Konami Pre-E3 Event 2011

I went to the Konami Pre-E3 event on Thursday night, shot some video, and sat down with my camera to share my thoughts of some of the games on display.

Steam is better than anything else, but Steam can be better

Today the Steam sale was The Sims 3 focused. I’ve wanted to pick up The Sims 3 for a while now, but I was never going to pay $50 for a game that I’ve already played over and over again for the past ten years. At $20, though, it was suddenly reasonable. The problem is that for whatever reason, EA doesn’t sell The Sims 3 for Mac on Steam. So only the PC version was on sale, which is ridiculous, because when you buy the game in a physical store, they give you a DVD that works on both PC and Mac.

After a quick internet search, I saw that both the EA Store and Direct-2-Drive also had The Sims 3 on sale for $20, and they were offering the Mac version for the same price. Score, right? No. I spent my whole lunch break trying and failing to buy it on Direct-2-Drive. They wanted me to make an account, enter in all of my billing information, and then they had to call me to verify. Only the phone call verification would never work. After three tries with my credit card and three tries with my PayPal, they blocked my account from trying to purchase the game (what?), and I turned to customer support.

To use Direct-2-Drive, you have to make an account. To use their customer support, you have to make a different, separate, customer service account. What? I’m having a problem with your service, and you make me fill out more forms, just to gain the ability to fill out more forms? So for a good half hour I said no to that, until eventually I said okay, fine to that. I opened a customer service account and filed a case with them. By the end of the day (end of the day?!) they e-mailed me saying they had lifted the block. I went back in, had to start from scratch with an empty shopping cart, but I bought the game and it worked.

So now I’m playing the game, right? No. Now I’m downloading a huge file, then I’m going to have to enter a serial number they sent me, then I’m going to have to do some kind of activation with EA. I could have avoided all of these problems by just downloading the game illegally, which begs the question, why is EA punishing the people who want to purchase their games? And why is Direct-2-Drive so improperly named, as nothing is going directly to anything, you guys.

And all of these problems would be avoided if the game was on Steam for Mac, because you guys, Steam just works. But Steam can’t work if you don’t put your game on Steam. Why would EA put The Sims 3 for Mac on disc, on Direct-2-Drive, and on their online store, but not on Steam? It boggles the mind.

So, game companies. Hi. I have a favor to ask you: put your games on Steam. I know you’re afraid of Steam, you can see that it’s a monopoly train barreling towards your bottom line, taking control of all sales in this industry. But you guys, at least their train runs like it’s supposed to. And I know you’re trying to get your own online stores going, but until your online stores have integrated friend lists, automatic updates, and unlimited downloads to unlimited computers, STOP TRYING TO HAVE AN ONLINE STORE AND JUST PUT YOUR GAMES ON STEAM. Because yes, Steam can be better, but Steam is better than everything else.

Sincerely,

–Adam.

Phonemon!

The truth comes out when Adam and Nathan play with their phones while watching Pokemon cartoons.

Homefront: Hide n Seek

Here’s a parody trailer we made for a possible Homefront sequel.

MUSIC VIDEO: The Winning Caption – “The Game”

Here is a music video I made in collaboration with P. Nathan Smith and his band “The Winning Caption.” Using Rock Band 3, a lot of plastic instruments, and even more of me jumping around and acting a fool.

This was shot as a test using my new Canon t3i camera. Expect more videos soon!

There shouldn’t be an Uncharted movie, you guys

"But Drake, I thought we already made an Uncharted movie. You know, Uncharted, the videogame."

Okay, so there shouldn’t be an Uncharted movie, you guys. Uncharted 2 ranks as one of my favorite games of all time, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it turned into a movie. There are quality games that could be separate yet equal experiences as movies. Halo comes to mind. A Bioshock movie could be done right. But the Uncharted games are already cinematic experiences. They’ve already hired real actors and had those real actors do the voices and the mo-cap. Uncharted is already a movie, it’s just a movie that you also happen to be playing through.

Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the Uncharted games, is already a fully-formed character. He already has a voice, he already has a look, and both of those are performed or inspired by an existing actor: Nolan North. So when the Uncharted fanboys like me are freaking out over the casting of Mark Wahlberg as Nathan Drake, it’s not because we’re just being stupid fanboys. This casting makes the Uncharted film worse than the Spider-Man reboot. It’s taking a character and world and story that we’ve just recently experienced and loved, gutting it, recasting it, and propping it up like a real-life scene of Weekend at Bernies. So when the fanboys were chanting Nathan Fillion for Nathan Drake, they were doing it because the character of Nathan Drake is already so heavily influenced by Fillion’s Malcolm Reynolds that he’s the only established film actor we can see filling those shoes. I mean, because Harrison Ford is too old. And the casting of Marky Mark isn’t flawed because Marky Mark is a bad actor, it’s flawed because it shows how little the moviemakers are paying attention to the source material.

Halo Reach Noble Map Pack

In this episode of Multiplayer Singleplayer, Adam gets the new Halo: Reach Noble Map Pack… or does he?

Pac-Man CE DX is the New Crackness

Remember when the little yellow circle thing ate the little pellets and went waka-waka? Those were good Pac-Man times, right? Remember a bunch of years later when they added a phat techno beat and a timer and made it look like Geometry Wars? Those were good Pac-Man CE times too. Well, in the tradition of those times, if you’re smart enough to drop the 800 MS points today, then you’re going to have some good Pac-Man CE DX times as well.

The original Pac-Man Championship Edition took what the world loved about Pac-Man and made it relevant again. They kept the gameplay we knew and loved and turned everything on its head by adding a timer. This made the game less about staying alive and more about moving as quickly as possible to get a higher score than all of your friends.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX takes the divergent path of the original CE further down the pellet-popping warp hole. What emerges on the other side has more maps, more modes, and more visual-style choices, all with the most rewarding ghost-gobbling I’ve ever experienced. And yes, Pac-Man now has bombs.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit – Small Complaints – Car Unlocks

Taking the Facebook out of the Farmville

I have a confession to make: I have started playing Farmville.

Welcome to the Farmville Player Protection Program

Still reading? Okay. I know I’m late to the social gaming party. I know that—your mom jokes aside—only your mom plays Farmville now. I guess I started because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I like videogames, so I thought I should at least experience it firsthand. I’ve been playing it fairly regularly for the past two weeks, and it’s pretty fun. It’s mostly mindless clicking, but like all great casual games, they’ve put in all the right tricks to keep you coming back for more.

But you see, here’s the thing: I had to tell you that I played Farmville. If you were (or are) my Facebook friend, you would have no idea that I grow candy corn from my Facebook profile. Whenever Farmville tries to get me to tell you that I’m doing that, which it does at almost every turn, I say no. I say cancel. I don’t hit share. Because, well, I don’t want everyone on Facebook to know that I play Farmville. And I don’t think I’m alone. It is for this reason that I propose that Farmville provide us the option to dump the Facebook.