Gobblin.net

Someone pointed out to me that Wizards vs. Robots doesn’t actually have any robots in it. Yes, well it’s only pt. 1. Pt.2 will have more robots than you can wave a wand at, just you see! I just have to figure out how best to work them in.

In the meantime, here are a few links of interest:

• Autopsy of an Indy Bookseller — I’ve always had a soft spot for independent bookstores, having spent the better part of my teens and early 20s in one. In case you’re still wondering why it’s so hard to sell books the old fashioned way, this analysis of the fall of Berkley’s Codys’ Books is a must read.
• It’s last week’s nerd news, but these scans of Edward Gorey’s The Deflowered Girl are a brilliant revelation and a must read for any Gobblin who hasn’t already seen them.
• In my 2008 gaming recap, PixelJunk took top honors for their work. Gamasutra presents a great interview that explains how their unique studio works.
• From Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL) to professional set designer! This three part interview at the Brothers brick is a fascinating read.

This year I did not lead Niko Bellic through Liberty City, create a Death Knight or chop up dudes with a Lancer. I don’t think I shot a single zombie. Despite playing only a tiny fraction of the games that came out this year, I did manage to log in few hundred hours gaming. So where did all that time go? Here’s a year in hours lost to games: Read more…

Much has been made over the past two years about the appeal of the Nintendo Wii to people who don’t traditionally play video games. Like many gamers who have had access to games pretty much since birth, I just don’t find the Wii philosophy and catalog of games that compelling. I understand why it’s such a brilliant machine and why it is successful–I really do!–and I believe that with more imagination, the catalog of games could interest me and other “traditional” gamers. For now, though, I’ll stick to my Xbox, Playstation and DS.

That should be it. I should let my grievances lie, as really, my gamer needs have been served pretty darn well for 25+ years, so it’s about time the grandmas, little sisters (no, not these little sisters) and the unfanatical masses got a turn at gaming. But I still can’t quite quash those niggling feelings that there’s more to this equation than different strokes for different folks. Are savvy branding, motion-sensing gadgets and familiar activities all that that the new-to-gaming Wii fans want from a console?
Since my mom’s spending the week with me, I decided to try a little experiment. I gave her a brief tour of the current gen systems, not asking her to play at first, but just to see what her reaction would be to the latest technology in all its HD splendor. First up was Far Cry 2, my current console favorite and hands down the most gorgeous gaming experience I’ve ever had. Seriously, this game is photo-real with amazing sound design and lush African vistas.

With coaxing, mom admits that it’s pretty, but clearly her interests are waning. Okay, on to Little Big Planet. Here’s another game that achieves unheard of graphical sophistication, only with realism replaced by a handcrafted fantasyland– it’s like sitting at the helm of Michel Gondry’s imagination. Again, mom is unmoved. Now I switch to the Wii and Wii Fit. From the moment the balance board hits the floor, mom is fascinated. Clearly she’s heard about the device, but this is her first time seeing it. The idea that a common bathroom scale can also detect shifts in weight – that is the mind-blowing leap. Nevermind that the gameplay consists of leaning left or right, or that the graphics are decidedly last gen. Mom was moved. And a thousand kotakuites screamed in pain.

I entered into this experiment knowing what the results would be. Again (he protests!), I really get why. And yet part of me still refuses to accept. It’s not that I want my mom (as a proxy for all nontraditional gamers) to play GTA 4 or Bioshock or Shadow of the Colossus—it’s that want to believe that mom can feel a sense of awe and wonder from exploring a virtual space. You know, the feeling you get the first time you ride your Kodo into Feralis and just gape at the size of those trees?

Back to my first demonstration, I realize that mercenary subject matter doesn’t appeal to mom, but what if Far Cry 2’s world was repurposed to make a photo safari game or an interactive National Geographic trip through tribal villages? Maybe then she could feel the awe and wonder? No. It’s a fool’s desire to wish my mom could get an emotional rise from Sony’s emotion engine technology. This is the same fanatic desire I used to have (and still do, at times) for more folks to give animation, comics and visually fantastic films a chance, and it’s still a battle not worth fighting.

We gamers, otakus, fangirls and fanboys, whatever the label and whatever our geek poison, are united by a common ability to have a profound emotional response to fantasy. (Will scientists locate this “geek gene,” or is it environmental?). Sometimes it’s associated with childlike innocence, sometimes it’s the mark of a misfit, sometimes it’s frowned on as antisocial. Increasingly, it’s just…normal. It’s ironic that as nerds increasingly rule the world, we still rally behind little tokens of acceptance (Obama doodles!) and unite in outrage when our needs aren’t met (Nintendo, why hath thou forsaken us?!). How much more mainstream do we want to be?

Last weekend I attended the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle. What started as a small centered on a popular webcomic has become the single biggest video gaming convention in the US and the place for publishers to go to generate buzz. Right now I’m working for a new games startup (working on stuff that’ll be ready to talk about in… 2010?), so I was very excited to get a hand-on look at what’s in the video games pipeline for the next year. What I saw, though… not too exciting.

Penny Arcade the site, I really enjoy. Sure, not every comic strip’s a winner, but once or twice a week I get a good laugh. More importantly, though – I enjoy Tycho’s maximum verbosity discourses and I trust his tastes in games. It’s thanks to him that I first ordered Puzzle Quest and Bookworm Adventures and more recently, CorspeCraft. I know that Tycho will stand up for a good game even if it’s too kid-friendly or casual for gamingdom’s target demo, and he’ll call bad games out in the face of hype. Reading Penny Arcade, I feel a contented connection to gamer culture.

After reading Tycho’s utopian descriptions of PAX over the years, with the beanbag lounges of gender-equality and Wil Wheaton’s life-changing speeches, I expected more of that gamer optimism to come through in the show. What was on display, however, was thoroughly uninspiring. Penny Arcade the website might succeed at creating a voice slightly to the left of mainstream gaming, but at PAX, the games on display mapped perfectly to the hype meter on IGN. Zombies, tactical shooters and sequels ruled, with only a scant few booths displaying anything not engineered to pander to the 16-30 male demographic.

Spending a weekend around these games and watching people queue up to play them (myself included), made me a little depressed about being a gamer. Is yet another game about lining up headshots with your futuristic rifle worthy of such excitement? Sometimes I wish someone would just stand up, like in the old 1984 Mac ad, and throw a chair at the big brother face of gaming and really shake things up. Then I realize, that’s just what Nintendo did with the Wii… and it fell cold on me. I appreciate the appeal it has for groups and families, but as someone who mostly plays alone, I seldom touch it. It’s not so much a revolution that I want, but better guides to what’s already here.

In film and books and music, I have no problem seeking out the titles I want, whether I learn about them from mass media sources, word-of-mouth or recommendations from Netflix/itunes, etc. With games, however, the mainstream hegemony is too loud and omnipresent to ignore. Games for “gamers”—as defined by young males who love some combination of Mega Man, Sepiroth and Master Chief—are easy to discover, follow and discuss because the culture of reading and writing about games grew up with that “mainstream” and still talk about little else. Against my better judgment, I continue to buy sequels to games I never really enjoyed the first time because that’s what “the conversation” is about (I’m looking at you, Metal Gear Solid & GTA!). The rest of the video game industry, including Free-2-Play MMOs and hidden object casual games are raking in dough, but aside from articles about their success, they never get a fair shake in the gamer press. I know there have to be better sources for finding games than IGN and kotaku. Are there any game fans among my readers who can recommend a better way to find the gems among the countless games that fall off the gamer radar?

My PAX experience wasn’t a complete bust, however. I did discover one game that pressed all my nerd buttons and tickled some I didn’t know existed –BattleForge! It’s a RTS (real time strategy) and CCG (collectible card game) mash-up that plays like a dream. As someone who sunk more than he’d care to admit on Magic cards back in the day (and even dabbled with the well-designed Lord of the Rings game from Decipher a few years back), I am quite susceptible to the appeal of deck building strategy and tournament premiums. Throw in controls that feel like Warcraft 2 and units reminiscent of all those ornately-painted Warhammer miniatures that I was never patient enough to recreate, and this game is an uber-nerd’s dream come true. Whereas most games in the RTS genre have been getting progressively more complex with tech trees to rival Civilization and headache-inducing micro-management, BattleForge opts for a minimalist approach to real-time complexity. There are no resources to gather, no half dozen special powers on a single unit. It’s closer to Tower Defense games, only with 200+ cards to build an army from.

So after all my complaining about more of the same, my game of show is possibly the nerdiest of all. I guess it’s not so much the lack of ideas that bothers me about my PAX trip, but the insistence on a common culture that gamers seem to have. Perhaps I shouldn’t protest too much, though, as my geek obsessions are all that keeps my tastes from mapping 1-to-1 with stuff white people like.

So one week later, I’m far from the only person attempting to create 80s film icons with the spore creature creator. I collected a few other noteworthy creations that I found, some Henson-related, some not. Plenty more if you search on you tube.

Keep in mind that right now the Spore Creature Creator just allows you to create creatures on an empty stage. Come this fall, these creatures will be populating planets and galaxies and building civilizations. I wonder if EA thought through the legal ramifications of all these copyrighted characters appearing in their game. Should be interested to see if anything comes of that.

Another take on Ludo (Hair is a nice touch, but I like mine better. )

Fiery! (with unfortunate music)

Skeksis

Gonzo

And here are a few others Labyrinth-era creatures that look pretty snazzy:

Gizmo:

Unicorn! (We’ll pretend its from Legend):

And my personal favorite, FALCOR!

So yesterday saw the release of the Spore Creature Creator, a preview of the highly anticipated game that comes out this fall, and I had to give it a test drive. For those who haven’t been following the game, Spore is basically a life simulator that goes from the cellular to the interplanetary level. While hundreds of other nerds immediately flooded youtube with videos of phallic spore abominations, I decided to attempt to create something a little more… family-friendly. So here he is, everyone’s favorite monster, Ludo!

Adventures are always great, but choosing your own — Priceless. That’s why I’m proud to present my very first blog-based Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story:

• Skub’s Kitchen Adventure

Read more…