I think a decent portion of the gaming population is as well.

Best Wii Game

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Super Paper Mario

I can't help but get a good chuckle when looking at this list, if only because the list never changes from year to year. On a Nintendo console, we play Nintendo games. That's simply the way of it. Nintendo makes their classic franchises, we eat em all up, and at the end of the day it's what gets remembered the best. Also, why is Zelda on here? It's a 2006 game. I suppose they really wanted to trick out the Big N Trifecta to be even more obvious.

What will/should win: Super Mario Galaxy. It's really a given. Out of all Nintendo franchises, Mario is always the one that comes out on top in terms of nostalgia and player appreciation.

Best Xbox 360 Game

• BioShock
• Halo 3
• Mass Effect
• The Orange Box

Remember when I said these award nominations were bias? I'm getting a slight tinge of deja-vu looking at this list... Oh right, it's the Game of the Year listing! Silly me. Whoever wins GotY will also win this, so the same predictions apply.

Best PC Game

• BioShock
• Crysis
• The Orange Box
• World in Conflict

Win it, Orange Box! You know you can do it! At least one of these copious nominations will be yours!

[insert obligatory sports game nominations here]

Sorry, I can't talk intelligently about games I don't play.

Best Soundtrack

• BioShock
• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
• Tony Hawk's Proving Ground
• Rock Band

I had to do a bit of a double-take here, then remember that "soundtrack" applies to licensed music, whereas "original score" is where the real meat is. That said, there's some good collections of tracks here.

What will win: Either Guitar Hero III or Rock Band, likely. It depends on the judge's preferences. However, my opinion lies elsewhere...

What should win: BioShock will probably get passed up in favor of the huge rock collections of the music games. However, I have to give them major props for the awesome implementation of period music into the environment. It's an unconventional application of licensed music in a situation that simply makes sense in a narrative game. In the case of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it's sort of a given that licensed tracks will be involved.

Best Original Score

• BioShock
• God of War 2
• Halo 3
• Mass Effect

I have a problem with this list. It's far too impersonal for a score of the year award. Ideally, I think the composer's name should be listed along with the award since it really is a personal accolade as much as it is a recognition of the game's features.

I also have a problem with the nominations. BioShock may have a cool theme, but the majority of the score is either the licensed tracks mentioned above, or riffing off of the techniques introduced in Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. That's not a bad thing by any means. It shows a great deal of skill and balls to create a score so atonal and dissonant in an art that traditionally praises melodic grace. However, it doesn't fall into my qualifications for a great score. God of War 2, while epic, really doesn't do too much different from its first iteration. Halo 3, similarly, continues the thread from 2. Mass Effect, on the other hand... How the hell can people know if it's a good score yet? It's one thing to make prejudging opinions based on trade show hands-on time and preview builds... But to judge the entire soundtrack based on these? Sorry, not gonna work for me.

What should've been nominated: Here's where I bust out. Super Mario Galaxy. This game not only has an amazing soundtrack, but its use of dynamic and adaptive programming is masterful. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The music is top notch, composed by Greg Edmonson of Firefly fame. Heavenly Sword. The beauty in this soundtrack is really something to behold, as it contains some excellent writing and a wonderful usage of ethnic instruments in interesting combinations. Hell, I would even nominate Everyday Shooter for totally blurring the lines between an indie rock album, sound effects and a game soundtrack. Notice a running thread here? All these soundtracks did something new. With the exception of BioShock and possibly Mass Effect, the nominations really didn't.

What will win: Halo 3. The community knows no hate for Marty and his monks. Similarly so for his main theme that just sort of riffs off of traditional Celtic motifs and chord progressions. My thoughts? Good music, not great, and certainly not score of the year.

What should win: Out of the ones listed? Mass Effect, only judging from the music I've heard in gameplay demos and trailers. Am I being absolutely hypocritical here? Yes. But given the alternatives, I'd much rather give this one the accolade. Plus, it has some great efforts by both an industry veteran and a new composer. I'm all for encouraging new composers getting into the industry *cough*.  However, left to my own devices, I would personally give the award to Heavenly Sword. Now if only a soundtrack was released for it. iTunes, I'm lookin' at you. Lair's OST was released, so there's no reason HS can't get a similar treatment.

Best Multiplayer Game

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Halo 3
• Rock Band
• The Orange Box

This is actually a bit of a challenging pick. However, my ultimate choice isn't listed here.

What should have been nominated (and win): Warhawk. Plain and simple. It's a standalone multiplayer game, pulls it off to a T, and has been one of the most fun I've had playing with my friends locally and online.

What will win: A difficult one. Unfortunately, TF2 will likely be overlooked in favor of badboy Halo 3. That'll likely win it. Rock Band will get a nod, and CoD4 probably is too obscure at this point and not popular enough to win overall.

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Phew, so, that's it eh? I covered pretty much everything I wanted to, leaving out a few obscure categories that I had no experience to talk about, and there you have it. Overall, not too pleased. Sure, it's a bit better than last year's total crap fest that attempted to be an award show... And sure, the nominations are at least much more solid than BAFTA's pathetic lineup that ended up giving 6 awards to Wii Sports. But, as an award show with integrity... I give the following suggestions:

1. Do not hold the nominations, awards or show until 2007 is over.
2. Make the awards more personal. We need to treat AAA games less as products with features and more as artistic efforts created by a skilled team of individuals.
3. Try not to be so bloody jaded. Yes, that means acknowledging that there are in fact some great games on Wii and PS3.
4. Create separate awards for downloadable games. With Live Arcade, Steam and PSN getting cooking, and Wii Ware on its way... 2008 better be equipped to deal with the onslaught of independent games and their impact on the industry. It will be huge.

That's it for me. We'll see how the actual awards compare!

Gateway C-140 + M-Audio FireWire 410

 

The past few days have seen the delivery of two new additions to my studio setup. But first, some back story.

Ever since my old Macbook kicked the bucket several years back and I transitioned to using my desktop PC full-time, I've been pining for the mobility of a notebook computer again. Recently, a near-death experience with my desktop's hard drive caused me to seriously consider the purchase of a new computer. With nary the funds to bust at this point in time, I managed to work out a deal with my dad to split the cost considering that it would be a justifiable business expense. With the two of us set to collaborate on a new CD project, the timing was perfect.

So, I began to research and plot and figure out how exactly my new studio would look and function. Especially taking into account the fact that I'll be moving into an apartment soon. Ultimately, I decided to create a modular studio that could work in several different configurations. At home, everything would combine into Voltron. You have the laptop functioning as the central hub and secondary monitor, my 20" widescreen serving as the main monitor, a new M-Audio interface hooked up into the mixer and speakers, and hooking up the mouse + keyboard of my current PC for ease of use, along with any other devices that need to be used (printer, scanner, etc.)

In portable mode, there would be two main configurations. Along with the audio interface, the laptop could be used remotely as a portable audio recording setup so long as I have access to a power outlet for the M-Audio bit (since my laptop's FireWire port isn't a 6-pin). And then as a standalone, the laptop I chose is one of the best combinations I could find of durability, power and ease of use. Gateway has been in a bit of a slump previously, but they're slowly returning to their former glory with some very smart configs being put out there. The C-140 is one of them, and it's a very fun and functional notebook/tablet.

 

I always love it when computer manufacturers surprise you with an overestimated shipping date. The day I was given was November 7th, this coming Wednesday... However, upon returning home after working overtime on Thursday the 1st, I found this lovely box awaiting me!

 

Having shed its cow-like exteriors, the box within was very slick and handle-ready, much like a certain line of Apple-produced products. Considering the look and functionality of Gateway's new "One", you can definitely tell they're going for that hip aesthetic that works so well.

 

Out of the box, a very unique shape for a laptop. This was before attaching the battery, which made it even more curvy. It has a rubber bump to it that feels very nice when toting it around, and doubles as a prop to angle the keyboard for better typing posture.

 

Open, it looks like your typical laptop. Yet, with a few additional buttons on the left-bottom of the screen. That, and the conspicuous hinge. One thing to note about this photo is that the touch pad is indeed as uncomfortable as it looks. Particularly the buttons, as their clicks are extremely stiff. A minor gripe, considering that I'll mainly be using a USB mouse and the pen.

 

Ah yes, the hinge. What's this? Has my laptop gone exorcist on me?

 

Apologies for the shoddy photo. Damn phone cameras. However, this is the result of the transformation! A nice littlebig tablet PC all ready for toting around and writing or drawing. While I am admittedly a faster typist than I am a writer, the writing functionality (especially with Vista), is very smooth and satisfying. A bit of an example, with some intentionally sloppy handwriting:

It's not perfectly accurate at first, but you can edit exactly what you're writing and it will adapt over time to your various quirks. Using made-up words is slightly more challenging, so the handwriting recognition is mainly for more formal purposes rather than typing out messages to friends. There's all kinds of great applications for this too, such as writing directly on sheet music. Even used with Sibelius, there's a certain satisfying feeling in "writing" in the notes onto the staff rather than lots of clicking.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the laptop from both an aesthetic and performance standpoints. The thing is very fast with its 2GHz dual-core and 2GB of RAM, rivaling my desktop PC in certain tasks. The graphics card isn't the hottest thing out there, but it can run Hellgate London on Medium settings just fine which is good enough for me. The more hardcore PC gaming will have to take a back seat, but considering that my game queue is obscenely high already, I can deal. Oh yeah, and the M-Audio FireWire 410 works like a charm. Bet you didn't think I'd mention that did you? It sounds beautiful, looks great, and was a snap to set up. Now I just need a 7.1 speaker setup to use its full potential! Hah.