Starcraft II will be released in a few short days. Hopes run high among its fan base that Blizzard can recapture the magic that vaulted the original Starcraft to the top of the RTS heap. Blizzard has an impeccable track record, and many fans have received an extended free look at the multiplayer during beta testing. How did it stack up?

Balance

Real time strategy games usually only distinguish themselves through innovation. Balance is typically a prerequisite to being a passable RTS; without balance what does it matter what unique strategic decisions you allow? Rarely, however, is balance not just a building block but a distinguishing characteristic. By rarely, I mean only in one case: Starcraft. Include Starcraft II, and that makes two cases.

RTS games are complicated enough to make - designing tech trees, animating units, creating maps, scripting single player campaigns and recording sound effects is a tall order. Considering that poorly balancing a game can render all other work meaningless, developers usually just make factions symmetrical in function and slightly different in appearance.

Not Blizzard.

The iconic 3 factions from Starcraft: the Zerg, Terran and Protoss, return for Starcraft II. By some black magic Blizzard has managed to make each faction distinct yet perfectly balanced. Many baby seals must have been sacrificed to successfully perform this feat.

These guys might look hardcore, but they are slaughtered by the truckload in-game

Gameplay

A great game is easy to learn but impossible to master. While Starcraft II is slightly more complicated than chess, it is conceptually simple. You harvest resources with workers, and use those resources to build production facilities which in turn consume resources to build an army. You use that army to (hopefully) kill your opponent before they kill you.

There are of course many complicating factors. You don’t have perfect information as you can only see what your units can see. Imagine in chess if your pieces could only see the squares immediately surrounding them. You wouldn’t know how your opponent opened or how his pieces are positioned until you got close, so you would have to make decisions with less than complete information.

A good player in Starcraft II will try to counter what their opponent is doing, so initially you want to be able to scout out their strategy while preventing them from doing the same. You also need to be able to make educated guesses about what your opponent is doing from what you are able to see. At the highest levels, nearly as much can be gained through knowledge of what your opponent isn’t doing as from what he is doing.

The Immortal is one of the most powerful Protoss units that perfectly exemplifies how units are never obsolete even in longer games: it shrugs off powerful attacks but is susceptible to weaker tier 1 units

In addition, you can trick your opponent by allowing them to scout what looks like a certain strategy, destroying their scout, then changing your strategy to what will counter how he was planning to counter you. You can go around in circles trying to outmaneuver your enemy, but like in actual warfare many battles are won or lost before they even happen.

Decisions don’t end when a battle begins, however. There are many tactical and strategic decisions to be made that influence the outcome of a fight. You can take the same 2 armies and have them face each other with different positioning and on different terrain, and the outcomes will be drastically different.

Certain units and armies thrive by being in wide open space with the ability to maneuver around their enemies. Certain units do lots of damage to a small space and funneling an enemy army through a small choke point leads to total annihilation. Air units can outmaneuver their opponents in complicated terrain. Some units can tunnel underground and surprise their enemies from below, or circumvent static defenses.

Even within large battles, certain individual units can turn the tide. Some units can convert enemy units to your side for a small period of time. Stealing a key unit can make the difference between victory and defeat. Some units are good against clusters of enemies but become weak if their enemies are spread out; controlling your army is key. Having the correct parts of your army in the front, and in the back, and sometimes even flanking or surrounding your enemy is paramount. Even if you have a bad army composition because you misjudged your opponent’s strategy, you can still win with proper troop micromanagement.

In Starcraft II you are almost never out of the fight. The further behind in a game you are, the higher risk strategies you must implement, because conventional thinking won’t get you back into a losing game. Never give up. Never surrender!

The Corruptor is basically one of those squid things from the Matrix. Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the corruptor is. They have to see it for themselves

User Friendliness

Starcraft II will be the first game to utilize the full Battle.net 2.0 interface. While many fans of the original Starcraft criticize the system for being too ‘simplistic,’ that is because they’re living in the past. Battle.net 2.0 is a streamlined and comprehensive gaming system.

Games can be set up with the push of a button, and everything is taken care of automatically behind the scenes. Ladders ensure you’re going to be facing players of comparable skill level, and the wait to get into a balanced game is frequently a couple seconds for a 1v1 game, and a couple minutes for a 4v4 game. I’m sure those times will decrease in release as there will be orders of magnitude more players compared to the beta.

In addition, there is a great replay system where you can watch and analyze old games. There are achievements and custom user portraits and decals to individualize yourself in-game. Finally, there is a friend system where you can chat both in and out of games, and eventually across Blizzard games. Battle.net 2.0 might not yet be perfect, but it’s a great start, and over time players will wonder how they lived without it.

Interesting that the protagonist in Starcraft bases his operations from a Terran Battlecruiser. In game, however, Battlecruisers are powerful but still slaughtered by the truckload. Maybe it's a special battlecruiser? Otherwise this might be a short campaign

Custom Content

The award for the game with the most longevity has to go to either Counter-Strike or the original Starcraft. While the actual game of Starcraft II has the potential to be just as long-lasting, its lifespan will be prolonged by user-generated content. Even though the game hasn’t even been released, there are already hundreds of custom game mods created for the beta.

Some of the most popular include variations on tower defense and tug of war game modes. In the popular Battlecraft: Armageddon mod, players receive money every few seconds and have to choose which units they want to spawn to run at their opponent. They can’t control these units, which merely mindlessly run at the enemy. The skill comes in using your money to choose units which counter your opponent’s units for lower cost. The number of game types that will emerge during release when millions get their hands on the editing tools mean that people will be playing Starcraft II far into the future, even if the standard game modes have long been forgotten.

Starcraft II is going to be a massive success. Blizzard has created the RTS that will long be the gold standard considering its polish, balance and refined gameplay. It will storm the sales charts and more than return the $100 million spent on its development. Video gamers around the world are about to find out what we beta testers have known for the past few months: Blizzard has created something really special that we will be playing for a long time.

For those unfamiliar with the system, the game divides you into one of five tiers: platinum, gold, silver, bronze and copper. You are placed into one of those tiers based on several placement matches, and within each tier there are many 100-player divisions.

Chris claims the lack of global tiers are deceptive. He claims the opacity of the system which promotes or demotes you between tiers is harmful to the game. He also claims the way the game decides whether you’re favored or not compared to another player is confusing.

Flaws with the ladder?

Let’s quickly review the reasons he claims the ladder is flawed.

The first aspect criticized is the lack of global tiers. Let’s just assume that the game sells about as well as the original and there are over 10 million copies sold. Instead of thousands of 100-person divisions making up each of the five tiers, Chris believes there should be global tiers.

Because each division is made up of 100 players, if you’re one of the better players in the silver league you might be ranked 25th in your division out of 100. If there were global tiers, on the other hand, the equivalent position would be 500,000th out of 2 million silver tier players.

Chris claims that the divisions are deceptive because if you’re 1st in your silver division, you’re not really the ‘best player’ in the silver league because there are thousands of other divisions; this artificially inflates the ego of gamers and is wrong.

Here is the Blizzard Starcraft II team in a design meeting (with Jace Hall). This is why the matchmaking system has come apart at the seams; too much drinking

The second criticism of the ladder is the way in which it occasionally matches you with players in different tiers. The point of the ladder according to Chris is to match you up against players of similar skill levels, but what’s the point if it’s going to occasionally match you up with players in the tier above or below?

The final criticism is that the system that promotes or demotes you to the tier above or below is opaque (and intentionally so), and this is harmful for gamers.

Does Chris Beault have a point, or is he trolling for hits?

Now let’s analyze those points and provide a counter-argument. First is the concept that separating out each tier (league) into separate divisions is somehow deceptive.

It’s difficult for players to really appreciate progress either up or down the ladders if there are 2 million players per tier. Let’s say you win a game and go from 40th place to 30th place on your 100 person ladder. That’s real progress. If you move from 550,000th place to 500,000th place though, are you really making progress? Technically, sure, but it probably doesn’t feel like it. There are half a million players in your league superior to you.

Matching you against opponents of a comparable skill level is the most important aspect of the matchmaking system

While Chris Beault says this is artificially inflating the ego of gamers, I’d say that one of the primary purposes of videogames is to offer concrete accomplishments where effort directly translates into reward. Outside of videogames, it’s rarely as concrete.

Is it really deceptive to players to divide them into divisions within each league? Does Chris believe there are players out there who see 5 tiers with 100 people in each tier and jump to the conclusion that every player believes there are only 500 people playing the game?

There is even precedent for this type of separation: World of Warcraft has multiple servers, each of which contain a small fraction of the total player base. While this is partially because of server limitations, it’s also because it’s difficult for players to come to terms with numbers in the millions.

You might not notice man, but your buildings are on fire. Might want to check that out

Chris claims it’s deceptive; I say players can easily deal with 100 player divisions. They understand if they’re 30th in their division out of 100 players, that’s equivalent to a percentile. They’re better than about 70% of the players in their league.

The second criticism is that the leagues hold no purpose because you’re occasionally pitted against players in the league above or below yours. I disagree with this conclusion. When you are approaching the top or bottom echelon of your current league, the game pits you against players in the league above or below yours respectively to see if you should be promoted or demoted.

If you’re in the top 5 in your division of 100 in the silver league, the game is going to pit you against players in the gold league frequently. If you lose most of your games against them, then you probably deserve to stay where you are. If, however, you still win the majority of your games, then eventually you’re going to be promoted to the gold league. The same is true if you’re at the bottom of your league; if you still lose to players in the league below you on a consistent basis, then you’re going to be demoted.

It's kind of unfair that this guy's base is surrounded by lava. Usually people can just run right into mine and kill me

The point of the ladders is to match you with players against whom you will win half the time. The pace of games and the strategies used between leagues are significantly different. Just because you win most of the time in your league doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to cut it in the league above yours, or vice versa.

Chris’ final criticism is that there needs to be more transparency in the system that promotes or demotes you. He also wonders why it’s not based solely on wins; after all isn’t that what’s important?

For those that haven’t played the game, after a match ends there is a scoring summary based on resource usage, units created and destroyed and structures destroyed. The exact breakdown of points isn’t revealed, but generally it lines up with the player who performs the best overall having the highest score. This isn’t always reflective of who is the best player; in some 2v2 games for example, a team with both attack and cripple one ally, reducing his ability to perform for the rest of the game. Even if he’s the best player he probably won’t end up with the highest score.

Placement and promotion / demotion is likely partially determined by this score as well as the win/loss record. This is completely reasonable to me as the game only uses 5 placement matches to put you into a league. What if in every match you barely squeak out a win against potentially terrible players, are you really deserving of a spot in the platinum league? You’ll just be crushed until you’re demoted down to an appropriate level (if you even stick with a game where you constantly lose for that long).

If, on the other hand, you crush all your opponents and end the game with 2-3x their score, then you’re likely a more proficient player. It’s not an exact science, but it’s good enough for me. If Blizzard broke down exactly how the game rated you, then people would start to game the system.

Plug and play

Blizzard is trying something incredible with Starcraft II: perfect matchmaking. The long term viability of their game is going to hinge on its success, but I encourage the attempt whatever the result. Being able to press a button that says ‘find game’ and having it swiftly match you with another player at your skill level is incredible.

What Chris Beault wants is the status quo of a decade ago: gamers would create a server and find players of their own skill level on their own. That’s like installing drivers for your new mouse before it would work, or entering the IP address of the other computers on your network. Everything is plug and play now. You just log on and you’re good to go. Why shouldn’t game matchmaking function in a similar manner?

Gamers criticize Starcraft for being too elitist, or inaccessible, or having regressive design. The game is the highest selling RTS of all time though, and one of the best selling games ever. Whatever Blizzard is doing is resonating with gamers, and the interest across the internet for the sequel is sky high.

Not only is the game still in beta and therefore exempt from criticism, but its level of polish is incredible. The matchmaking system could use minor tweaking but at its foundation it is certainly not a flaw.

Is this really what it has come to? Is social gaming the future of gaming, as many Facebook gamers claim? Is a single player experience in the form of ‘core games’ a brief aberration that will be relegated to the least social of creatures?

Social Domination

The games director for Facebook, Gareth Davis, says that solo gaming is an aberration, and that games have almost always been social and with Farmville and other Facebook games they’re just going back to their roots.

He claims that Facebook is the largest game platform in the world and that more people play Facebook games than on any other platform. While there’s no official metric, with 350 million users vs. 120 million Playstations sold I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Shit yeah ... you're right, that *does* look fun ...

What Davis’ statistics don’t take into consideration is that Facebook games are just awful, and barely qualify as games. Farmville is a monotonous money grab, where millions of players fork over money to Zynga to be able to harvest their raspberries faster.

In addition, Facebook gaming is hardly a social activity. Mafia Wars is considered social because your abilities in the game depend on the number of friends you have on your social network. There’s no interaction in the game between you and somebody else though, other than through a generic ‘X player has attacked you’ message that appears every so often.

Many ’social gamers’ would suggest that they’d rather pay $15 a month to harvest crops with their friends than pay it to monster game designer Blizzard who steals lives through the ungodly juggernaut known as World of Warcraft.

According to them, World of Warcraft players are loners who cry themselves to sleep in the dark, rather than social butterflies who love interacting with guildies and other server denizens but are held back in real life by their most likely terrifying personal appearance and crippled self confidence.

Yeah, you're making 'successories,' that really makes you better

Core gamers, unite

Go to any game convention and you’re going to see people dressed up to celebrate their favorite game characters. Nathan Drake, Master Chief, Gordon Freeman, the Left 4 Dead gang, Final Fantasy characters and Solid Snake are just a few of the icons that have brought so much joy to so many. When was the last time you saw somebody dressed up as a blueberry, or a tractor, to celebrate Farmville?

Farmville takes advantage of a simple human need for easily defined accomplishment, and while many games do the same thing, there are also stories told and experiences shared. I guess you could recant the tale of the last harvest in Farmville, but if the person you’re talking to cares (and has played the game) they likely know exactly what you’re going to say.

I take it back ... plant cosplay is great

Core games are the past and the future of gaming, and while Facebook games are going to exist in their own niche, there’s room for expansion and not exclusion.

Brick breaker on the Blackberry is played by millions of businessmen across the globe. They likely don’t consider themselves gamers. I hesitate to call Farmville players ‘gamers,’ as that term is reserved for a different experience.

Having said all that, I am still going to do their bidding as I assume they will give me a share of the mammoth riches they earn with their new game. Red Redemption, are you ready for your closeup?

Red Redemption announced their new game, ‘Fate of the World,’ yesterday, which is an environmental simulation. The game lets players explore the next two centuries, trying out geoengineering, fusion power, wildlife adaption and  many other options to solve environmental challenges. The mewling population demands more food, power and living space, and you have to figure out how to satisfy them.

For more details, see the press release below:

March 30th, 2010, Oxford, England – Red Redemption Ltd finally announces that “Fate of the World” will be the title of its latest game currently scheduled for release in the 3rd Quarter of 2010. “Fate of the World” is a nail biting set of global warming scenarios covering 200 years of Earth’s existence. At the heart of the game are 10 ‘Masterplans’ where the player calls the shots for all mankind including ‘Apocalypse’ where the gut wrenching goal is to raise the planet’s temperature a lethal degree; ‘Lifeboat’ where the goal is to save only the player while abandoning everyone else to whatever catastrophes await them; and ‘Utopia’ where a player can try to build a perfect society while battling population growth.

‘Fate of the World’ lets players explore the next two centuries, trying out geoengineering, fusion power, wildlife adaption, and many other brain teasing and sometimes alarming, options. The balancing act of protecting the Earth’s resources and climate versus the needs of an ever-growing world population, who are demanding ever more food, power, and living space, creates a challenging videogame containing many surprises.

Red Redemption’s Managing Director, Klaude Thomas, formerly producer of #1 charting ‘Battlestations: Midway’ for Eidos, is producer of “Fate of the World”. Thomas said ‘our original title was “Climate Challenge”, which built on the success of our BBC game in 2007, but we wanted the final title to reflect the wider scope of the game and suggest the black humour you sometimes need to face such a scary subject. The environmental apocalypse before us is a terrible and compelling car crash. To stretch that metaphor unforgivably, we sometimes feel we’re in the passenger seat. “Fate of the World” puts us back in the driver’s seat.’

Based in Oxford, England, indie games company Red Redemption (http://www.red-redemption.com) makes games that provoke and challenge. “Fate of the World” is a PC & Mac title being released in Q3 2010.

I'm pretty sure no matter how you play the game this is the outcome

Can you feel the excitement?

Does it concern anybody else that Mike Morhaime (head of Blizzard) now reports directly to Thomas Tippl? Is this the beginning of the end for Blizzard?

Blizzivision

When Activision bought Blizzard from Vivendi we all panicked a little at the prospect of the evil overlords at Activision getting their hands on some of the most beloved franchises in gaming. Both Activision and Blizzard were at the time adamant that the parent company respected the atmosphere at Blizzard and wouldn’t attempt to interfere.

With the new restructuring, however, we all now know that was merely to put us off our guard. They just needed to wait a couple years before making this move. It’s a slippery slope, and while I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing Guitar Hero: Azeroth or advertisements for Blur in Diablo III in the near future, that’s not what I’m worried about.

Diablo III brought to you by Activision's Blur

Activision has constantly shown they can’t manage a franchise. The only reason they got lucky with Call of Duty was because they stumbled across Infinity Ward, and they ruined that despite having a great thing going. Their latest creations, Tony Hawk Ride and DJ Hero, were by all accounts abject failures (despite getting sequels which are most likely a desperate attempt to recover invested capital).

Blizzard, on the other hand, has essentially never failed. Their games are not just constantly reviewed well, but have incredible longevity. World of Warcraft is the most successful MMO by orders of magnitude. Starcraft is the only game still played by millions of people (Koreans) a decade after launch, and is the only pro gaming RTS because of its quality. Finally, Diablo 2 is one of the highest selling PC games of all time and still widely played and updated today.

The secret for Blizzard, as I’ve mentioned in the past, is their incredible attention to detail and willingness to take the time necessary to refine a game. I have to believe this move at Activision was done because Starcraft II was taking too long, and they want to make sure release dates are met in the future.

At least bring back Lost Vikings, Blizzard, if you want to fuck up a franchise

Foreshadowing

While I don’t think this is going to screw up the current offerings of Starcraft II and Diablo III, they’re likely going to be the last hurrah. Maybe the next MMO that Blizzard is working on, which has been mentioned but not yet named, will avoid the taint of Activision. Nevertheless, Bobby Kotick’s commoditized approach to game design generates profit when costs are kept down, but that approach won’t work for Blizzard.

You can’t rush genius. Get out any way you can, while you can, Mike Morhaime.

Do games really need to be fun, though? Not all books are fun, and critics frequently ridicule ‘fun’ books like John Grisham novels or the Da Vinci Code. Nobody can really argue that The Hurt Locker was more fun than some of the other films released this year, but that doesn’t prevent it from winning the awards? Will games always just be fun?

Is fun exclusive from serious?

Think of the critically well received recent games? Grand Theft Auto IV was regarded as a landmark game due to the storytelling mechanisms, but that was still a ‘fun’ game. Bioshock was regarded as an innovative experience due to its narrative, and yet that game was still ‘fun.’

Games are unique in that you can’t entirely diverge from the fun aspects. At the end of the day, games aren’t that great at merely delivering a message. Instead, they’re only viable as an experience if the player is willing to continue.  Otherwise, it might as well be non-interactive.

Oh this? It's just my giant robot head. Oscar voters love that shit

It would be like if you had an Oscar bait film that had 10 minute Michael Bay interludes every 30 minutes or so just to keep you interested. Sure, there’s a message here, but there are also explosions! While Bioshock wasn’t really about killing the splicers but instead was about spinning a tale, there was a lot of splicer killing in there.

Games cannot survive, or at least nobody has figured out how to accomplish this yet, without being fun. Games don’t start with story. The best game designers generally have a concept but the early stages of game design are spent on finding a fun gameplay mechanic, not creating story.

While I think it would be great if the rest of the entertainment industry came inline with how videogames do things and started giving Best Picture awards to District 9 or Avatar, and literature awards to the most commercially entertaining books, I fear the opposite. As games mature, if they want to receive critical support from the greater community, they’re going to have to move away from fun.

Best Actor? Me? Is it my Cary Grant-esque good looks?

Even if you have a great message, if you wrap it up in a Bruckheimer package, people are going to view it differently from if it’s in a Scorsese package. Fun would seem to be antithetical to serious, and that is a shame.

Shigeru Miyamoto thinks games are all about fun, and that’s a great thing. He’s not going to be around forever, though, and I can only hope that the next generation of great game influence has the same world view.

Let’s talk about sex, baby. Let’s talk about you and me

Yes, this is a videogame sex line. You can choose what woman you want to play with, whether you want the encounter to be ‘flirty’ or ‘dirty,’ and what game you want to play. The current game choices include Halo 3, GTA IV, MW2 and Gears of War 2 as well as Yahoo Game classics such as chess and checkers etc.

This goes beyond the standard Lara Croft or Dead or Alive exploitation in games. This isn’t just a game that focuses on sex; this isn’t Leisure Suit Larry. Finally, somebody is using the communicative abilities of videogames for sex.

Dead or Alive: We thought this was as bad as it would ever get. We were wrong

While some of the women available for an encounter are of questionable quality at best, the reaction from the game community and general mass media community is confusing to me.

Why are most condemning gamers because of this? Sure, there are plenty of ‘oh my god, that’s so pathetic’ comments, but why is that the natural reaction? It’s not like people think the phone is a pathetic piece of technology despite the fact that there are tons of sex chat lines.

It’s not like people think the internet is embarrassing because of the way a number of people choose to use it. People have that reaction to gaming because they innately associate gaming with ‘loser.’

Scam alert! Russian trannies are trying to scam money out of you

Nearly 50% of US households have a videogame console, however. Pretty much everybody plays games in some way. It’s just like using a phone. I think the fact that game machines have finally graduated to ’sex chat hotline conduit’ suggests an increase in legitimacy.

Scam artists and sex fiends from Russia have finally realized that videogames are big, here to stay, and can be abused for money. We have hit the mainstream, ladies and gentlemen. Watch out.

A new game called Ribbon Hero attempts to turn learning and practicing Microsoft Office techniques into a game. This is just the first step: soon everything will use games to teach.

Games used to teach? Outrageous

Games used to teach in the past were fairly limited. We all probably used something to learn to type, either Mavis Beacon or Mario Teaches Typing or something along those lines. Sure, Mario Teaches Typing is far more of a game (and far less useful at teaching kids to type) but they were more useful than rote drills pressing various keys.

How many kids played Oregon Trail in lower school history? All I really took from that game is that dysentery is hilarious, never try to ford the river unless you have oxen to spare, and shooting buffalo is hilarious and the solution to every problem. I didn’t, however, learn much about US history.

Oregon Trail, like you've never seen it before. Bierstadt edition!

Games are used in the form of simulators to train the military and pilots. Games are used to teach learning disabled children exercises in focus. Games are used for many things, but for the most part they’re entertainment. Entertainment and work don’t traditionally mix.

Enter Ribbon Hero

Ribbon Hero aims to change all that. It’s a game that accumulates points when you do certain tasks in Microsoft Office. Did you just modify the formatting of that paragraph? 2 points! There are even challenges that you can perform specifically, most of which probably aren’t in your repertoire of skills. In this way, the game is teaching you what else the programs can accomplish.

Sure, this sounds kind of stupid at first. Who is going to play the Microsoft Office game when you can play Halo? This is obviously not for a leisure time situation. This is an extra boost when you’re doing work, or just need a second to focus on something other than the essay you’re writing.

Mario Teaches Typing ... poorly

Don’t underestimate the appeal of online leaderboards and competitiveness to encourage somebody to do something. A game like Farmville isn’t really all that different from learning Microsoft Word: you perform the same rote activities over and over, and your reward is a visual representation of progression, and competition with your friends.

80 million people play Farmville. Imagine how many are out there using Microsoft Word. You get higher points and a chance to compete against your friends through Ribbon Hero. Game designers know that they can tap into people’s natural desire for that feeling of achievement.

Is this man wearing a uniform to vacuum? Is he some sort of vacuuming cop? Or is this some weird sex game

Soon this could be implemented in many things. Maybe vacuuming turns into a game; I have to vacuum anyway, why not get some points out of it? Besides, you don’t want to be that guy that is made fun of all the time for having a disgusting apartment because his vacuuming score is the lowest.

It’s not something that’s going to happen this month, or this year. But it’s going to happen. Then we gamers will finally take over. So far we’re only taken over Korea.

A fan remade a portion of Mega Man 9 in HD, and while it’s identical to the original game (which was a retro throwback anyway) but with HD graphics, fans have not been kind to it. Critics say it removed the soul of the game. Are 8-bit graphics really that charming and expressive?

What is the appeal?

What is the appeal of the 8-bit graphics? Some of the criticism leveled at the HD remix is that ‘it looks worse despite being in HD,’ ‘the running animation looks really weird to me’ and ‘they sucked all the life and character from it.’

Let’s take these one at a time. The first is that it looks worse despite being in HD. What, exactly, does this mean? I guess what they’re trying to say is that they appreciated the blocky, jerky appearance of the original. Critics also mention the fact that colors were better in the bright and cartoony 8-bit days. Is it truly the pixellated sprites that make the difference vs. the HD version? Are they more expressive than their sharper counterparts?

The second criticism of the HD Remix is that the running looks strange. Take a look at the original mega man running animation. Yeah, that’s not strange at all.

Oh yeah - it's almost photorealistic. My mistake

Finally, critics claim the higher definition graphics suck the life from the game. What does this mean? The game has the same gameplay, and the same enemies, and the same everything except appearance. I thought graphics weren’t supposed to make a game and what really differentiated the Mega Man series was the great gameplay?

The source of all these points is that the HD version doesn’t tap into gamer nostalgia. Mega Man 9 and the recent Mega Man 10 were so well received because they were the first modern Mega Man games that just copied the style of the classic ones back when the franchise was successful. It harnessed that nostalgia that players had for the originals, and reminded them of the fun they had in the past with Mega Man.

The reason that the HD remix is disappointing to them is because this shares none of the nostalgia, and in the current context, Mega Man is simply a terrible game. Platforming games have gone in a different direction (think Ratchet & Clank or Super Mario Galaxy) because it’s far more fun. Without the nostalgia, this Mega Man offers very little.

The reason Mega Man 9 HD Remix failed is because this is how everybody thinks of HD Mega Man. Get it right!

Where is the 8-bit love?

Another reason 8-bit could be appealing is because it allows players to fill in the gaps in the graphics with their imationation. Mega Man used to run ‘properly’ to them because it was such a loose an unrealistic animation that they could interpret it any way they wanted. It was merely a signal that said ‘running.’

In the HD version, on the other hand, Mega Man is actually running in a fluid enough way that there is little room for interpretation. If your imagination of the manner in which Mega Man runs lines up with that version perfectly, great, but if not it’s going to look strange. It would be like a muscular Unreal Engine 3 version of Mario in new games; it just wouldn’t look right.

Artist renditions of 8-bit graphics are accepted because we understand it's merely one person's interpretation of the characters; once they're official, however, watch out. Fanboy backlash

The same thing can be said of the character portraits. In the old game, they were clearly vague and cartoony and I’m sure players imagined some of the bosses to be complicated robots. When you smooth out the graphics and put everything into HD, however, and they’re still just simple and bizarre foes, things get a little strange. The limitations on Galaxy Man in HD could previously be attributed to simplified graphics when to Mega Man he was a sophisticated foe; in HD he merely looks like an idiot.

There are many things to like about 8-bit graphics, but chief among them is nostalgia and room for imagination.

Is the flaw with the HD remix of Mega Man 9 really in the game, or is it in ourselves? Something to ponder. Until next time, be good to yourselves, and each other.*

* Not a serious conclusion to the article (for the inevitable flame responses)

PSN likes to push that it offers greater value because there’s no subscription fee. Is $5/month really that crippling? Is the worse functionality offered by PSN worth the savings? Hardly.

Missing the forest for the trees

Xbox charges a $5/month fee, or various packages if you sign up for longer periods of time such as $40/year, and there are also tiered subscription packages. Sony has long held that their PSN offering is much more valuable because it’s free.

Are you really going to care about paying the equivalent of 2/3 of a game for a better online experience for the year? Most gamers purchase 6-7 games per year for their console, so you’re talking about a required 10% increase in game experience quality on Xbox Live vs. PSN to repay that difference.

The real reason Xbox is better? Ground FX

PSN has come a long way from its early years. The store front is about comparable to Xbox Live. The internet functionality is about the same (although who really cares or uses a console for that?). The friends list is comparable.

PSN falls short in two specific areas: voice chat and developer support.

Nobody has a mic?

Cooperative has come into its own in the past 5 years with the expansion of online console functionality. While it’s possible to execute well in free for all deathmatch without voice chat, and even to do some team deathmatch without voice chat, it’s very difficult to coordinate with other players online without being able to speak to them.

On a computer you can type messages if you’re fast enough. On a console you merely have to sit silently. I was playing Borderlands for the first time online with a friend and we were using Skype to chat back and forth because neither of us had a PS3 mic. It was a revelation. I had given up on Borderlands other than in solo play because it was simply too hard to play with everybody when we were all silent. Being able to speak changed all that.

I know PS3 has their own proprietary mic although functionality is spotty at best and it’s horrifically uncomfortable. In addition, it’s ridiculous to have to listen to either a mic or the game sound. Turtle Beach is a hugely influential gaming headset manufacturer, and until recently they didn’t even offer a unified PS3 voice chat and sound headset. The demand simply wasn’t there, because voice chat functionality on the PS3 is laughable.

I'm jealous of all these Trials HD players. Sure, I can play it on the PC via Steam, but the controls are horse balls

PS3 simply falls short compared to Xbox in the voice chat department, and all the PSN store front changes or improvements in PS1 offerings online aren’t going to close the gap with Xbox Live. This is one of the few areas where I’m jealous of Xbox owners.

Developer support

The other difference where Xbox Live really wins vs. PSN is in developer support. Think back as recently as this past summer where the Summer of Arcade was happening on Xbox Live. Not only were there some great offerings like Trials HD, Splosion Man and even Shadow Complex, one of the most highly regarded games of the year.

I chose a PS3 over an Xbox because  I prefer the exclusives. I like Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Uncharted and InFamous over Gears of War and Halo. That being said, had I known the online functionality gap pre-purchase, I might have changed my mind.

Shadow Complex: Not just online game of the year, but contender for overall game of the year. Sadly Xbox only ...

PSN is making vast improvements, they’re just not in the areas that count. They need to step up their voice support and create some incentives to go into the store beyond Critter Crunch to really close the gap. They claim they have a value offering. Sure, it’s cheaper, but is cheap necessarily representative of value?

You know what’s also cheaper than PS3? Not buying a PS3.