oldcrankygamer.com » The game industry disappoints me...

15May

Waiting for Ouya…

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Yes, I bought a Kickstarter console called Ouya. Only, I’m thinking about changing it’s name to Phantom. Not only because it supposedly shipped a week ago and there’s still no tracking information available for it, but because those that have gotten one seem to think there’s not much there, even in the flesh.

My love affair started last July when I came across this lovely little diddy on an electronics webpage that extolled the virtues of mobile gaming on one’s television, or made fun of it, I can’t remember which. In any case, I clicked the link to the Kickstarter page and fell in love with the sales pitch of an “open” console that was cheap, accessible, and would break the back of the console game industry’s $60 pricepoint. See, I hate the game industry. They charge way too much for their unfinished drivel, usually taking up mega space on my hard drive for limitless patches, fixes, and downloadable content milking me out of more $10 increments in addition to the initial cost of the game.

I hate the fact that a new console game can cost $50 million to produce and have an advertising, or promotional, budget of $100 million. In the age of the internet and the fact that almost everyone in the videogaming demographic has a device in their back pocket that is an instant portal to video, text, and web content, I find it unconscionable that 2/3 of a games cost should be it’s advertisement. Social networking alone should be able to account for 90% of the word-of-mouth necessary for a console game launch, and not wasted on fancy junkets to localized trade shows. It’s the 21st century, for god’s sake. I refuse to pay for some executives kobe beef dinner and his pansy-ass cocktails in Vegas every year. The entire relationship of media to product has been turned on it’s head in the last 15 years, and there’s no justification for an overhead of twice the budget to make the actual game be spent on product booths, boobs, and bruhahas for self-annointed media elites in the gaming industry. Why should we be paying for this?

Ouya was the answer for me. The gaming industry has gotten too big for it’s britches. Games used to be made in some geekboy’s basement, stuffed into a sandwich bag with a dot-matrix printed instruction manual and delivered, by hand, to the local computer store. For a couple of bucks, you could play a great adventure or arcade title for games with practically no overhead. Ouya seemed to be taking this throwback route seriously- updating it for the 21st century and promising to put the status-quo to shame. Taking a cue from the mobile marketplace of cheaper games, incremental fees, and free-to-play/try to my television set was exactly what I was looking for. I know, some will say that games have gotten so big and complicated, it takes hundreds of people and $100 million just to get them right. I say that’s a big load of baloney. Computers were supposed to make things easier, building on the tools previously built, one could make more sophisticated tools to make a jobs easier.

I maintain a network of PC computers in my home for the pleasure of my family. I stream content from a main media PC and have done my best to set it up to look like my cellphone. Oversized icons, evenly spaced, in an organized fashion on the screen so that anyone who accesses it can immediately find what they need when using the main computer. The whole time I was setting up this PC I kept thinking, “why can’t I just have an android based PC that already looks like what I want?” Ouya was my answer. Ouya can be my media center and my game center. Sold.

When I bought my Ouya, I looked past the overt, faux friendliness of Julie Uhrman. She’s just a salesperson and I tend to look past the flowery prattle that salespeople spew in order to get me to buy something. All I kept hearing was “open console” , and “we don’t care what you do with it”, and “we’ll give you the tools to root it.” Cool, I thought, I can do what I want with it, and because it’s an open platform, I can run my android software on it too. Only I was thinking too fast for my own good. I read reviews and speculation and from those who had played with the prototypes and they all thought the same thing about this open android platform – you’ll be able to run your android games on it. Only to find out after they’d charged my $100 that, no, you won’t be playing any Android games, only Ouya. You won’t have the option to have the Android Play store, only Ouya. You ‘ll be able to root your device, but once you do, we won’t penalize you, but you’ll never be able to be part of Ouya again. That’s right, they’ll deny you access to the Ouya store if you root your “open” console. Even if I want to pay for their trickle of games and do my own thing, I won’t be able to. Go ahead, read the Kickstarter page : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console? It mentions none of the restrictions they added later, probably as a result of getting millions of more investment dollars from private capitalists.

So now I wait for the Phantom to arrive and see what I’ll be able to do with it. Will it replace my media PC? Probably not. Will it replace my game consoles? I doubt it – even with the “Stradivarius of controllers”. Will it satisfy my curiosity of how android games will look on my 50″ plasma? Unfortunately not, because I’ll have to buy them all over again through the Ouya store – if they’re ever going to be available- and at what price point? That remains unanswered as well. All I can do now is wait. Wait for another month to pass before it arrives on my doorstep, if it ever does at all. Oh, end of March, we hardly knew ye.

15Apr

PSN Is Down For The Count

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PSN

So, the Sony Playstation Network is down for maintenance again this week, a day before the content update. This seems to be a common theme for Sony, who are seemingly unable to handle ethereal updates to their system during non-peak hours, routinely shutting down their service for an entire day at a time. General lagginess, non-responsive input, and the arcane categorization system are bottlenecks to making money in the new age of internet commerce. And being down for an entire day leave no opportunity for commerce at any level of service. I can only hope that during this update they have re-designed and re-written the GUI interface so that it actually works.

With all of these problems, compounded by the lack of speed Playstation servers use to deliver content, I don’t think Sony is ready for the next generation of gaming. From this user’s standpoint, they haven’t developed any real improvements in their network since 2006. And not being able to improve or even maintain their current product does not give me confidence for the future. And I’m certainly not going to shell out $400 for a “Next-Gen” device if this is the level of service to expect. It’s time to start impressing me, Sony. Time to start now.

06Apr

MI Pinball Expo Tour

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Thought I’d post a video of the Michigan Pinball Expo as I walked through it after lunchtime on Friday, 4/5, so you can see for yourself what you will get for your money. For me, it was well worth it. There’s something about having a real machine between your hands that can never be equaled by a digital incarnation.

You can see the sequestered machines behind the row of chairs that were only for tournament play. Also, count the empty machines, they were the ones that were out of order most of the day.

06Apr

Michigan Pinball Expo Blues

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If it hadn’t been for Pure Michigan, my state’s promotional tourism website, I never would have known about the Michigan Pinball Expo taking place at Oakland University this weekend in Rochester. You’ve already missed two days, Thursday and Friday, but the event is still taking place this Saturday(8am-12am) and Sunday(8am-5pm). For a mere $20 you can play pinball machines to your heart’s content, or at least until they kick you out at closing time. Being a pinball fan, I took my family there today and had a really good time. I even got to play some of the real-life machines that, for most, only exist in digital form on the Playstation and 360 such as Taxi, Theatre of Magic, Star Trek Next Generation, and Attack Form Mars. A couple of other real machines slated for a digital release, namely Williams Whirwind and Firepower, are on the floor as well.

As previously stated, I had a blast. I arrived at 11:30am to a cordial lady who gladly checked my printed Paypal receipt and gave me and my family wristbands for entry. We walked up the circular stairway to an ante-room of 25 classic 60′s pins before entering the main hall which housed a collection of about 85-90 pins from the 60′s to the 2000′s. There were around 100 people there already, most of which were lined up behind those playing the more popular pins. At first, I was regretting coming so late, but soon found that waiting behind 1 or 2 other patrons really didn’t take that long and was time worth spending to play the more recent games. If you didn’t want to wait for a pin, there was almost always a game or two open for play, but those were usually the simpler pins, meaning those from 1970 and older.

I played until my wrists were sore, my index fingers were getting the beginnings of a blister, and my feet started complaining to my brain that I’ve been standing in the same place for too long. At the end of the day, I felt like I’d been at Disney World – entertained and satisfied, but ready to go home and have a drink and a nap. I was happy that I beat a few of my high scores from the past, and that I’d gotten to play many I’d never played before – especially a few that I’ve only played on my Vita and PS3. I’ll always prefer a real game over digital, but since I don’t have $10,000 to buy my own pinball arcade, nor the space, a Playstation works just fine as a substitute. I also think I got my $20 worth, but there were a few things that left me disappointed.

First was that they advertised 120 pinballs. Although the above flyer claims 150+ machines, the website says 120. The reality was about 100 machines. There were six rows of 10 machines each, plus the 25 pins in the ante-room. the other 20 machines were on the back wall of the gallery. Unfortunately, they were roped off and labeled “Tournament Play Only”. This was very disappointing. The tournament didn’t even start until after lunch which which means most of the machines sat empty behind a rope. While most of these were duplicates of those already on the floor, opening them up would have alleviated much of the waiting in line for games for most of the day. Attendance ebbed and flowed, but at it’s peak, there were about 250-300 people there. At that point, waiting behind others became the impetus to go eat lunch.

Second was the fact that at least 2-3 machines in every row were broken or out of order. Up to 20 of those pins were non-functioning at any given time. Some were repaired on a as-needed basis, but at least 10-12 machines were left non-functioning and unattended for the entire day. I talked to a few patrons who were also disappointed with all the broken pins and the misleading advertising. Frankly, if you’re going to sequester 20 pins for the entire day for a tournament, put that in your ad, please.

Aside from the shortfalls, I had a great time at this pinball expo. But I can’t say I’d ever want to pay another $50, plus another $25 in gas, plus $15 for lunch to go to this event again. I’m happy I did it once and that’s that. To go this far for so much money, I’d expect a little more than what was offered today. What more could they offer, you say? I’ll give you an example. They were selling mini posters of this event for a few bucks each. They’re the large flyers you would put in a store window to advertise your event at the Oakland University Campus. You know, the 11×17 window ads they ask local storefronts to put in their displays for free that are the exact image of the featured pic in this article. They should be giving these out, for free, to patrons to advertise this event, not charging for them. The sponsors of the event were local pin shops who showed their wares and even offered many pins for sale at retail prices. It’s basically a promotional event to sell parts for enthusiasts and prospect for buyers of pin machines while making a few bucks to cover costs of hauling machines back and forth. I get all that, but if you’re going to sell your show as an “expo”, put in the effort to fix all the broken pins and be truthful in your advertisement. You never want to have potential customers walk away with any perceived injustice or disappointment.

This was a Michigan show, but I’m sure every metropolitan area has their own version of this “expo”-like showing. Local pin vendors all across the country put on promotions like this every summer. It’s really the only avenue for advertising they have. It’s like going to the “Boat show” at the local fairgrounds, only this show, 10% of the boats wouldn’t float. I only recommend going if you are a true pinball fan and not just looking do do something on a weekend afternoon. To me, however, it was a great way to spend a spring break Friday with the wife and kids.

: tournament play only

: some got fixed, some didn’t

: rows of rows

25Mar

Pinball Arcade Makes Me Cranky

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Let me start out by telling you how much I love pinball. I love pinball so much I’ve played just about every pinball game that exists in the Google Play store, fake ones and all. I’ve also bought Zen Pinball for at least 3 different platforms save the Vita, which is a cross buy game on the PSN. I’ve even double bought tables for the Pinball Arcade title on the PSN and my Android phone – that is until they started doing crap that makes me very cranky: doubling the price of the tables.

Whereas equivalent digital Zen Pinball tables still hover in the $2-3 range, Pinball Arcade has been dishing out the content at 2 for $5. However, the 2 latest tables, Twilight Zone and Star Trek NG are $5 each. And they’ve decided to add “special tweak mode” for an extra $3. They call it something ridiculous like “operator mode”, or something idiotic like that. I don’t even really know what it does because I refuse to pay extra for it. I’m wouldn’t doubt it consists of some of the options Zen offers for free, but obviously you don’t even need it to just play the table as is.

While I was impressed with the initial offering of Pinball Arcade that comes with 3 great tables, some of the next few packages came with a good table, then a filler table from the early 60′s or 70′s (like Gorgon, Big Shot). It’s very much like Rockband DLC when they give you one great song, one mediocre one, and a crap title to fill out the package of three. But still, it was formerly five bucks for BOTH pinball tables. Now they have the audacity to not even include the crap table. Sorry, PA, when the new Star Wars tables for Zen Pinball cost only $10, charging $5 for Star Trek makes me feel like I’m getting ripped off. some have said it’s the licensing fees, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. The Marvel and Star Wars licenses aren’t jacking up the price for Zen, so is it Williams that’s jacking up the cost for a license because it was an actual table? Either way, I’m not buying.

18Mar

Vita Clearance

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Overpriced

Well, this could be the beginning. Last week there was a clearance of Vita related items at ATT.com, which included memory cards, and today there’s a clearance at Best Buy. Go there now to get a 16GB memory card for $30 and maybe pick up a few other related merchandise for the Vita. See the sale HERE.

While paying $30 for 16GB worth of memory still makes me cranky, it’s not as bad as the $60 they’ve been charging for the last year. Perhaps we are finally on the heels of a system price drop as well. We can only hope…

11Mar

Killing the Playstation Vita

Posted in opinion, reviews, Vita | 1 Comment

I’ve craved this handheld since it’s release, but the high price point has prevented me from purchasing it. Luckily for me, my lovely wife gave me a new Playstation Vita as a birthday gift last month. Having had a recent surgery, she thought it would help alleviate my pain and suffering. It did. In fact, it’s been hard to put down since first powerup.

All the promise of Sony entering the handheld market has been realized in this fantastic device. From the large, vibrant 5″ screen to the crisp graphics and pixel pushing power, everything I wanted in a handheld is here. The machine has weight, but it’s not heavy, adding to perceived quality of the build. The buttons, while on the small side for my big, meaty claws, are a 32d larger than on the Nintendo 3DS, and spaced slightly farther apart, reducing unintended button presses. It’s dual analogs are wonderful rotating hemispheres, not the sliding mess of nubby stickness in past iterations. But, as with all video game devices, power is never king of the hill. The real test of a console’s worthiness is in the software, or what you can do with it – not what it looks like.

My bundle came with Assassin’s Creed III. And while I’ve only played an hour of it so far, I’m pleased with the results. It’s as if I have a full fledged television console in my hands – a Playstation 2.5 Portable, so to speak. And since I’m a Playstation Plus member, I’ve already got a full library of great games to play on my new toy. A myriad of PSOne classics, minis, and PSN games have already made their way on and off my 4GB memory card and some were moderately enjoyable. My favorite, however, is a cross buy title Zen Pinball 2. Having purchased it for my PS3, the Vita version is free and will be a permanent resident on my Vita. The recently released “Star Wars” tables further cements this into resident memory. I can surf the web, watch Netflix, and play games for at least 6 hours before a recharge. What I really need, though, is a memory card big enough to hold my favorites, and load bigger games like Uncharted (also free from PS Plus). A 4 GB memory card just doesn’t cut it. And this is what pulls me from my ivory tower of delight into Sony Vita hell.

Sony doesn’t seem to be able to learn from their mistakes. When you release a PS3 at $600 and your nearest competitor’s product is $300, you don’t stand to gain market share. When your handheld is $300 and your rival’s, who is also struggling in a depressed market, is $200, it’s not hard to do the math. Sony was a late entry to a market that was already established by Nintendo and Microsoft for an entire year previous. And if they knew their history, more powerful devices have almost always been shunned by the market in favor of lower cost, and better playability. In order to control the market, you have to first obey the market. Sony has had the arrogance to think they control the discussion since the Walkman and the first Playstation’s successes. They continuously believe that since they created the market, they are the final word, when the complete opposite is true.

Compound this with the memory card fiasco. When the PSP was released, it used Sony memory sticks(Duo) which were already priced at a premium, as only Sony devices used them. The cost of production was probably much higher and thus, the price for a GB of memory on a Sony card was almost twice that of any other similar sized storage. This new memory, produced only for the Vita, is up to 5 times the cost for similar storage on every other device in existence. Thereby adding to the price of entry on an already overprices device. If I buy a 32GB SD memory for my 3DS, It’ll set me back about $25. Sony wants $100. It’s also a necessary accessory if you want to buy games from the Playstation Store and download them. It’s not hard to figure out what the outcome of this market will be as no one in the world like to buy overpriced electronics – except maybe Sony executives who don’t need to worry about money. The “if you build it, they will come” theory only works in the movies, which leads me to believe Sony executives are hittin’ the pipe and live in their own fantasy world. I’d like to blame it on the radiation in Japan, but this attitude has been going on far too long for that to explain it.

The third obstacle is marketing. The ad campaign for the PSP was a dreadful affair. Nothing turned me off the Sony portable bandwagon like an annoying, geeky stalker who followed you around telling you what a great device you had in your hands. Then we were bombarded by an annoying urban youth who told us to, “Step your game up!” The only Sony marketing saving grace were the Kevin Butler ads, but they focused primarily on the PS3. A powerful portable demographic must have been annoying geeks and annoying 10 year-olds, right? Right. But these terrible ads pale in comparison to the promotion of the PS Vita. What could be worse? How about nothing, absolutely nothing. An ad campaign consisting of no ad campaign is the worst way to promote a new device. Ever see an ad for the Vita that’s not on the PSN network? I didn’t think so. In the world of electronic devices and media, silence means death. How on Earth are people going to come if you don’t tell them what you’ve built?

Fourth. What the heck am I going to play when I finish Uncharted? I’ve seen the list of available games and I can’t believe this is all Sony has managed to wrangle for this expensive device. I had the same feeling last year when I bought my 3DS: ”This is it?”, I keep asking myself. I’ve even perused the upcoming releases for the Vita and I’m shocked that there’s no AAA game in the pipeline for me to get excited about. Are they really going to depend on cross-buy games to sell this thing? Granted, cross buy and cross play are nice bonuses, but they don’t get me as excited as an exclusive that I can experience ONLY on a particular console. But, in addition to Vita games is the fact that the Vita is also multi-talented. I can use it to watch Netflix, navigate Google maps, and play music. But try to guess how many Apps are in the Sony Mobile store for the Vita. If you guessed more than one you’re wrong. There’s exactly one audio app I can install on my Vita – Beats Trellis. With only 55 minigames and 1 actual app, I’m not sure why access to the Playstation mobile store was even included. I’m sure some vice president said, “Add it – it’ll be like a bonus,” instead of doing real research or taking an active role in this billion dollar investment.

All this being said, I love my Vita. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I don’t know if I can recommend it – yet. There’s supposedly a price drop in Japan that may hit the States soon. a once $350 device may finally break the $200 barrier. All I can say is: the sooner the better. This is a fantastic device that needs to be supported, not abandoned on the side of the road and left to die like so many other of Sony’s dabblings.

28Jan

Infamous: Family Friendly

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I know, I know, it’s a few years old now and they’ve already come out with a sequel. A sequel you can get for free right now as a member of Playstation Plus, but let’s stick with the original for now.

I picked up this game digitally for the Playstation a long time ago. The PS Network, as some may remember, had just had a major security breach and offered users a few free games for download as compensation for being out of service for a few months. I chose Infamous, mostly because it looked less crappy than all the other choices. And now that my hard drive is almost full I’ve come to the realization that I have to play some of these games and erase them from my drive before I run out of space. So, I started at the bottom and began playing this little gem of a game.

The gritty, post-apocalyptic future is the standard, generic setting for today’s videogames and this one is par for the course. You are Cole – a victim of a post-apocalyptic explosion that gives you super electrical powers. Your mission is to zap bunches and bunches of other mutant-ized enemies that have taken over your city-island. It’s about as vanilla as you can get in the current sea of mediocrity that is videogaming. And there’s really nothing of note like a pretty art style or unique game mechanic that sets it apart from any other meaningless, under-realized story driven drivel like most other games today. No, what really sets this game apart is what it’s missing.

Unlike most other games, the protagonist has no firearm to mow down foes, no sword to eviscerate enemies. Cole has been blessed with the power of electric shock and deals blows, bombs, and bolts of electric power in a dazzling display of lightning based attacks. What’s also missing is the blood, guts, and other associated gore that’s almost always involved with incapacitating bad guys. In fact, Cole gains the option of electrically handcuffing defeated enemies instead of killing them. This is what’s known as a “good” action, and the game doles out missions based on whether the player chooses to be a good hero, or a bad one.

But the most obvious omission from this game is what puts it at the top of my list for family friendly entertainment: no foul language. Even last generation, on the PS2, there were some good games that I couldn’t play with my son in the same room because of the gratuitous and unnecessary use of the F-word. A standout in my mind was a game called “Metal Arms”. It was a cute little robot that went on missions zapping other robots, repairing others, and collecting nuts and bolts to build new weapons. It was cute and relatively harmless fun until the cutscenes started dropping S-bombs. Totally inappropriate for my son’s then virgin ears. Today’s games are just as inappropriate and might want to think about making the game better instead of stuffing it with swearing every square inch – but I digress.

I’m about two thirds done with Infamous, and while repetitive, it’s good clean fun. At least, as far as videogames are concerned, it’s about as clean as you can get without it being a Cookie Monster or Dora game and I feel comfortable playing it with my 7 year old daughter in the room. It’s even cleaner than Dance Central. Have you hear the lyrics to these songs the kids are playing? Don’t get me started.

24Jan

Little Big Sale on Karting – $10 for PS Plus

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Did you miss Little Big Planet Karting on Black Friday when it was $25? I’m guessing most people did because it’s $10 on the PSN Network right now, but only if you are a PS Plus subscriber.

I have to admit, I hemmed and hawed about buying this all Black Friday weekend and ended up not getting it and I’m glad I waited. Or, at least, I think I am. I should reserve judgement until I’ve actually played the damn game. Hopefully it’s controls aren’t as lofty, loose, and frustrating as LBP proper. A game that I really wanted to love ended up being one of the Playstation’s biggest disappointments for me because of the shitty controls. My guess is that it’s Mod Nation Racers with new skin, no doubt, because game developers are lazy assholes and greedy pricks who only really care about tricking people out of their money.

So, get this game for $10 if you’re a PS Plus member. PS Plus costs $50 a year and you get the privilege of owning some games for as long as you have a membership. Why be a member for $50 a year? Because they keep giving out free games and great deals like this one – that’s why! This is part of the 13 for 2013 Sale that appeared in the Sony Store toady. Or was it yesterday? Or is the Sony Store so shitty that they finally got it updated today? I don’t know, but even though the store sucks, the deals are fantastic. I will soon need another, larger hard drive to house all the games I have bought and received free as a result of having the PS Plus service. If only I had the time and patience to play through them all.

Screw you Microsoft and your crappy Xbox Live. What have you done for me lately?

20Jan

Medieval Moves: Killing the Move

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I know this game has been out for a long while now. I just happened to pick it up digitally a few weeks ago on the PSN network with Sports Champion’s 2 for $29.99. I thought it was a great bargain, that is, until I played it.

Motion controls arrived in 2006 for the Wii. Developers went through an initial learning phase of understanding what worked and what didn’t in a motion controlled game. Customers suffered. This should have given Sony a huge advantage when entering this genre of gaming. Developers could have drawn, from a huge library of Wii games, the elements that worked, and weeded out those that didn’t. This could have spared the PS3 a shovelware era that pervades the Wii library. I was under the assumption that developers actually played games and had this kind of experiential knowledge. What I didn’t realize is that PS3 developers had never bothered to play any Wii games and were starting from scratch, making the same mistakes over again from the beginning of the motion control era. Medieval Moves is such a mistake. The years of development for this game make it even more of a disappointment that it’s this bad.

Twilight Princess on the Wii was a great success, but the built-in “waggle” served as nothing more than a replacement for a button press on Nintendo’s controller. The Move was going to be much more precise, offering a 1:1 movement ratio mimicking our moves onscreen – allowing for more realistic battles with swords and other weapons. The reality, though, is an exercise in frustration. Not 10 minutes into this “game” I found myself completely lost as to why my controller wouldn’t aim an arrow correctly. Was I holding the controller wrong? Was I too close? Too far away? I decided to re-calibrate the controller by hitting the PS Home button and using the Xbar option to do so. Success – I was able to shoot an arrow at a target! But my happiness was short lived. Subsequent firings would only aim at the dirt or at an area devoid of targets. What now, I thought? Re-calibrate again? Yes. My next arrow flew fine – directly into a target, only to be rewarded with having to re-calibrate again. I can only imagine the frustration a parent would have trying to figure out what the problem was for their little Johnny’s new game if they happened to be duped into buying this. A few frustrating minutes later after the archery debacle, things seemed to be working fine and I was off hacking through goblins and skeletons with medieval fervor. Great, I thought, but the Move wasn’t really offering me any real control. All my hacks and slashes were chopping up enemies and it didn’t really matter where I hit them. So my precise Move controller motions were really nothing more than replacements for button presses. And I had no control over my whereabouts. I was stuck in a rail car, being rolled around to wherever the game would take me. In 2006, I was playing much better adventures than this on the Wii, AND I could go anywhere I wanted to. Why was I playing this again? To justify my phony baloney purchase, I think. I felt obligated to keep going because I spent real money on this piece of garbage, and it HAD to get better. It obviously couldn’t get any worse.

All I can say is that it didn’t get any better, either. Sheer boredom made me quit playing this piece of trash after 2 more hours of having to recalibrate at every archery encounter. There’s nothing new here either- just some tacked on gimmicks like tipping up the controller to “drink” a milk bottle to replenish health. Really? Is this supposed to be cute or novel? Let’s not even get into the fact that your character is a functioning undead skeleton ghost and has no real need for “milk”, but I digress…and so did the developers, obviously, from putting any real thought into the making of this game.

I’m not even sure this title qualifies as a game, as I’ve said about some other Move titles, because you don’t get to do anything by your own volition. I’ts a target shooting game on rails. There are no choices, no leveling up, no inventory to worry about, and no real reason to play other than as a demonstration exercise for the Move controls, and a poor one at that. Perhaps I’m being too hard on the developers for what could be blamed on Sony’s lack of vision for this whole Move concept. What started out as a hack-and-slash, dungeon adventure, ended up being nothing more than a target shooting parade because of some front office executive descision. Sony first developed this as a proof of concept demo, then backed it as a full title to showcase the Move, then cut short the development to get it out the door and cut it’s losses. So much for a showcase. What was touted as similar, yet superior to Wii controls at E3 in 2009, ended up being microcosm of Sony’s basic attitude towards the Move controller package as a whole: A bastard child they decided to stop feeding and let die from starvation. No doubt there’s a Sony exec saying, “see, I told you it wouldn’t succeed”, and he’s now being promoted.

In my opinion, this “game” should be available as a free download on the PSN for anyone who was crazy enough to buy a Move controller. It makes a good commercial for the product, but not much else. When you trick me into paying for a commercial, it makes me very cranky. And even though this game was “free” when I bought SC2, I still feel like I got ripped off.

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