10 IPs This Generation That Deserve A Sequel

I attempted to find 10 IPs that made their debut during the current generation of consoles, with no currently released or announced sequels, that I personally wanted to see more of, and that felt like there was room to expand upon. I failed, and was stuck at 8 until I allowed myself some exceptions. Now, moving on to the list, and why these titles made the cut.

Why Microsoft Needs to Lose Mattrick

It's one thing to alienate and disenfranchise your current customers. It's another thing entirely to do it 3 times in one week. And that thing is called "A Day in the Life of Don Mattrick". I'm sure behavior like this was acceptable, perhaps even encouraged, when he was the President of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts, but Microsoft needs to put their foot down and tell him that this is not alright, if they wish to still have a console division.

Being anti-consumer whilst working at a publisher is par for the course, especially one that produces the same 4 sports franchises year after year after year, often with little incentive for current owners to upgrade, and rapidly plummeting second-hand value on the previous year's release, but for a console manufacturer, it's far less appropriate. To have their President of Interactive Entertainment Business* spout things like "If you don't like our policies for next gen, buy our current gen system!" with a smile on his face not only harms the potential install base of people who don't currently have an X360, but also hurts the likelihood of current owners sticking with Microsoft into the next generation. This will not only damage Microsoft, but also the bottom line of any studio already contracted into making a 3rd party exclusive.

To follow that up with "we're over-delivering value" upon being called out for charging $100 more than your competitor just shows how anti-consumer this man really is. He is awash in a sea of his own ego and hubris, when his accomplishments at Microsoft are akin to scratching an author's name off the cover of a book, and replacing it with your own. The 360 released two years before his arrival at Microsoft, had an entire year where it was the only 7th generation console, and came in under the release price of the PS3, yet nearly all the credit for the success of the 360 is given to Mattrick.

According to Wikipedia, with a citation to an xbox.com piece on how 2010 went for the 360, in the 3 years that he oversaw the console division, the number of installed units went from 10 million to over 50 million, and XBL membership increased from 6 million to over 30 million. Now, these numbers certainly sound impressive and look like a vast improvement, but the installed base to XBL membership ratio stayed at a consistent 60%. In the 3 years he oversaw the division, they apparently could not find a way to increase their sell-through rates on subscriptions. More importantly is how much of that install base increase was due to price drops, expansion into new markets, increased supply, purchases of replacement consoles, and purchases of additional consoles by people who already had one. I have had a friend who had 3 X360s die in the span of a year, and another who had no issues but had one in his living room, bedroom, and his kid's room. I've also known event organizers and gaming cafes with 20-30 each, with the ones owned by event organizers spending much of the year in storage. If these are typical stories, then the increase in your install base is not nearly as impressive as the numbers would seem.

He's also widely credited for the success of the Kinect, one of the fastest selling terrible peripherals in history. It brought in a large amount of money to Microsoft, and allowed them to fill the marketplace with shovelware so bad that it made Wii Sports look like a solid game by comparison.

And then there's the matter of the Xbox One. The X1 has been getting slammed left and right on forums, twitter, reddit, and even in the commercial-shill laden press. Instead of reassuring people that this product is, in fact, for you, instead of catering to those who have had week long or longer power and internet outages after a hurricane, winter storm, tornado, earthquake, etc, he reestablishes those points in such a way that it seems as though he wants you, the end user, to feel bad for even questioning their practices and price point. That's terrible marketing, and a stain on the company as a whole at this point.

While it may not placate everyone, I feel like MS could earn back at least a small amount of trust from the public, fans or not, if they just removed Mattrick, and had the interim executive announce that they are going to review and reconsider their announced policies regardless of whether or not they actually do or plan to. Mattrick has been a PR disaster for the past month, and if they really want to sell 10+ million X1s, this is the easiest way to go about it. Fire him, get him to resign, it doesn't matter how you do it, what matters is that you get it done. Your move, Microsoft.

*As an aside, this is possibly the most falsified sounding title I've heard in the industry. More terrifying than that is that it is his actual title. Did they let him name his position? It sounds absolutely absurd.

E3: Abridged - Part II

So, first of all, pardon me for the late upping of part 2 of E3 Abridged.  Part 1 went up on Thursday.  Then Friday happened and with the release of The Last of Us, I haven't had much time to eat, sleep, breathe, or think, let alone work on another write-up.  It's been handed more perfect 10's than any game of note in my lifetime (GTA IV was not a game of note to me), and with the exception of a few mechanical glitches that I've encountered, it's deserved them.

I'll gush about it in a future post.  Right now it's time to dissect:

Ubisoft

Rocksmith 2014 - Ubisoft tried to grab our attention by bringing in washed-up grunge guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains on stage to play the solo from Man in the Box (featured in Rock Band 2 for those of you who were under a rock while the Fake Plastic Instruments genre was at its high point), and then introduce us to session mode, where you can jam on your guitar, while the game simulates the rest of the band for you.  Unfortunately, this is where having had friends that are drummers fucks with me, because the automated drums on Rocksmith are GOD AWFUL.  They wouldn't know how to keep a tempo if you did it for them.

We're then joined by Aisha Tyler wearing the most ridiculous shirt I've ever seen.  #girlwood *snrk*
Good for Ubisoft though.  They realized that their CEO's and lead developers don't exactly have stage presence and someone that's a professional actor/comedian is significantly better at sounding interesting.  With phrases like "Done a lot of dirty deeds to Alice in Chains" and "belly first, ass out".  Way to grab my attention.  Moving on.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Now I'm not really one to judge here because as previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of stealth games.  However, I can comment that we got to see about 10 seconds of actual gameplay mixed in amongst a lot of pretty cutscenes.  Some vague concept of story was revealed with talk about a terrorist group called "The Engineers" and their attacks being labeled "The Blacklist", but that's about it.

Rayman Legends - Now I find it rather unfortunate that I still haven't gotten around to playing Rayman Origins, which I'm told is the "happiest most fun-filled game ever made".  So, logically, if the first one was good, the second will be better, right?  Well that's what we're hoping happens here.  Lots of more of the same.

Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - Didn't see much of this game besides it's rather humorous trailer.  It looks like a diablo-clone.  Just what this world needs.  Another diablo-clone.  As if I didn't already have Diablo III, Torchlight II and Path of Exile.

South Park: The Stick of Truth - An RPG for people who enjoy South Park.  Which isn't me.  Though I do have to give them credit for being able to poke fun at game delays and launch dates.

The Crew - I'm going to take a second to gush about this segment.  The Crew looks FANTASTIC, and not in the way that Forza Motorsport does.  Ubisoft didn't bring a two-of-a-kind McLaren P1 to the stage.  They didn't give us Driveatars.  What they did show us was a trailer of all kinds of illegal vehicular activity.  Street racing, off-roading, running from the cops.  To be honest, the debut trailer made the game look like The Fast and The Furious: The (good) Videogame.  They talked a little bit about how the whole US was your playground in The Crew.  Open-world racing where the end goal is to take down (or more likely usurp) this criminal organization.  They've created this online persistent world that blends single and multiplayer together.  You and your friends can band together at any time to form a Crew and take on cooperative missions.  Singularly, you can engage in all sorts of challenges.  One of the ones that interested me the most was where you had to race a single car in a point-to-point challenge.  The player was currently driving a high-powered street car, and his computer opponent was in a vehicle more suited to off-roading.  There was no "out-of-bounds".  Each vehicle applied it's strength in the point to point challenge.  The road course was longer, but the player had faster car.  However, the off-road was shorter, but required a different set up.  Ubisoft bragged about the level of customization you can apply to your car, and being able to completely take apart the engine and rebuild it from the ground up.  This is so much a part of the game, that they have designed an app for your tablet or smartphone that allows you to completely customize your car from these devices, and have it available as soon as you return to your console.  Overall, this game blew me away and I'm really excited to see it in the next generation.

Watch_Dogs - Watch_Dogs is back this year with absolutely no gameplay footage.  Just a fancy trailer.  They did unveil to us that Aiden Pierce (the game's protagonist) is effectively a superhacker, whose obsession with surveillance has turned him into a vigilante.  And that sounds badass.  Who doesn't want to be cyber-punk Batman?

Just Dance 2014 - I had to talk about Rocksmith, so I've gotta talk about this too.  Let's see, it's finally coming out as multiplatform.  We got to see a list of pop stars likely to be on the soundtrack, including PSY.  It will support 6-player dances, which is more than the number of controllers that can be connected to any system at a single time, so I guess that's impressive.  There's some weird system where you can supposedly DJ and remix the music by dancing.  It's the next generation of "your favorite party game".  They might need to re-evaluate that statement, because last time I checked, my favorite party game was Cards Against Humanity.

Rabbids Invasion - This is a kid's show with Kinect support built in.  Based on the fact that it is an actual TELEVISION show, with motion-tracking camera interactivity, I'm assuming (and will be pleasantly surprised if) this will remain exclusive to the Xbone.  Because honestly, who doesn't enjoy screaming with their kids at the TV?  Not me.  I'd rather just scream at the kids.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ah yes, the pirate simulator that everyone's been talking about.  I've tried to involve myself in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but I've never seemed to be able to care.  The social stealth made sense when Altair's costume looked incredibly similar to the monks in the first game.  However, Ezio didn't blend in with a single goddamn Italian.  Being surrounded by 5 or 6 people while wearing an extremely unique outfit does not make you just "disappear".  Try again.  Sorry, off-topic.  AC4 was another game where we saw a lot of shiny trailerness, and not a lot of gameplay.  And the trailer didn't even contain a spot of blood.  There were people getting shot, stabbed, and bashed over the head with bottles, and yet no one seemed to bleed.  This seemed a little out of character for a franchise about ASSASSINATION, but more to the point, isn't that why most people play this game?  For the violence?  Anyways, Ubisoft brags that it's done it's homework on this one and created a realistic pirate experience.  I doubt that being a rapist and spreading untold amounts of venereal disease is part of the core game mechanics.

Trials Fusion/Frontier - The Trials franchise is back with better graphics and a mobile counterpart.  So you can eat shit and break your neck while indulging in impossible motocross feats in a whole new generation.

The Division - Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft's CEO) unexpectedly ran out on stage and interrupted Aisha to present this.  Yet another franchise with Tom Clancy's name slapped on the front of it.  Think of a post-apocalyptic world where a flu epidemic has caused pandemonium across the nation.  No, this isn't The Last of Us, it's The Division,  an open-world MMORPG cover-based shooter.  Now, while I'm getting kind of sick of the chest-high-wall-shooter genre, this game's unique HUD, interactive environment and MMORPG mechanics make me rather curious.

Part III will cover the EA conference.  If I can drag myself away from The Last of Us long enough to write the damn thing.

Review: Bulletstorm - The Duke Nukem We Deserve

Back in 2011, between Gears of War sequels, Epic Games pulled a "Crackdown" on us.  In collaboration with People Can Fly, they released Bulletstorm - a free game that came with a $60 invite to the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta.  Now I'm probably about to lose all my credit as a gamer and blogger when I say that I actually liked the Gears of War franchise.  Chest-high-wall shooters were still relatively new and, lets face it, YOU HAD A FUCKING CHAINSAW ON YOUR GUN.  So needless to say I didn't actually play a whole lot of Bulletstorm, just enough to know that Steve Blum voiced the main character and that was it.

However, the problem I have with the Spring season isn't the warm weather or the sunshine (though I'm none too fond of those either).  The problem I have is that this is gaming's slow season and I need to find ways to keep myself occupied until the next big shitstorm of triple-A games hits the fan.  So, with a vague memory and a song in my heart, I decided to revisit Bulletstorm.

Bulletstorm casts you into the role of Grayson Hunt, the very caricature of badass.  Former-hit-squad-member-turned-alcoholic-space-pirate, Grayson's got more than just a chip on his shoulder, he's got a fucking brick house.  You don't get a lot of history before crash-landing on some rusted-out overgrown tropical island resort, but that's a good thing because roughly 10 minutes into the game, story doesn't mean shit.

Bulletstorm is one hell of a linear shooter.  The game grabs you by the shoulders, points you in a direction and says "go kill shit over there".  It's pretty standard fare.  In fact, I remember reading a post somewhere on the internet stating that the gaming market is so saturated with aim-down-the-sights shooters that even the shitty ones have solid mechanics.  And they were right.  Bulletstorm is FUCKING TERRIBLE.  The story is practically non-existent, the whole game is point A to point B run-and-gun, the weapons lack inspiration, and don't even get me started on the dialogue.  OH the dialogue.  The one-dimensional characters use the word fuck like it's a comma, just about every "skillshot" is some tongue-in-cheek dick joke, and every cutscene is dedicated to our crew wanting, but trying very hard not to kill each other.

Anyways, the planet is populated by ferocious fucks bent on slaughtering anything that moves, be it from range, or with dual-axes to your face.  So as you wander from decimated building to decimated building, you'll frequently encounter these reaper-esque bastards and have to paint the walls with their brains.  One of the ways Bulletstorm tries to separate itself from the sci-fi shitter genre is by awarding you points for each kill, depending on how creative you get.  These are called "skillshots" and as previously mentioned, most of them are dick jokes or other innuendos.  Everything from the obvious "shove off a cliff" to the rather humorous "flare-gun-up-the-ass", gives you skill points.  These points can then be spent at designated resupply points to purchase ammo and swap weapons.  This is more or less useless, because you can go the whole game with just the assault rifle and collect ammo drops from nearly every baddie you kill.  It is, however, really fun to watch them tuck and curl after you install a hot lead catheter.  Oh, and then curbstomp them.

Over the course of the game you get outfitted with your fairly standard arsenal: assault rifle, sniper rifle, pistol, grenade launcher and shotgun.  Woo fucking hoo.  Bulletstorm tried to be different by giving you a "charge shot" for your weapons, which you had to purchase to unlock, and then purchase charges for.  Fancy way of saying alt-fire.  The dev's did manage, however, to produce a couple of nifty handheld carnage makers that weren't par for the course.  I'm talking about the Flailgun and the Penetrator (teenage giggles go here).  The Flailgun works like a sticky-nade launcher, but what's awesome is the Penetrator.  Keep in mind, that this game was co-developed by People Can Fly, the very same people that brought you Painkiller and it's wondrous stake-launcher.  The Penetrator fires FUCKING DRILL ROCKETS that pierce enemies and drag their carcass to the nearest wall.  If you had fun with Painkiller's stake-launcher and Half-Life 2's crossbow, you'll have a fucking ball with this thing.  The biggest bitch being that you only get the gun about an hour away from the game's ending.  What kinda shit is that?

You also get outfitted with a grappling beam, which is used mostly for interacting with the environment, and less for dragging enemies towards you, since you'll probably forget its existence between required uses.  However, the highlight of the game for me was the "return" of Duke's Mighty Boot.  While neither Epic Games, nor People Can Fly have any ties to 3DRealms' notoriously awesome 90's FPS - Duke Nukem 3D - they have revived the time-honored tradition of melee attacks that involve taking a size 13, shining it up real nice, and sticking it straight into someone's teeth.  Not only does your "Gravity Boot" send enemies flying into pointy and painful things (rebar, cacti, carnivorous plants), it also launches them in slo-mo so that, if inclined, one could empty a clip or two into the son of a bitch before he fries on those open wires.  This is Bulletstorm's single most redeeming quality.  Well, this and General Sarrano's first actual line: "Lick the tears off my dick, mudfuckers!"

All things considered, Bulletstorm is shit.  It's a bad shooter with bad characters and a bad story.  But at the end of the day, it was FUN.  Kicking random faceless psychopaths into powerlines and skewering them with drill rockets was a good time for the whole family.  It's vulgar sense of humor and ultra-violent, ultra-bloody executions, topped with it's foul-mouthed cast really reminded me of the days of Duke.  When he was cool.

Duke Nukem Forever might have been the game we needed.  Because after 14 years in development hell, we needed to know that it could be done.  It could be finished.  But in this reviewer's opinion, Bulletstorm was the Duke Nukem we deserved.

Review: Tomb Raider (2013)

Anyone remember back in mid-2012 when there was this huge scandal about a scene in the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot that had themes of sexual abuse (see: RAPE)? But then Crystal Dynamics' studio manager came out and said "Oh my god, there's no way we'd put anything like that in a video game!"?  Well, this is because there's no such thing as bad publicity and, let's be honest, no one's given a flying fuck about the Tomb Raider franchise since the Playstation 1.  While this game is generally considered a "reboot", there are others that argue that it is, in fact, a prequel to the games that only a handful of people cared about 17 years ago.  They needed to stir up some controversy so that the world would actually pay attention to the game when it launched, though the whole thing failed horribly when everyone found out that they'd been lying to us and the "attempted rape scene" was merely some psycho being creepy.  LAME!  But if you're looking for Tomb Raider porn, that's what the internet is for.

In any case this article is about the game, not the idiocy surrounding it.  I'd much rather review the idiocy contained on the disc.