Oh Yeah, By The Way...

... Apparently C&C 4 comes out today. Clearly I couldn't be bothered to pay attention, since there are approximately eleven million games more interesting. Although there are no reviews up anywhere, it's not looking promising. This last chapter of the Command and Conquer saga could be a real stinker.

Heavy Rain Complete

I knew I was getting toward the end, but didn't know it was just about done. I finished Heavy Rain last night, and finally got down to the truth of the story. Expertly well done, great conclusion to the story, and as tragic as the events were, a pretty happy ending, mostly. Glad to see that the loose ends were tied up well in an epilogue of sorts, allowing you to enjoy your victory (or stare on in chagrin at your defeat). As I thought, Kasey did have her theory straight way before I had worked things out. I knew I kept her around for a reason.

Overall, the game is a big success. It keeps you tied to the stories and the characters that populate it, and really care about what happens to them. Even if the controls occasionally made me wander around like an idiot in the free-move mode, the quick-time events and on-rails sections are so superb it's worth the tiny frustration to get the game to its close.

I can't wait to discuss my version of the game's events with other players to see how what I did influenced the story.

Heavy Rain Filling Up My Evenings

Started playing Heavy Rain this weekend, and I just about can't stop. From the beginning the game gripped me with its visuals, control scheme, interesting and deep character cast, and mysterious story. I've played about five hours so far, and there have been so many good moments. It's hard to talk about the game without giving much away, so I won't post specifics, but there have been so many interesting and novel elements in the game, combined with so much emotional impact. It's really an amazing example of the new type of story-driven gaming we've seen from the likes of Quantic Dream and BioWare. If your tastes lie somewhere between story-driven shooters, mystery novels, and interactive media, the melding of media within Heavy Rain is not to be missed.

New News for Civ V

Only recently announced, lots more details are now coming out about Civilization V during this week's Game Developer Conference. A big theater presentation about the new game is chronicled in a great write-up at Kotaku.

There are a couple really interesting things that have changed. First, the difference in combat and how units can share spaces. One of the things that have bugged me for the longest time is unit proliferation and how you can have a million infantry units. It's a bear to manage, and it feels like individual units are almost useless. I've been happier with modern strategy games like Demigod, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Company of Heroes where a handful of great units are preferable to hordes of vanilla ones. Well, it seems that Civ V is taking a page out of their playbook. Units in Civ V will now no longer stack in spaces (beautiful, beautiful hex spaces), requiring you to have fewer at any given time. This makes combat a far more manageable affair, and treats units more like armies rather than a smaller squad. Big change, and I really like it.

The other addition that interests me is this idea of city-states. Apart from multi-city civilization that are the main factions in the game, city-states may arise in the game. They are just that, a nation of one city, that you can trade with, fight, etc. It gives a little more dynamic political climate, some more unpredictability, and some more differences in the size of your potential enemies or allies.

The game just looks gorgeous, and I'm excited to try out a fresh take on the Civ series. Even if I am a latecomer to the franchise, I love the core gameplay of turn-based strategy and open-ended empire building. Should be good.

Of Course It's Good; But Will I Play It?

Two of the games from my Top Ten for 2010 released this week: God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII. Both reviewed very well, especially God of War III. The adulations will only increase in their adulation. Last week, Heavy Rain dropped, another critically acclaimed step forward in gaming. But specifically, in the God of War III case, do I even care?

We've been incredibly spoiled for choice in the past year to six months. The quality and scope of released titles have been unbelievably good. The uptick isn't just due to review score creep or the dumbing-down of gaming. There have been so many genuinely remarkable games released in the past year that it's staggering. Consoles are at that sweet-spot of maturity and acceptance, and the Windows 7 release has attracted more people to PC gaming. Developers are experienced enough that every game has a level of polish and innovation never seen before. But the quality and amount of games may be reaching a tipping point in the industry.

All this makes it increasingly hard to shoe-horn games into a busy schedule. The average age of gamers is going up if not growing up, and that can mean less time to play. We also play games that last longer now. Developers and publishers themselves are designing games to be more valuable to us, by adding multiplay or persistent worlds, downloadable content whether free or pay-for to lengthen the game experience, and generally make games better to make us want to play them more. And there are only so many hours in the day to fill up with gaming.

I think all this is leading up to a market for video games that may actually decrease. Even if growth in the market continues, the advance in the longevity of games defeats the growth of new entrants into the market. Even if you never sleep or work, there's still only so much time in a day and time before other games release. If the games increase in length and value in an attempt for publishers to attract customers, that decreases the availability for gamers to buy and presumably play those games. It's a vicious cycle, because if value and length of gameplay is the basis for competition, eventually all games will be perpetual experiences that you'd never stop playing. The market for video games may simply trend to one game per player per lifetime.

WoW of course is the ultimate example. Assuming games are a perfect substitute for one another, a WoW player may never buy another game (expansions don't really count) and keep playing the same one for the rest of their life. That's good for Blizzard, but the market shrinks as a result. The only way to achieve any more growth in the market is to add participants, and it's unlikely that people who play WoW will breed, or to rely upon people jumping ship to another game that they can play for the rest of their life.

Now, games aren't a perfect substitute, and not everyone can play the same game for the rest of their life. But already we, as consumers, pass on so many games and platforms due to time, not price or quality.

Of course I don't want game developers to make short, terrible games. Nor do I want fewer games to choose from. But from where I sit, those publishers and developers might be trying to cut up an ever-decreasing gamer time pie. What might happen in the near future is price increases in games to combat decreasing sales. Frankly, already games are too inexpensive for what we get out of them.

That long aside done, no, I probably won't play God of War III or Final Fantasy XIII. Not because I don't want to, just because I don't have the time.

Title Created Just for Cory

That title is Tecmo Super Bowl Throwback. Seems that Tecmo is getting back into the video game scene, and I'm personally pretty jazzed up about it. I loved the game back in the day, and it's about time the overly-complicated Madden series had some kind of alternative. As long as you can continually run back and forth down the field to avoid potential tacklers, Throwback will be a fun, old-school throwback classic retro good time.

Crysis: Warhead Complete

I picked up the Crysis Maximum Edition on Steam on sale last fall for $13. It was less than regular Warhead alone, so I just got it all. I'd never played Warhead, and although it was some time before I got to it, I was in for a delight. Although the fresh feel of the original game was worn off just a little, some new innovations added some kick to the experience. Several big boss fights were a great highlight, combined with the great stealth-action-shooter gameplay of the first game. I had a great time rocking through the game up to its explosive conclusion. Expertly paced, amazing graphics, tight controls, an open environment in which to accomplish your goals, there still hasn't been a better first-person shooter than Crysis and Crysis: Warhead.