The big 3 love to protect themselves to much these days. Trent Petronaitis does some investigating into the industry’s pack down attitude to the bad 3.
Ask anyone who is a gamer if they pirate or have played hacked or fan made games based on companies ip’s and it will no doubt turn out that the video game companies biggest source of income the customers is betraying them more than their own workers.
At least that is what it is in the companies eyes, as they battle to protect their ip’s using unconventional ways to the new generation. Not keeping up with the forcing change in business strategies – almost as bad as the music industry. But as the changes are more and more forced onto the video game industry , the change seems less and less noticeable to them, as they shift it away and start the battle – when it is unwanted and needed.
For those people playing at home, an ip is for the most part the reason why video game companies are often forced into this battle. The rules relating to copyright and ip protection in most countries been very dodgy and uncertain. But the rule seems to be the dollar figure more and more.
For this article my company which I will pick on will be Nintendo. As Nintendo for the most part right now is the most active in destroying the homebrew scene, taking with it the pirates. For Nintendo stomping down the flash card makers (they always seem to pick on the card which is going out of fashion?) and releasing patches for their Wii console to block homebrew and piracy (only to be broken a day later).
Well that sounds all super dupa donkey dory – now doesn’t it? So let’s recap like a stupid education video you watch in school. So far we have said that no matter what the above mentioned things will always exist and what more be one step ahead of the companies who want to stop. We also mentioned that the copyright system as well as keeping trademarks etc. Suck balls in most countries.
This moves onto our next subject (leaving the piracy talk behind for a bit) the great creative field of young naive gamers who think they can create a better (why we are using Nintendo as an example) – Zelda Game.
Nintendo DS flash card – R4 – Nintendo’s prime target
No doubt that most Nintendo fans at one stage have pictured the perfect Zelda or even better a kick ass story line for a Zelda game. For example with me, I’d make a Majora’s Mask sequel with the announcement trailer been Link riding his horse on the beach and then noticing a mask on the ground. Then he picks it up. Yeah epic – you get the idea, people have these ideas and then go ahead and learn something like Game Marker and proceed to make their own Zelda game.
So they get themselves a site, join a few communities then push the shit out of their game. Doing more face to face with the fans advertising then Nintendo would. Sometimes these people come up with the best idea ever or finish their idea to an awesome standard. But always these good remakes, fan games – whatever, developed by fans end up at one place.
Well it isn’t a place as such, but most of the time these people get hit with a nice big fat legal document which basically says to the person to stop developing it or they will be eaten up by giant pacman creatures.
Now for a small bit about hacks and patches, basically those things which seem to be on the border but at the same time they want to shut them down. So hacks manipulate the code to do awesome things, but patches can do other awesome things like translation patches (Mother 3) so they are pretty awesome.
But those awesome patches come at a even bigger cost – to a degree – it seems that the industry has double stands with the simple fact that people who will use these patches NEED THE ROM in the case of Mother 3 – every man and his fucking dog wants to play it. Even if they are in the industry, who gives a shit, oh they are pirating? Well screw that because they are pirating someone else’s property not been rapped by those evil pirates touching their shit.
What’s more is something like NOA won’t shut down the project for now. Why? Well form what I just said I think you can picture it in your head. It’s because they technically don’t own the ip in America, meaning that technically they have no right to stop it because they have no urge to release it state side.
Let’s move off that subject and enter the big party, the big bitch. For now lets go back to those slimy little insects, the termites (ad references – really gay and retarded – in Australia for some steal company – seriously fucking gay ad).
Now piracy, form what I have read around the main factors (I did some research into this guys – lots of people have this opion) that people pirate (you will still get ones which do it because they can) come down to this in Australia it’s all about the money.
But NAL doesn’t think it is – they believe that their lesser quality games should be still at the $100 price tag if not more. But the worst offender who believes this in Australia seems to be the IEA chief executive Ron Curry who had this to say:
“This is not a price-related debate,” he said. “This is about the future protection of overall intellectual rights.”
See this issue in Australia is aurally current – especially with our possible Great Fire Wall of Australia coming and Nintendo of Australia tracking down DS pirates with the help of the Federal Police.
The homebrew channel – can be used for priacy, but holds more value to the average user
So let’s recap this for a minute, they are trying to attack piracy head on? Good for them, to bad it isn’t a good tactic, while it looked like they won when Nintendo o f Japan did it. It comes down to this – for the Nintendo DS they picked the wrong fucking card. Who the fuck uses the R4? And it was also just consecrated on the R4.
So instead of making measures and doing research and other shit like that on why people pirate etc. And then with that research trying to make smart business decisions in Australia to stop or slow down piracy (like $70+ RRP for a game? You got to be fucking kidding me) – how about this NAL, stop been stupid, lower the prices, improve the quality of your games and tell Nintendo of Japan to start making the Nintendo Seal of Quality worth something – instead of the jack shit it worth now. Then maybe your money instead of flogging a dead horse – will start to become something more.
I’m still in a bitching mood, let’s start talking about those fucking WiiWare and VC games and now the Nintendo DS Ware shit. First thing is first NINTENDO YOU FUCKED UP. With NWC been a pile of shit did anyone really expect Nintendo to come through and make a worth while business decision for the customers for once? I don’t think so – it seems they like printing money by the masses and with their new found success they don’t want to be more successful by lowering their product price in return getting more sales.
Let’s bitch about the market in Australia a bit – from what I have heard and read up this downloadable system isn’t really doing too crash hot here. Gee, I wonder why? Is it because its $30 for a fucking 2000 Nintendo Point card?
I’ve think I’ve gone on way to much about bitching about their shitty decisions – because it seems why everyone else is doing it – they really don’t give a shit who is bitching as long as they are getting money.
Speaking about money, let’s say this piracy will probably if not killed be better for Nintendo if its the right people pirating shit. That really came out bad, but say Billy has a flashcard or something, shows Bob an awesome new game, Bob is going to buy that game if he plays it – is he not? But if it wasn’t awesome or not suspected of been awesome Bob wouldn’t buy that game because Bob doesn’t want to buy shit he doesn’t know fuck all about. – Basically MORE FUCKING DEMOS PLEASE
I chose Nintendo today to bitch about them as business styles – basically Nintendo is going the wrong way for this and needs some fresh new ideas to change the way people think and get people to start buying games. They can start today by lowering the RRP.
Spore is a game which spored lots of hype over the years as its completion was due many started to resent the ride. Was spore worth it? Trent Petronaitis picks up the PC and DS version and gives them both a whirl.
Spore was announced like all games these days, a big bang at E3. Something which gamers these days have long forgotten – Spore the last big announcement from E3 which seemed that it could offer more, be more and capture everyone. Just like The Sims without been a overrated minigame festation like most games to come out of development since the beginning of the this generation.
The games promise seemed alright enough for everyone to keep a big eye on the game. The idea of moving your own creation through a cellular stage then all the way to a space conquer seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed nothing could go wrong with the design and everyone was anticipating the release of Spore.
Spore was released with three versions – more to come of course, but for now the release contained the strong arm PC game – everything and anything spore was going to ever be. Followed by a Nintendo DS version – a cut down game which had a Animal Crossing feel to it. Finally just the Cell Stage for Mobile Phone users.
Spore had a few problems at launch, from EA’s piracy controls and protection on the disk to the fact the game dam right was to over-hyped.
My experience with Spore for the PC was a fun one at times, but at other times it was very restrictive, many things I thought where going to be included in the game seemed missing. I find out later that these features are going to be released as expansion packs. Waiting for them I find that the first one was already out – just a simple skin pack. Instead of ones which bring the features the game should of had.
The Sims felt so fresh because of the fact that it seemed like nothing more could be done. To an extent you could wish that you could go down town etc. But these features were not ones which seemed like they should have been included to start of with. With The Sims feeling like it was just a house and a sim family, nothing more – and of course defiantly nothing more could complete that perfect goal. The expansions made the game better, the experience crisper and the game more open ended.
But with Spore for the PC as you go through the various stages of the game, you notice that it has lots of identity crises throughout the game. What does the game want to be? With each stage having a different concept and in the end could be sold as one game each (DS and Mobile versions) and still feel quite finished.
The identity crisis isn’t the only thing which makes Spore and the future expansion packs feel rushed and unpolished. Earlier I mentioned many features should of been included, but were not, or most areas were too restrictive. Those things of course will be finished up in expansion packs at the end of the day. But the game wouldn’t need them as much if the game was 100%. While the wait was tough for most only because of the hype – the end product feels worse than most games to date.
The stages in the game don’t feel right when presented in one big package with everything you learn from the past stage been thrown out the window in the next. In the earlier stages it was entering a peek, the best stage was the civilisation stage and tribal stage. These stages both slightly simular, but at the same time, both with the concept of either concur or destroy. The game rapping itself around basic principles of games such as Age of Empires and to an extent Animal Crossing or Unreal Tournament (the nodes you control in the civilisation stage to mine stuff).
Spore then started to fall into a deep hole, with the space age feeling like a text adventure with the little interaction you got to land or other creatures. High in a space ship, the only cool thing was teraforming, but even then very restrictive to what you can do. Depending on the missions you have to do – to advance and finish the final frontier – space. A disappointment for those who have played the game so far and a big slap in the face when you can’t change anything anymore.
Besides the stages bad design and sometimes repetitive nature. The game featured some very interesting concepts which should have been expanded on in the original package.
The game featured if you chose to mind you – some very interesting social aspects. Most of the time you would be forced to eat others to advance if you took the route of the carnivore. You could if you choose to, dance and talk. In later stages you could also play music to please the other tribe.
These social aspects could be just be thrown out the window as well – with the end goal in the civilisation (industrial?) age. Your goal is to expand over the world. You could take two routes, either keep trading with a nation then you have the chance to buy them (or they join you) or you can blow the living shit out of them. The end result is always you’re going to have to attack the other nations. With the social trading route, while interesting – it’s never going to make you advance if you want to finish that stage in a few days.
While the social aspects are broken (or are we really all blood thirsty creatures?) in the PC version. The Nintendo DS version which is set before tribal influence or any other civilisation pact seems to be all about socialising. While at times you do have to go out of your way to destroy a creature. It seems to be all about creating friendships with other creatures.
Though the DS version seems to be broken again in the regard of controls. The PC version has an open ended range of controls thanks to the trusty keyboard. But the Nintendo DS version thanks to EA’s design choice is restricted to a broken touch screen controls. Both for fighting and socialising.
Music isn’t really that promint in the DS version with the tracks been ones which just disappear after awhile with no lasting effect. The PC version when music is included is very ‘epic’ if you want to use that word – though is lacking with the over all game.
Score: So-So
Spore seems the be the game which wants to be the best. Trying to be as good or better than The Sims while been a totally different game. EA seemed to have developed a game which wants to kill their own line up. Even though it’s their own I.P it’s the type of game which wants to push The Sims out – no matter how unreleased the game is. This is Spores down fall.
Spore on both the Nintendo DS and PC and Mobile is a very broken game. A broken game which is enjoyable to play every now and again. But wont be something which takes control of the market. It’s identity issues which the game has developed will make casuals not want it because of the learning curve (even though it is very easy to master once you understand the game – it still is a bit tricky if you don’t know what you are doing) – created by the many game types trying to be one big game of Spore.
Spore could have been more fun and longer lasting even in its current state if it was polished much more than what it is now. As well as adding in the features which expansion packs will only add what should have been included to begin with.
The biggest down fall for Spore – The Space Age, it was an interesting experience to get to that point. But the Space Age was the biggest one which through everything out of the window. Something more could have been developed for the space age. Instead of what the age is now, something more interesting such as a mix of civilisation and tribal stages but in space could have worked well. The front on attacks and relations with other planets – as well as traforming could have been a winning combination.
Articles - By Trent Petronaitis at 4:02 pm
Trinest goes looking for recipes that his dad wants to teach him – turns out they don’t exist.
Do you remember the days when people from Europe wanted to come over to Australia or America – with a 50 cent coin the deciding factor? Well like most of Australia – Europe is where it all happened for most of your family. Either 50 years ago or 100 years ago or 200 years ago. Either way someone decided Australia was better than America – and thank god they picked Australia cause I don’t want to be a hillbilly.
So when my dad was born here he got attached to all the old foods. He learned these crazy recipes from a bunch of people who all had the same desire back then. All the old people taught him, now he wants to teach me these crazy stuff.
He can pick about a pile of recipes from various European countries and cook them. But the fact is – he sucks at cooking them. Mainly because he’s to fucking lazy to modernize them.
So there’s on recipe which he cooks – way too much. When I was little he used to call it ‘Cook-O-Less’ and then go on about some crazy ‘You Cook Less and Eat More 
’. Now I did some Google-ling this shit doesn’t exist man. I’ve found some recipes which might be it, but besides that this shit doesn’t exist at all.
So back onto this recipe, I like to picture it as – and for you guys at home (someone ate it all so I can’t take pictures for you – had it last night) as mac and cheese but replace the mac with some potato, and lots and lots of potato.
Heck, I don’t even think it has cheese, it does get a grill like on the top, but that’s probably because of the oven. Anyway inside this ball of potato is a mix of bacon and onion. Now I will like this recipe kind of if the ratios were right. For starters its like 2 and a half – thirds of potato, the rest is this piss ass mix of bacon and onion.
Now back onto how my dad cooks it. 3 rashes of bacon will do? That barely puts enough to find maybe one piece (he cuts them down to tiny shit too) in the big lump of potato you get in a serve.
Back to modernizing, serious this is a Lithuanian recipe apparently, and I know over there when it originated they had fuck all in terms of cattle and pig and shit loads of potato, but seriously, 3 pieces of bacon? We are in fucking Australia. Go to the fucking deli and put 10 pieces or something in it and stop feeding us like starving children on the street.
Now I was talking to my friend about how I was going to do this article and be more concentrated on cooking the thing (even though I don’t know how the fuck to do it – I leave after all the bacon is gone) and how it was a Lithuanian recipe or something like that. You know what his response was?
â€What’s Lithuania?â€
Well I don’t know either man. I haven’t been there and from the little Mum and Dad brought home from when they were there – I’d say its magical land which doesn’t exist and they just hire gipsy’s to make some random crafts and send it back as gifts – why they enjoy a resort treatment in bloody America or something like that.
But I know it exists cause dude, it’s on the bloody globe…
But anyway he also has this other recipe which he flogs like a dead horse which he learned from a friend of the family. I don’t know the origins of it any more. It’s called a Day and Night Cake – at lest that’s what he calls it. A quick Google search shows that its more common than that big slab of potato we were talking about earlier.
But alas not how he makes it. See he makes it with some crazy walnuts and other random nuts and eggs. No fucking flour, and it’s a cake. HOW FUCKING TRIPPY IS THAT?????
See this is another recipe he knows that he wants to pass down or some shit like that. But WTF the only good part is the day bit (doesn’t have any fucking nuts in it) and the night bit is to rubbery and tastes like fucking crap. Modernize it a bit and only make the day bit and put some chocolate icing on top of it like always.
And that was Trin-Space, tune into Rove tonight for the real Pete’s space, made by a guy who knows rove, not some fat web designer. HOLLY SHIT ROVE IS ON TONIGHT.
October 2, 2008
Articles - By Trent Petronaitis at 3:59 pm
Cing was a small quite developer until it made a loud bang onto the Nintendo DS with their graphic novel game Another Code: 2 Memories. Now Cing is back after been in the dream team to make Little Kings Story – Another Code is their new goal once again.
The Nintendo DS launched with a few titles and in the first year it already got one of the best on the system. Cing developed and Nintendo published game Another Code: 2 Memories was Cing’s gamble into making games for Nintendo and graphic novels.
Looking back now you can see how much the game was a trial – a test, an experiment. Hotel Dusk – Cing’s second Nintendo DS title is another graphic novel game. Hotel Dusk changed the rules which Cing started with when they made Another Code. They introduced new functions, different puzzle ideas and explored a more deeper story.
During todays conference in Japan which Nintendo hosted a new game from Cing was announced. While the western world is yet to see it’s dream team project Little King Story, Cing was ready with another title to show. Another Code: Gateway of Memory (Rough Translation).
The new game isn’t for the new Nintendo DS (The Nintendo DSi) which it could of have had some creative and new aspects in the game such as using the new features the device contains. No Cing has developed the title for the Nintendo Wii – this way the old puzzles can be replaced with new interesting ones.
Though Cing’s experiments could all be soon for nothing. A epidemic could ruin the games for ever. Instead of trying to develop something good, that they want to play. They could be heading into the zone of the casual – trying to make games which they think will please casual gamers.
So far all we know about the new title is the name and we also have 3 screenshots (from a small video). This can’t prepare us for what is to come, but it can give us warning of how it will work. From the looks of it the game is close to the Nintendo DS game in many ways. The only thing which can go for warning is gone is her trademark lab style shirt – replaced with a casual shirt with a flower on it. Pleasing the casuals? Let’s hope not.
Though that style does give away what her age is and how long the game can be from the original. The clothes she is wearing is trendy for late teens. Meaning a few years have passed since the last title. Let’s hope her father isn’t missing again and the game has a much more interesting story line.
