I know that utility software for the DS is a hit in Japan, and I know that people try to make these things go in the United States and elsewhere, but is quitting smoking something that people will actually do on the DS? I want to believe this is true, certainly. I want to believe that we are, in some ways, already toting around the ultimate, mutable living tool, a young lady's illustrated primer. It's a fantasy I can endorse. The challenge for them is going to be moving the product out of the core smoker demo into other markets, but that's not insurmountable.
Stephen Totilo (over at MTV's Multiplayer Blog) dropped me a line yesterday, asking me to check out his newest project - a month's worth of research on the reviewing arts, simmered down into a week's worth of rich content. I was already reading it, of course. My spies are everywhere. But that was sweet of him.
He wanted to direct my attention to his collaborative Reviewer's Bill Of Rights, which is interesting, but not the best thing he has on offer. Some of the things being asked for in the Bill are deeply counter to the way the industry works, or at any rate, the way some companies do. They're also asking for boxed copies of games, presumably to better mirror the kind of retail experience a consumer has. But I'm all
1. Boxed copies? Really, though? That's kinda 1989. I lost my totemic associations with retail games once they stopped including the cloth maps, describing places like The Crags Of Furng and Outer Andalusia.
2. The box signifies parity, but does not contain it. The easiest way to create parity between yourself and the consumer is to purchase videogames at the store with money.
Of course, if you do that, then you don't have it early, and you fall behind in the arms race. The hunger to always be dangling from the very moment of release is the Goddamned scourge of gaming journalism as an industry. To get it, and to secure it, you must constantly and without hesitation be in the act of signing infernal pacts. Review Week gives several examples of these arrangements, concessions large and small. Why should this be? They need that access, and they need the ads that healthy relationships generate, or they don't have a company - no platform to broadcast their editorial content. Such politenesses gird the entire structure.
Going back to Age of Conan, Lord only knows how the reviews will shake out, but the process that is currently ongoing - where review professionals are taking a week or more of solid play to get a read on it - my be closer to the ideal of the form. The number we typically receive at the end of reviews is an average of the play experience, and then we average the average with a bunch of other averages from other people using radically different standards and imagine we've discerned some incontrovertible science of truth, and then the people who made the thing are punished or rewarded based on the mercurial output of that calculation. One wonders why any person would willingly subject themselves to these empty, unaccountable mechanisms.
(CW)TB out.
So Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition will be coming out in eight days. You're probably wondering why I'm talking about this and not Tycho, seeing as I never played editions one through three. That's a good question, so here's what's up.
Wizards of the Coast came to us months ago and wanted to run some ads for 4th edition. They wanted to do something more than just banner ads though and they asked us if we had any cool ideas. What we came up with is probably one of my favorite projects to date. Tycho and I sat down at a table with Scott Kurtz from PvP and a DM from WOTC and we played 4th edition. That probably doesn't sound awesome to you except that we also recorded the entire thing as a podcast.
So you have Tycho who is the old pro, you have Scott who hasn't played since he was a kid and you have me the complete newb. If you've played D&D before but you're curious about the changes in 4th edition the podcast will cover a ton of the new rules. If you've never played and your curious if it's something you'd like, I think this is a really good example of the game. For me personally is was an extremely positive experience. There was some frustration at first as I tried to wrap my head around the rules but once I got into it I had a really good time. I think I actually enjoyed the adventuring/role playing portions of the game more than the actuall combat. The comabt was fun but it was the puzzle solving and interaction with the rest of the party that really made the game for me. At any rate if you're curious about D&D in general or 4th edition specifically I think these podcasts will be helpful and hopefully funny.
We ended up playing all day and then broke the podcast up into multiple chunks. The first of which went live today. Not only will WOTC be posting a new podcast each week but Scott and I will be creating a comic that follows the events of the adventure. There will be two panels accompanying each podcast, one drawn by me and one drawn by Scott. Today's podcast covers the start of the game as we name our characters and get our group set up. It also includes our first taste of combat and my very first official d20 roll ever. If you hit the WOTC site here you can grab the first show and see the first two panels of the comic. If you don't have one already, you will need to sign up for an account. It's free and pretty quick.
Collaborating with Scott on the comic has been a real blast. I've known Scott and admired his work for ten years now. I'm not sure why it took us this long to finally work together on something but I'm glad we are. We're alternating panels and I think we're both trying to out do the other with each new drawing. He'll send me the inks for a panel and I'll feel like a hack and so I'll have to push even harder on my piece. I think the end result is going to be something pretty special. Anyway, check it out and please let me know what you think.
Also don't forget that Target is still selling 1600 MS points for $14.99 until May 31st. Essentially they're selling you twenty dollars for fifteen dollars. So if you liked the demo for Rain Slick but $20 was just too steep, here's an opportunity to pick it up for $15. Not a bad deal.
Oh and did you know that Delicious Library two is out? There is a screenshot over on the site and I gotta say, Wil has pretty good taste in books.
-Gabe out
