Posts Tagged ‘grand theft auto’

2008 Game of the Year

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

I always have to delay my game of the year consideration until I have had a chance to play the great crop of games that comes out right around Christmas time.  This year I had the opportunity to vote in the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards.

The nominees for game of the year were:

  • Fallout 3
  • Grand Theft Auto IV
  • Left4Dead
  • LittleBigPlanet
  • Metal Fear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

After playing each of the games I have to give my game of the year vote to Metal Gear Solid 4.  Every one of the games on the list has pushed video gaming forward in its own way.  I strongly considered Left4Dead because of the AI director innovation and how well put together the experience is.  I also considered LittleBigPlanet for the astonishing move forward in user-created content.  Ultimately though, I could not pick anything other than Metal Gear Solid 4.

My preferences tend toward whichever game is the most engrossing and immersive.  MGS4 was the game that hit that target the hardest.  The visuals were jaw-dropping throughout the game.  No other game this year, or possibly ever, did such a great job of making you feel what the main character was feeling.  I didn’t even care about the long cut-scenes until the very end.  The cut scene during the credits is very long and slow and the player has had enough by that point.

I put 40 hours into Fallout 3 this year, but never found myself as engrossed as I did in MGS4.  I never found myself up at 1-2am playing Fallout.  MGS4 was the only game that kept me engrossed until the early morning hours this year.  The most amazing part is that I have never really been a fan of the Metal Gear series.  Outside of the original Metal Gear Solid, I never put a lot of time into any of the games.  I never expected to like the game as much as I did.

If you have a PS3 you owe it to yourself to play Metal Gear Solid 4.  It is the best game of 2008.

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The Right Length For $60 Video Games

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Warren Spector doesn’t think that 100 hour games make a lot of sense, and I agree with him.  Over the last year or so, I’ve thought a lot about the right length for games.  My viewpoint is obviously influenced by my demographics.  For the nearly 30 year old set with family, free time is at a more substantial premium than for high school or college age individuals.  That said, the reality of the gaming market is that the average player age is in their late 20s.  The largest proportion of the market holds full time jobs and has other commitments.  For that reason, as Warren said, very few people will ever finish a long game.  That is a waste of development money.  If you spend 15-20 hours on a game and feel that you’ve gotten your money’s worth, the developer wasted money on the additional content after that.

The real question is where consumer’s feel that they’ve gotten their money’s worth from the developer.  I have an easy answer – 10 hours.  Why?  That was the length of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  I absolutely felt the game was worth every penny and it was just about the right length.  I should be able to finish a game in under a couple of weeks playing in the evenings.  A game like Bioshock that stretches closer to 20 hours is even more value for the money.  If the game had been a bit shorter, it wouldn’t have substantially impacted my evaluation of it.  Although I will take as much Bioshock as I can get.  Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed both clocked in at the 15-20 hour range.  Both games had substantially more content, but I wasn’t inclined to invest 15-20 more hours with the secondary material.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that I am unlikely to ever play through as Warren said.  The 60-70 hours minimum of game time is something I’m unlikely to find time to devote.  There are games like Call of Duty 4 that clock in at a sub-standard but exceptional 6 hours.  When the deep multi-player experience is considered, the game certainly meets the 10 hour threshold.

For my money, a $60 game should have 10-20 hours of great game play, no more and no less.  A developer who wants to make a substantially longer game should consider whether shortening the development cycle and making a better, shorter game is more sensible.

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M Rated Games Harder To Buy Than R Rated Movies (and Matt Damon is a Hypocrite)

Friday, May 9th, 2008

According to a new secret shopper exercise by the FTC, video game ratings are enforced more often than ratings on any other type of media. With all of the people that seem to be worried about the impact of Grand Theft Auto on children, you’d think everyone could just walk in and buy a copy. The reality is that there is a far better chance that your child could buy Goodfellas. More than double the chance in fact.

I still contend that simply having the games industry adopt the G-PG-R-NC-17 rating system of movies would solve a lot of PR problems. Amazingly, the game system is better enforced than the standard movie industry system. That clearly won’t be covered on a top story with Fox News this week. If video game enforcement were low, you can be sure that they would cover it with GTAIV just being released.

On a similar note, it appears that Matt Damon is a hypocrite. He apparently turned down the video-game adaptation of the Bourne Ultimatum due to not believing in video game violence. Let’s get this straight people. GTA IV doesn’t sell 6 million copies in the first week to kids who try to get through the checkout line without getting caught. It sell that many copies because of a huge market of 20 year olds+ that are interested in the game. I’m reminded of a letter to the editor in one of this month’s gaming magazines (unfortunately I can’t remember which one) where a 16 year old wrote in lamenting that his parents wouldn’t let him get Halo 3. He wanted to know how he could convince them. The answer was that he was pretty much out of luck. That is the reality. Parents control what their kids can and do play. The video game market is not dominated by kids except on the DS and maybe the Wii. Games made for the 360 and PS3 are targeted at adults, simply because that is the majority of the user base. Matt, you are making violent movies in which you kill people that will be seen may many times more children than would every play your video game. Does that not seem like a contradiction to you?

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