GAME STATE: Top Five Game Annoyances

For every Half-Life 2, Gears of War, and Pokemon, there are about a hundred other mediocre titles that could have made it to the top-tier if they had just taken care of at least some of the details. Here are my top five annoyances in video games.

NUMBER ONE: DISAPPEARING BODIES
When I first played Wolfenstein on the PC many years ago, one of the features I was blown away by was that, if I cleared a room away of Nazis, I could come back and their blood-spattered corpses would still be there. At the time, I thought this was "the wave of the future" -- who needs to keep track of points when I can see the carnage I had wrought? It was realistic and absolutely satisfying.

Well, it's 2008 and most games still have disappearing bodies. Even the updated Doom had bodies disintegrate into the ether. Sometimes it happens when you leave an area; other times it happens right before your eyes. Now, I know persistent bodies take up precious memory, but there are many alternatives. For example, have the bodies disappear only when the player has long left the area. Or have them eaten by something that the player needs to flee from. Or have an ambulance come and pick them up, like in GTA. Anything to keep up the suspension of disbelief. Just don't have them gradually fade away like faerie dust.

NUMBER TWO: ENFORCED TUTORIALS
I'm a badass. Well, maybe not me, but my video game character is supposed to be one. So why does he/she need to learn how to aim a rifle a few minutes before that critical mission to save the planet?

Too many games force tutorials on the player instead of just making an option in the menu. It's the game's way of telling me I suck. I've been playing video games almost my entire life, and most games fall under the same mechanics. If I need a tutorial (and sometimes I really do), I'd rather play it outside of the actual missions. Again, it's all about suspension of disbelief. One exception: Fire Emblem for the GBA had a fantastic tutorial that was also the prologue to the game. What made it believable was that you played a neophyte commander in the tutorial.

NUMBER THREE: SUB-PAR VOICE ACTING
As some of you know, I lived in Japan for almost four years. Sometimes I was asked to do an English voice-over for a commercial or training video. It was honest work, but I know I'm no Robert Deniro. Did my employers know that? Who knows, but they certainly didn't care much. My English was clear and intelligible and that was enough.

If you wonder why the acting in so many Japanese games sucks, this is why. Most of the actors you hear in games like Resident Evil are not actors at all. They're English teachers. That's right: teachers. Considering a game typically costs $50 and sells in the thousands (often millions), I think gamers deserve at least a few B-movie actors in their entertainment. Based on his performance in Norbit, Cuba Gooding Jr. might want to consider moving into video games -- he might get back the respect he deserves.

NUMBER FOUR: PC GAME INSTALLATIONS
Before I got my Xbox 360, I was more of a PC gamer than a console one. Installations were a given. But when games started to install one, then two, then four gigabytes on my hard drive, it meant that I could sometimes have only a few games available at any one time. If I bought a new game, I had to choose which older game to uninstall. Sometimes that meant not finishing a (B-list/guilty pleasure) game.

Now, with my 360, if I want to play F.E.A.R., I just pop it in the DVD drive and a minute later, I'm off to kill crazed soldiers. This same game required two gigs on my PC. WTF? It's a travesty that we still have to install games in 2008.

NUMBER FIVE: ADORABLE ENEMIES
I like Pokemon. Yes, that's right, Pokemon. I think it's a fantastic strategy/RPG game. One of the things I like about it is that no one dies. Your pets merely beat-up other pets (or wild animals). Because of this, I don't mind that nearly all of my enemies are furry and adorable.

Now look at a game like Dragon Quest. It's supposed to be an epic adventure, filled with monsters terrorizing villages and causing the end of the world. It requires journeying into stark deserts, gloomy forests, and foul-smelling dungeons. So why do all the sinister creatures look like like balloon animals? If I saw a Dragon Quest monster in real life, I'd probably pet it (or, if it were nipping at my ankles, give it a gentle boot to the skull). Where, I ask, is the joy in slaying something that looks like it belongs in a child's bathtub?

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MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Cancelled

I would normally post a movie review today, but I'm honestly too bummed out. The Xbox 360 sudden death syndrome and resultant (semi-frantic) trial-and-error attempted repair on my part left me little time to watch anything except the latest episode of Lost (which I will discuss later this week).

So instead of a movie review, I will pathetically post pics from the video game I would be playing if Microsoft were as good as Apple at hardware design ... and if Jesus really loved me. ;)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is VIKING: BATTLE FOR ASGARD:

You can read a review of the game at Xbox360Achievements. They appear to have enjoyed it immensely.

Damn you, Microsoft.

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GAME STATE: My first Red Ring of Death

God. Damn. It.

Well, it had to happen sometime. My (used) XBox 360 finally went belly-up tonight and I don't know why. A quick check of the error codes gave me "0110", which apparently means the memory is overheating.

Which means I can't fix it myself.

Which means I have to bring it in for a repair.

Which means that, if I want to enjoy my right to play the $60 game I just bought, I now have to pay extra.

I had just finished a project and only wanted to relax for half an hour by tearing apart viking marauders. This has been my process of writing for the last six months — write to a predetermined word count, then reward myself afterwards with a cathartic virtual bloodbath.

And now as I sit here, thoroughly unsatiated, that behavioural training has bitten me on the butt. You see, the controversy over the Red Ring of Death has already cost Microsoft a billion dollars in warranty repairs. Yet somehow, over the last few months, I'd forgotten about the debacle, lost as I was in the tremendous entertainment value that is (or rather was) my Xbox 360. What did I do to cause the dreaded RROD?

SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME

Simple. I pressed the ON button. Normally, I turn on the machine by pressing the disc eject button, but not this time. Without thinking, my hand went to the large circular button that you would normally guess was not booby-trapped. As for the console itself, it was sitting where it has always been sitting for the last two months -- on a large open shelf beneath my now blank widescreen LCD display.

The last twist on the situation is that this is not the first time a Microsoft product has croaked on me. Back in 2004, the DVD  drive of my original Xbox died a few months past the warranty period. Indeed, it was with great trepidation that I finally went and got a 360 after years of pacing up and down the aisles of the local Best Buy.

There's a store near the university downtown that repairs RROD-affected 360s. I'll be taking it there in a few days and will update this post with the results (and the cost). Stay tuned.

UPDATE #1: Blastlogic.com replied to an email from me. They'll fix my 360 for $100, and want 'one or two days' for the repair and testing. The price seems ... high. I just might try fixing the console myself if I can get the right screwdriver.