So yes, I still read Penny-Arcade. Why? Because while their humor has trailed away from that once gloriously sadistic and satirical jest that I so admired, they’re sometimes still very funny. Even if only I think so.

But they have recently let me know that Bioshock will be available on PS3, finally, while I lose myself in the drudge of final exams and not writing any posts for weeks because my brain just can’t take the pressure (The school year is almost over; bear with me and final exams will be done and I will have NOTHING TO DO save write articles for you saps).

This concludes yet another Xbox game that loses its 360 exclusivity. While I’m not implying the 360 has ever had a guise of an exclusives-strong console, it’s still a little sad to see. I’m just waiting for Mass Effect on PS3 now, and the journey will be complete. There will simply be zero reason left for me ever to buy that thing.

I’m almost kind of diappointed.

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I don’t talk much about it. Probably because I know if I start saying things about the Wii, what comes out of my mouth will end up being negative.

It’s inevitable, however, for me to say something about that little white posh console, so let’s start out saying a few good things even though we all know where this is going.

1) It’s a great multiplayer console.

2) It has games for kids.

3) …

That’s about it for me. That’s all I can really say about it. You can scream and rant and rail all you want about the magic word innovation; the truth is, the point-and-click remote control idea has been something Nintendo has toyed with since the NES Glove Controller, and infra-red technology is about as twentieth century as it gets–not to mention that it’s recycled from the Game Boy Color’s failed attempts at infra-red ports sharing.

When you sit down and really analyze it, all this new garbage they come out with for the Wii that supposedly makes you feel “immersed” in gameplay because you’re mimicking the motions on the screen has simply resulted in extremely hackneyed and gratuitous calisthenics. I remember talking with a fellow designer about Harvest Moon for the Wii; he was all for it, expecting the addition of the Wiimote to be an amazing dynamic. I continued to try to point out my skepticism because the addition is simply so easy it can be perceived as tacked on. Anything that senses motion can immediately be exploited without a second thought–example: I can make a kayaking game where you swipe the Wiimote left and right to simulate paddling. There you go. I just implemented the Wiimote in a game that should sell bajillions because it has motion sensing technology and therefore should be fun.

What all these sad game designers need to start accepting is that motion sensing gets old. Special gear gets old. Transfer packs and GBA link cables and chainsaw controllers get old. When people start seeing games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 and Alone in the Dark and The Orange Box come out on everything but the Wii… well. This article describes it best, and I am in total agreement. Most people I know have stopped playing their Wii altogether. Even Super Smash Brothers Brawl just doesn’t make it anymore. Nintendo’s giving us Mario Kart, but I haven’t heard a word out of anybody’s mouth about it. The little white console is fading, and keeping quiet.

What can I say? Nintendo gave it a shot. The problem is Nintendo is the only company that’s good at what Nintendo does, and like I said months ago: It’s my theory Nintendo titles will continue to sell the Wii. No other company will ever really get their fair share of the profit.

I wonder if Miyamoto’s got anything up his sleeves now.

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Facebook recently initiated “Facebook Chat”, a messenger concept people have been dying for since Facebook exploded from a college thing into the next MySpace. It’s become apparent to me within the first twenty minutes of poking at it that the thing is pure evil, since my feed shows up live on everyone’s chat list if they happen to me talking at me (I don’t answer back being the Facebook dissenter I am, of course) so now if it even occurs to me to download some stupid application for the day, even if I hide it on the mini-feed, everyone who happens to be staring intently at me will be notified.

Of course, it’s also unlikely too many people will be interested in me. I am, after all, somewhat boring–particularly on Facebook. But I somewhat dread a game designer contacting me randomly after having seen me on someone else’s site and walking in on me taking a personality quiz for little girls. Not that I do that, or anything. I just might some day. You never know.

And no, I’m not giving out my Facebook on here. Why would I? There’s nothing of interest on there. If you really want to find me, go ahead and try to find me. You know who I am and where I study. It can’t possibly be that hard.

So now you’re thinking, “All right, Andres, how does this tie into games?” Yes, I know I’m a game designer and I should be focusing on things like Metal Gear Online and GTAIV, but instead I decided to talk about Facebook–because believe it or not, in-game communication with players isn’t all too far from what Facebook just integrated.

And since you’re all so picky about MGO and GTAIV, I will talk about them–in context with Facebook.

The thing about most games–and this is mostly when dealing with the online multiplayer aspect of any genre–is that communication is crucial for anything to work in an online setting. The reason Facebook is so successful is because it centers around the idea of communication and connection between human beings. Video games in an online setting have had a hard time hitting the right formula in order to thrive because they haven’t been able to find the appropriate balance of communication versus play. (Brenda Brathwaite would be so proud of me.)

In the instance of Rock Band, you have an absolutely gorgeous system for playing your favorite songs with friends, rocking it out and sharing the moments through an online setting–but the connectivity is so limited you might as well just get together at somebody’s house and play there. There’s no real connection to be made outside your little group of friends. When people go online, they want to be connected to the World Wide Web. In that instance, online play has been dramatically downplayed and remained a disappointment for those hoping for a richer, expanded experience.

To open a little on MGO before we get into the online communications versus play idea, I have to say I love this game. Metal Gear Online is a gold shooter–it feels natural to the touch and very different from so many FPSs I’ve played. While I love first person, I have to say that MGO’s beautiful third-person action so far trumps any Halo, Counter-Strike or Unreal you throw at me. The transitions between shooting and CQC and laying traps is so efficient and quick that someone with the absolute upper hand can be devastated by a few small mistakes, allowing the dark horse to burst out of nowhere with a smack to the face. Not to mention that they have something called “Sneaking Mission”, in which you get to be Snake. You get to be Snake. That’s enough said.

In case anyone ever wondered about why AI seems so stupid in MGS4 for not seeing Snake lying camouflaged on the ground, trust me–I can’t see him either. It has nothing to do with stupidity. He’s just hard to see.

In MGO you have different issues–on the connectivity side, the fact that at any given time there may be no more than 2000 people logged on to the MGO server and all of them are in different closed games makes matchmaking becomes incredibly difficult. You might find yourself trapped in a game with a range of skill levels between 0 and 7, ensuring that if you’re lower level, the game will be too hard and if you’re higher level, the game will be too easy. Communicationwise, MGO seems to have no issues–other than the fact that your email can only hold so many messages and that there’s no private chat, so talking to your friends while on the menu and deciding what you want to do is somewhat difficult. It has many ways of talking while within an actual match, including keyboard, microphone and predetermined communication commands. Of course, once you have a mic you’ll usually just be shouting into it whenever anything happens, since you’re on a private channel with your team. Interestingly enough, Kojima Productions made the interesting choice of disabling your communication when you are no longer capable of speaking–for example, when stunned, asleep or dead. It makes dying all the more frustrating because you can’t comment on it, but it stops a great deal of raging over the communication channels as an amazingly efficient fix. The communication versus play, however, is a tad unbalanced in this scenario, since while MGO plays beautifully like a completely non-standard shooter with different dynamics from any other FPS I’ve ever played online, it needs to have a lot tweaked in order to function correctly–mainly the issue with how easy it is to get a headshot, and how difficult and one sided it makes the game. Getting close to someone is now an art, and relies on a great deal of luck and patience–both of which are not exactly prime elements to focus on in any FPS. You want skill, timing and precision to be the elements to focus your gameplay on. We’ll see if Konami lowers the headshot ratios by when MGO comes out in June–I will most certainly be playing it because it is simply a true pleasure and just amazing fun when your team and you really coordinate.

GTAIV has its own version of gameplay–but I keep feeling after playing it that the entire thing seems somewhat tacked on, like an addition to gameplay merely created to compete with the upcoming release of Metal Gear Online.

First, however, the main game. The game itself is pure gold, and I’m enjoying it very much–though I’m a little disappointed with how the new features of the game don’t really switch up the gameplay. They make gameplay more interesting and efficient and dynamic, yes. But in terms of “new”, nothing fresh really comes to the table. To be expected–it’s another GTA game, and GTA is simply GTA. The story is lovely, however, and I’m enjoying it when I’m not busy working or on my last days of MGO.

Returning to the multiplayer, it seems to be very much the single player game with more players in it, shooting each other. It’s really not as glorious as I expected, and the fact that contacting your friends is practically nonexistent and gameplay modes are nothing short of a repeat of Unreal’s and Team Fortress’s match modes makes it rather disappointing. It’s still kind of fun, but some modes are somewhat pointed or biased and people playing them are downright stupid. I think there were several mistakes made in the GTA multiplayer, and that makes me wonder really if it was in the original plan of the fourth game or if it was put in to try to sell more and build more hype versus the looming colossus of Metal Gear Solid 4.

To close on GTAIV, the game is already starting to stale a little bit on me–and of course I’ll beat the whole thing and enjoy it, but I realize it’s just like playing another GTA, and because I know the gameplay so well I feel like I can’t get anything more out of it other than story–of course the story will be good, with Rockstar’s witty cynicism and newfound ability to narrate. But it’s a sad feeling I’m left with because I only just got the game and everyone’s giving it such high praise. But really, people… it’s Grand Theft Auto. It’s always going to be Grand Theft Auto.

So Facebook has got the formula for connectivity versus play–but do they? I still think even they haven’t refined the formula, because nothing on Facebook catches my attention anymore. I loathe it–I just can’t become interested in wasting time on it. So we still have a lot of experimentation to go… don’t count on the perfect MMO formula just yet, folks.

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