An Analogy

When I was younger, I never understood how people could sit there and tell me how they liked the sound of vinyl over that of a CD. I knew that the audio quality of the CD (Digital vs. Analog) was far better than the quality of a vinyl record; a record that would slowly degrade with each listen. I finally did understand it with the help of my own analogy: I still really like the chunky dated graphics of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 era of games.

Now I do not think that the graphic quality of games such as Parasite Eve, Super Mario 64, and Metal Gear Solid is better than that of the current gen, HD mega games. I understand how much the technology has moved on and how dated the Playstation and Nintendo 64 games look when compared to games such as The Last Guardian and L.A. Noire. Yet it is that very dated look that makes me love them. I grew up in this world of blocks and polygon counts, and I gazed out over the pixelated skylines of the 16 bit. It was this that helped rocket my growing love of video games into my consciousness forever. The look of these games is tied to my memories of being a kid, of growing up and living out those carefree days of youth; those same days that I hope to give to my own kids, some day.

I hope that one day my own kids will look back at the games their dad loves, the archaic discs and hunks of plastic to them, and learn to appreciate them. Will the games be so outdated as to be unplayable to them, or will they be like my generation and its love of vinyl? Will the Playstation and Nintendo 64 become the hip things to play, much as the Nintendo and the Super Nintendo is for gamers of my generation? I hope that one day, I get sit down to play through these games and create new memories, with my own family.

War for Cybertron

War for Cybertron was really not a bad game. While it is not anything ground breaking or amazing, that does not mean that it is not worth your time. If you are a fan of the giant 80s robots and overly dramatic plotlines then transform, roll out, and keep on reading.

At its core, War for Cybertron is your basic third person action/shooter. How it deviates from this framework is the ability to transform at will; instead of being stuck as either a robot or vehicle, you can switch seamlessly between the two with the push of a button. Now your average third person fire fight is interspersed with zipping around the battle field as a car, or soaring through the skies as a jet in attempts to get the drop on your enemies. The transformers themselves are separated into class types (scout, leader, etc.) which affect what type o weapons you start with, and what special moves you can perform when you have collected enough energon.

The story is a cannon entry into the Transformers lore, which is either going to mean something to you or mean absolutely nothing. The game is the story of the original reasons why the Autobots and Decepticons are caught-up in civil war with each other. You get to experience events like the first meeting between Megatron and Starscream, and the rise of Optimus to his position as leader of the autobots. Like I said, you will either love or you have no feelings towards it. That being said, it is geared towards Transformer fans; just saying. You also get to play as fan favourites such as Soundwave, Silverbolt, Optimus Prime, and many more.

The game also has multiplayer, but with no one playing it anymore, I cannot say what it is like. I did play a game of the escalation/horde mode, and it was what you expect that mode to be; fight waves and waves of progressively stronger foes, restock in-between, and see how long you can last.

My one problem with the game is that you can either choose to play as either side whenever, even though there is a clear cut storyline that can easily be followed. This design choice shows its flaws after you finish the Decepticon campaign (the first one when going in order), and then end up fighting the same enemies, yet a different colour, in the Autobot campaign. They even go as far as to introduce the different types of enemies the same way in both campaigns. I just feel that we could have seen more variety in everything from enemies, to encounters if you had no choice but to play the story as it should be told.

That one thing aside, I did really enjoy War for Cybertron. I know that a lot of it has to do with my lifelong love of the Transformers, but it is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.

A Killer Robot from the Future is Concerned about Violent Video Games.

If you have not been following the Schwarzenegger v. EMA/Brown v. EMA case that is about to get a ruling this Monday in the United States, then you should turn your attention to Patrick Klepek’s coverage of it over on Giant Bomb. The general gist of the case is this: people are upset about kids playing violent games (understandable), and the Californian state government feels that they can raise your kids better than you can (not so understandable). I am not going to get into any moral debates about this, those have already been had by people who know what they are talking about, but I do want to bring to the forefront something interesting that I noticed about this whole long road.

This whole idea about protecting kids from the evils of video games is very similar, and I mean VERY similar, to the same debate that rage on about music (heavy metal, punk rock, and the like) in the 1980s. While I do agree that an eight year old should not be playing Grand Theft Auto if they cannot handle it, I also think that if your child understands the basic concept of reality vs. fantasy (like my sister did as a child. She would sit in front of the TV when she was about three or so, and would watch Terminator 2 from start to finish), then there should be no problem in what games your child plays. The video game industry has the ESRB and other ratings boards to rate the content of games, and there are already laws in place about selling mature rated games to minors, so what is all the fuss about? If Hollywood is able to rate their films, and enforce their own set of rules, why can policy makers not let the games industry do the same? It is just like art, movies, and music before it; video games are the new evil that the older generations do not, and will never try to understand.

It also bothers me that some people are content to let those in power (be it provincial, state, or federal levels of government) tell them how to deal with their own children. Sure we have to make sure that the media are kids are taking in is appropriate for them (since each child being a unique individual), but that should be the responsibility of parents and not of policy makers.

Let us hope that level heads prevail here, and the governments of the world stop trying to raise everyone’s kids for them.