Alan Wake Excuses Are Insulting To Our Intelligence

Alan Wake was revealed at E3 2005 as a psychological action thriller with an intense and cinematic adventure and a massive, open world. It was revealed that it was coming to the PC and Xbox 360. The funny thing is, very few of that is true anymore. Now it's a 360 exclusive and linear in gameplay. Microsoft and Remedy Entertainment are continually making up ridiculous excuses as to why they decided to make it an Xbox 360-only game.

Back in July 2009, Markus Maki, Director of Development Remedy said that Remedy was "focusing all [their] efforts on the 360 version" and indicated that they would comment on the status of a PC version later. In a later statement, Remedy said that "PC plans are currently open" but that it was safe to assume that it wouldn't be a simultaneous launch with the 360 version, and that "this decision (The decision of whether or not they'd release a PC version) lies with our publisher" Who's that publisher? Microsoft.

You might expect it to be left at that; it's just business, right? But no, Microsoft would not allow that. Instead, in Febuary (2010), they released a completely asinine excuse for it not coming to the PC. They said that "Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen. We ultimately realised that the most compelling way to experience Alan Wake was on the Xbox 360 platform"
What makes a 720p TV (Assuming Alan Wake will even play in a 720p native resolution) any better for a thriller? The lower resolution? The BIG television? The couch? Many PC gamers DO play on their couch. Many 360 gamers play on their PC monitors.
This was obviously an ugly mess of an excuse by Microsoft, that ignored logic and the diversity of their customers.

"Why stop kicking a dead horse there?" said Remedy.
About a week after Microsoft's excuse, they claimed that they were too small of a studio. Even if it were true, did it seriously take them 4 years to realize it?

Why didn't they just stop at the fact that their publisher (Microsoft) made them halt the PC version? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Gamestop's $99 "Arcade Banjo/Viva Pinata" 360 Bundle Is NOT an Arcade Console w/Games

Gamestop is always posting things early and people manage to somehow trip over these obscure posts. Their latest is a posting titled: "Bundle - Arcade Banjo/Viva Pinata" and many are assuming this is an "arcade" Xbox 360 (The bundle without the expensive-as-heck hard-drive) bundled with the Banjo-Kazooie: Nut and Bolts and Viva Pinata, the kicker being the low price of $99.99. This is obviously not the case.

To start, we examine the category that Gamestop has it listed as. It's listed as "Puzzle & Cards" and "Puzzle". However, the other console bundles, such as the "Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Splinter Cell Conviction" bundle and the Forza 3/Halo: ODLC bundle are listed under the category of "systems".

What is strange, is that none of the Viva Pinata games, nor Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts are listed as "puzzle" games. They're listed as Action, Adventure, and simulation games. However, the mis-listing of a game bundle is a lot more likely than a $99 bundle of a current generation game system. It's incredibly unlikely that microsoft has brought the price of the arcade down to $99 AND with games.

The way it is titled is also much different from the title of the known console bundles. This listing is "Bundle - Arcade Banjo/Viva Pinata" while the 360 bundles are "Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Splinter Cell Conviction" and "Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Bundle".

So what explains the "arcade" part of the title? Simple; it probably includes a voucher for the original titles, available on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Do you want to know what the listing really is?:


This is, of course, purely speculation.

Speculation from yours truly,
Dustin The Mortician

Batman: AA 2 Cast Members

IMDB updated the cast for the upcoming sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Returning:
Kevin Conroy is back as Batman.
Mark Hamill is back as Joker.
Arleen Sorkin is back as Harley.
Tom Kane is back as Gordon.

New Characters:
Bruce Greenwood as Two-Face.
Vincent Martella, Chris Rock's white friend on "Everybody hates Chris", as Robin.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568322/

Natal/Arc will Make Healthy Competition for the Wii

Motion control has become the latest rage in gaming and for around 3 and a half years the Wii has gone without any real competition. It has remained the only system with motion controls as a main form of control and has kept the price advantage. The lack of competition and support from all sorts of non-gamers, including soccer moms, the elderly, and even airline security (Link) have kept Wii well ahead of it's HD competition sales-wise. However, the lack of competition has led to Nintendo doing little to compete.

Nintendo makes a fortune off of each Wii sold (Reportedly up to around $50 per console back in 2007), and even with the price cut, the cost of materials has probably lowered and allowed them to continue to make a killing per console sold). The price is no where near to being as low as it could be. This is unfortunately probably the last thing that the competition will fix, as the accessory prices added to the price of the consoles will only further themselves from the Wii price. Perhaps we will see an SKU without the Gamecube hookups and such. However, outdoing the competition with a lower price is far from impossible, anyhow.


The Nintendo seal of quality is dead. Once a sign that a game is generally fun and well created to save and regain trust from gamers, it is now a sign that says that the disc fits in the Wii. They just stamp "The Nintendo Seal (Note, not "Of Quality")" on any game. With all of the heavy support from the big guys planning Natal and Arc games, Nintendo is going to have to step up its game, and reaffirm its stance on quality on games other than just ones containing Mario.
Another funny take on the Seal.

Proper implementation of the Wiimote is important to seeing games advance. The wiimote (As well as his cousin, the DS touch screen) has seen some positively bizarre methods of usage. For presentation purposes (And gameplay purposes), we must see the Wiimote be used effectively. We often see it used weakly as a waggle tool. Hey, we haven't seen many games running on the Natal or Arc, but I'd like to believe they have better ideas for using them than some of the retched uses of the Wiimote.

We can hope to see the competition of the Natal and Arc create some competition fpr the Wii and drive down its price (And accessory prices) while causing the standard of quality to go up. Wii can certainly hope.

Xbox LIVE Silver Members = Peons

Ever since the dawn of time, the poor have lived without appreciation under the rule of us rich. They refuse to conform and make more, instead sitting around on their lazy behinds. They even have the nerve to walk past a product without purchasing it, leaving the sand salesmen who works on the beach without their money. These peons continue this trend by not upgrading their Xbox LIVE memberships to Gold.

Bwahahahaha! Oh, that was grand. Being serious, I wonder; why are we silver members treated like such peons?

To start, why are we barred from online play? Remember the sand salesman on a sandy beach comment? With online play free all around us, why do we have to pay for LIVE's online, even with it being on par when it comes to actual online play performance? Abandoning the Socratic nonsense, I believe we all know why; Microsoft knows that very few people would pay for the additive features themselves, such as cross chat.

Cross chat makes sense to me as one of those things you might pay for (Though at $50 a year, I think it's a rip with so many other capable communication devices that are so common these days), but it does not make sense why gold members get "early" demos.
Making it clear, these "early" demos are just a result of Microsoft restricting silver members from demos for a week or so, despite the demos often being available the same day on PSN, steam, etc.
If you're a silver member, I assume you still play single player games, correct? So how do you demo them? I'm confused; If microsoft doesn't think you're playing multiplayer games, and you aren't playing single player games.....what do they think you are do with the Xbox 360? Playing hop scotch with it? Well, okay, there was that one time, but that isn't the point.

And the cherry on top, you must have a gold membership to use Netflix. God forbid you're a person who likes single player games and movies. But again, they know they can bleed the money out of you in many ways. There's a thousand ways to skin a cat and an infinite amount of ways to sucker a sucker.

Being kept from online play? That's a grave misfortune.
Being kept from Netflix? Unfortunate, but luckily not gaming related.
Being restricted from demos for an expanse of time? That's a bunch of crap.
These are silly restrictions. If we don't pay them in TWO ways, Microsoft keeps away all of the intricate advantages of an online connection with a game console. I say, "Stop treating us like peons, microsoft. We bought the console and games just the same as the gold members did, and you must show respect by not restrict us to silly things like demos"

Dustin The Mortician

8th Generation Console Wish List

While I'm in no rush to spend another sum on a new video game console, I already have some ideas as to what should be included in the next generation of consoles. This wish list consists mostly of a concoction of current generation features that one console or another lack, but it also contains many features not featured on the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, or Nintendo Wii.

1. More resolution support. My television has a 1360 x 768 resolution, but unfortunately, it has to stretch the image thanks to the lack of resolution choices. If some games can feature native 1080p (though lacking in amount), why not 1360 x 768?
2. Keyboard/Mouse Support. I know that the PC gamers are already saying "Just create a PC for gaming, then!". That would be fine, if some of my favorite series were on the PC, but they do not. The PS3 has the option, but we rarely see devs take advantage of it, hopefully being something that changes next generation (Or preferably this one).
   
3. Free Online Gaming. LIVE has never actually PLAYED better online because of its fee, so why pay for nearly identical online play when I can get it free elsewhere? If they want to charge for online OPTIONS and FEATURES, then that would be fine. But I'm fed up with paying to access the online play.
4. Third Party Support for Accessories. Microsoft's policies have led to over priced HDDs, memory cards, and more. $30 for a half a gigabyte memory card? $100 for a 60GB Hard drive? Tsk, tsk.
5. Both Disc Drives AND Hard-drives. I see no reason why we (And developers) cannot have the option of both downloading and purchasing discs for games. Large games can go on discs, and smaller sized games can go on both, however the publishers decide best.

While I'm quite content with the current generation, I'm always thinking ahead. Games will of course be the most important part to any system, but these features will also play important roles.

Ready to bury a game as always,
Dustin the Mortician