It took me by surprise when I found out that the first Wednesday after the summer of XBLA would have three releases instead of one. I was only surprised until I played them; only one of the three is worth looking at. In the never ending quest to charge money for things that are free (and possibly better) elsewhere comes Gin Rummy.
Latest Feature: Impulse Buyer
Can Stardock break into the marketplace, and will it help reduce piracy?
COLUMNS
The best stuff written about video games from the week.
“Gaming’s 20 Greatest Challenges” at Edge
Colin Campbell doing what he does best. I can’t imagine coming up with this list, not to mention writing as smartly and concisely about them all. The one problem here is that he doesn’t always offer a solution to these problems, but it’s still important either way. The last item, “You Know…the Obvious” (keep making good games!) especially is a stroke of genius.
“Things to Make and Do in LittleBigPlanet” at Edge
The best non-video preview I’ve seen of this game. There’s little new information, but the quotes from Media Molecule employees are priceless (the last paragraph is perfect, and respect for Nintendo brought up multiple times, who would have guessed?), and it does go into the game’s possible cultural significance. More previews need to do that.
“Braid [REVIEW]” at Joystick Division
I’ll admit it, I haven’t played this game yet, but this would be a great review even if I disagreed with it. It’s just personal enough, just descriptive enough, and just spoiler-laden enough (with warning, of course). The cheap shot at people spending $60 for sports games and mediocre shooters is unnecessary (really not the same audience as Braid), but I agree that the backlash against its $15 price point has been ridiculous.
“THE ACTION BUTTON DOT NET MANIFESTO: A LIST OF THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST GAMES OF ALL-TIME” at Action Button
Updated this week with numbers 22 through 17. It’s a lot of reading, but I can assure you that it is totally worth it. Tim Rogers is at his near-best here; these reviews are inspired, enlightening, and entertaining. I also love that he’s writing the list as if it’s one big piece (there’s constant mentions of spear thrusting and God Hand). It’s quite an undertaking - one of the biggest projects I’ve seen in gaming journalism - but it seems he’s up to the task.
“Steps Toward an Elitist Critic Future” at Rock Paper Shotgun
I went into this article expecting the “elitist critic future” to be presented as a negative thing, but no. Kieron Gillen is openly admitting here that he likes it. I think he’s buying into the idea that games need what you could call “indie cred” (not his words) to be worthwhile. I love Earth Defense Force 2017, but no, Kieron, it’s not better than Gears of War.
Lower the price of the hard drive, Microsoft. I want to give you more money, all you have to do is let me.
“EA Partners Is A Murderers’ Row - Who’s NOT On This List?” at MTV Multiplayer
This is a good bit of investigative reporting from Stephen Totilo. With last Thursday’s announcements by Electronic Arts of deals with Grasshopper Manufacture and Epic Games, they now have at least half a dozen major partners, and that’s not counting the smaller companies they have outright purchased over the last couple years.
I have become amazed at what XBLA has done in the past few weeks. It started with Geometry Wars 2, a game Jim Canapa described perfectly in the previous column (he should know, since his high scores are far better than mine). Bionic Commando, another great game I will go into detail about later, was the most recent addition. But in the middle was Braid, the first game to ever cause an internal conflict for me.