Name: Anna Sheglova

Company: 1C Company

Profession: PR Manager

Favorite Classic Game: King’s Bounty

Quote: King’s Bounty was released in 1990 and became the ancestor for a great number of modern game series. The fairytale spirit of the game made a huge amount of players spend hours completing the quests for one of the four characters chosen, travelling through the game world, searching for treasures and building up armies to fight for the glory of the King.

Show me a gaming blog and I will show you a section full of sexy pictures so Obsolete Gamer does not claim to be hip, fresh or original in the regard. With that said we like the ladies and we like games so we thought why not show off some lovely ladies of gaming? Well, we are still waiting for the pictures to come in so in the meantime check out some of these loosely game related pictures and, you’re welcome.

The topic of building a pc or having it built for you is not new, in fact I wrote about that very subject earlier this year. However we wanted to ask some of the people who make a living offering custom built systems what they thought of the building versus buying debate and so we reached out and ended up having three great conversations on the subject.

We began the show with my recounting my first showing up at the Red-Eye Lan party with my Compaq PC and being almost laughed out of the building and from there learned that being a real gamer meant building your own PC. Then I began working at Alienware and from that side I saw how having a great team put together and support your own rig is pretty awesome in itself. Both Ignacio and I agreed that while it is true that almost anyone can put together a system it takes a little bit more to build a great gaming or high end PC and if you can find a good company who will offer you support and a reasonable price then why not go for it.

We wanted to get our guests take on it and were happy to be joined by Chris Morley, chief technical officer for Maingear PC, Justin Melendez, co-founder of LanSlide PC and John Blain, consumer public relations for Dell/Alienware.

Each company has a different way of doing things, but the overall goal is the same and that is to give the customer the best computer they can at a price they can afford with a support staff they can depend on. In fact they will tell you that if you have a love of building a PC then go for it. However, it is not for everyone and if you decide you want a well-built system then do you research and be informed before you make your final choice.

Obsolete Gamer would like to thank our guests for coming on the show and we covered much more than just PC building and buying. So have a listen and tell us what you think.

Click here to listen to the podcast on the OGS page

Or download our podcast from Itunes

Check out the Classic Gaming Profile for Super Mario RPG

As always Obsolete Gamer supports the artists and composers of our favorite video game music. Support great work by purchasing the original soundtrack.

]]> http://obsoletegamer.com/super-mario-rpg-ost/feed/ 0 http://obsoletegamer.com/eitan-glinert-fire-hose-games/ http://obsoletegamer.com/eitan-glinert-fire-hose-games/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:03:57 +0000 J.A. Laraque http://obsoletegamer.com/?p=5830

Name: Eitan Glinert

Company: Fire Hose Games

Profession: Creative Director and Fire Chief

Favorite Classic Game: (Can’t pick just one) Marble Madness and Lemmings

Quote: Marble Madness was one of the best games ever created, and is STILL fun today more than two decades later. I used to play on the Amiga 2000 with my older sister; she preferred the mouse, while I preferred the obviously superior joystick. The game was ridiculously hard, and between the “Silly” 5th level and the “Ultimate” 6th level it taught me the meaning of frustration.

Lemmings was a fantastic time sink; some of the later levels were some of the best designed puzzles I’ve ever seen. I used to stay up late coming up with strategies for how to beat certain levels with my dad (he always had better ideas than me, but hey I was 6!)

Of course, what community deserves to be treated like waste right away? That’s right! The World of Warcraft community. I couldn’t help myself when I realized my Warlock could summon people. It didn’t take long for me to come up with a way to grief people in my guild. It took me awhile to convince my wife to assist me in opening the portal though. Every guild has a leech. They don’t help out but love to beg for assistance. Well once, my wife, a friend in the guild, and myself invited this one member who wanted to run Scarlet Monastery with us. He was in the group and in Ironforge with us when we decided to run together. Unfortunately, when we began to run he didn’t leave IF. He chose to remain silent and not say a word.

When we made it to SM we said “Geez, there are a lot of Horde outside the door PvP enabled.” (we played on a PvP server so now they could just face rape us at this point). Suddenly, our player who took a vow of silence broke his promise to God and spoke up asking for a summon to the doors. I was pissed because I knew he was just eating shit so he didn’t have to do the walk and waited for us to reach the monastery. In any case, we summoned him. We did the entire instance and of course… he kept hitting need on everything. When we completed the instance we all hearthed back to Ironforge to repair and sell our loot. The bloodsucker decided to stay behind in SM to PvP. He then had the nerve to ask for a summon back to Ironforge when he had enough. When I asked him why he didn’t just use his stone he told me he didn’t want to waste the cooldown.

This is where my brilliant idea kicked in. After insisting to my wife this was just, I ran over to the forge and made my portal over the lava pit in Ironforge. Our friend and my wife clicked the portal and the ill begotten fool accepted his passage into hell! I watched as his body entered the zone and pulled a Wyle E. Coyote as he must’ve looked down and then back at me. If there was a /helpsign emote it would’ve fit this moment perfectly. The lighting of the flames below pressed against my pixilated face as I looked down relishing his death at the hands of the forging fires. There was no way out. I saw him attempt to hearth only to have it interrupted. He died and I laughed.

The mischief doesn’t end there. After the release of Burning Crusade I decided to make a Draenei Mage. It was a ton of fun and I didn’t mind handing out food and water to people. Being a vending machine was cool beans and I didn’t care one bit about handing out replenishment. At least, I didn’t mind until the Mage Buffet Table spell was added and everyone begged me to make this table every time we entered Alterac Valley. I wanted to get my killing on, not supply you with a reagent required buffet. No one ever paid me back or said thank you for it. They just asked rudely. This is when I decided to really put a damper on their day. AV had a long queue and I knew their punishment would be severe. The plan was set. Time to see if it would work. I opened up the portal and told every to click to summon the table. In an instant, four people disappeared. Yeah, I did it! I opened a portal to Stormwind and the dumb asses started clicking it and got ported out of AV. They had to begin the queue again from the beginning. I felt like a Golden God laughing down at the pathetic peons of the mortal plane!

My tenacity for tomfoolery didn’t begin in World of Warcraft, though. Years prior to this, when Everquest was still managed by Verant, there were events in the game run by the Game Masters. These GM Events would have players running all over Norrath trying to complete the task handed out to them. Normally you’d be able to tell it was a GM by their “Anonymous” tinted name and their quest format speech. They would put key words to ask them in [brackets] so that the player would know how to proceed to the next step of the quest.

Well… one boring night, my cousin and I decided to find some newbies in Misty Thicket and pretend we were GMs. I was walking around the newbie area with my name tinted purple for anonymous. I began to say, in quest format, “Oh dear! Where is my cousin [Finkle]?” A group of players, somehow believing this to be a GM evenet approached me and asked “Who is Finkle?” I turned to them in reply and gave them a long block of text informing them about my cousin and how I couldn’t find him in Rivervale and that I would appreciate if they would speak to him for me.

As they ran into Rivervale, my cousin was set up the same way and told them they should go out to Runnyeye to find me as I was patrolling the goblin city and they shouldn’t be startled by my disguise should they find me. When he told me they were coming I hauled ass into Runnyeye and put on my Mask of the Deceiver. When they found me I informed the players Finkle required 4 spider silks and to meet him in Erudin. The players foolishly then ran around Misty Thicket looking for silk to further the quest. It was at this time we logged out and wondered if they actually ran to Erudin. For those who didn’t play EQ and have played WoW, running from Rivervale to Runnyeye is the equivalent of running from Orgrimmar to the Crossroads. We asked them to do this three times.

Of all of these pranks, my favorite one is still the one where I got revenge in Everquest in Lower Guk. On my server, there was a monk who just loved to train people in LGUK by feigning death near groups and also killing the LFG people at the entrance. He did this all day. He was heartless. A cold and calculating monster. A scourge amongst the undead froglok blight. I was getting tired of attempting to cheese it towards the zone line while sliding around on the grime covered floors of this cesspool. I decided to challenge him to a duel. This druid sitting at the entrance kept giving him conjured nourishment while I AFK’d for a bit. When I came back, I read that he said “Enough! My bags are full!” The Norse God Loki must have whispered this sweet decadent idea to me as my smile spanned from ear to ear. The monk was dual wielding Wu’s Fighting Sticks, a rather expensive item in the game.

I initiated the duel and we began our battle. The time to commence my plan was at hand. I used my disarming ability on the bastard! I know, nowadays, disarming someone just disable the weapon, but in Everquest it put the item back in your bags. When your bags are full, well… your item falls to the ground. I saw his staff on the floor, picked it up and zoned out. I made my way to GFAY and sold it immediately. I was never contacted by a GM or by this monk ever and I made it away clean with an extra 4k platinum in my pocket. Justice was served for causing all those death penalties in Guk you son of a bitch, I thought triumphantly to myself.

Those are my stories of malicious intent towards others in the gaming community but what we really want to know at OG is what you’ve done even more! Please reply and let us know what kind of a horrible person you really are!

Name: Chris Parsons

Company: Muzzy Lane Software

Profession: Product Manager, all around game geek

Favorite Classic Game: X-Com, Terror from the Deep

Quote: Incredibly deep content: a mix of turn-based squad combat, RPG, and resource management.  You carefully nurtured and grew your squad and it really hurt when some of your favorites died horribly.  TFTD was the sequel to the original.   It added multiple levels for the underwater battle maps, and once you had advanced armor, you could float to the top of ships, blow holes in the top and sides of the ship, and enter.  The various locations: alien ships and bases on the sea floor, cities, resorts and cruise ships under attack, each required different strategies to achieve success.  In each case, the entire map was almost completely destructible.  From base layout to weapon loadouts to combat formations, players had a vast amount of control over how they could proceed.  Created in the mid-1990’s, the game mechanics and breadth of content would be considered ambitious even by today’s standards.

You back away into your corner to lean against the wall, bumping aside the tin bucket that houses your excrements against the cool checkered tiled floor. You don’t know where you are. Neither does your family. The only person who you had to talk to was Chuck and now he’s…

You try to push away the thought from your mind but you know that Chuck’s fate will soon be yours to share. The captors are growing impatient by the day. They never reacted with physical abuse until recently. Flesh has rendered from your back by the act of multiple whipping tears. Vision is barely able to enter your swollen right eye and the deprivation of liquid has parched your throat like sand paper.

The door creaks opens. Immediately, arms raise to cover eyes burning from the clarity. A heart begins to hyperventilate and the natural mechanic of fight or flight is hindered. There is nowhere to run but you are in condition to fight. A large brawly man walks in, his knuckles cut from Chuck’s climactic send off. Your spirit sinks as his shadow cascades over you. Like a dog pissing themselves in fear, a small whimper manages to escape your lips.

The loud clanking of a stool being dragged against the floor sends chills down your spine. The monster sits before you with a look of perplexity. He takes out his blue steel .357 MAG. revolver. He opens the chamber and pulls out one bullet from the front pocket of his Guayabera, kissing it gently before loading and snapping the gun shut. Leaning forward, a smile manages to cross his dark expression. You can smell the stinging scent of Vodka on his breath. He looks back at the gun before extended his arm out to press the nozzle against your forehead.

“You probably don’t recognize the brand of this gun? Why would you? You spend your whole life playing video games you don’t know the real cruelties in life, huh? Taurus International Manufacturing; not only is it cheap, it’s got some power and reliability too.”

You feel the gun press harder against your skull. Your eyes are fixated on his crucifix bracelet. You weren’t much of a believer in the man but right now anything would do. Your thoughts beg out and cry to God for mercy. The only real pain you feel right now is the anguish of your teeth reaching their breaking point from biting down in anticipation of your end.

The man stands up causing the stool to collapse hard against the floor all the while pushing more force against your forehead, burrowing down into your skin. Your bowels let loose. This is it. No chance to say your good byes or make any amends for past regrets.

“You have one chance!”, the man shouts. Your eyes open wide in surprise and air rushes out of your body as if someone knocked it out of you. “My kids don’t like me much and all they do is play games. My wife says I should try to understand them and get closer to them, ya know? I don’t know where to begin. I don’t have patience as you can see with your friend Chuck. Suggest me one game that’ll get my attention right away so I have something to talk to my kids about. Name one fucking game! I’ll go grab it and come back here and play it. If it’s as good as you say it is, I’ll let you go! Promise to God!”

Someone out there must really love you or hate you. Do you know any games that are good enough to make a stone cold killer addicted enough to let you go or are you only prolonging your death with your shitty choice.

This is your chance! Don’t fuck it up!

The Obsolete Gamer T-Shirt Contest ended and the winners were Jeffrey Patrick and Phil Onitsuka. Gentlemen, let me know what size shirt you want. I have 2 XL Obsolete Gamer shirts already made but if you need a different size let me know. Send me an email or text me with your address so I take it to you or ship it to you. Thank you for your support and participation.

Another contest will be coming soon, this one with 3 winners and better prizes! I decided to give the first contest 2 winners rather than one at the last minute. Why not?

Everyone has been through it, at one time or another you have had to wait in a small, cramped and completely boring waiting room. It really doesn’t matter what you were waiting for though waiting for a car repair or doctor’s appointment can be the worse. Let’s face it, you don’t want to read those crappy magazines they have from six months ago and the television channel is showing The View. Back in the day you would have to just tough it out, drink some awful coffee and maybe strike up a conversation, but thanks to portable gaming that has all changed.

Now you can play a ton of games across many platforms from console handhelds to the iPad. Today you are not even stuck playing simple flash games, with systems like the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable you can play brand new high graphic games anywhere. So that leads us to this week’s Insider Discussion; If you were stuck in a waiting room for hours and had to choose one game to play which one would it be?

For me it would be puzzle games. For some reason I just can’t enjoy games like Tetris and Super Puzzle Fighter at home on my 51 inch HDTV. However, when I am waiting for someone or something to get done I love to break out a good puzzle game and watch the time fly by. You can find so many great puzzle games no matter what platform you play on and once you get into it that hefty repair bill or super long doctor’s needle won’t seem so painful.

Now let’s see what our panel of insiders said:

Mathew Anderson from Petroglyphgames wrote:

“World of Warcraft (or any other similar MMORPG). Why? Because you can easily spend hours in the game on a variety of tasks, many of which can take hours to complete in and of themselves. Or simply chat with others around you. I mean, who wants to talk to real people in a waiting room when you have an entire virtual world to explore, right?! Games within games, “virtual” persons instead of real ones… do those count? ”

Chris Skaggs from Soma Games wrote:

If that happened today, it’d be Mirrors Edge – which I’m absolutely loving.

Justin Melendez from Lan Slide PC’s wrote:

A few months ago I was stuck in an airport for about 12 hours during which time I played a fair amount of Starcraft, Aion and Borderlands. Had Starcraft 2 been out I probably would have queued up for some multilayer matches to pass the time.

Aaron Hunter from Playtechtonics Inc wrote:

Civilization 4 is a good for me, a real time-killer!

Josiah Pisciotta from Chronic Logic wrote:

Right now I would say Civilization IV, nothing makes time fly by like that game.  Plus if the wait turned into days instead of hours not only would I still be playing but I probably wouldn’t even notice

Corey Dangel from Detonator Games wrote:

Getting stuck in a waiting room for hours happens to me more often than I’d care to admit! Typically I just play a version of Spider Solitaire on my Android. I’m on a quest to break the 4 minute barrier (I’ve only gotta shave off 3 seconds so I know i can do it) so it actually can entertain me for quite some time. But if I was thinking ahead, or had the ability to manifest a game + device out of thin air, I’d play Scribblenauts for the DS. It’s such a creative game with so many ways to enjoy it.

Danny Greig from XGEN Studios wrote:

Street Fighter 2 or Super Mario Kart.  Both can be played for hours on a portable device without getting old. However if a console is an option, the choice would be Super Smash Bros (Any of them).

David Warhol from Realtime Associates wrote:

I actually found myself in this situation, and it was when Wario: Touched! for the Nintendo DS came out.  It is both very light-hearted which was helpful, and the game sessions were so quick you can pause & put it away at any time.  Plus of course it’s portable.

Grace Snoke from EOGamer wrote:

I love puzzle games and tower games.  Games like Bejeweled, Jewels, Collapse, things like that always eat up my time. I get involved in them and hours disappear because I’m constantly trying to beat my best score.  Or, if all else fails, Plants vs. Zombies, which is a tower game.  Best time waster ever.

Jacob Stevens from Riverman Media wrote:

Right now that would have to be Super Mario Galaxy 2. SMG2 is a textbook on excellent game design. Every mission of every level is different, it’s tough but never frustrating, and there are all sorts of surprises from beginning to end.

Name: John “The Gaming Griefer” Blain

Company: Dell/Alienware

Position: Consumer Public Relations

Favorite Classic Game: Street Fighter 2

Quote: Dhalsim, after winning a fight: “Now you’ve realized the inner mysteries of Yoga!” – I spent enough money on this game in the arcade to put a down payment on a small house. Nothing was more satisfying than having a bunch of people line up to put their quarters down to try and kick you off the cabinet, and playing for an hour or more on 1 quarter.

I’m unsure if the sway towards Sephiroth is because a lot of people played FF VII as their first real RPG and considered anything before that garbage or mediocre. I do agree that Final Fantasy VII was a fantastic game and that Sephiroth was indeed a cool villain. The thing is, he didn’t accomplish much and his role as a villain was rather one dimensional. His creativity for slaughter was usually left with a sword swing and some fire. His actual development as a character was rather bland and nonexistent.

I know. I know.

Take a deep breath.

It hurts to hear this kind of criticism about the One Winged Angel but I’m about to open your eyes to a true villain. Someone who’s appearance was comical but their lust for destruction was their only drive in life. There wasn’t a waking moment where this monster didn’t think about the end of the world. Many villains feel this way but he isn’t a Cobra Commander or Doctor Claw replica. Where many villains fail and constantly try again, Kefka succeeds. Here’s a look into the devilish antics performed by the supernatural sociopath known as Kefka Palazzo.

As the game begins, Kefka Palazzo is only known as the Emperor’s Court Wizard and doesn’t seem to be more than just some queer looking clown. The Emperor decides to begin a process of infusing Magitek into humans. Kefka decides to volunteer for this process and is able to wield magic. Come to think of it… how was this guy the Court Wizard if he couldn’t control magic to begin with? Anyway, an obvious homage to Captain America occurs and Kefka becomes Captain Magitek and stops the World War that is plaguing the planet and is pronounced the savior of the world.

The End.

Things didn’t work out that way, sadly, for Kefka and he turned into a psychopath who deemed that everything ever in the entire world had to die. He became the Joker with magic. He forces Terra, the main character in the story, to wear a slave crown and attack a town that claims to have an Esper in their mines. Terra manages to escape the enslavement and runs off. Kefka, obviously angered by this decides to burn down an ENTIRE fucking castle just to kill a bitch. Pretty hardcore right? Sephiroth lit up a small secluded town but Kefka razed a whole castle.

After burning down a castle what else should you do? Grow impatient obviously! The Empire decides to attack the Kingdom of Doma and begins a long and drawn out siege. What does Kefka do to make things move a long faster? Does he impale a girl in the back with a sword? Hell no. Kefka poisons the kingdom’s water supply killing everyone inside, including Cyan’s, one of your party members, wife and his children. I don’t remember any Final Fantasy villains poisoning the innocent because they were consuming too much of their schedule.

When you’ve poisoned an entire kingdom what else can you do at the end of the day? Drink a cold beer and watch some TV? Take a hot shower and go to bed? Or freeze all your enemies in place and order one of them to prove their loyalty and kill their friends? The latter sounds like the best idea for this bad ass motherfucker. Unfortunately, the character he ordered to prove their loyalty stabbed him instead. But guess what? Big whoop. Instead of getting medical treatment he kills his king and draws in the powers of a couple of magical statues to become a God.

Looks like your team fucked up, huh? This guy is God and you know what his first order of business is? He isn’t going to hang a meteor over your most populated city. He reshaped the entire planet pushing it into a post apocalyptic world and then demanded people to worship him. You know what happened to the millions of people who said “Fuck that!” collectively? Independence Day. He burned them down with enough force to carve scars into the planet’s surface.

He became a God and forced people into his worship and still that isn’t good enough. This cum dumpster decides it’s a damn good idea to just end life since that shit is meaningless to him. Sure he’s defeated by the heroes of the story but that’s the point! He didn’t care if he died. In reality, he probably let them win because he was too much of a bad ass to die. He figured he was way to cool for the world of the living anyway. His death was his final “F U” to the world since he already fucked it up and now he’s dead and doesn’t have to bother to clean that shit up.

By now, I’m hoping your frothing has ended and you realize the error of your ways. I know it’s going to be hard to put away your Sephiroth figurines and wall posters but you have finally been educated or rather re-educated in the makings of a true monster and villain. You may subconsciously still blurt out Sephiroth’s name like a slutty wife screaming out her secret lover’s name when the question arises as to who is the greatest Final Fantasy antagonist but you will feel that itching in the back of your mind. You know you’re wrong and some day you can even accept that.

Let’s be frank. Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is a very weird and very frustrating platformer from the early ages of the 8-bit era. It was one of my first Sega Master System games, and one of the only ones that I could manage to beat. The levels were colorful, the enemies bizarre, and to this day, I’m still not really sure what the hell the story was about. I think it has something to do with collecting the signs of the zodiac. “Find the Miracle Ball,”says the disembodied digitized voice. This is almost all of the storyline you have to go on aside from the blurb on the back of the box.

Its predecessor, Alex Kidd In Miracle World, had a lot more going on for it: breakable blocks, purchasable items and power-ups, a varied terrain that seamlessly went from vertical to horizontal, and to top it all off: a freaking motorcycle. AKIMW is also one of the hardest things I’ve ever played and I don’t think I’ve even gotten past the second stage.

Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars shares the same protagonist, but its gameplay is almost nothing alike. To me, it seems more like Wonder Boy crossed with a hallucinogen-fueled nightmare. The erstwhile Sega mascot can no longer deliver his trademark punch, and is left pretty much defenseless until he gets an “S” card power up which allows him to shoot some sort of energy wave. They’ve thankfully done away with the one-hit death system from Miracle World and have replaced it with a health bar that also serves as a timer. An unlimited amount of continues makes this decently kid-friendly; the disturbing sound clip of Alex Kidd screaming every time he dies, probably does not, however. And die you will. Often.

The seven levels in Lost Stars consist of Toyland, a robot assembly line, some sort of Halloween crap-forest, an underwater escapade, some dinosaur crap, the inside of a body, and a low-gravity outer-spaced themed area simply known as Ziggurat. The action is solely limited to “run from the left side of the stage to the right” while jumping over pitfalls and dodging enemies. The game features angled surfaces, swinging ropes, and a few different types of platforms that will drop, raise, dissolve, or launch you into the air, but nothing really breaks the monotony of left-to-right. In place of end bosses, the final screen of the level has some sort of hazard to navigate to get to the Exit sign. Most of these you can run right through without much of a problem, but others will snag you in a flurry of overlapping projectiles that will make you lose precious time and take you back to the start of that screen.

The enemies in this game are something else. Some of them fit right in with their themed levels, such as a puppy that spits a rainbow of colored letters in Toyland or the falling anchors and octopuses of the undersea level. Others, such as the outer-space penguins of Ziggurat, the rolling baby heads in the esophagus area of the body stage, and the naked men that shoot skulls out of their asses from the Halloween area,  left me scratching my head. Certain previously encountered enemies will act completely different later in the same level (oh, now they jump!), which furthers the frustration level. I’m unsure whether to haul ass to the edge of the screen or take my time, as things will drop down on you from the top of the screen pretty much either way.

Power ups are haphazardly scattered around the levels and many are invisible until you’ve come within a certain distance, which means you will probably be jumping around like an amphetamine-crazed pogo enthusiast for much of your playing time. Most of the items don’t have any obvious use aside from the “J” card that doubles your jump height, the “SC” card that will partially replenish your health bar, and the aforementioned “S” that gives you a limited number of projectiles. What does a mirror or a clown head do? Beats me. There is a score system in place but you can’t see any numbers until after clearing a stage, so I’m never sure if the point items are worth the risk.

The game features one of the most maddeningly asinine second halves I’ve ever seen. Here’s how I think this went down. The developers come up with six or seven wildly imaginative levels pushing the boundaries of the Master System’s graphic capabilities and nearly taking up all of the cartridge space. It goes into play-testing and they realize that the game is simply too short. They don’t have room for many more assets, so some genius gets the idea to simply re-use the levels again in the same order, without so much as a palette swap. There are a few more enemies and the power ups are harder to come by, but the player is simply left to trudge through the whole game a second time to find the other six signs of the zodiac. It could be the original NG+, except for the fact that you didn’t even really beat the game yet.

Alex Kidd still had about five years left as Sega’s mascot but they were already starting to give him the raw deal with this title. It has since been released on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, so you don’t have to scout flea markets and garage sales for this whimsical piece of trash. I can’t say it offers much replay value, as you’re already sick of it by the time you get to the first stage your second time. I had to force myself to complete it and I was not terribly surprised by the lack of a satisfying ending. Fun for masochists of all ages!

Name: Harry Miller

Company: Devolver Digital

Profession: Publishing

Favorite Classic Game(s): Doom 2, and Diablo

Why it’s a favorite:

Doom 2: It was my first PC game to play and I was amazed at the graphics, and over the top chaotic game play.  Encountering the Minotaur for the first time was truly scary.  The best of all was death match, and all of the mods made for the game.  My favorite deathmatch mod was “Dog Tag”.

Diablo: I didn’t realize that I liked it that much and don’t understand how my first time playing got so out of hand.  I starting the game for the first time at around 5pm one day, when I finally looked up and it was 8am.  Where did the time go?  Wow!

Reach is almost in our reach and to celebrate the pending release Obsolete Gamer wanted to take you back to the original Halo soundtrack. Composed and produced by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori it was released in the summer of 2002. It is an awesome soundtrack that featured a wide range of musical styles and really gets you into the game.

Obsolete Gamers asks that you support great composers; you can purchase the full Halo OST here.

Mafia 2 Review & Strategy Guide by Honorabili

One Sentence Review:
“I was expecting more action from this action game…”

Overall Score:
5 out of 10

Overview:

Mafia 2 is the sequel to the original Mafia 1 which took place during the Great Depression. This one takes place from World War 2 to 1951. You’re Vito, an Italian-American that got caught, arrested, and drafted to go fight the Axis in Europe. After getting hurt during the war, you come back stateside and your friend (that originally was there when you got arrested) arranges for you not to go back and you start doing a bunch of crime stuff, GTA-style, trying to become a made-man for the Italian Mafia.

The game is available for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Difficulty/Difficulty Versatility & Fun Factor & Replayability & Gameplay:

The game has only 3 difficulty settings and I played it on Hard right from the start. I found the game extremely easy, I would say, 97% of the time. There were some parts where I died over and over by being instakilled by some hiding enemy. Since the game uses autosave checkpoints and some of them are not the most convenient, one gets really good at doing some parts over and over again. Still, I found them most annoying overall, those hard parts, rather than challenging. The game does not let you change the difficulty once you started it, which most games like this now do, so it loses points for that. Difficulty itself gets a score of 2 out of 10. Difficulty Versatility gets a score of 3 out of 10.

I’m probably not going to be replaying this game as I didn’t have as much fun playing it as a I thought I would. I was bored driving around a lot and YES I do like these kinds of games. Compared to Mafia 1, Saints Row 2, and The Saboteur this game was rather boring. The Saboteur was the funnest of those three. Replayability gets a score of 2 out of 10.

Most of the gameplay consists of you just driving around in 1940s-1951 cars delivering packages or going to talk/fight people. Most of it felt like a chore rather than an action movie. Some of it felt like a mob movie but not an exciting one. As far as those movies go I would say Once Upon A Time In America is NOT as exciting as Casino or Goodfellas. Sure, they are all good movies but not everybody can sit through Once Upon A Time In America. This is sort of the same difference here. Maybe I can compare The Sopranos. Sure, it can show a realistic portrayal of mobsters BUT does it really make an exciting action game? There’s a few shootout scenes for which there were a lot more in Mafia 1 but most of the time I just found myself driving at the speed limit. To see how unrealistic some of the game was look below for my strategy guide tips. I give Fun Factor a score of 3 out of 10. I give Gameplay a score of 5 out of 10.

Value:

I beat this game in 8 hours taking my sweet time playing it. Right now the game is selling for about $50 which is way too high for a game that is so short. I would say rent the game if you’re a console player, for sure, if you are into these kinds of games. For the PC people, I would say not to buy it until it hits the value $5-15 range.

Sound:

The sound of the guns firing is great stuff, as well as the sound of the old cars driving around. It sounds like the actual cars. The voice acting was spectacular. The characters even say racist things which seemed realistic to me. Sound gets a score of 9 out of 10.

Music:

The music is this game is authentic to its era. I don’t like 1940s music that much so that part was kind of boring for me but I do like seeing the emergence of Rock N Roll so it added to the factor that you are actually doing things in that time-frame. I don’t know how many people in the console crowd really wants to hear WW2 pop music! The score of the game was really great but there are not many scenes where you get to hear this music play out completely. I wish they had added more. I give the music a score of 8 out of 10.

Stability/Reliability:

The game never crashed despite having multiple programs open and alt-tabbing all day long. Stability/Reliability gets a score of 10 out of 10.

Controls:

The controls are standard for these GTA-style games. The only really annoying part is that hitting the windows key alone will take you to the desktop. Although that was annoying, the game did have the useful function of letting you press ESC during any cutscene and pause the game and even letting you skip most cutscenes. However, pressing the windows key even if by mistake takes you to desktop. This was really annoying at times. Controls get a score of 6 out of 10.

Graphics & Performance:

The graphics looked really nice, especially the character models. I was surprised by one of the hookers that had actual real looking breasts rather than cookie-cutter breasts like a character in a super-hero comic book. Kudos for that realism. Graphics I give a score of 8 out of 10. As far as performance goes, with my typical 1024×768 on my 2007 Windows XP gaming PC the game ran fine except when I needed it to, which was when I was trying to drive fast or complete some fast maneuvers in a car (like when they are chasing you drilling you with tommy guns). I guess I can’t expect my PC to last forever but I have played other new games on higher settings that run faster. I give performance a score of 6 out of 10.

Strategy Guide Tips:

One of the really annoying parts I found is how much fist fighting there was in the game. My tip on beating those parts easily is simply to dodge all the time. You can try to counter punch if you have good reflexes or you can simply wait until the enemy sidesteps. Once he does that just throw 3 quick punches and he will always get hit. I found sometimes the enemy will try to walk into you (it will look like he is running in place), this is a good time again to launch 3 quick punches. In time, he will go down if you’re patient and it’s easier to just do this every time rather than risk losing and doing the fight again like 6 times.

As far as driving the cars go just drive fast as hell. The game is unrealistic in the sense that cops WON’T pull you over for running red lights or stop signs (the game Driver 1 did) but they HATE speeding. Just make sure you have your finger ready over the L key (PC version) to lock the speed control. It’s kind of like a cheat because the car will slow down without using the physics engine of the tires skidding as you try to force brake. I guess this is a bug and an exploit but whatever works works.

As far as stealing cars, just take parked cars, lock picking them as it doesn’t bring you too much attention and it’s much easier than carjacking somebody that will usually start one of those dreaded fist fights.

For weapons the Dirty Harry magnum is the most powerful weapon in the game. Think of it as the sniper rifle. The tommy gun that holds 50 bullets is the best overall weapon.

My History With This Game & Conclusion:

I was disappointed by this sequel as I was expecting the brutality and difficulty of Mafia 1 all over again. I see more of this trend to make games more noob-friendly and it’s pissing me off even more. I guess I’ll just stick more to more hardcore FPS and RTS games myself. I don’t know if I’ve leveled up too much as a gamer and I refuse to go back but I have talked to other gamers that don’t play as much as I do and they say the same thing.

Well, at least the Obsolete Gamer Crew had fun going to the Mafia 2 release party. ;-]

Name:

Company: Frima Studios

Profession: Executive producer

Favorite Classic Game: Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Quote: Ultima IV was a revolution for me because it had such an epic scope for an RPG at the time. I remember spending a whole summer building up my party and travelling through Britannia’s many cities and dungeons to attain perfection in all 8 virtues. The music was just so awesome that I still find myself humming it from time to time almost 25 years later…

Name: Kevin Saffel

Company: Heatwave Interactive, Inc.

Profession: CTO (read: uber nerd)

Favorite Classic Game: Ultima 7 and Ultima 7 part 2

Quote: Fantastic RPG with a great party system.  In fact I love the entire Ultima series, including Ultima Online

Today in the music hall I’d like to share with you one of my favorite soundtracks. Castlevainia has always had good music even back to the Nintendo days. I remember many of the memorable tunes from Super Castlevania, but when SOTN was released on the Playstation I was hooked. Not only was it such a great game, but it has incredibly well composed music that I still listen to today.

You can purchase the full OST here.

First check out the footage I shot at this years E3.

Now onto the Gamescom trailer.

And finally brand new screenshots from the game, enjoy!

Player versus Player and Player versus Environment was the topic for this week’s show. We were happy to have our good friend Edwin in the studio with us and had a great conversation via Skype with longtime Obsolete Gamer fan, Liz Poisonkiss.

We started off with a recap of last week’s show which featured MMO’s and then moved into our Facebook fanpage question of the week which asked which our fans preferred to play PVE or PVP type games. From there we talked about our Insider Discussion question of the week which asked our panel which had a bigger impact on PC gaming RTS or FPS games.

From there we dove right into the main topic discussing the differences between a FPS mindset playing games such as Quake 2 and the strategy side of RTS games such as the original Warcraft game. Edwin also talked about his online Street Fighter games and said that he preferred to play again a human which we all agreed.

We premiered a new feature on OGS called Skype with a fan where we talk with people who have participated on our Facebook page and Forums and our first guest was longtime fan Liz. Who shared her thoughts on being a gamer girl, fps versus rts and pvp versus pve.

In our final segment Ignacio, Edwin and I discussed our various experiences in PVP from MMO’s to X-box live to arcades. Overall we had a good discussion about an important subject in the world of gaming. So give us a listen and we will be back next week with a brand new show.

The Obsolete Gamer Show: Episode 7

There are thousands of great games across all platforms that we as gamers have enjoyed for many years of our lives, but what about the people behind them. Just as there are fans of games there are the game makers themselves who weave a concept into code to be displayed on your system of choice. Many times the idea that became the mega-hit game of the year came to the developer or designer in the middle of the night, but from there it was many sleepless nights to turn that vision into reality.

One of Obsolete Gamer’s main purposes is to get the story behind the game and we do this by speaking with the designers, developers and publishers who helped bring us oh so many hours of enjoyment. Sometimes it begins with a gamer profile where we just find out a game they like and from there a dialog starts and soon you find out all kinds of wonderful information.

This is what happened with our gamer profile of Chris Tremmel. I discovered him through his clothing store, Gamer Cultoure and when he submitted his gamer profile with the game BoogerMan I wanted to find out why he liked that game and what I found out was he was one of the main creators of it. After that I had to learn more and Chris was very accommodating in answering our questions.

Obsolete Gamer: Let’s start with a little history, what was it that got you into gaming and working in the gaming industry?

Chris Tremmel: When I was a kid, my parents hooked me up with a Texas Instruments\99-4A computer. I was already a gamer thanks to PONG, and the AT2600, but the TI-99 allowed me to begin making my own games! I think I started with “porting” my choose your own adventure books into interactive form.

Obsolete Gamer: When did you begin working at Interplay?

Chris Tremmel: I officially started working at Interplay in 1992 I believe. It’s funny because I first interviewed for a tester spot. I didn’t get the job because my “autoexec.bat, and config.sys” knowledge was a bit rusty. I went home, studied up, and returned for a 2nd interview a month or two later. This time I got the job. The 1st games I tested were the original Alone in the Dark on PC, and the Lost Vikings on the Amiga.

Obsolete Gamer: Who else did you work with primarily at Interplay?

Chris Tremmel: I initially worked in the testing department but quickly made friends with a couple of designers and producers, primarily Mike Stragey and Alan Pavlish.

Obsolete Gamer: What was it like working for them?

Chris Tremmel: I hate to sound really cliche’, but working at Interplay in 1992\1993 was “magical”. I was in awe of everything being made and was thrown right in to working with some of the brightest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. It was an amazing time as I was being taught my core design fundamentals by great guys like Mike and Alan. I knew this is what I wanted to do forever.

Obsolete Gamer: When did you first start working on Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: I believe we started Boogerman in early 1993? It’s hard to remember exactly.

Obsolete Gamer: Who else worked with you on Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: My boss, and the man that hired me out of test Michael Stragey. Also Alan Pavlish was the executive producer who we would run stuff by on a regular basis. We also worked with an external animation house called Little Gangster, as well as some in-house artists, and additional programming support, but primarily it was Mike and myself.

Obsolete Gamer: How did you come up with the concept and story behind Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: Interplay came to Mike and said “we want to make a gross-out game that appeals to the Garbage Pail Kids demographic.”

Obsolete Gamer: Can you tell us a little bit about the development process?

Chris Tremmel: Conceptually we knew we wanted to make a “gross” game. Mike came up with the idea of a gross Superhero and off we went! The ideas just starting pouring out from Michael and myself, I would say we were never short of ideas for characters, locations, etc.

As for the design of the characters, we worked very closely with Little Gangster and went through dozens of designs until we finally settled on what you see today. Funny enough, several of the bosses in the game including the main boss BoogerMiester were originally design concepts for Boogerman himself.

Obsolete Gamer: When Boogerman was ready to launch did you believe you had a hit on your hands?

Chris Tremmel: Ya know, this is a weird thing… I was so new to the industry and so excited and stoked every day to be making games that I never really thought about “hits”. We knew we had something fun, and we knew people responded to the content the way we wanted, so that was enough for me. I still remember our very 1st magazine preview EVER. It was in Diehard Gamefan, they dubbed it an “instant classic”, we were happy.

Now some gaming sites and magazines game you high marks while others gave you more middle of the road scores. Do you think they just didn’t get it or what was the disconnect?

I think we were pretty happy with the reviews. We had some serious competition that year with Earthworm Jim being released at the same time. I think Boogerman got the scores it deserved, it was a good game, just not everyones cup of tea.

Obsolete Gamer: What was your feeling about winning the grossest character of 1994 award from Electronic Gaming monthly?

Chris Tremmel: Honored for sure. The entire Boogerman universe is still very close to our hearts to this day (Mike and myself). I still believe the franchise has a lot of potential.

Obsolete Gamer: Was there a plan to make more Boogerman related games?

Chris Tremmel: Yes, absolutely. AND a cartoon. The cartoon was actually started, at least script writing, character design, etc. but I believe in the end Universal went with the Earthworm Jim cartoon that was in development at the same time. Which btw, I am a massive EWJ fan and I loved loved loved the cartoon.

There were clocks made, t-shirts, and even a Boogerman phone. In addition we DID start the sequel on the Sega Saturn. We had a basic design document done and had contracted some amazing matte painters to start working on backgrounds. Unfortunately, it never came to fruition. Michael and myself left Interplay to pursue work with another company, I think we both wish Boogerman 2 could have been made. We had some really fun ideas.

Obsolete Gamer: How was it to see Boogerman released for the virtual console in 2008?

Chris Tremmel: Neither Mike or myself were involved in this. I believe this happened after Interplay changed hands. We were incredibly happy to see it up there though, downloaded it immediately!

Obsolete Gamer: Did you play Boogerman a lot yourself and do you still play it today?

Chris Tremmel: Absolutely! Mike and I both played all the time while making the game, AND after the game was released. Out of all the games I have made, this one probably got played the most. I definitely still bust it out once or twice a year. I like looking back and try to figure out what the heck I was thinking with a particular layout, or just to laugh at some of the character designs. Lot’s of laughing during the development.

Obsolete Gamer: After Boogerman what came next for you?

Chris Tremmel: Mike and I left Interplay to make a game for EA based on a Saturday morning TV show called “Bump in the Night”. Unfortunately this game was never finished\released, although we did have a rad demo running on the Saturn. I ended up at Virgin Interactive after that working on the N64.

Obsolete Gamer: Can you tell us a little about Gamer Cultoure?

Chris Tremmel: Sure! Gamer Cultoure is a side project I have started that is clothing centric. It’s really a basic line of T-shirts, hoodies, etc. that are gaming themed. The line is really small right now, but I intend to continue to grow it over the next year or two. After leaving Activision early in the year I decided to take a little time off and try something different for a little while. It has been a fun, rewarding process for sure.

Obsolete Gamer: What do you think of gaming today in comparison to gaming back in the early to mid nineties?

Chris Tremmel: Oh no, this is a loaded question. It is definitely different. The process has become more complicated, usually requiring a large number of people to make something significant. The money involved in some of the triple A games is staggering with some budgets now reaching 100 million dollars. That naturally changes everything in terms of peoples priorities, and agendas. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. One of the nice things though as of late is seeing the rise of the “indie” studios, small teams executing on great ideas. It is very easy to get distracted now a days when making something. The bar has been raised so high, and with so much money involved it takes some serious planet-aligning powers to take something killer to market. All of that being said, I hope the younger guys and girls that are in the industry today feel the same sense of magic that I felt in 1992.

Obsolete Gamer: Are you working on any video games at the moment?

Chris Tremmel: As of right this second, no. Expect that to change very soon. I will definitely keep you posted any news.

I quickly wanted to give a shout out to all the people I worked with at Interplay. Thanks Mike, Alan, Brian, Rusty, Tim, Burger, Kerry, and way too many more to list. All of you guys helped me get started on this amazing journey and I appreciate it to this day.

Obsolete Gamer would like to thank Chris Tremmel for taking the time to answer our questions.

Name: Jonathan Sabella

Company: Ninth Dimension Studios, LLC

Profession: Co-Founder, Executive Creative Director and Artist

Favorite Classic Game: Blades of Steel

Quote: I just can’t get enough of the fast paced hockey action from the classic NES system, I still love the dynamic of winning fights giving your team an advantage and worked hard to bring influences from classic games like Blades of Steel and Ice Hockey to my design work on The Hockey Experiment.

If you are a fan of classic PC gaming (pre-windows era) then you need to have and use DOSBox, especially since it’s free and there’s hundreds of DOS games legally free all over the internet.

You can download DOSBox for free at its main site here. You can adjust the speed of the game using hotkeys and it’s not just for gaming. I’ve ran a bunch of DOS applications that banks, doctors, lawyers, and accounting clients of mine still use that are from the DOS days. It’s the best legacy program I know. This is one of the top favorite programs of the Obsolete Gamer Staff.

You can get many free games from Abandonia and Home of the Underdogs.

Get out there and get them!

Name: Alex Kutsenok

Company: Dreamspike Studios

Profession: Project Manager

Favorite Classic Game: Everquest

Quote: I got into Everquest as a sophomore in high school. It was my first MMORPG, and the level of immersion was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I also appreciated that there was a real consequence to death. It meant you lost a ton of experience and had to track across the world to retrieve your stuff. That kind of consequence made the adventure more real and exciting because you knew that there was always something at stake. Finally, I liked the freedom that came from choosing where you wanted to hunt. You didn’t need to worry about compeleting repetitive quests and could level in any number of zones.

Today’s Picture of the Day comes from the THQ game Homefront. I first heard about Homefront shortly before I went to E3 and learned more about it once there. I like the story behind the game and it does look like it will be a load of fun.

Here’s the story:

The year is 2027. The world as we know it is unraveling after fifteen years of economic meltdown and widespread global conflict over dwindling natural resources.

A once proud America has fallen, her infrastructure shattered and military in disarray. Crippled by a devastating EMP strike, the USA is powerless to resist the ever expanding occupation of a savage, nuclear armed Greater Korean Republic.

Abandoned by her former allies, the United States is a bleak landscape of walled towns and abandoned suburbs. This is a police state where high school stadiums have become detention centers, and shopping malls shelter armored attack vehicles. A once-free people are now prisoners… or collaborators… or revolutionaries.

Join the Resistance, stand united and fight for freedom against an overwhelming military force in Homefront’s gripping single player campaign penned by John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn). Stand alongside a cast of memorable characters as an emotional plot unfolds in this terrifyingly plausible near-future world. Experience visceral, cinematic first-person shooter action as you fight your way across Occupied USA using guerrilla tactics, and commandeer military vehicles and advanced drone technology to defeat the enemy.

Multiplayer brings epic warfare to the online arena as infantry, tanks, attack helicopters and combat drones battle across huge, open battlefields. A rich feature set offering layers of tactical depth combined with a game-changing innovation in the multiplayer space will set a new benchmark in online warfare.

Check out this trailer about Homefront’s backstory.

Now on to the screenshots.

The newest chapter of the iconic fight franchise marks a triumphant return to the series’ mature presentation and a reinvention of its classic 2D fighting mechanic. Driven by an all new graphics engine, the fan favorite Fatality is back and presented in more gory detail than ever before. In addition, Mortal Kombat introduces a number of new game-play features including tag team and the deepest story mode of any fighting game. Players can choose from an extensive line up of the game’s iconic warriors and challenge their friends in traditional 1 vs. 1 matches, or take on several new game modes.

If you look past the MMO’s and Flash games what would you find on these systems. Which would you find more of FPS, First Person Shooter Games or RTS, Real Time Strategy Games? Obviously with the recent release of Star Craft II I am sure you will see a Battlenet icon on many gamer’s task bars, but overall, who had the bigger impact on the PC gaming world?

In my opinion it is FPS games and this is coming from someone who loved to play RTS games and even turn based games. For me it was games like Wolfenstein, Rise of the Triad and of course Doom that had me going to Egghead software to slam three hundred dollars on the table for a Western Digital 750mb hard drive to build my first custom rig.

When I went to my first LAN party here in Florida it was the guys from Red-Eye that showed me how to use mouse look in order to properly use the hook in Lithium Quake 2. Now don’t get me wrong, StarCraft, Warcraft, Total Annihilation were also a big part of our LAN gaming, but it was games like Tribes, Duke Nukem, Shogo and Doom 2 that ruled our playtime.

We asked our panel of industry insiders their opinion on the question.

Aaron Hunter from Playtechtonics Inc wrote:

I would have to go with FPS. Granted in the PC platform, RTS is bigger than it is on other platforms like the consoles. But even so I’d go with FPS having a bigger impact.

Juan Gril from JoJu Games wrote:

In my opinion, Starcraft on RTS, and Quake on FPS.

Chris Skaggs from Soma Games wrote:

I’d say RTS. Where FPS had a huge impact on hardware and game design. I think RTS brought a ton of previous non-gamers to the table for the first time and kept them there.

Danny Greig from XGEN Studios wrote:

I would say the FPS has had a larger impact on PC gaming but not by much. Doom/Doom 2 and Quake had just too much impact on PC gaming to ignore; I don’t think any RTS has had the impact of those games.  Blizzard has basically owned and dominated the RTS genre which has had a very large impact on the PC gaming industry but falls just short of what the FPS has done in my opinion.

Jason Shankel from Stupid Fun Club wrote:

In terms of technology and broadening the appeal of the PC as a platform for gamers, I’d have to go with FPS.  In the early days, FPS highlighted the power of the PC as a gaming platform with superior performance to consoles.  There simply was no other way to play DOOM or Quake except on a PC.  The RTS on the other hand highlighted the power of the keyboard and mouse as an input control, but was not fundamentally limited to the PC.  It would have been possible to play Dune II on a console.

In terms of creating a genre that is uniquely PC, I’d have to go with RTS.  Today, consoles perform roughly as well as PCs and there are many shooters available on console.  And even though FPS controls are still superior on a PC, FPS is certainly no longer a PC-only genre.  Yet no one has really cracked the RTS nut on consoles.  With no technological barriers to clear,  RTS is a genre that’s simply best played sitting up with a keyboard and mouse, not reclining with a console controller.

If I have to pick one answer, I’m going with RTS.  The FPS made a bigger initial splash, but the RTS has endured as a uniquely PC genre and thus had a longer lasting impact on that platform.

David Warhol from Realtime Associates wrote:

I’d say first person shooters.  They survived longer as a genre, and people talk about Quake and Doom a lot more than they do Starcraft (I).   Me, I’m not a fan of the FPS genre.  I think there are more first person shooters as there are Phil Collins ballads… and they are largely just as indistinguishable from one another .

Gary Manica from Smashing Ideas wrote:

Easy answer for me.  I want to say RTS games because I prefer them, but realistically they don’t come close to FPS games to me.

FPS games in general have been one of the (if not the biggest) pushers of hardware development on a PC for many years running.  Dev houses constantly refine massive engine libraries to push more and more polygons and maintain the minimum framerate that crazy FPS players demand.   Engines like CryEngine, Unreal, Source, idTech, etc provide a platform for, and push developers (hardware and software) to really go above and beyond while being able to use a mostly pre-built framework.  The tech they build in these engines has been filtering down to other gaming genres for decades now.  And there is a reason that other genres are adopting FPS aspects to them.

There are many instances of amazing RTS games out there, with a lot of really good ideas.  But I don’t think they affect the industry as a whole to the scale FPS games do.

So what is your take? Let us know your answer by posting in our forums below. See you next week.

Name: Keith Pichelman

Company: Concrete Software, Inc.

Profession: CEO of Concrete Software

Favorite Classic Game: Lode Runner

Quote: The game had a ton of levels!!! It seemed like you could play it forever… the later levels really got you thinking outside the box which could get so frustrating until you finally figured it out… but so satisfying when you did!  It was also one of the first games I can remember where you could create levels.

If you couldn’t already tell, I like games. I want to spend all of my time writing about them or playing them. I won’t ever stop playing them, or at least enjoying them, no matter what happens. Why did I just say that? Because I’m about to piss a whole lot of gamers off, and I want them to remember I said that when we get into the meat of this article.

At this moment in time, games are not art.

It’s not that I think they’re bad, they just aren’t what one would define as “art”. Do I have a concrete definition for art? Absolutely not, and I could care less about it. We seem to be looking for the entitlement that comes as an “art form”. While I would like it if society stopped thinking that games are for kids, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are an art form.

Games are not currently art in my opinion, because of what art is, in its current form. It has several properties which exclude gaming. The main one is simple: Games are meant to be played. You do not interact with most things that are classified as art. But there is no piece of artwork that can be played. The difference being, that you view art, you absorb art, the only way you interact with it in almost all cases is to see it, in some respect. You cannot “view” a game. If a piece of art has outside influences that inherently change it, then it is currently not art. Simple as that.

Flower maybe the closest we get to an "art" game

It’s an observation vs interaction argument. Some art can be interacted with. Some people make sculptures that can be moved, but that isn’t changing it, just rearranging it in a way that is intended. Games aren’t meant to be observed. Games by definition, cannot be observed. You play a game. You are controlling the character, making decisions that inherently change the game. In Flower, you control the breeze, but there is still an objective and things that you must complete in order to progress. Current art doesn’t have that. There’s no part of a book that will stop you from reading it until you’ve successfully read every word on every page to the book’s satisfaction. If “The End” snipes me on my ass every time I play Metal Gear Solid 3, (assuming I don’t cheat) I will not progress further into that game. I will never be able to see the ending, or how the story continues because I cannot progress any further.

How many times has that happened to you when you were a kid playing games? There is this one part that you just can’t get past, and you put the game down and never pick it back up again. For me, that happened in The Bouncer. I got to the final boss, and just couldn’t beat him. I never got to see how the story ended, and never got the satisfaction of seeing the man that I had worked so hard to build up the energy, stamina and power to defeat, actually get defeated.

If I wanted to, I could skip to the end of my Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit book and figure out exactly how it ends. Nothing will stop me from doing so other than my own notion not to spoil the ending for myself. When I watch Salt or The Social Network, nothing’s going to stop me from skipping to the end of these movies and looking at the conclusion that both those movies will probably be terrible.

Games can be pretty, but can't be "art" right now

Can games eventually be art? Of course, once they change the definition of what “art” is. When art can be interacted with, engaged, enjoyed with and through the person using it instead of enjoyed by the person seeing it, then games can be art. But allow me to ask a simple question:

Why in the hell would games want to be art?

Games are so much better than art. The point of this article isn’t to prove that games aren’t art, it’s to prove to you that they shouldn’t be considered art. To say that games are art degrades the games themselves. If it is true that games are not art because art is not generally interacted with as I just said, then that becomes a limitation of art, not an expression of art’s superiority. Art isn’t better than games, no matter what Ebert wants us to believe. Games are better than art, solely because they can be interacted with. In books you are forced to use your imagination, because the limitation of the book is that it can’t show you moving pictures. The limitation of the movie is that you cannot interact with it, you cannot take control of it, you are essentially just a person viewing it with no control over the events. In games you get that control. You control the main character. Your actions are his actions, and you are being led through worlds that could be replicated by movies, but not with the same feel. Games are far better than art, and game designers don’t wear those pretentious hats and act with an heir of superiority. Why are we fighting for a position that is beneath us? Do you fight for second place in Crash Team Racing? No, of course not, so why is it that gamers are so hell bent on trying to be given a title that is currently beneath them? If anything, art should be begging for games to be in its little club. Instead, (as the medium before it always does) they act like they are somehow better, more pure or are superior to the medium that surpasses it simply because they can’t keep up.

So no, games are not art, in art’s current definition. But I am proud to say that games aren’t art. When art’s ready, we’ll be waiting. Until then, we should be the ones with the sense of superiority on our faces. All movie-goers can hope for is to be us. To give the person interacting with it the sense of control, of bonding and of attachment with the main character. At the end of a movie, the audience cheers for the main character’s triumph, or cries at their failure. At the end of a game, we are that main character. We’ve been through what they’ve been through. Lets see any type of art do that.