Hoecs Games

To: Luke
From: Owen

My friends here invited me to their 6-year-old daughter’s basketball game on Saturday. Her team is in fact coached by Bev Smith, the former head coach of the University of Oregon’s women’s team, who carries one hell of a resume for anyone who’s ever coached in a middle school gym. Smith was also a two-time all-American as a player at Oregon, a two-time medalist on Canada’s Olympic team, and in 2004 was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn. With that kind of pedigree, an overwhelming victory was not unexpected. Her team, the Greyhounds, breezed.

Then again, you’re talking about first graders, so it’s not like Smith has to coach the finer points of a dribble-drive motion offense. Traveling and double-dribble aren’t called, so the kids run up and down the court at will and passing is often accomplished by missing a shot. Still, getting five children at that age to think of others, share the ball, and try to work as a team is a sizeable enough task.

The mother of another girl on this team lamented her daughter’s shyness and anxiety about shooting the ball and promised her a quarter for every shot the little girl took and a dollar for every one she made. She paid a $1.75 bounty for a 1-for-4 afternoon.

Some other highlights of the weekend:

Woman Loses 112 lbs., Thanks Wii Fit
Kojima Apologizes, Says ‘No Greater Crime’ Than a Delay
Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: iSlate iPad Edition Winners
Bungie Definitively Shuts Down Halo: Reach/Natal Speculation
System Shock 2’s Surprise Ending – for Ken Levine, Anyway
Stick Jockey: The Replacements, Still Replaced in Video Games

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A 38-year-old British woman, once so large she was afraid to have sex with her husband, now parades about her home in sexy lingerie after losing 112 pounds, a dramatic change in physique she credits to a Wii Fit regimen.

Lara Roberts specifically thanked the Wii for allowing her to work out in her home, because she was very self-conscious about visiting a gym or jogging in public. As a result, she went from 252 to 140 pounds in a year.

Note: There absolutely was a dietary component to this change. British tab News of the World says she “ditched the comfort eating,” which had surged to nearly 4,000 calories a day until a friend pointed out her nonstop consumption.

“I knew if I didn’t do something, chances are I wouldn’t live to see my girls grow up,” she said.

But while this sounds like the textbook definition of “results may vary,” I find it believable. First, it took a full year of getting up at 5 a.m. to work out. That’s not a quick-fix miracle program. Second, she recognized fully how her eating habits required a very disciplined change in behavior. And third, she was motivated by concern for her children and she had the support of her family. Shame or embarrassment are powerful feelings, but they can’t motivate you without a support network, you’ll just give in to defeatism. I also buy the fact Wii Fit appealed to her because it allowed her to work out in private.

The benefits? Lara’s become quite the cougar. She says her daughter’s male friends have eyes for her, and an appearance on BBC 3’s “I’m Hotter Than My Daughter” backs it up.

I’m a Wii Bit Thinner [News of the World via Go Nintendo. Image by News of the World]

Hideo Kojima is taking the delay (in Japan) of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker very seriously, and has posted a personal mea culpa asking for fans’ forgiveness and their continued trust.

“I always preach to the staff, ‘You must not have a delay after a release date has been announced. There is no greater crime as a game developer.’” Kojima wrote (this according to a translation by andriasang).

“Official announcement of a release date is nothing less than a promise to fans and business partners. In other words, a release date change is like betraying the expectations of everyone,” Kojima added, according to the translation.

The game originally was slotted for a March 18 drop; it’s now been pushed to April 29. The North American (May 25) and European (May 28) release dates are not affected.

Andriasang reports that Kojima’s apology has been met with wide forgiveness, in the form of numerous blog comments pledging support.

Hideo Kojima Takes Peace Walker Delay Seriously [andriasang]

OMFG, they’ve made a game called Imagine: Reporter. Christ, I bought the $40,000 version of that 10 years ago at Columbia. I really have nothing to say after that. My career is officially a piece of DS shovelware.

This week’s count: Seven for PC, two for Wii, one for DS, PS3, PSP and Xbox 360.

Monday (Feb. 1)
5 in 1 Solitaire (Wii)
Global Agenda (PC)
Mystery 5 Collection (PC)

Tuesday (Feb. 2)
Family Party: 30 Great Games Winter Fun (Wii)
Imagine: Reporter (DS)
Making History II: The War of the World (PC)
Mystery 5-in-1 Collection (PC)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (PC)
Star Trek Online (PC)
The Sims 3: High-End Loft Stuff (PC)
White Knight Chronicles International Edition (PS3)

Wednesday (Feb. 3)
Chime (360 )

Thursday (Feb. 4)
Armored Core: Silent Line Portable (PSP)

Each week throws off several new video game lists ranging from the humorous to the trivial. What’s better? A list of those. Here’s a roundup of the rundowns out there.

•7 Games of the Past Decade That Have Aged Well [The Kartel] This seriously has me jonesing for some Knights of the Old Republic but I simply have too many games I need to be playing for work to go back into that delightful time-suck. That was actually a mistake purchase back in late 2003, when I was an uninformed games consumer even with Crecente sitting two desks away from me. I went to the Best Buy intending to get that Star Wars game with the Force and the lightsabers and stuff (it was Jedi Academy) and picked that up instead. Probably my greatest gaming mistake ever.

•10 of Gaming’s Greatest AI Characters [Hellforge] This is a very well built list and because of that, it should carry a stern spoiler warning. In fact, for that reason, I won’t talk about my favorite one. And now seeing the word “Durandal.” has me jonesing for some old school FPSing from the days when the Mac was relevant in that genre. GAH. Why do I get the feeling my next week will be spent amassing old games from Half.com?

•Top 10: Video Games We’d Like to See in 3-D [Ask Men] Finally, a current one that – since it deals with nonexistent products – doesn’t make me want to buy crap. Unfortunately it takes the NPD big sellers and just 3D imagines them. Well, anyone can do that. I tell you what would be awe-inspiring in 3D – Fallout. Half of the thrill of that game was exploring the wasteland environment and making up the backstory for what exactly took place. Giving it a third dimension of immersion isn’t as visually energetic as a racer or action game, but it does have a strong appeal.

•Eight Reasons Why Arkham Asylum is a Zelda Game [UGO] Not a true top 10 list, but still a pretty clever screenshot essay. Plus I can’t steer away from a take like that. Spoiler alert for the last one if you haven’t finished the game (Arkham).

•Top 5 Ways to Get Your Girlfriend Into Gaming [Planet Xbox 360] Girlfriend? What’s that?

Epic took more than 20 suggestions for experience bonuses in a Valentine’s event and Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Fergusson chose three. Epic’s Valentine’s Day “date” with Gears of War 2 will run between Feb. 8 and Feb. 14.

For at least three days in that span (and maybe the whole week; they haven’t decided yet), Gears of War 2 will offer the following XP bonuses:

• Revives are double points in all game types
• Wingman is double normal XP (4x XP)
• Horde is double XP

I’d advise checking back at the Epic forum thread for final details on when it starts and ends, but it sounds like it’ll be quite the romantic experience.

Epic, will you be my Valentine? [Epic, via VG247]

Is BioWare actually letting Charlie Brown kick the DLC football? Looks like Return to Ostagar, the DLC pack for Dragon Age: Origins, came back sometime yesterday to Xbox Live Marketplace and for PC download.

The DLC originally went live on Jan. 14 but had to be removed because a title update created a bug within it. That followed earlier bug-related delays in development.

The pack is 400 Microsoft Points or $4.99 US. As of publication, it is still not on the PlayStation Network and is classified as “coming soon” on the BioWare page.

Return to Ostagar [Bioware via Blue's News]

The issue of silence in Half-Life or Fallout 3 has a long discussion history, but one critic doesn’t consider it a virtue. Stripping the voice from a main character is “a pathway into madness and schlocky conceits,” he says.

Sean Sands, writing for Gamers With Jobs, says the forced silence of a character like Gordon Freeman or Bioshock’s Jack Ryan, despite their starring roles in game-of-the-year honorees, “do more damage to my suspension of disbelief than having just avoided the whole problem in the first place.” And Sands alleges it comes from a misplaced belief that storytelling in video games requires the imposition of a player’s personality on the controlled character.

One thing I find about games in which your character has no voice is how expository the dialogue becomes. This is a common enough problem in video game scripts anyway, but the show-don’t-tell ethos really goes out the window when a game character has to hold up both ends of the spoken conversation. Sands points out this problem in Half-Life.

He instead praises BioWare for its commitment to voicing its RPGs. Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are instant examples; unmentioned but also indicative of BioWare’s strong commitment to that production value is how Star Wars: The Old Republic will be a fully voiced MMO. And Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is another fine example of a well-acted, fully voiced game whose protagonist is still memorable and much beloved.

Identification, Please [Gamers With Jobs, Jan. 28]

I consider it audacious and unreasonable to think that video game story telling is so different that suddenly players will be unwilling to empathize with their character unless that character takes on their personality. I appreciate the potential of this new medium, but my experience has been that for now, the more we stick with good old fashioned story telling the better off everyone will be.

When it comes right down to it, I think the problem is that game developers and writers worry far too much about how to make the player identify himself or herself within the character they take on in game. This is a pathway into madness and schlocky conceits that do more damage to my suspension of disbelief than having just avoided the whole problem in the first place.

[...]

These days everyone is plugging complex and sophisticated worlds into even the most basic shooter. That’s not a bad thing, but if you do that then it seems to me that you have to accept the reality of your narrative. If everyone else in this world you’ve created has a personality, it seems like a damn shame that I’m not given one as well. Just telling me that I should assume their own identity as if it were my own and plug it into their avatar is a cop-out at best and a bungling mistake at worst.

As I play through Mass Effect 2, I am grateful at the depths to which BioWare is willing to develop and explored the player’s character, even if that comes at the expense of sometimes removing the player from having uninterrupted authority. Obviously we are talking about a very different creature here, because there are complex dialogue trees and it would be impossible to imagine this game without a vocal hero, but I know that I will identify with Commander Shepherd long after I’ve stopped clicking that little .exe file.

Apples and oranges, I suppose, but as I look back at games like Deus Ex, Dragon Age, Uncharted or Fallout, a fairly diverse cross-section of the past decade, I find that most stories are enhanced by a well developed hero or anti-hero. It is far better to my mind to be shown a professional crafted story than to be wedged into gimmicks designed to trick me into believing I am actually part of the story.

I’m not. Who I am is not modular, and I can not at will divest myself from the limitation of my own experience and plug it into your world. I am a functioning adult, and no matter how deeply immersed I become, I still know that my character on screen is not me.

- Sean Sands

Weekend Reader is Kotaku’s look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Sundays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Two weeks ago, MTV Multiplayer’s Russ Frushtick invited Project Runway’s Tim Gunn over to critique Mario’s fashion sense – and blast on some virtual big game. And as a ’shop goes, this should be like shooting fish in a barrel.

So, your mission should be apparent. Bear (har har) in mind that Gunn is an avowed supporter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Project Runway also has just published a video game for the DS. So if you’re stumped for a clever reskin of that arcade cabinet, maybe that can tune up your irony meter.

Source Image: Tim Gunn Playing Big Buck Safari (Image via Russ Frushtick’s twitpic)

Rules, rules, rules: Post your entries in the comments below. Bear in mind the source image is 2000 pixels wide, so you might want to resize it to 1200 or 800 before posting. I’ll approve as many as I can periodically, and next week post a gallery of the 20 or so best.

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Friendly reminder that beginning in about 30 minutes, Xbox 360 Achievements.org is staging one last run on NBA Live 07’s “Online with 1,000 People” achievement. This is the last chance to do it before EA shuts down the servers on Tuesday.

The boosting session starts at 1 p.m. U.S. Eastern/10 a.m. U.S. Pacific. Trueachievements.com said 217 people had joined the boosting session as of an hour ago. Basically, all you need to do is have a copy of NBA Live 07 and hang out in a lobby – not play an online game – the same time as 1,000 other people are signed in. Specific instructions on what is required may be found here.

They tried this back in October but it didn’t work, so it’s now or never. I’ll update this post with news of whether they pulled it off.

[Update] I’m getting word they have more than 1,100 in the lobby. I’ll try to confirm the final numbers. This event will be running for another 90 minutes, so if you have the game, it’s an easy 100 Gamerscore, just sign in. [updated 11:30 am MST]

IMPORTANT Information For The 1000 People Online Event [Xbox360Achievements.org]

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