<![CDATA[Blog by dcdunham - IGN]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham Thu, 30 Jan 2014 07:23:15 -0800 IGN Entertainment, Inc. Oyster en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[New indie Kickstarter project: Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2014/01/30/new-indie-kickstarter-project-distro-horizons-vs-galaximos-army I'm not one for plugging Kickstarter projects, but I like the concept for this game so figured I'd bring it to everyone's attention.

I will say this however, Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army is currently in a pre-alpha build, so much of what is available on the games Kickstarter page is for demonstration and proof of concept purposes only. My blog here is intended to fill you in on some details you won't find anywhere else but here, or on my personal blog page where I have the interview in it's entirety.

So, with that being said.

I recently did an interview with UK based indie developer Kitatus Studios, where we discussed their new Kickstarter campaign which is a 3D collectathon project called, Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army.

The game, while still in a pre-alpha, bare bones state, takes heavy inspiration from classic titles such as Banjo Kazooie, Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Conker's Bad Fur Day, as well as adding new gameplay mechanics to the genre, such as a levelling system by gaining exp (experience) through battle.

The Story

The story revolves around the titular character Distro, a cat-man, and his best friend Teddy, a stuffed animal, who along with Distro's family find themselves abducted by Aliens and taken to a huge alien ship that belongs to the games central antagonist, Galaximo, an evil Alien intent on enslaving every dimensions inhabitants and forcing them to become his slaves so that he can build his "Mega Empire."

Through a twist of fate the stuffed animal Teddy becomes real and goes on to break Distro out of his prison cell, they both then set off on an adventure that spans across many unique dimensions in order to stop the Alien Galiximo from accomplishing his evil plans, and of course to save all those who've been imprisoned so far.

The Gameplay

Like I said above, the game takes inspiration from popular collectathon games such as Banjo Kazooie, Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Kitatus Studios say they want to offer gamers unique open worlds to explore, with fun intuitive gameplay and unique and entertaining characters like those found in the titles mentioned above.

Players will be able to switch between Distro and Teddy much like you could in Banjo Kazooie, in order to use different skills unique to the characters.

There are to be 9 separate dimensions, such as a dimension with emphasis on snow, a dimension based on video game pop culture, and a dimension of disco clubs, that will each have a unique art style and will offer different challenges when attempting to traverse them. As well as the unique dimensions having various stages to explore, there will also be unique boss battles inspired by those seen in Crash Bandicoot 3.

The art style has been inspired by games like The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker and Jet Set Radio, with the intention of offering a child-like daydream feel to the game.

As for specifics in regards to gameplay, the team at Kitatus Studios say that they have many ideas for fun and unique gameplay mechanics, but due to the project still being at a very early stage they don't want to announce anything that may not make it into the final product. Rapping up

Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army is a game intended for all ages, a love letter of sorts to past collectathon games and Kitatus Studios attempt at bringing gamers of today, a game akin to those classic and timeless titles that many of us grew up with.

So, there you have it.

If you want to check out Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army's Kickstarter page just follow the link below. Just remember though that what's on show is not representative of the finished product. If you like the idea and want to help fund it, all well and good. If you don't, well that's fine too. I just wanted to make all of you aware of the project and to help you make a well informed decision.

Distro Horizons VS Galaximo's Army Kickstarter page https://www.kickstarter.com...

Thanks for reading my blog, and as always please feel free to leave a comment below.

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 07:23:15 -0800 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2014/01/30/new-indie-kickstarter-project-distro-horizons-vs-galaximos-army#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Gamers, Start Holding Publishers And Developers Accountable!]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2014/01/23/gamers-start-holding-publishers-and-developers-accountable







Take EA for example










Thu, 23 Jan 2014 06:59:22 -0800 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2014/01/23/gamers-start-holding-publishers-and-developers-accountable#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[5 fun Christmas themed games to put you in the holiday spirit]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/12/23/5-fun-christmas-themed-games-to-put-you-in-the-holiday-spirit The holidays are here and Christmas day is all so near.

It's that time of year again, when we all like to spend quality time with friends and loved ones, exchanging gifts, eating good food, being merry and playing video games!

And to that end I've compiled a list, and I've checked it twice, of 5 Christmas themed games that are fun, interesting and/or utterly bonkers. These games are sure to put just about anybody in the holiday spirit.

So, without further adieu and in no particular order.

#1- Christmas Nights (Sega Saturn)

Christmas Nights

A bit of an oldie but a no- brainer for those who've played it, Christmas Nights is a two-level expansion on the original platformer Nights into Dreams for the Sega Saturn.

The great thing about this game is, depending upon the time of year, environmental elements of the game change. Meaning that during December players are treated to not one, but two festive, Christmas themed levels!

Not only do the environments of these two levels take on a Christmas theme, but so too do the NPCs, some even appearing as little elves in costume. But it doesn't stop there, the background music also gets replaced with an instrumental of ‘Jingle Bells.’

While there are many who may have missed out on this wonderfully Christmas themed experience, those gamers who did get to experience Christmas Knights remember it quite fondly.

#2 - Elf Bowling (PC)

Elf Bowling

I'm not quite sure what it is about Elf Bowling that makes it so enjoyable, maybe it's the fact that you get to roll a huge heavy ball into a bunch of idling elves. No wait, that's exactly it!

Released for the PC in 1998, Elf Bowling pits Santa Claus against elves who have gone on strike. Being the great diplomat Santa Clause is known to be, he decides the best cause of action is to use them all for target practice by bowling huge, heavy balls at them, while they stand at the other end taunting and mooning him.

I really don't know what else to say here, while being a very out dated looking game, Elf Bowling is just so stupidly fun not to like. You won't find many other Christmas themed bowling games, and the fact that this one is so fun and cheeky makes it a must play.

#3- Santa Jetpack: Magic Sleigh (Android)

Santa Jetpack: Magic Sleigh

Developed by PimPum Games, Santa Jetpack: Magic Sleigh is a simple but fun, mobile game to put you in the holiday spirit. And best of all, it's free to play.

The game puts you in control of Santa Clause piloting his jet-powered slay (Evidently the reindeer are on strike now too) you'll need to avoid crashing into floating ice blocks and penguins, while trying to collect the many gold coins scattered through out the levels, as well as 3 illusive gold stars.

Santa Jetpack: Magic Sleigh may look like a simple retro style, side scrolling, collect 'em up, but it has a lot of charm. The fact that it's also a Christmas themed game is just icing on the Christmas pud.

So, if you're in need of some light, Christmas themed entertainment to tide you over till Christmas day, you can't go far wrong with Santa Jetpack: Magic Sleigh.

#4- Santa's Rampage (PC)

Santa's Rampage

By far the most demented Christmas themed game on the list. Developed by RuneStorm and released in December 2013, Santa's Rampage is a FPC (First person cleaner) game, where you play the part of a cleaner who is tasked with cleaning up the visceral after carnage of Santa Clause's violent rampage.


None of the carnage is ever shown, but it looks to be that the Elves at Santa's work shop where getting a little tired of their inhumane work conditions, and gave Santa an ultimatum "Meet our demand or we quit." This seems to have been the straw that broke the reindeers back, as Santa instead looses his mind and goes on a murderous killing spree, butchering all of the Elves and Rainder leaving quite a bloody mess behind.

So it's the players task to collect, and dispose of all the body parts, mop up all the blood and generally tidy up the place (presumably while Santa does some hard time)

Honestly, Santa's Rampage premise is ridiculous, but it is also incredibly interesting from a (what if) point of view. And while it may not be the best game to get you in the holiday spirit, it is fun and certainly one of the most unique and original Christmas themed games available.

#5- Borderlands 2 “How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day” (DLC (XBLA/PSN/PC)

Borderlands 2 How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day

We all know by now that nothing ever goes well for the inhabitants of Borderlands, but it turns out they can't even enjoy the holidays in peace.

Snowmen are causing problems and as if that wasn't enough, the Abominable Mister Tinder Snowflake is also spreading the winter time blues. So, it's up to Marcus to spread some warm holiday cheer with a little help from his arsenal of large, fire spreading weapons.

This Borderlands 2 Christmas themed DLC is well worth checking out, if you're looking to get yourself in the holiday mood. It offers players a bunch of new festive collectables, heads and skins, and is a great way to share in some holiday cheer with a friend.

Well, there you have it. 5 fun Christmas themed games to put you in the holiday spirit. Whether you're looking for something fun, interesting or absolutely bonkers you'll find something in this list to keep you entertained over the holidays.

Thanks for checking out my blog, while you're hear why not let me know what your favourite Christmas themed video game is by sharing it in the comments section.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy holidays everyone!

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 04:16:16 -0800 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/12/23/5-fun-christmas-themed-games-to-put-you-in-the-holiday-spirit#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The farce that is current video game journalism]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/11/09/the-farce-that-is-current-video-game-journalism

A lot of you may have noticed a few "video game journalists" (Adam Sessler being one of them) acting rather un-professional lately, by either constantly contradicting themselves, making ludicrous, biased statements and generally just being pretty crappy at their jobs, whilst at the same time making the whole profession look bad.

Not that this is anything new in the world of video game journalism, in truth the bar has been pretty low for some time now, due to petty console wars and fanboyism being rampant in the industry. Choosing to take one side and blindly defending it at the cost ones reputation and credibility, is a practice many video game journalists eventually seem to succumb to (To be fair though, the unwritten rule does seem to be to choose a side or take heat from both) This may be due to the fact that no matter which side of the fence you choose to stand on, you'll always have an army of fanboys eating out of the palm of your hand, so long as you're whispering sweet nothings to them about their beloved and chosen preference. Not only does this practice bolster a persons ranks, it also insights flame wars due to the anger and uproar coming from the other side.

There's usually two possibilities when a video game journalists starts talking nonsense, they are either a fanboy who wants only to look for the best in whatever they are defending or attempting to put on a pedestal. Or they have an agenda, and are willing to use misinformation and even lie through there teeth in order to further whatever goal they have in sight. There's always the third possibility that they've gone stark raving mad, but more often than not it's one of the other two.

Now obviously there are people with legitimate "non biased" personal opinions, right? Well, in reality it's simply impossible for anyone to truly draw their opinion from a well of pure thoughts, because "opinions" no matter what you may think will always be objective, containing personal and biased ideas, formulated through pre-conceived notions and preference. For example, I'm not a fan of sports games so my opinions about them will always be negative in comparison to those who enjoy them, even if I try to look at them objectively it's impossible for me to formulate an opinion with nothing to draw from, I could try to be subjective and look for what others may like about them, however it would still be a biased opinion based on personal assumptions and pre-conceived notions.

A person is not able to formulate an opinion without personal and biased viewpoints inevitably effecting their final conclusion. However the difference with fanboys and those with a personal agenda, is that fanboys tend to avoid even looking at what they like in anything but a positive light, where as those with an agenda choose to spread lies and misinformation knowing full well that what they say is nonsense. My point being? There are far too many fanboys and those looking to further their career at the cost of their credibility currently calling themselves "video game journalists"

Flame bait, I'm really not sure what should surprise me the most, how old the practice is or how painfully effective it continues to be.

Flame wars are the bane of genuine journalism, they make it incredibly difficult to talk openly and intelligently about current, pressing matters due to the close minded people who flock to them, in order to either troll, defend or denounce whatever the articles chosen topic happens to be. However they are incredibly handy at directing traffic toward particular websites especially those with an agenda, remember that many of these "video game websites" aren't interested in publishing facts, news or even intelligent opinion pieces, they simply want "hits" and flame-bait, in the form of reviews or articles is the perfect means to get them.

That being the case, is there really any wonder as to why there is so much blind, fanboy driven nonsense being posted on numerous video game news and information websites all over the Internet? With so much misinformation, blatant lies and biased opinions disguised as facts coming from supposed video game journalists, you'd think we'd all be more inclined to take what we hear with a pinch of salt. But no, gamers, or better yet people, are fickle, if we have a preference for something (which we all do) we naturally like hearing that it's doing well, we also like knowing when it's ahead of the competition. Further more, we like to imagine that the success of whatever we may happen to be a fan of is somehow also our own success, but in these delusions we allow ourselves to be lied to, all so that we can brag about being better than those who support "the losers" all while the exact same nonsense is happening on the other side of the fence.

The console war is not the sole problem, the console war provides competition, it also prevents any one company from gaining a monopoly and forces the console manufacturers to try to out-do one another. But it also breeds contempt, not solely due to people believing their chosen allegiance is superior, but because people begin to deliberately ignore where their favourite companies are going wrong, too preoccupied with hating on the competition and all too willing to lap up whatever nonsensical drivel people in the industry, or even video game journalists are spouting.

As The console war round 2 kicks off, it will yet again be up to gamers to decide whether or not they want a clean fight and real journalistic coverage. Or more sucker punches, fanboy drivel and flame-bait articles.

So what can be done? Well, my advice to all of of you is to stop fanning the flames. It's simple really, as soon as you stop paying attention to flame bait articles, journalists screaming for attention or just talking nonsense, then all the genuine video game journalism will be pushed to the front. I'm not saying everything will be fixed over night, but trying to fight fire with fire has proven time and time again to be futile. As for the fanboys, well there's always going to be fanboys, but the more legitimate journalism we have available to us the more easily we'll be able to call them out and put a stop to their misinformed claims or outright lies.

Like most everyone reading this blog, I enjoy playing video games and I honestly care about the video games industry. If this blog has opened anyone's eyes to the the many issues currently plaguing video game journalism, or even just made you think twice about clicking on a blatant flame bait article, then I consider that a small victory for us all.

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 06:49:37 -0800 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/11/09/the-farce-that-is-current-video-game-journalism#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The 5 best Horror games to play this Halloween]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/31/the-5-best-horror-games-to-play-this-halloween

You really can't beat a good ol' Survival Horror game, cautiously wandering the lonely, creepy, creaking corridors, pre-emptively cringing as you open a door or turn the corner, and conserving your health items and ammunition for whatever unspeakable horrors may lay waiting just ahead. Of course none of these moments match the sheer terror brought on by actually coming face to face with the stuff of nightmares.

The list that follows might not contain certain games that are widely regarded as the most "scary" available, but each one has offered (for me personally) some of the best tense moments, creepy atmosphere, and most legitimate scares around. So dim the lights, grab an extra pair of underwear, sit back and enjoy my list of the (The 5 best Horror games to play this Halloween)

No.1) Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly (aka Fatal Frame II) Platforms: (PS2), (Xbox), (Wii)

Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly

From Japanese developer "Tecmo" Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly is a Survival Horror game in which you play as a young girl named Mio Amakura, accompanied by her twin sister Mayu Amakura, who at the start of the game both find themselves having accidentally wandered into the "The Lost Village" Now why exactly the village became "lost" to begin with will remain a secret due to spoiler related reasons, but I can tell you however that the villagers don't exactly take kindly to outsiders just wandering in, even more so now that they're all dead and vengeful. The basic setup is pretty standard for a survival horror game, you've got a creepy setting which is the village and the surrounding area, with lots of puzzles, locked rooms and keys to find. And a lot of mystery surrounding the villagers, and their strong affinity for "twins" an "endless ceremony" which prominently features their involvement, not to mention discovering the answer as to just why exactly everyone in the village is now dead and not quite loving it.

As you make progress the plot naturally starts to unfold, you'll also come across documents and journal entries that help better explain the events that transpired before whatever calamity fell upon the village. But the main appeal of any Project Zero game comes from how you actually fight with the ghostly inhabitants, you see your one and only weapon is a camera, known as the "Camera Obscura" capable of taking pictures of ghosts and other spiritual entities, and exorcising their souls. However simply taking pictures of ghosts does very little damage, the trick here is to allow them to get as close as possible while allowing your cameras spirit energy to build up, preferably waiting until the ghosts warped, distorted mug is face to face with your own and then in the split second as they are about to attack, you can perform what is known as a "Fatal Frame" dealing far greater damage. That's right, to effectively defeat the now damned villages inhabitants you need to get as up close and personal as you can with those ghostly goolies.

The game boasts many ghosts that could make for sufficient nightmare fuel, such as the Wanderer (Miyako Sudo) the Woman in the box, as well as (Akane Kiryu) & her twin Doll, but none are quite as visually imposing as "The Kusabi" Due to being tortured and broken in life The Kusabi returns as one of the most vengeful and scary ghosts in the entire game, if not the franchise. However even The Kusabi pails in comparison to "Sae Kurosawa" in life a young shrine maiden who lost her twin sister (Yae Kurosawa) and was then forced to perform the "endless ceremony" alone, but shortly after returns to the world of the living as the most hate filled and vengeful spirit the franchise has seen to date. The insane laugh Sae makes as she stands over the butchered remains of her fellow villagers wearing her white blood splattered Kimono, is one of the most legitimately terrifying things I've witnessed in a video game.

Check out this video of Sae's terrifying introduction, if you dare.

No.2) Resident Evil 4. Platforms: (GameCube), (PlayStation 2), (Microsoft Windows), (Wii), (mobile), (iOS), (Zeebo), (Xbox 360), (PlayStation 3)

Resident Evil 4

Brought to us in an age before Capcom sort of lost the plot a bit, Resident Evil 4 is a "Survival Horror" game with a slightly bigger focus on the action when compared to it's predecessors, it's an incredibly fun, well paced and, and well... OK OK, so maybe Resident Evil 4 isn't the "scariest" game in the franchise, but I'm sure we can all agree that it's still miles scarier than RE 5 or 6. Anyway, what a lot of people often forget is that Resident Evil 4 boasts one of the most legitimately terrifying enemies seen in the franchise thus far, the Regenerador. Damn these things were scary! Apparently they are experimental bioweapons created by implanting leech like Plaga into a human host. Slow moving and seemingly lacking in intellect, but capable of near-instantaneous regeneration, they are able to take incredible amounts of damage and even decapitation of their limbs! That's right, take out their legs from under them but don't get too close or they'll wriggle over and take a chunk out of you.

A Regenerador can be killed eventually by succumbing to their injuries but your best bet is to use a sniper rifle from a distance and equip the infrared scope to locate and destroy the Plagas inside the host. What? The Regenerador not scary enough for you, you say? Alright, how about the Iron Maiden? Basically a Regenerador with a multitude of spikes expanding and contracting out of its body, the image of one of these things awkwardly slumping itself your way is enough to give even the most hardened Survival Horror gamer the goosbumps. Honestly the only thing you'll find creepier than these two inhuman variants in RE-4 is their breathing you hear echoing throughout the research facility on "The Island" whenever one of them is lurking in the shadows.

This video shows exactly why going toe-to-toe with an Iron Maiden is a terrifyingly bad idea.

No.3) Outlast. Platforms: (Microsoft Windows), (PlayStation 4 Q1 2014)


Outlast is a "psychological horror" video game developed and published by Red Barrels Games, a company founded by people previously involved with video games such as Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell and Uncharted, it's also the scariest damn game likely to come out this year.

Outlast puts you in the shoes of "Miles Upshur" an independent journalist given a lead regarding some unusual goings on at Mount Massive Asylum, a "massive" asylum based in the remote mountains of Colorado, and long-abandoned home for the mentally ill, but now recently re-opened by the “research and charity” branch of the translational Murkoff Corporation. Miles breaks into the facility only to encounters an impaled SWAT officer and his decapitated crew, who before snuffing it tells the journalist to get the hell out of the asylum while he still can. Only whilst making his way to the exit Miles is attacked by a very large and powerful inmate named Chris Walker, who throws him through a window, and down onto the atrium floor below. It's upon regaining his consciousness that Miles then meets "Father Martin" who refers to miles as his "Witness" After passing out for a second time Miles wakes up to find himself trapped by the horrors within Mount Massive Asylum.

Unlike your typical monsters, mutants and ghouls seen in many other video games, Miles enemies are the now escaped inmates, known as "The Variants" tortured, mutilated and driven beyond madness and beyond recognition, these unfortunate souls now stand between you and your escape. Armed with only a video camera and it's night-vision function, Miles must make his way through Massive Asylum doing his best to avoid The Variants, by creeping, crawling, and hiding in the shadows as well as lockers and under beds, Miles can also use his video camera to record events, as well as find confidential files that offer a deeper glimpse into the events that led Mount Massive Asylum into ruin.

Throughout the game you will hear talk of a seemingly supernatural entity known as the "Walrider" and even bare witness to footage of the asylum's security forces being brutally slaughtered by it. As if being locked up with a bunch of crazed inmates, a murderous doctor and a less than helpful Priest wasn't bad enough, Miles now has to worry about coming face to face with a ruthlessly violent supernatural entity. I must say that the atmosphere and pacing in Outlast comes together perfectly, offering some truly tense and creepy moments, as well as some terrifying jump scares.

Whatch the Outlast Official Trailer (Full Version) to get a taste for the terror within.

No.4) Dead Space. Platforms: (Microsoft Windows), (PlayStation 3), (Xbox 360)

Dead Space

Dead Space was developed by Visceral Games and published by EA. Now while the latest release in the franchise is widely regarded as a disappointment by most, due to its departure from Survival Horror elements such as a creepy atmosphere, a need for ammo conservation, and you know, being scary, in favour of action, large set pieces and Hollywood-esque story telling. But the original Dead Space still holds up well even by today's standards.

Stepping into the space-boots of Isaac Clarke, a ship systems engineer, players must fight for survival against an Alien horde that has infested the mining starship "The Ishimura" (aka Stone Village) along with slaughtering the entirety of the crew, and then reanimating every corps via bio-recombination transforming them into "Necromorphs" In order for Isaac to effectively battle the Alien threat he must decapitate them limb from limb using a wide array of guns, engineering tools used as make shift weapons, as well as using his powers of telekinesis and a Stasis module for temporarily slowing down time.

Dead Space boasts a myriad of cringe worthy Necromorph monstrosities, but none are more terrifying or relentless than "The Hunter" biologically engineered by Doctor Challus Mercer on board the USG Ishimura. It was created by inserting a piece of necrotic tissue, obtained from the flesh-like growths covering some sections of the Ishimura directly into the cranium of a live, unknown crew member. Yikes! As if regular Necromorphs weren't difficult enough to kill, The Hunter due to it's ability to quickly regenerate any and all limbs is pretty much invincible, the only sure fire way to survive an encounter with one is to blast of its limbs and use you "Stasis Module" to produce a temporary time dilation, basically slowing down time in order for you to make a strategic retreat.

This short trailer for Dead Space conveys perfectly the loneliness,despair and terror felt whilst actually playing the game.

No.5) Silent Hill 2. Platforms: (PlayStation 2), (Xbox), (Microsoft Windows), (PlayStation 3), (Xbox 360)

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 was brought to us by Japanese video game publisher and developer Konami. Ask any Survival Horror buff what their favourite Survival Horror game is and chances are they'll reply with "Silent Hill 2" and with good reason, the game offers one of the best "Physiological" Survival Horror experiences you could hope to find, not to mention boasting some of the most creepy, chill inducing and just plain terrifying monsters to be found in the genre.

In Silent Hill 2 players take control of mild mannered James Sunderland, who is on his way to an old holiday resort called "Silent Hill" after receiving a letter from his wife asking for him to meet her there. The thing is though, James's wife has been a bit dead for a while now so naturally he's a little perplexed as to what's going on. But not really having anything better to do James continues on his way and upon reaching the town of Silent Hill, begins his gradual decent into despair.

Just about any monster in Silent Hill 2 can act as sufficient nightmare fuel, but one monstrosity in particular has gained a cult following all of his own "Pyramid Head" If you're even remotely familiar with the Survival Horror genre then chances are you've already heard of this pyramid shaped helmet sporting, broadsword wielding behemoth. What many people may not be aware of however, is the significance of Pyramid Heads design. You see Silent Hill likes to get under the skin of its victims by creating monsters based on their fears, regrets and repressed emotions. Pyramid Head being no exception, represents James's repressed sexual desires that are not being met now due to his wife being dead, amongst other things... But I won't spoil the mystery for those looking to experience the game themselves. What I will say though is that James Sunderland has been a very naughty boy and Silent Hill has crafted the perfect vessel, Pyramid Head, in order to bring down the towns own special brand of punishment on poor ol' Jimmie boy.

Here's a video showing the numerous terrifying encounters James Sunderland has with Pyramid Head. (Warning! there are spoilers contained in this video)

So, do you agree with my list of The 5 best Horror games to play this Halloween? Or is there a game you would swap out to replace with another? Let me know what your favourite Horror game is and why in the comments section.

Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you all have a Happy Halloween!.

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 07:52:55 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/31/the-5-best-horror-games-to-play-this-halloween#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The Let's Play Phenomenon ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/24/the-lets-play-phenomenon


First of all, what is a "Let's Play"? Well for those of you not already in the know, basically a Let's Play in regards to "video games" is a video in which you watch another person play through a video game, usually whilst offering commentary for the viewers during the play through. Now the basic definition alone may not sound very entertaining, but the fact that Let's Plays have taken the Internet by storm these past few years, becoming some of the most popular and viewed videos available on YouTube and other such video hosting websites says otherwise.

So, just exactly why are Let's Plays so popular? I mean video games are by and large a interactive form of entertainment, and for the most part are best enjoyed by actually playing them yourself, right? However as I'm sure is the case for many gamers out there, there are or have often been times when watching others play a video game, be they friends, siblings, parents or guardians, can be just as enjoyable and entertaining as playing yourself. Now the reasons as to why this is the case are varied and many, but it is often either because watching a person play who is exceptionally good at a game, seeing how someone responds while playing, or if they simply have an entertaining personality, can be entertainment in and of itself. The same rings true with Let's Plays, only instead of sitting in the same room watching someone play you can now watch and follow their progress online.

Putting it simply, the advent of YouTube and other similar video hosting websites, has allowed the makers of Let's Plays to offer their viewers an experience similar to that which many have had whilst watching friends and family play video games, allowing for them to make that very experience a form of entertainment itself.

The very fact that Pro video gaming has rose to such prevalence as a spectator sport serves to further prove the entertainment value found in watching others play video games.

There are a great many YouTubers who have gained popularity and recognition through making Let's Play videos (as well as offering news, reviews and opinions) such as Angry Joe, the cast of Smosh Games and ClevverGames, "Cryaotic" (aka Cry, aka ChaoticMonki) as well as "Michelle" (aka Mynx, aka TheRPGMinx) But few are quite as popular or as well known as the Swedish born YouTube personality "Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg" (aka "PewDiePie") First gaining popularity and recognition through playing Horror games such as Amnesia: The Dark Decent and it's various custom stories, the majority of entertainment and appeal of Felix's early videos came not solely from watching him play whilst doing commentary, cracking jokes and referencing pop culture, but from watching him run back and forth screaming uncontrollably whenever a monster would appear, befriending various pieces of furniture like "Mr. Chair" and the golden statue "Stephano" and yelling out his popular catchphrase "BARRELS!!!" whenever he comes across his self proclaimed nemesis "the barrels" all while attempting to progress through the game. Also Felix always makes sure to keep his audience feeling involved (or as he calls them, his "Bro's") and at the end of each video will "Bro fist" to the camera as a thanks for watching.

Felix, whilst slowly building up his fanbase began to diversify his videos, incorporating more story driven games and showing his fans Let's Plays of many lesser known but incredibly good Flash and indie games such as Ib, Two the moon and Mad Father. Now boasting a YouTube subscriber count of over 14,000,000 and counting (earning him the guinness world record for most subscribed YouTube channel) along with world wide recognition. "PewDiePie" has also found himself mentioned and/or referenced in one way or another in various indie and Flash based video games. Also, his recent Let's Play videos of popular titles such as The Last Of Us, Outlast and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs have been some of the most highly viewed videos regarding those games, and at the time of writing his current Let's Play of Beyond: Two Souls looks to be no exception.

Whether or not you're a fan of PewDiePie in particular, you really can't deny the entertainment value and appeal that Let's Plays offer.

Let's Plays have become such a popular form of entertainment that even companies like Rooster Teeth (Creators of popular Internet shows such as Halo spoof "Red VS Blue" and "RWBY") have created their own Lets Play channel on YouTube, aptly named "LetsPlay" Not to mention popular video game journalists and reviewers such as Zero Punctuation's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, reviews editor for Destructoid.com and host of Jimquisition "Jim Sterling" as well as YouTube personality, PC game critic and self titled "Cynical Brit" TotalBiscuit, have each taken to making Let's Play videos.

Now some may argue that Let's Plays actually decrease the potential sales of a game due to potential consumers having already seen a play through, but there is just as much evidence to suggest otherwise. Where as many video game demos are known to be designed to paint a game in a positive light by showing the most appealing parts, Let's Plays offer a way to actually see how a game plays from start to finish enabling the viewer to see as much or as little of a game as they desire, also allowing a potential consumer to make a far more educated decision as whether or not to make a purchase. Now in no way am suggesting that Let's Plays should be used to base all of our video game purchases off of, but they certainly give you much more well rounded view of a games pros and cons, and the fact of the matter is that if a popular Let's Play personality enjoyed playing a game and/or their viewers found the Let's Play enjoyable, then there is every likelihood their fans would want to purchase said game, therefore leading to a potential increase in sales.

Believing the above statement to be the case, it does strike me as very odd seeing as just how many companies there are in the industry, that have gone out there way to censor Let's Play videos. Surely they must realise the potential for free publicity, right? Well apparently not. Nintendo have had numerous videos (Let's Plays or otherwise) removed from YouTube under the pretence that the uploaders are "infringing on their copyright" while this accusation may be the case when it comes to a full Let's Play showing of the entirety of a game and/or key moments in it, it does not explain why they have felt the need to have had numerous cutscenes and even trailers for their games removed under the same pretence.

While Nintendo have every right to defend their copyrighted products and material from misuse, censoring and removing videos on YouTube and then stating that they want a cut of whatever profits the uploader may have earned  or may go on to earn through further uploads of Nintendo licensed games, sends a very poor message to their fans and potential consumers.

Sega also has a history of removing user uploaded content from YouTube under the pretence of "copyright infringement". Most notably back In 2012 when Sega went "nuclear" on YouTube taking down everything and anything related to their Shining Force franchise (fan made content, trailers you name it) in a apparent attempt to put their upcoming release of Shining Force for the PSP at the top of the search list. Why exactly Sega felt the need to go to such extreme measures is anybodies guess, but the fact that user uploaded content can be so easily removed like that without there being any genuine legal issues or concerns is very disconcerting, especially for those who heavily rely on being able to freely upload such content.

The censoring of content on YouTube goes further than simple copyright concerns and petty marketing tactics. Recently, Day One: Garry's Incident developers "Wild Games Studio" had a rather critical review of their game (uploaded by PC game reviewer and critic, TotalBiscuit) taken down under accusations of copyright infringement. However TotalBiscuit  himself commented back saying that he had received his copy of the game from the indie developers under the understanding that he would be uploading a video review for it, going on to further state that since Wild Games Studio had not seen fit to also remove the many other less popular videos of the game under the same claim of copyright infringement, that they were merely using the pretence of copyright infringement as a means to censor criticism of their game.

Wild Games Studio's accusations against  TotalBiscuit for his apparent infringement on their copyright, has got to be one of the worst, most deplorable misuses of the copyright act to have occurred on YouTube.

Video game companies should not, must not, be allowed to have criticism of their game pulled from the net under the false pretence of copyright infringement. This is blatant censorship and further highlights the gaping hole copyright law currently presents for those companies who wish to undermine freedom of speech in order to censor negativity regarding their products.

Marketing is a costly process that can often end up costing video game companies more than the price required to develop a game. One would think then that due to the sheer amount of subscribers many popular makers of Let's Play videos have, that more video games companies would be reaching out to them in order gain free publicity. There certainly aren't many who would pass up the chance to be the first to Let's Play the opening section of Assassins Creed 4 or Killzone: Shadow Fall, in order to help spread word of the game while potentially increasing their viewer base.

While it is true that some Let's Plays actually do infringe on current copyright laws, the fact of the matter is that such user generated content is only going to increase in popularity. Just maybe instead of content being censored or removed due to outdated modes of thinking, maybe more should be being done to make the copyright act more applicable to modern day society.

So there you have it, Let's Plays are important because they offer us entertainment while also potentially educating us on our future purchases, not to mention helping spread the word for games that may have otherwise gone under the radar, and for offering another avenue to help further popularise big budget AAA titles as well as smaller indie games.

If I've gotten any of you interested in Let's Plays then I highly recommend checking out the LP uploaders I mentioned earlier.

Thanks for reading my blog, if you'd like to add anything or disagree with any of my points, please feel free to leave a comment.

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:24:23 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/24/the-lets-play-phenomenon#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[What defines a video game and does Beyond: Two Souls challenge our preconceptions?]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/21/what-defines-a-video-game-and-does-beyond-two-souls-challenge-our-preconceptions-2  

What is a "video game"? When you hear the term what do you personally expect? And to what extent of your own pre-conceived notion of what a video game is would you allow to be challenged?

These questions and more are the main topic for this blog.

Being able to simply define something like say a book or a movie makes explaining what they are easier, but it can often lead to conservative thinking. A book for a long time was basically defined solely as "a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers" but with the advent of E-Readers and other similar electrical devices the definition has expanded. A "video game" is basically defined as "a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a monitor or other display" So basically a video game is anything played through an electrical device that requires player interaction in order to manipulate what is being displayed on screen. That sound about right? So can you think of any game that really challenges this definition? There have been a great many games that altered how we interact or manipulate what is being displayed on screen, but the vast majority of them still require player input in order to do so, and for good reason, any video game that doesn't require player input to manipulate what's being displayed isn't really a video game at all, that's what we define as a "movie" or "TV show" etc. It's simply impossible for something non-interactive to be considered a "video game" because one of the main defining aspects of a video game is player interactivity.

It is funny though, how the more advanced video games have become, the more non-interactive cutscenes have been used as a means to advance the plot/story between play, a lot of criticism has been brought down upon games such as Metal Gear Solid for it's heavy use of non-interactive story telling, although arguably these cutsceenes were often necessary to help better explain the sheer amount of plot and story contained in the MGS universe, but at the very least the actual gameplay holds up well, offering some of the best stealth based gameplay found in the genre.


As much as many non-interactive video game cutscenes may drag on, they can be very effective in helping better explain the plot/story and can offer some entertaining respite for the player between gameplay sections.

This brings me us another debate that's often brought up between gamers. "What is most important, gameplay" or story? Of course it would be best if both were done well but for a game what is the most important of the two? For me it has to be gameplay, now this doesn't mean a game has to be gameplay heavy, but it does mean that the way the player interacts with a game is very important, especially for a game that is lacking in gameplay mechanics.

This leads us to a rather controversial topic, Beyond: Two Souls. Consider what you will of this, but what follows is me giving my personal opinion and being absolutely honest regarding my feelings on the game.

Beyond: Two Souls is not the masterpiece some have come to claim, it is an interesting idea unfortunately executed very poorly. At best Beyond: Two Souls is a mediocre but entertaining enough romp with impressive visuals and boasting a talented cast, at worst it's an incredibly stupid, cliche filled interactive movie in the guise of a video game. The over reliance on bland, emotionless voice acting, tired, tried and true movie tropes and emotion driven story telling, fails miserably to make up for a severe lack of gameplay mechanics and player interactivity, leaving the player often feeling disconnected from the events that transpire, this feeling is made amplified by the repetitive use of QTE's (quick time events), and minigames that apparently if worth performing once, are worth performing the same task three or four more times in order to advance the story. The disjointed way the plot and story play out is another interesting idea, but very rarely do the "choices" you make effect much of the actual plot during play. Beyond: Two Souls is a video game but it attempts to be a movie first, the main issue I take with this is that it's not even a very good movie.

Now I know the point of Beyond: Two Souls was to focus more on the emotional connection players have with the characters, rather than gameplay which can often interfere with the story, but if the player simply doesn't care about the characters or their situation then the whole point of the game is lost to them. In the case of Beyond I honestly feel that this can hardly be the fault of the player, as it is up to the developers to create characters and situations that can be empathised with.


Beyond: Two Souls attempts to be an emotion driven, character focused story. But due to the cliche filled plot and narrative, uninteresting characters  and passive gameplay mechanics, the experience often left me feeling beyond bored.

Games like Telltale's: The Walking Dead, Shenmue, To the moon and Broken Sword are all, emotional, story driven games, obviously with some having more gameplay mechanics than others, but I honestly believe each one of them to offer a better story, gameplay mechanics and experience than Beyond: Two Souls offers. Nobody likes being told their milkshake is made out of potatoes, but well, you get what I'm saying.

If you liked Beyond: Two Souls then good for you, my dislike of it should in no way effect you still liking it, in fact I'd be very happy to see more developers attempt what David Cage is doing, one reason is because I feel that it would be a worth while endeavour but mostly because I think if done well games like Beyond: Two Souls could be fantastic experiences.

Gaming being as young as it is and being as open to interpretation as any other art form, is going to lead to a great many other attempts to either reinvent, redefine or simply just challenge pre-conceptions as to what a video game is. And personally I can't wait to see what comes next, I might not like it but at least it's something new, now that doesn't mean we should all go out and support something that attempts to different purely because it is different, but we certainly could do with more originality in the mainstream at least and that's what Beyond: Two Souls is, something new, something a different.

The same can be said for motion sensor gaming, now not everyone likes motion sensor controllers but they certainly have their place. Metroid Prime: Corruption is a great example of how the Wiimote and nunchuk actually helped improve the gameplay experience. Anyway without innovations in how we play we never would have got the analogue stick or trigger buttons, two additions that are indispensable in order to play many video games today (par the mouse and keyboard of course) and often innovations to how we play leads to innovations in the games we play.


Since how we play can often effect what we play, it's reasonable to assume that new innovations in motion sensor controllers and VR (Virtual reality) may effect the types of games we play in the future.

But regardless of what innovations come about that may change how we play, we as the player are always required. Because much like I stated above, video games are primarily an interactive medium for entertainment, as soon as you remove the need for player interaction the videogame stops being a game and becomes something more akin to a movie.

So, what is a video game? And to what extent of how we define what a video game is, should be allowed to be challenged or changed before it becomes something else entirely?


Mon, 21 Oct 2013 04:58:41 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/21/what-defines-a-video-game-and-does-beyond-two-souls-challenge-our-preconceptions-2#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The pros and cons of console exclusivity. ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/18/the-pros-and-cons-of-console-exclusivity















As always thanks for reading my blog.

Fri, 18 Oct 2013 06:11:11 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/18/the-pros-and-cons-of-console-exclusivity#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The decline of innovation and the rise of replication.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/13/the-decline-of-innovation-and-the-rise-of-replication

"Innovation", innovation is a word you hear thrown around quite a lot in the videogames industry, either coming from publishers and developers who claim to be striving for it, or from gamers who complain about the growing lack of it. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about innovation in regards to videogames? The fact of the matter is, the term itself is capable of covering a broad spectrum of possibilities so it's meaning can vary drastically from one persons usage of it to another.

It's a difficult term to contextualise, but what I think most gamers expect when we hear the term "innovation" is either new methods of play, be that either how we interact within the virtual world as the player character or how we control the player character by way of the UI (user interface) which may even offer us new ways to play besides the classic controller/keyboard & mouse approach. Or even a new genre, maybe one that either expands upon the foundation of a pre-existing genre, or focuses more heavily on a specific element of another and builds a game around that, these examples are only few amongst many others of course. Where as from a publisher or developer standpoint, innovation could be anything from a new and/or improved game engine to integrating social media aps. Needless to say, not all innovations in gaming come about in order to actually improve gaming as a whole, as we've already seen with many services such as DLC, DRM and online subscriptions, these "innovations" can exist sometimes as more of a barrier to additional content, imposed more in order to help line publisher pockets instead of offering consumers a service which actually improves their gaming experience without holding content to ransom, or attaching other needless strings. This of course may not have been the case when such services were first implemented but I wouldn't blame any of you for assuming that was the case.

As I've said before I'm not against DLC, the option to purchase additional content to help extend one's enjoyment of a game is a welcome feature. My problem is when the content being sold to us as DLC was originally meant to be released on the disc, but is instead deliberately being held back to then be sold to is in piece meals.

Most of us don't expect to get any additional content for free, we understand that people need to to get paid for the work they do after all, but what upsets many gamers is the feeling as if we are being charged for content that should have been made available on the disc at retail. These optional features can often feel as if they are simply ways for companies to piece meal their content instead of making it available on disc at launch, obviously no one would argue about additional content being made available later down the line, but the practice of holding back content to sell as DLC later must stop.

The problem is that the current system in place for the purchase of content via online is one that seems tailor made for such "services" to become more lucrative than the games we've purchased. For example, the fact that many games we buy today offer microtransactions in the form of day one DLC. Now I'm not personally against the option to purchase additional content but too often it feels as if certain parts of a game were held back to then be fed to us piece meal style after the games official release. Monthly subscriptions are of course are an option but sadly more often than not much of the DLC you receive is hardly ever worth the cost of subscribing.

Xbox live, still a paid service... Something that baffles me to this day, but more so now that the many advertisements present on the Xbox dashboard should create more than enough revenue to cover server fees, an issue made worse by the fact that many game servers have a hard time maintaining the heavy load placed on them, one would think that given the sheer amount of profits made by these companies that they would invest in additional servers to help meet the inevitable demand made by many popular games, especially with such a heavy focus being made to online gaming.

Microsoft should implement a free online feature, if they want to create their own version of PS+ then fair enough but basic access to online gaming should be free. Now I don't expect everyone to agree with me here, but at the very least think about this. You pay for Xbox Live in order to use the Internet, the same Internet service that you already pay your Internet provider for, to then access a feature in a game you paid full price for that is freely available on the PS3, Wii and Wii U.

The trouble with innovation in any industry is that it's not guaranteed to improve a product or service, in fact it can often lead to the detriment of a product if implemented solely for the benefit of a company and without the intended consumer demographic being taken into consideration. For example look at the sorry state of the current Resident Evil franchise, all the innovations (changes if you will) were made so as to increase the overall appeal of the IP, not in order to make the franchise "better" but purely so that Capcom could increase their profits. In this games industry, why is it that lately the term "innovation" seems so synonymous with words like generic, cookie-cutter and accessible? Is it because from a company standpoint, innovation is considered to be whatever helps to increases a companies profits? Although to be fair, if you look at a lot of innovations to come about in the games industry as of late, they are often game mechanics and elements taken from other, more popular games and/or franchises, and re-worked into a pre-existing game/franchise such as Resident Evil or Final Fantasy in hopes that these companies will see similar profits being made.

The issue we as gamers are faced with today is, what innovations are required in order to actually further advance gaming as a whole? And what innovations are purely being put in place as an additional avenue for companies to further profit off of us the consumers? The alteration of pre-existing game genres or gameplay mechanics, making the experience more streamlined and/or offering the player a deeper level of interactivity and/or control are innovations I feel are worth striving for. But too often now we see companies trying to replicate the success of another by trying to force certain gameplay mechanics in where they do not belong. Some would call the current Final Fantasy series the evolution of the JRPG, but to me it seems more like a glorified mishmash of gameplay mechanics that simply do not gel, once again it is this apparent need for "mass appeal" brought about due to bloated development budgets that has invited such a needless change to a franchise that was once the epitome of the JRPG genre. Even the new focus on social media aps and sharing feels more like a way for companies to control how their games are viewed instead of a way for consumers to freely share and enjoy each others content.

There are few innovations in gameplay to come about in recent years that equal those made 10 years ago, but innovations in the way we play games are still being made, whether or not motion sensor gaming or VR (virtual reality) is the future of play is yet be seen but the odds are good we'll be seeing more of it.

How, I ask you, in such an industry that seems totally focused on pleasing everyone, is it possible to see such genre defining IPs come about like we did in the past? Games like GTA-III, Resident Evil 4, Shenmue and Assassins Creed, these games all broke the mold and earned critical acclaim because of it. But because of the current business model employed by most big name publishers today the next big industry defining change will most likely come about from either the mobile or indie scene, were innovation and originality are still vital in order to succeed. If that is to be the case where does this leave console gaming? It may well still be at the forefront of the games industry but due to the the current industries structure it seems as if there is simply no room for such innovations to equal those seen in the past. Many of the innovations in the console gaming scene being made today are mostly companies just playing catch up with one another, trying to replicate the success of the competition or altering their games to increase accessibility and appeal, It may even be the case that the industry is at the point where technology needs to advance further before the next "industry defining" innovations can come about.

Personally, I feel that if the current business model for AAA game development were to remain in place, then even the advent of new game changing technology would mean very little, in an industry seemingly content to constantly try to replicate the success of the competition or rehash whatever IPs have brought them success in the past.


Sun, 13 Oct 2013 08:21:57 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/13/the-decline-of-innovation-and-the-rise-of-replication#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The Videogames Industry: How far we've come. ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/07/the-videogames-industry-how-far-weve-come                                                            How far we've come.


Way back in the late 80's early 90, when videogames were first becoming popular as a entertainment medium, who would ever have guessed that the videogames industry would come as far as it has today? It is after all arguably the greatest, most popular and profitable entertainment medium around right now.

My reason for writing this blog is in order to discuss the high points of the videogame industry's history, and why I personally believe videogames to be the best form of entertainment available to us today. I'll start by saying that I am primarily a console gamer, so I'll be focusing more on that aspect of gaming, mostly due to the fact that I'm more familiar with home consoles and console games and also because I don't wish to spread any misinformation.

Pong. Widely regarded as the precursor to modern gaming, how odd to think that our gaming hobby started out as two oblong shapes bouncing a square ball back and forth against a barren background.


As many of you may already know, videogames have been around for well over 25 years and have offered us many old-school PC and arcade classics such as Pong, Tetris, Space-Invaders and Pacman, and although the advent of console gaming and modern day innovations have helped push the medium further, allowing it to gain mainstream acclaim, the roots of our hobby are still deeply intertwined in the games we play even today. Gaming has come so far as to reach the point where films are now not only being adapted into videogames to help further popularise a movie, but videogames are being adapted into movies to help popularise a game!. Think about that for a second, videogames have gained such a huge following in the mainstream that they are now actively affecting another medium of entertainment, one that has been around for centuries before hand. Who would have thought that games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Prince of Persia would ever get movie adaptations? (I am aware of the live action Super Mario Bro's movie and Mortal Kombat but it's undeniable that game to movie adaptations are a much more common occurrence today) It just goes to show how far gaming as an entertainment medium has come after a relatively short amount of time.

There are of course many reasons as to why I feel videogames are a better form of entertainment than any other, but one such reason is because videogames have the unique ability to combine the cinematic and story telling elements seen in movies, along with music which enables us to feel a myriad of emotions beyond those conveyable through words, all while offering us unprecedented interactivity with a virtual world for us to loose ourselves in. It is this combination of cinema, music and interactivity that I believe contributes greatly to giving videogames the edge over the competition. This isn't to say however that all videogames are required to incorporate cinema style story telling in order to be considered "good games" there are still many popular games and franchises today that do very well by sticking with the old-school non cinematic model of videogame storytelling, such as Super Mario. Speaking of Mario where would videogaming be today without our mushroom loving moustachioed hero? It's honestly hard to imagine gaming ever having become quite so popular as it is today without the involvement of Nintendo and the Mario franchise

Super Mario Bros.  Mario has been a core Nintendo franchise way back since his first outing in the 1985 classic Super Mario Bros, the moustachioed hero has continued to gain in popularity with young and old gamers alike for generations


But long before Nintendo laid the foundation for console gaming with the NES, and went about setting the standard for console videogames everywhere with their "Nintendo gold seal of quality" there were quite a number of home consoles that came about such as the Magnavox Odysse, Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64 Games System, but most failed largely due to either insane pricing or the extreme difference in quality between many of the games available on their respective platforms (amongst a variety of other reasons of course) It is arguably due largely to Nintendo's strict quality control that they were able to to rise above the competition, although taking into consideration the fact that Nintendo also had such talent on board the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma and Yoshio Sakamoto, the developers responsible for such Nintendo classics as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, is it really any wonder how Nintendo found such worldwide success in the videogames industry?

Nintendo eventually found a worthy rival in Sega and for a long time they did battle (I suppose you could even call this the very first console war) there were a great many fantastic games to be released by both parties but it wasn't until the release of the Super Nes and Sega Saturn that we'd see the console videogame landscape transform with the advent of 3D gaming. Now PC gamers naturally had the privilege of experiencing 3D gaming for a number of years beforehand thanks to popular PC games such as Wolfenstein 3D, and the more popular and widely known Doom (although console gamers were later treated to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, highly disputed by many as one of single greatest console games ever created) The ability to now control your character on a 3D plain gave rise to a previously unprecedented freedom of exploration, as well as new types of genres and gameplay elements, although some early 3D character models looked reminiscent of paper mache rejects there really aren't many who would disagree that the advent of 3D gaming was truly a landmark moment for the videogames industry.

The Legend of Zelda Ocaria of Time. This N-64 classic is praised by many as one of the gretest adventure games ever created, the games continued pupulerity earned it a 3D rebuild (as seen above) for the Nintendo 3DS in June 2011.

But who was to know that the next landmark moment for videogaming would come about thanks to a completely new challenger? (That's right I'm talking about Sony) Sony'sfirst foray into console gaming with their "Playstation" ushered in with it a focus on the mainstream, you see before the Playstation, videogaming was still considered by the vast majority of society as a children's past time, but thankfully Sony was having none of that and heavily promoted the Playstation as the console for "cool kids" It paid off too, the Sony Playstation was a monumental success and helped to further popularise gaming as a entertainment pass-time. However Sony's smart decision making wasn't the only reason the Playstation became a success, for those of you not in the know Nintendo actually approached Sony asking them to create a disc based console, I'm not entirely aware of the specifics myself, but it seems that the deal fell through and Nintendo instead went on to develop the Nintendo 64, another cartridge based system like the NES and Snes before it, leaving Sony with a disc based console and scratching their heads. Sony eventually decided to put the console out on the market as direct competition to Nintendo's N-64 and called it the "Playstation" and with what I'd arguably call "Poetic justice" Sony went on to gain many exclusives such as Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Ridge Racer-Type 4 and Tekken, including some titles that once belonged to Nintendo, this of course was primarily due to the Playstation being a disc based system, discs being a newer, superior format in comparison to the aging cartridge system. Where as Nintendo went on to loose many of their exclusive IP's such as Final Fantasy and missed out on many exclusives, primarily due to the N-64 only supporting cartridge based games, which do allow for games to be saved directly on the cartridge eliminating the need for memory cards but are otherwise a very limited format when compared to discs.

The Sony Playstation (aka the PSX) Sony's Playstation opened up gaming to the masses, it is the consel that defined a generation and made gaming populer in the mainstream.


Sony have gone from strength to strength after the release of the Playstation, where as many believe the Nintendo 64 to be the beginning of Nintendo's gradual decline in the industry.

Of course no list about landmark videogame achievements would be complete without mentioning GTA-III (aka Grand Theft auto 3) the originator of the "sandbox genre" Long before the British, Edinburgh based developer DMA Design Ltd were taken on by Rockstar Games, GTA was still around upsetting parents and causing controversy, but instead in a 2D, top down view setting. It wasn't until GTA-III was released in all it's 3D, open-world glory that the franchise really hit it big. There are a great many reasons as to why GTA-III is truly a landmark in gaming history, it offered a previously unprecedented level of freedom and exploration, mature content and story telling, as well as the ability to cause absolute mayhem, but honestly there are far too many reasons for GTA-III's success for me to list here. Though fortunately if you are interested you needn't look much further than the games recent successor GTA-V, to help you understand exactly why the move into a 3D open-world setting caused such a stir way back in the early 2000's.

GTA-III (aka Grand Thenf Auto 3) The game that single handedly popularised the "sandbox genre" whlile setting a new precident for videogames everywhere.

So, we've covered a little on how the early popularity of console gaming came about, the advent of 3D gaming, the industry's gradual move into the mainstream, and it's acceptance as a entertainment pass-time for the young as well as the mature, next I'm going to discuss online gaming. Now not many people may know this, but there were a few early consoles that actually did offer online functionality in one form or another, such as the Japanese NES (aka the Famicom) by way of the Famicom Modem, as well as the Super-NES and Sega Genesis which offered online gaming by way of the XBAND modem in the USA. But these early attempts at online connectivity were extremely lacking, even archaic in comparison to more well known and modern attempts. It wasn't until the Sega Dreamcast was released however that online console gaming began to truly take form. Unknown by many today primarily due to it's short time in the sun, the Sega Dreamcast was quite revolutionary and far ahead of it's time (making it's early bow out of the industry all the more of a shame) as well as offering VMU's (Visual memory card Units) unique portable memory cards that let you save and store game data as well play mini games, it was also in fact the first home console to include a built-in modem and Internet support for online play, a feature that would become the standard for pretty much all consoles to follow.

The Sega Dreamcast. Both forgotten and mourned by many, the Sega Dreamcast holds a special place in many gamers hearts as the last true "arcade console".

The next milestone to come about for console gaming was arguably thanks to Microsoft's "Xbox" and it's contribution to the further advancement of online gaming "Halo: Combat Evolved" was a fantastic FPS (First person shooter) but it wasn't until it's sequel "Halo 2" that Microsoft really began to push online gaming forward, for many Halo 2 was "the game to play" if you had an Xbox and an online connection, and in many ways it was responsible for laying the foundation that many future console online FPS's set about building their success upon, games such as Call of Duty for example. The next generation of consoles to follow, the PS3, Xbox 360 (even the Wii but to a lesser extent) respectively, were each built with online gaming in mind, the majority of core titles and AAA games to be released almost always came with a online mode such as online multiplayer which usually offered competitive and/or cooperative play. Due to the growing complexity of many modern day videogames, certain bugs or errors are naturally accepted as a given now since they are more likely to be overlooked before a game hits store shelve, however standardised online connectivity has brought with it the ability fix broken/buggy games via online patches (another thing PC gamers have been enjoying for a number of years before hand) also companies were now able to offer consumers additional content long after they had purchased the game by way of DLC (Downloadable content. As much as many companies may get a bad rep for their misuse of DLC, it's undeniable that the ability to offer additional content to consumers via online download in order to help prolong the enjoyment of a particular game, is a feature that has gone on to define (for better or worse) the current generation of videogames.

As the old generation begins to bow out, let us remember the innovations brought about by the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii, such as motion sensor gaming, standardised online connectivity enabling for online patches, DLC and the mass popularity of online gaming.

So, what new generation defining features can we expect to see next gen? will new features such as the integration of social media websites and content sharing spark a new trend in the industry? Personally I can't wait to see what the "next big thing" will be. But if there's one thing that intarests me most of all, it's what brand new gaming experiance lay waiting around the corner.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end and I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the history and high points of the videogames industry, as always if you have anything to add or disagree with any of my points made then please feel free to leave a comment. Read more at

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 06:50:52 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/07/the-videogames-industry-how-far-weve-come#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[TIR: Mighty No.9. The rebirth of a classic. ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/01/mighty-no9-the-rebirth-of-a-classic Mighty No.9: a new breed of Japanese sidescrolling action shooter! Read more at http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/zerocrossing/mighty-no-9-the-rebirth-of-a-classic--262775.phtml#t7oJhVqV2WUedoOh.99



Following Inafune-san's break away from Capcom in October 2010, shortly after the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3 which led to a great many fans being disappointed, he set about founding his own videogame development company in order to make sure that his future projects would not suffer the same fate. Eventually gaining support from the likes of "Naoya Tomita" who helped in the development of the original Megaman game as well as Megaman 2, 5, 6 and Megaman Legends, "Kimo.Kimo" a talented character designer known for his unique and memorable characters in such popular titles as Street Fighter Alpha 3, Darkstalkers, Red Earth and The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, as well as Manami Matsui, who was responsible for bringing us the entire original Megaman soundtrack, and has contributed to other popular games such as Megaman 10, shovel knight and many more. These are just a small handful of the talent that has assembled together to help contribute to the development of Mighty No.9.

In the hope of making the companies first project a success they have turned to the popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter, and as of today they are mere hours away from successfully kickstarting their project into the full on development stage with a whopping Kickstarter backing of $3,412,319 and rising. They have also plowed through the majority of their stretch goals leading to a multitude of extra content being added to the final product, including new stages, a bonus: Boss rush mode and a making of documentary to name a few, Mighty No.9 will also be getting current gen console ports, next gen ports to the PS4 and Xbox One and Wii U, and to the delight of many (including myself) Mighty No.9 will now also be getting ported to the PS-Vita and Nintendo 3DS!. Congratulations everyone who contributed to the push.

I bring this news to your attention not only in hopes of helping the project gain further backing, but also because I believe the glowing success of Comcept's Mighty No.9 kickstarter project is testament to the popularity and appeal of a genre that frankly many in the mainstream (Capcom most notably) have seemingly decided is no longer worth developing for. So I urge you, fans of Megaman, fans of Keiji Inafune, heck even those of you who have yet to experience or appreciate the talent that any of these videogame veterans have to offer, back this project not only so that Mighty No.9 may be a success but also to support a new talented development company, one which is aiming to not only offer us a new take on a popular genre many of us know and love, but who are devoted to innovation, and who are striving to bring us the best game they can with the help of fan input.

Let's all do our best to help make Mighty No.9 a success!

Thanks for reading my blog, if you are interested in backing Mighty No.9 then click on this link to head over to the Mighty No.9 Kickstarter page http://www.kickstarter.com/... Also you can check out the link below to see the Mighty No.9 Kickstarter pitch.

Official Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter Trailer

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 08:15:54 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/10/01/mighty-no9-the-rebirth-of-a-classic#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[How the publisher imposed status quo and gamer ignorance helps deprive the industry of growth.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/25/how-the-publisher-imposed-status-quo-and-gamer-ignorance-helps-deprive-the-industry-of-growth blog gamer ignorance

Every one of us has our preferences when it comes to certain videogame genres, sub genres and artistic styles, but it seems these days many gamers out there are under the mistaken delusion, that certain games (especially games that they dislike) are somehow inferior to popular AAA releases and/or games that they happen to find enjoyment in playing. This mistaken perception can end up causing many gamers to miss out on a great many fantastic but lesser known titles, the attitude many have towards videogames developed with a lower budget only helps lend to further stagnate the industry. Far too many gamers are narrow minded and unwilling to try out new and different types of videogame genres, leading to the the publishers themselves not being prepared to risk development on games that they feel consumers aren't interested in.

In the age of huge western AAA franchises that offer us Hollywood style storytelling, giant set-pieces, earth shattering explosions and the like, it's easy to see why more humble videogames end up getting over looked or ignored, but are these seemingly "lesser games" actually inferior? or is the only thing that's really holding them back simply that they are lacking in all that glitz and glimmer, that many seem to think is a prerequisite in order for game to be considered "worth playing"? Take a look at your videogame library for a moment, now ask yourself this; How many of those games aren't big budget, AAA releases that have received huge ad campaigns and/or scored over 8/10 from mainstream reviewers? And how many of them have gone on to spawn two or three sequels or a couple of spin offs? Chances are the majority of games you find yourself playing regularly are from big "dependable" publishers, who have spent a huge amount of time and money moulding their major IPs into AAA franchise material. The thing is, there are some games out there that have the potential to be just as good, if not better than any current AAA developed game, but they simply don't have a chance due to gamers passing them over for their more pretty, big budget counter-parts.

Now sticking with a genre or franchise you enjoy is a smart move, especially if you lack the funds to do otherwise, but what about all the great lesser known games you may be missing out on? Believe me when I tell you that there are a great many games that may even have the potential to rival current AAA franchises, even games that you consider to be the best of the best this gen, but are being held back, because gamers today refuse to step outside of their comfort zone by playing a game that looks to be below their standards.

These days too many gamers tend to play a handful of choice franchises all year round, completely ignoring anything else unless it causes a big enough stir in the mainstream to be considered a "must play" title. Personally I just couldn't do that, first of all I don't believe that many current mainstream videogame journalist and reviewers have a better idea than actual gamers as to what's worth playing, and secondly there are far too many fantastic games from big companies and small companies alike, that sticking to just one franchise, heck just one genre for that matter, would mean that I'd have missed out on a great many of my all time favourite games, games I still own today and refuse to sell or trade in because they are simply too good to let go.

Take for example Japanese developed games, many Japanese games (especially JRPG's) are often over looked or out right avoided, by the majority of mainstream gamers due to them having certain recurring tropes and themes that some people find off putting, such as the representation of female characters, the story being too convoluted, the sometimes overly used childish, idealistic notion that love, friendship and hope will see the protagonists through safely to the end, even the anime-esque art style is enough to put some people off almost immediately. Personally I happen to find most of these predictable tropes and themes quite charming, if implemented well and not just used to follow a tired, predictable, tried and true formula.

Atelier Rorona, a wonderful turn based JRPG that I'm sure has been passed over by many due primarily to it's anime themed art style and female protagonist.

due primarily to it's anime themed art style and female protagonist.

Of course this is not to say that only Japanese games rely on a tried and true formula, in fact many western games have a formulaic structure to them , AAA games especially. The formulaic brand of Hollywood-esque story telling, style over substance gameplay, the childish gratuitous use of explosive cutscenes, profanity, gore, sex, violence and a black and white approach to good and evil to name a few. That's not to say this is a bad thing though, many of these themes are recurring purely because they have significant entertainment value. Obviously it's not the case for all western AAA videogames, but I'm sure you can understand where I'm coming from when I say that western games have their own tried and true formulas, which appeal to most of us because they are developed with a western audience in mind, there's no culture barrier needed to be overcome unlike with certain Japanese games.

The Call Of Duty franchise relies heavaly on high octane shoot-outs, huge set pieces, explosive cutscenes and fast paced gameplay. You may not be a fan but it's easy to see where the appeal stems from.


Unfortunately it's not just gamers who seem to refuse to acknowledge certain "lesser" genres and sub genres, it seems the videogames industry itself refuses to develop for less popular genres these days. This gen many big publishers severely limited their output (apart from sequels to their already popular IP's) to focus primarily on FPS's, TPS's and open world games. Sure those are some fun genres which have brought us many popular games/franchises, such as COD, Gears of War and GTA to name just a few, but don't we already have more than enough games currently covering these genres? I mean aren't we always hearing how the market is "over oversaturated" with shooters and open world games right now? Sadly, as it stands now next gen seems like it may be more of the same... I suppose it wouldn't really be such an issue if a great many games from these genres weren't severely lacking in comparison to those they are trying to replicate. It's just that, well to me anyway, many of them feel as if they've been pushed out the door half backed in an attempt to capitalise on the past success of the games that helped popularise these genres to begin with.

Honestly, if I've learnt anything from purchasing both AAA games and lesser known games, it's that the AAA label is certainly no longer a mark of a games quality, in fact it's really just a reminder to us all of the insane amount of cash that's gone into developing a AAA game, making the fact that so many of them tend to lead to flop or lead to disappointment, or perform poorly in regards to sales (if you consider a game earning a company upwards of $7,million, performing poorly) that much more depressing.

The Tomb Raider reboot was a fantastic game selling far better than many other reboots (Team Ninja's DmC: Devil May Cry for example) but according to Square Enix the company suffered an "extraordinary loss" due to lower than expected sales.


There's another thing I hear a lot of gamers say these days, and that's "I don't buy second hand games" well that's all well and good I suppose, I mean if you want to support a company, then the best way to do so is to purchase their games new if you can afford to. But refusing to buy "any" game second hand means you've very likely missed out on some truly great gems, games that probably got over shadowed during the release of more popular AAA games, and seeing as most "less popular" games tend to get a smaller number of units sent out compared to their popular AAA counterparts, it means that the chances of finding any great lesser known games on the shelf brand new, is highly unlikely. So, if you consider yourself a "gamer" then you really owe it to yourself to purchase a lesser known game second hand, there's probably some game you've heard about, either from a friend or reliable reviewer, that you've considered picking up, so if you happen to see that game second hand somewhere, why not pick it up there? It'll probably be pretty cheap too, and if you enjoy it then you may go on to purchase it's sequel new if the game sold well enough for it to be sequalised.

It's safe to say that many of us have grown increasingly weary of the constant slew of generic, cookie-cuter, made for the masses releases that have saturated this current console generation. How fortunate for us then, that Indie gaming have taken the industry by storm, and have proven what many, many gamers have been saying for years now, and that is; A game needn't have a bloated AAA budget, fancy graphics and mass appeal behind it, to be entertaining and sell well. In fact a smaller budget often means that indie games are required to be innovative and original in order to stick out from the competition.

Journey proved that offering consumers immersive gameplay and gorgeous graphics needn't cost the developers an arm and a leg.

Journey proved that offering consumers immersive gameplay and gorgeous graphics
needn't cost the developers an arm and a leg.

We can only hope now, given the success of Indie games, that more original and innovative IPs will be announced from mainstream developers and publishers in the near future. But the thing I feel must be mentioned here is, there have already been plenty of original and innovative IPs to released throughout this gen, but sadly a lot of then have been ignored in favour of the more popular AAA franchises many of us have become accustomed too, but continue to complain about. It does the industry no good if we continue to support companies we feel are only further stagnating the industry, and go about ignoring those companies who are trying to make the next step forward. However I can't say that we gamers are entirely to blame for this, the mainstream media and videogame journalist play a part in this too, by constantly shoving popular AAA franchises in our faces and announcing how "mind blowing" and "must have" they are, without ever mentioning smaller more modest IPs that are also worth checking out.

If we ever want the videogames industry to get out of it's current rut, then we as consumers we need to be more vigilant in regards to our purchases. Obviously we need to support the companies we know and trust, but we should also make the effort to support innovative lesser know titles. The more consumer focus is turned away from games that are stagnating the industry by creating generic, made for the masses, cookie cutter content, and turned towards those games that offer originality and innovation, then naturally the industry will have to change it's approach in order to keep in line with consumer demand.

Gamers have a lot more pull than I honestly think we realise, but our continued ignorance has only helped maintane the status quo, helping line publisher pockets while depriving the industry of growth and diversity. It's not the publishers or the mainstream media who dictate industry trends, it's all of us, and right now we need to be putting this pull to a positive use by supporting companies who place the further advancement and betterment of videogaming in general, above that of personal gain, satisfying their investors and maintaining the publisher imposed status quo.



Wed, 25 Sep 2013 05:52:07 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/25/how-the-publisher-imposed-status-quo-and-gamer-ignorance-helps-deprive-the-industry-of-growth#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Capcom failing: Shelved IPs and wasted potential.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/21/capcom-failing-shelved-ips-and-wasted-potential blog capcom2

As most of you are likely already well aware, recently news has come about that Capcom are in a bit of trouble financially, it's nothing too desperate right now but the news of their less than desirable situation was enough to cause many to question the companies future in the games industry. So how did Capcom, a company with a great many IPs under it's belt get into such a mess? Well hopefully by the end of this I'll have helped to answer that question.

It's public knowledge that Capcom for a while now, have been struggling to say the least. Earlier this year it was reported that Capcom's profits dropped 37%, that's rather hefty loss, apparently they stated the cause for this was the competition posed by the sheer amount of AAA games released from other companies around the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013, that were supposedly over shadowing their seemingly less appealing games. As well as Capcom themselves openly admitting that their attempts at "outsourcing" popular IPs to the West (such as Resident Evil and Devil May Cry) had yielded less than satisfactory results.

But honestly, what kind of excuse is that for a company like Capcom? With all their blatant miss use of DLC, on disk DLC, microinstructions, and the milking of their popular franchises, not to mention a company that owns many, many popular games and franchises, but chooses only to either cancel them, outsource them, or just sit on them while they drive their most popular franchises like Resident Evil into the ground while nickel and diming consumers by piecemealing their content. With all this penny pinching how can Capcom honestly be doing bad financially? Or is all this penny pinching purely due to their desperate circumstances?

As far as I'm concerned part of Capcoms reason for it's current financial situation is easily explainable, and it's something that's led to the gradual degradation of many popular Japanese videogame developers, and that is this obsession with appealing to the West. Capcom was at their best back when they were developing fun, innovative and enjoyable games, instead of trying to replicate western games in order to appeal to a wider audience. Appealing to the west isn't a bad thing in and of itself, heck eastern and western video game developers could probably learn a lot from one another going by the different ways they each approach certain genres, but the problem we see all too often is that many Japanese games lose the originality that made them appealing to begin with, casting off their charm purely in order to appeal to a demographic they were never meant to appeal too.

Look at the state of Resident Evil today for example, RE was always supposed to be a survival horror game, but now it's a pure action game with Zombies (if you can even call them "Zombies" anymore) void of any genuine chills, scares or the tense atmosphere that made the franchise the huge success it once was, and what for? To appeal to a wider demographic. Well maybe that might have been worth selling the franchise out if Capcom had realistic sales expectations, instead a ridiculous figure for units sold like "7 million" Resident Evil 6 apparently sold around 4.9 million copies around may of this year, leading Capcom to believe the game was a failure... 4.9 million copies sold is a failure now? And why? Because Call of Duty sold $1 billion copies suddenly every other company expects to make similar sales?... It's madness, COD wouldn't be the best selling franchise if every company could pull of similar figures.

Now I've already done a review for DmC: Devil May Cry where I gave it an over all decent score, so I'm not about to go back on that here, but this needs to be said. It may have sounded like a smart move on paper to outsource Devil May Cry to a western studio, but honestly could Capcom have handled the decision much worse than when they decided on choosing Ninja Theory... Now look, I like Ninja Theory, I'm a huge fan of Heavenly Sword, but everything they've done since then have both been pretty average... I'm not sure if Capcom had this planned out from the start in hopes of gaining more publicity for their now Western developed game, but the controversy that came about during the early teaser trailer for DmC: Devil May Cry, and plagued the game all the way through it's extended development, due to Ninja Theory's rather outspoken and negative attitude to core fans of the original franchise, did little good for what was a niche franchise to begin with, if anything the game gained a lot of publicity due to fans voicing their anger at what Ninja Theory had done to their beloved franchise, while many argued back defending Ninja Theory and their new approach to the franchise. in the end what we ended up with was a half decent hack 'n slash which probably would have done better sales wise had it not carried the title of "Devil may Cry" What needs to be learnt from this is that outsourcing very rarely ever works out well, but if you're going to attempt it make sure the company you're outsourcing to respects the core fans and doesn't add any unnecessary weight to the inevitable controversy. But I digress.

As I stated above, one issue is that Capcom keeps attempting to appeal to the west by copying popular western games, while ignoring the fact that it was their originality that made them such a success to begin with. Another problem is the wasted potential posed by many, many IPs Capcom have chosen to just sit on for oh, over 10 years or so now collecting dust, while they continue to butcher their most popular franchise with each new iteration. How about a new Ghouls and Ghosts, Or Power Stone, Dino Crisis, Mega Man, Breath of Fire, Rival Schools or Darkstalkers? the list goes on and on... But no, instead of Capcom developing new iterations for these popular IPs (well popular at the one time) IPs that many have been asking for, for quite some time and putting them out there to make some cash, they choose instead to sit on them letting their potential waste away. I honestly can't stress this enough, if you actually look at all the great games Capcom own and could be developing on right now, it seems utterly absurd for them to be doing absolutely nothing with them.

Capcom has so many great IPs, they're why they were such a great company after all, but now it almost seems as if they're a shadow of their former selves... Capcom's brand new IP, Deep Down, while looking interesting is anything but original, seeming to blend both Assassin Creed's virtual reality story element with Dark Souls gameplay mechanics, it's certainly an interesting premise and without a doubt I'll be checking the games out ASAP, but unless Capcom can pull it off, and offer an IP that can rival both Assassins Creed and Dark Souls, then what future is there for a game that appears to be only a carbon copy of the best of both popular IPs? Saying that though, being an online only game with randomly generated dungeons and enemies, and offering cooperative play is certainly cause for intrigue, but for now we'll jut have to wait and see how it all comes together, especially considering how lackluster Capcoms recent projects have turned out to be.

I am Sorry if I'm coming off a little critical of Capcom, but understand this, the only reason I'm am being critical of them is because I know what they are capable of. Some of my favourite franchises have come from Capcom, like Resident Evil, Ace Combat, Onimusha Warlords, Rival Schools, Street Fighter, and Power Stone to name a few, and believe me I could go on and on. This is why it pains me so to see Capcom become such a mess, I don't know if it's because they've lost much of the original talent behind their games and franchises, or are just struggling to keep up in the age of AAA franchises, and everything or nothing game development, but something needs to change at Capcom or else they may well find themselves being brought out in the not so distant future.

Of course this doesn't just go for Capcom, Square Enix have been responsible for a great many similar activities. The latest Tomb Raider reboot apparently failed to meet predicted sales made evident when the company announced they had made a “extraordinary loss” on the project, leading to major reforms and restructuring efforts for the company. The Final Fantasy IIIX series of games continues to divide fans due to Square Enix's continued attempts to appeal to the West, Sleeping Dogs, (essentially GTA in a eastern setting) seemed to have come and gone without so much as a whimper. So, is this what is to be expected when eastern videogame companies try to replicate western videogames in hopes of finding similar success? I don't think so.

Attempting to replicate the success of another without fully understanding how that success came about in the first place, obviously leads to ruin eventually. To say that Japanese companies that attempt to appeal to the west are destined to fail from the start, is overlooking the real issue. Many of these games being developed to appeal to the west are just an attempt at cashing in on the success of another. It's those who understand where the success comes from, or better yet, it's the companies who understand exactly why a consumer enjoys a game, and then develops their game to cater to the consumers interests, who will succeed in the end.

Really it's no secret as to why big companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and Naughty Dog find success in the west while many big Japanese developers struggle. Western companies are just more in tune with what western consumers want, if western developers were to attempt to appeal to Japanese consumers I imagine they would have just as much of an issue appealing to them, as many Japanese developers have appealing to western consumers. Japanese devs have it a lot tougher now than they did in the past, that's why I admire any Japanese company who continues staying true to themselves and their ideals, instead of attempting to appeal to western consumers purely for financial gain. That's not to say Japanese devs shouldn't develop western styled games, not at all, what I mean is that any developer, (eastern or western) needs to create content they understand instead of trying to replicate the success of others without understanding exactly where that success came from.

Anyway, I think I'll end it here before I ramble on any further.

Thanks for reading my blog and as always if you want to add anything or disagree with any of the points I've made, please feel free to leave a comment

Sat, 21 Sep 2013 07:42:40 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/21/capcom-failing-shelved-ips-and-wasted-potential#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The inner ramblings of a videogamer: Enemy obstacles and player progression.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/15/enemy-obstacles-and-player-progression Enemy obstacles and player progression.

Enemy obstacles and player progression.

Enemy obstacles and player progression. Throughout videogame history, the player being required to kill enemies in order to make progress has been a popular and recurring gameplay mechanic, since videogames were first popularised sometime in the late 80's, and is still being used in the vast majority of modern day videogames till this day. Throughout this blog I will be referring to this gameplay mechanic as the (Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic) Basically, this a term I've created in order to reference a recurring gameplay mechanic that's purpose is to offer an obstacle between the player and their goal, in the form of an "enemy" or "boss" which must be killed/defeated before the player can progress. Even though the morality of killing in videogames has been called into question quite a bit in recent years, and many games have come about lately that avoid having the player directly kill an enemy at all, I still believe it to be a very important and necessary gameplay mechanic for certain games/genres, so important in fact that many games we know and love would simply not have existed, or would have been vastly different without it.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to narrow down precisely which was the first videogame to require players to "kill" enemies in order to make progress, although I assume the practice first came about with the advent of early PC games and especially at videogame arcades, where the idea was to use enemies as a means to kill the player over and over again in order to extract as much of their pocket money as possible. If in fact this is the case, then it's likely that popular videogames such as Pacman and Space Invaders were the originators of the this gameplay mechanic we see used so often throughout gaming history. "The stakes are never higher than when a life is on the line" after all (even if it's only a virtual life) so to allow the player to kill or be killed by enemies, made progressing more entertaining, tense and challenging. The increased difficulty after each level or enemy wave also lent to making progressing later levels extremely challenging and made getting that "high score" more rewarding.

PC games such as Wolfenstain and Doom, as well as arcade games such as Pacman and Space invaders, all used this "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" (which as I stated above is still in popular use well over 20 years after it was first implemented) this very simple but fun, addictive and challenging gameplay mechanic, kept gamers coming back for more. Those oldchool PC and arcade games that used enemies as a means to impede player progress by killing them off (in order siphon as much cash as they could from their player base at the arcades) all while offering unparalleled interactive entertainment for the time, laid the foundation for many games that would follow on the next popular platform, console gaming.

During the late 80's early 90's, the platformer (arguably the bread and butter of early console gaming) was the next popular stage to host the this perticuler gameplay mechanic. Platformer games typically required the player to progress from one side of the level to the other avoiding such hazards as pitfalls and/or enemies, with the enemies soul purpose being to impede player progress by moving back and forth, up and down or by remaining stationary. Even though the enemies at the time had very basic AI (if any at all) the level structure, their placements on the map and/or their numbers helped make up for their lack of tactical options and intelligence, creating some truly challenging platform games. The NES classic Super Mario Bro's happens to be the very first game that I played which utilised this "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" This simple platform popularised the platforming genre leading to the creation of Mario's direct competition (and rival at the time) Sonic the hedgehog (as well as many others) which unsurprisingly made use of very similar gameplay mechanics but was of course a much more fast paced game.

As I stated earlier, this gameplay mechanic can be found not only in early Arcade games, PC games and console platformers, but in just about every videogame genre. Such as the incredibly popular side scrolling beat 'em up & shoot 'em up genres, which brought us such classics as, Black Manta, Streets of rage, Contra, Parodius, R-Type, Gunstar Heroes, TMNT: Turtles in time, Guardian Heroes, Metal Slug and many, many more, they all utilised the "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" Of course the gameplay mechanic itself exists purely to create an enemy obstacle between the player and their goal, which must be defeated in order to progress. So the way in which this gameply mechanic is utilised can vary greatly from game to game and genre to genre. The Fighting game genre for example, which brought us some incredible games and franchises such as, Street fighter, Mortal Kombat, King of fighters, Samurai shodown, Tekken and Guilty Gear, amongst many others, all offered one on one fights and also utilised the "Killing in the name of progression gameply mechanic" requiring players to "KO" and sometimes Kill their opponent in order to progress to the next stage. The RPG Genre, which offered such classics as Chrono trigger, Final Fantasy, Grandia, Breath of fire and Secret of Mana, also all utilised this it, but instead placed you in a turn based battle system, sure you could choose to run from battles but chances are you'll need to fight in order gain Levels and defeat bosses. As you can see, the vast majority of retro games utilised the this gameply mechanic by creating enemy obstacles to impede player progress. Regardless of what the enemy was intended for, purely placing the enemy in the game for the player to defeat, creates an obstacle for the player to overcome in order to progress.

It wasn't until later on, as videogames began entering the mainstream and new genres and sub genres began appearing, that we started seeing the "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" undergoing a few changes. This is partly because technology had gotten to the point where videogames were capable of allowing for new mechanics to be implemented, but mostly because the pursuit for realism in gaming had created an unforeseen problem. You see as videogames become more representative of reality then arguably so too should the portrayal of killing and death, however as you are all most likely aware, the portrayal of violence in videogames has been cause for many heated debates for generations, with many in the mainstream media arguing that videogames are a contributing factor to violence in the real world. I'm not about to debate that here, but I will say that videogame violence on its own doesn't contribute to real world violence, or at least no more so than violence in movies and television.

So, instead of portraying violence realistically many games are forced to show a more "fantastical" side of violence, leading to videogame violence appearing to be over "glorified" this too led many to question whether or not killing in videogames should be removed from certain games completely. Eventually the ability to perform non lethal takedowns on enemies was introduced, this inclusion avoids the real issue of how videogame violence should be portrayed somewhat, but arguably it does enough to allow gamers to continue playing how they have been while offering another method for progressing when faced with enemy obstacles.

As it stands today, the "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" that helped popularise videogaming in the early days, is still very much in popular use. Just look at games like Assassins creed, Killzone, Devil May Cry, God of War, COD, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil and The Last of Us, you can see that just like the games of old, many modern videogames still use enemies as obstacles that must be defeated by the player in order to progress, the difference being now is that there are many more gameplay mechanics that allow for the player to use either non lethal takedowns, or stealth to avoid the enemy all together, at least until a boss shows up.

Personally, I find it very interesting to see how a gameplay mechanic, such as the "Killing in the name of progression gameplay mechanic" that has been in use since gaming first became popular, is still very much in popular use today. Even though the industry has been through a great many changes and offered us a myriad of additional gameplay mechanics and tactical choices, how enemies are used as obstacles for the player to overcome in order to progress, is still as popular a gameplay mechanic as ever. It really just goes to show that with all the progress videogames have made over the years, that the basic foundation for fun, engaging and most importantly, entertaining gameplay, is still present.

Anyway, I think I'll rap up here.



Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:28:45 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/15/enemy-obstacles-and-player-progression#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[The inner ramblings of a videogamer. Next gen: Here we go again]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/10/the-inner-ramblings-of-a-videogamer-next-gen-here-we-go-again Here we go again.

Here we go again.

So here we are again, another "next gen". I'll apologise right now if I don't seem very excited at the prospect of another decade of pointless bickering between varios factions over which is the most technologically advanced plastic box, or whose faceless company they've pledged their alleigance to is the least out of touch, monopolative and money hungry.

The thing is I guess, is that I can still remember when the videogames industry was about just that, "videogames" and not all about trying to appeal to the masses, creating cookie-cutter content that's guaranteed to sell well but further stagnates the industry, incorporating social-media applications, providing TV and other popular media services, all for the sake of having an "all in one multimedia entertainment device". So while Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have each now presented to us all their brand new "next gen consoles" the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U respectively, the devices with which we will be experiencing a brand new generation of "gaming" amongst other things I'm sure. I'm left asking the question. What's so next gen about them? Or better yet. Other than the fact I won't be able experience the next generation of watered down, casualised, made for the masses videogame entertainment, why exactly should I purchase a next gen console?

This isn't to say that I don't like videogames anymore, on the contrary, it's precisely because I like videogames so much that I'm a little disappointed with what "next gen" is offering this time around.

Maybe I should back up a little and explain exactly where I'm coming from. You see last gen saw some incredible games, there's no denying that, but each console suffered, they suffered either due to poor design resulting in a higher than acceptable failure rate, complex architecture which resulted in shoddy ports, a blatant lack of creativity and the rise cookie-cutter game design due to needlessly bloated budgets, yearly sequelisation which offered little variation and improvements over the originals, a lack of 3rd party support due to inferior architecture, shodilly implemented motion sensor gaming, and the further disconnect between the player and the game by way of hand holding and/or movie-esque cinematic gameplay. So what concerns me here is, will these issues rise up again in the 8th generation? Even though each company has aknoweldged certain issues they had last gen and rectified one or two of them for the new generation, the fact is that there is nothing to say that this new generation won't be plagued by more of the same that ailed the previous. For example, instead of acknowledging how they intend to get gaming out of it's current rut, it almost seems as if they would all rather ignore the fact that their even is a problem, and instead are carrying on as they have been into next gen.

These new features such as access to social-media websites, TV and content sharing, aren't going to make gaming any better that's for sure, and if you ask me it almost seems as if these companies are very well aware of this, and have brought about these new features purely in order to take our attention away from those issues that really do need our attention.The cost of game development for this new generation is only going to increase, with development budgets already being as blotted as they are, and with publishers being more interested in style over substance and the spectacle over palatability, things are only going to get worse before the get better. Let me be frank, many publishers and developers haven't realised yet, that constantly trying to create a cutting edge game by throwing tons of money at it is the wrong way to go about game design, at least in the sense where games function relatively bug free, they may look great but pretty much everything does these days, I'd be happy to see a game with inferior graphics if it functioned properly from day one and felt like a full game. But no, apparently these companies feel that the next obvious step forward, instead of creating content that functions properly, is to complicate matters further by implementing such features as sharing content, accessing your TV and social-media aps, along with the rest I mentioned above.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against these additional features, Im just not convinced that gaming is ready for them. The PS4 share button, Kinect 2, watching TV and accessing social-media sites through my console. None of them interest me personally because none of them are what I buy a console for, now I don't intend to speak for everyone but who here was asking for such features to begin with? Because none of them are anything that I feel gamers have been asking for, they might be nice little features, and heck nobody dislikes convenient aps, but what about the games? What improvements are being made to gaming that aren't just a continuation of the narrow the minded, everything for everyone, design by committee mentality that plagued all of last gen?

Asking myself this question it eventually occurred to me just why the actual "games" side of the videogames industry, doesn't appear to be undergoing any new, generation defining changes. You see videogame development as it stands now is extremely expensive, or better yet, insanely expensive, but also extremely lucrative, so when we consider the fact that videogames have been around for well over 25 years and still suffer from very similar issues faced from around 10 years ago, it leads one to wonder whether or not that's all just a coincidence. The reason I feel that the approach to videogames hasn't changed much going into this new generation is because it's still very profitable in it's current form, now Microsoft did try to implement new policies in order to increase profitability going into this new and inevitably more costly next gen, but had their new policies shot down due to how damaging they would have been if they were to have become the industry norm. While both Sony and Nintendo appear to be carrying on the "status quo" so to speak, obviously they have implemented a few positive changes here and there, but nothing that I believe will greatly contribute to the betterment of gaming.

However this is not to say that there are no positive reasons to buy a next gen console, like I mentioned above the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U are going to be taking on board many well established franchises and brand new IP's, so with popular games and franchises like Assassins creed, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda, Mario, and interesting new IP's like Watch_Dog, Titan Fall and Deep Down, each console has something going for it in terms of videogame content. The thing that concerns me though is whether or not these new games won't just be prettier looking but hollow versions of games we've played before.

Few developers took chances last gen and it showed, never in a generation before have I seen so much wasted opportunity, we had some great games I'll give you that, but far too many companies were afraid to try something new due to just how costly game development has become, instead choosing to milk the one franchise that had offered them success for all that it's worth, I've got nothing against sequalisation, but last gen more than any other, sequels became more about creating a game that sells rather than creating a game worth playing.

So I ask to you Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and any other Triple-A publishers and developers who are reliant on such business models and practices. What will you be doing in this new generation that will address the needlessly bloated budgets that are apparently required in order to develop Triple A titles? the ever increasing cost of videogames brought on due to the insane cost of development, the continued misuse of DLC due to greedy money hungry publishers, or the industry stagnation that's occurred due to cookie-cutter game design and mass-market appeal? Are these issues really something that can be allowed to continue whilst we're all distracted with social-media aps, TV and sharing content? or are we to assume that all these issues are just going to disappear in a new generation that seems tailor made to depend on them?

Before I rap up I just want to say one last thing, to all those who are announcing why they think a particular console has won next gen already, let me just remind you all that companies change, their policies change, the content they provide changes. Basically, it's far too early in the game (pardon the pun) for anyone to decide who'll be "wearing the crown" so to speak, this coming gen. As always you're far better off getting the next gen console that you feel you will get the most enjoyment from rather than relying on others to make decisions for you



Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:53:17 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/10/the-inner-ramblings-of-a-videogamer-next-gen-here-we-go-again#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Modern Videogames: The Reality Complex And Fantasy Fall Out.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/05/modern-videogames-the-reality-complex-and-fantasy-fall-out Realism VS Fantasy

Realism VS Fantasy

For over 25 years now videogames have offered all of us an escape from what can often be considered, a boring, dreary and mundane existence (aka "reality") So then, why is it that so many of us care so much about videogames being realistic? I mean what's so special about "realism when videogames have the potential to offer us a world of infinite possibilities beyond the limits of our reality?

You needn't look much further than the current popular/up and coming triple-A titles/franchises to see what I'm getting at, such as Dead Space, Assassins Creed, The Last Of  US, Watch_Dog and GTA V, heck, even many games that are based pretty much entirely on fiction are being bound by the rules of "reality" to a certain extent. So then, is the videogame industry's obsession with realism one of the reasons why so many games tend to look and feel "samey" these days? Personally I would say that it's certainly a contributing factor.

But how did realism become such a huge part of gaming to begin with? Well, I guess you could argue that the more technologically advanced gaming became, the more developers naturally wanted to try and replicate reality to provide experiences similar to what the real world offers, but which most of us couldn't actually experience in our everyday lives. Also realism equals "fun" everyone knows realism ads to the immersion factor, right? I mean if a world is believable then we are more likely to enjoy it and loose ourselves in it.

Well maybe so but does that mean we can't enjoy games that completely ignore the shackles of reality just as much? I personally don't ever remember thinking "Gee, If only Mario looked like a real middle aged, fat plumber in a mushroom filled land, running round squashing turtles, I'd be enjoying this game sooooo much more" But of course what a game is about is a huge factor in deciding as to whether or not it should look, and feel realistic, if a game is based in a modern, war torn battle field (or world war one or two) then it makes a lot of sense for that game to look realistic. However if it's a fantasy setting then why not break the confines of our reality and create a believable but also original world.

It's strange how so many games based in fantasy settings still choose to impose many of the rules of our reality on the populous of their fantasy world. Also, I do find It funny how "fantasy" (especially in the case of Western MMO's) seems to already have pre-existing rules and expectations attached to it, such as the need for elves, dwarves, dragons and the like. One would think that given the opportunity to create "anything" we would be seeing a lot more originality, especially in the mainstream.

So then, is the shear amount of games that focus on closely replicating reality an indication that we as gamers prefer "realistic games" as apposed to "fantasy games, or is it simply the case that creating worlds bound by the rules of reality is just a simpler task for Triple-A developers to undertake these days. Or at least more so than having them create a world with brand new rules, brand new worlds and possibilities?

Let's try comparing two incredibly well made games that are very similar but also very different, The Last Of Us and Bioshock infinite, now if you want my personal opinion I feel that these two games stand together as equals. It's really only when we go about creating a narrow and specific criteria for what makes a for a "better game" that either of these two games can be considered superior. Naturally if we say that a better game is one that offers a realistic world, as close to our own as possible (The world after the viral outbreak in TLO is certainly one of the most plausible) then The Last Of Us then becomes the better game. However if we say that a great game is one that offers a fantasy world, one that is set far enough apart from reality to offer unique events that are beyond those that we could ever experience in our reality, then Bioshock: Infinite would be considered the better game.

Do you see what I mean? The very fact that we measure how well a game represents our reality as a defining factor in how much better it is than another game, is limiting our experiences from a medium that is capable of offering us pretty much "anything".

There as many positives in making a fantasy game as there is for making a game grounded mostly in reality, maybe more so. So then, I'll say it again, why exactly is it that we seem to get so many more games behind developed that are going for the realism approach? Is it a fad? Is it just the industry looking to push their tech further, so naturally replicating reality is a great way to test how far we've come? Another possibility for why many of us enjoy games based in a world similar to reality, is that we can experience events and emotions that we would not otherwise have been able to experience.

Silent Hill is a game franchise that places us in the real word, but then goes about morphing it into a nightmare in order for us to feel anxiety and fear the likes we would not otherwise have had the chance to feel (for better or worse depending on how easily you scare) so there's also something to be said for games that are based in reality but also offer us experiences, events and characters the likes we could not meet in reality, Metal Gear Solid is another game franchise I feel embodies this type of game, while MGS is grounded mostly in reality it contains many characters and events that are simply too far-fetched to actually exist or occur in the real world.

Honestly, I believe that games created in a fantasy world and a world that closely portrays our reality both have their merits, and when they are done exceptionally well they can both stand as equals. Games based closely in reality seem to be the more popular of the two right now, but so long as the games industry doesn't allow that fact to influence the kinds of games that get created, then I'm certain we'll be seeing plenty of fantasy games that could rival even The Last Of Us in terms of story telling, characterisation and immersion.

I recently played a PSP game called "Danganronpa" which has an incredibly well crafted story, likeable characters who you can sympathise with and some crazy goings on, it's also set in the real world and most of the characters are hyper stereotypes, but even so I still felt incredibly immersed in the world, it didn't matter to me that the game had an anime theme in fact that actually lended very well to the experience. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if Danganronpa had realistic graphics and more believable characters then it would have been a lesser game because of it.

In short. A game doesn't need a world that looks real in order for us to feel "immersed" get "invested" or have "fun" it just needs either a great story, interesting characters and/or a solid set of game mechanics. If you need convincing then just look to games like Super Mario, Starfox 64, The Legend of Zelda Windwaker, Jack and Daxter, Bastion, Journey, Blazblue, Persona, Final Fantasy, Pokemon and Disgaea.

All of these games I mentioned above are based in a fantasy setting, and all of them are fun, immersive, and allow for you to get invested in the world and characters. Realism does not make for "better" game, it just makes it easier for us to empathise more with characters and their situation. Where as fantasy games often offer a fantastical situation and group of characters that is more difficult for some of us to get invested n.

Anyway, I hope I made my point clear. Thanks for reading my blog, and if you'd like to add anything or disagree with any of my points, please feel free to leave a comment

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 09:35:46 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/09/05/modern-videogames-the-reality-complex-and-fantasy-fall-out#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Gamer rage: Verbal abuse vs constructive criticism. ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/27/gamer-rage-verbal-abuse-vs-constructive-criticism blog abuse new

The complain culture that has become rampant in the videogames community, and how it lends itself (often unknowingly to those contributing to it) to undermining our right to legitimate criticism, is a subject that I've been wanting to discuss for a while now.

For quite some time now we have been hearing reports and have often witnessed for ourselves, the comments made by the increasingly vocal majority of 'gamers' who post abusive and threatening messages to individuals in the videogame publishing and development profession, in an supposed attempt to show their "displeasure" towards a company or an individual for one reason or another. However as I'm sure you're all well aware, more often than not these comments are full of nothing but hateful and abusive personal attacks being made toward an individual and even their family, typically these comments are made up of hate mail, death threats, rape threats and even homophobic accusations made towards the recipients sexual preference (as if somehow that's relevant) needless to say these commenters 'gamers' as some would call them, come across as unstable, violent, angry sociopathsm spewing needless, unjustifiable abuse.

So what is it that these individuals, or companies for that matter, are doing to deserve such hate fuelled disdain? Well just about anything apparently. When Ninja Theory were approached by Capcom to reboot Devil may cry many 'gamers' apparently thought they were justified in sending hatemail to the small development team, you could argue Ninja Theory's poor PR and general bad attitude toward core DMC fans brought a lot of the hate on themselves, but then it begs the question, just who in the right mind sends death threats due to a videogame franchise getting a reboot? Also, not too long ago Gearbox received much hate mail for the hugely disappointing Aliens: Colonial Marines, after the news got out about the outsourcing of the game and the inner conflicts during development it was immediately apparent how and why A:CM ended up being such a disaster. But again an insane amount of venomous hate and personal attacks were made against Gearbox and Randy Pitchford (one of the five founding members of the Gearbox company) Following on a few months later, EA found themselves in the line of fire (not that they're ever far from it) Customers who had purchased EA's SimCity 2013 were having difficulties connecting to the servers, servers that were grossly unprepared for the inevitable traffic that would be passing through them during the launch of such a popular franchise, that EA themselves decided to restrict to being an online only game. Again, customers who got burned by the these companies have every right to be angry, hey, I was angry too, but the issue here is that the level of hate coming from the hateful vocal majority (and I honestly fear they are the majority) over shadowed any attempts made by the gamers who genuinely did want to get to the bottom of these issues, or just wanted to offer constructive criticism like any passionate gammer would.

It's of course natural to be angry at a company or individual who you feel has either ruined a franchise you enjoy, or created/offered a broken or below standard gaming experiance, but the level of hate directed toward them should never border on violent and/or abusive. If this keeps up any longer we then may loose our voice intirely, and who could blame a company or individual for ignoring gamers all together if the majority of comments they receive are hate filled and abusive?

We all know that certain publishers and developers bring much of the hate on to themselves, but a question I often ask myself is "what is the point of such personal threats and abuse that gets directed their way?" if it's purely to show displeasure then would not a well thought out competently put together comment, or constructive criticism be more appropriate? Heck, pretty much anything that could be viewed as "constructive criticism" would be preferable when compared to a straight up personal attack or threat to ones person or family. Also it's not like any of these pubs and devs have directly caused any of us excessive grief or personal harm, so why then make it so personal? Is it purely due to anonymity? Is the very fact these people can get away with it the only reason it's continued on for so long? Or are the people responsible really just hate fuelled, whiny, entitled gamers with nothing better to do than attempt to make someone's life a misery? I know I needn't tell anyone here that with the advent of social media and the ease of sharing ones thoughts and opinions openly, it has in turn allowed for more than a few colourful characters to force their opinions on others with no intention of taking anyone else's on board.

There is in all likelihood a myriad of reasons for why these people feel the need to spread such hate and abuse, but it's probably best not to dwell on why exactly that is, so as to avoid becoming hateful, bitter and resentful ourselves.

Instead I want to talk about the necessity of gamers lending "constructive criticism" as apposed to extroverts who complain for the sake of complaining, or who know only how to communicate through hate. If a developer or publisher does something we dislike then as passionate gamers we are obligated to offer constructive criticism where we can, but due to the shear amount of abusive complaints being thrown into the mix, the chance that any of our genuinely valid points will ever get through is often a hundred to one at best. We know this and sadly so do the publishers and developers too, that's if they haven't given up on us as a contributing community capable of offering constructive criticism all together (and honestly who could blame them if they did?) I'm going to mention Phil Fish in a positive light right now, but please hear me out before you start gathering stones to throw my way. Yes, the guy might not have been the most popular and well liked developer, and yes his eccentric outspokenness and overall bad attitude might not have helped matters, but he's still a human being who is entitled to a certain amount of respect, I honestly don't care how "passionate" anyone wants to argue gamers might be as some kind of justification for childish and/or abusive behaviour, the simple fact is, allowing ones passion to get the best of you is not a positive trait, even more so if you're allowing it to cause others emotional harm and grief.

Phill Fish is a talented developer who has unfortunately left the industry, now maybe this is simply a cry for attention (I honestly don't know anymore than anybody else here regarding the matter) or maybe all the hate finally got to him, either way it's safe to bet that if a developer you happened to be a fan of left the industry under similar circumstances it wouldn't be so funny now would it?.

I honestly don't see a way to stop the unnecessary hate people feel towards these publishers and developers, but the only way I see to prevent such abuse and threats from reaching them is to break the integral link between consumer and the creators themselves, this however would be a huge mistake if it were to happen, as this would mean that one of our key avenues for enabling us to help mold the industry into a more desirable shape would be no more. We need to be able to offer constructive criticism, we need to be able to communicate with developers and publishers, otherwise they will be left to shape the industry how they see fit, and as I'm sure I needn't tell any of you, that is an undesirable outcome which we must avoid.

But how can we avoid this, if we allow it to get to the point that publishers and developers are no longer willing to listen to gamer feed back because all they see is hate and abuse? Well as cliche as it sounds the best thing anyone of us can do is to start being a better example, if we want gamers to be taken seriously then we need to be taking our hobby seriously, and to not allow our knee jerk reactions to blatant attempts at instigation to hamper our need to be constructive and diplomatic. Ignore the trolls, disregard the fanboys and if you find yourself in a debate don't resort to childish insults or personal attacks. Once we can prove to the publishers, the developers and to ourselves that the gaming community isn't made up of childish, entitled, whinny gamers then maybe we might have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticising the industry itself.

I'll end with this. To anyone reading who has themselves sent hate mail or posted abusive comments to individuals in the videogame industry, understand this, in the long run you are hurting yourself and the gaming community and I urge you to stop. The videogame industry has already proven time and time again that it is a beast that prefers to dictate to us, what it that we want rather than allow us to be a part of the development and evolution of our hobby. To put it simply, if we offer reasons to be ignored then don't be surprised when we get just that.

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog, if you want to add something or disagree with any of my points then by all means post a comments.


Tue, 27 Aug 2013 04:25:27 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/27/gamer-rage-verbal-abuse-vs-constructive-criticism#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Xbox One back peddling marks gamer victory]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/24/xbox-one-back-peddling-marks-gamer-victory Congratulations!

So it's official, Microsoft have yet again revised their policies in regards to their next gen console the Xbox One, this time by removing the feature that makes the Kinect 2 a mandatory requirement for using the Xbox One console, something a great many gamers had issue with. With Microsoft now having done sufficient enough back peddling to power most of Europe for a year (Ba dum tish) I'm now left asking the question "Was it all necessary?" Just what was an intelligent, business minded company like Microsoft thinking when they knowingly went about dividing up their fanbase, and creating these unnecessary walls in the form of unfavourable business policies? only to later down the line revise almost all of their original Xbox One policies, seemingly solely due to the continued bad press and negative PR they have suffered since the Xbox One reveal and Microsoft E3 conference.

This all led me back to thoughts I had been having about Microsoft's inevitable next gen console. Months before the Xbox One was even hinted about being revealed, I was asking myself "what can we expect from Microsoft's next gen console?" would we see another Kinect even though the original failed to appeal to the core audience?, would Microsoft reach out for more 3rd party support and exclusivity?, and would they really have the nerve to continue charging their loyal customers through Xbox Live in order for us to play online?.

I eventually arrived at the conclusion that Microsoft's business model, and policies would see very little changes being made when moving into next gen territory, of course I expected some new features and new exclusives but nothing revolutionary. So then imagine my surprise when Microsoft finally did reveal the Xbox One along with what would shortly be dubbed as "draconian DRM" a mandatory Kinect 2, timed exclusives from 3rd party devs, always online functionality, and major changes to their policies in the form of used game restriction and 24 hour checkins, all while still having the nerve to charge a fee to play online.

I was taken back to say the least (like I'm sure many gamers were at the time) I thought to me myself that there is no way Microsoft can be serious, even after hearing from so many people who didn't at all mind the new policies, it was evident that those who apposed the DRM and other such policies were in the majority, and for good reason. The Xbox One DRM and other new policies had potentially damaging ramifications to gaming in general if they were to become the norm, then eventually the back peddling started and all the negative aspects of Xbox One became fewer and fewer, until finally earlier this month Microsoft announced that the Kinect 2 will no longer be mandatory in order to actually use the Xbox One. Finally! It seems like all the negatives surrounding Microsoft's new console are now gone, but then what does that mean now? Sure most of us have no reason not to get an Xbox One anymore, but other than the that fact most of the negative aspects like, used game restrictions, always online, and mandatory Kinect 2 are now gone, what exactly are Microsoft doing with the Xbox One that differentiates its from the previous generation? par a few new features that aren't at all relevant to "gaming" like watching TV and Skype. Personally the Xbox One just seems like a beefed-up Xbox 360 now right now, and the only reason I think I never noticed this before was because the negative policies were the few thing that actually seemed "next gen" or at the very least seemed to be more worthy of my attention. So then was this just a PR stunt? Could it be that all this negativity surrounding Microsoft's Xbox One was just used as a "Weapon of mass distraction" planed from the outset so that when all the back peddling was done, no matter how lacking in "next gen" appeal the Xbox One appeared to be when it comes to new features and functions (from a purely gaming related view point) it would be looked upon favourably purely because "Microsoft listened to their fans" and fixed everything we had a problem with? Well, I'll let you decide on that.

Now of course you could still argue that Kinect 2 is very much "next gen" and you'd be right in doing so, but it still stands true that the vast majority of gamers are uninterested in Kinect (or motion sensor gaming in general) or at the very least need proof that Kinect 2 can succeed in being relevant to core gaming, something its predecessor failed miserably at.

Cloud based gaming is worthy of mention in regards to "next gen" functions the Xbox One has, Microsoft has stated numerous times how "the power of the Cloud" can boost the power of the Xbox One's specs by the equivalent of three Xbox 360s, potentially making the graphics, processing and gameplay for games being played while the Xbox One is hooked up to the internet, superior to that of the competition. However even now we have yet to of seen any evidence that could validate these statement, with only certain individuals willing to state that it will "improve server quality" many others in the industry are saying Microsoft's overall vision for Cloud based gaming on the Xbox One is but a pipe dream.

Regardless of whether or not the Xbox One has any additional features relevant to gaming (I personally find the Xbox One controller's trigger feedback function to be very interesting) It should be mentioned that the Xbox One has some great exclusives and other equally great 3rd party titles coming its way, that reason alone is enough for most gamers to purchase the Xbox One, heck I myself will most likely be getting the Xbox One now that the Kinect 2 is no longer mandatory. But I'll always be wondering whether or not this whole PR stunt was manufactured to put the Xbox One in the lime light, even negative press is good press, or so they say.

So that's it I guess, maybe Microsoft did plan this whole PR back peddling extravaganza from the start, or maybe they really didn't see the consumer backlash coming due to their ambitious new policies. Either way we win, total victory guys congratulations!


Sat, 24 Aug 2013 07:10:56 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/24/xbox-one-back-peddling-marks-gamer-victory#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Gamers or Gamma testers? The continued development of games out at retail. ]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/14/gamers-or-gamma-testers-the-continued-development-of-games-out-at-retail blog gamma tester

For those of you not already in the know, there are typically two stages of "testing" a game is required to go through before it is considered ready for retail. The first stage is called "Alpha testing" which is usually performed by the dev team programmers themselves, to ensure the basic mechanics are coming along and to eliminate any signs of early bugs in the programming. The second stage is called "Beta testing" which is usually done by offering users who are willing to be "Beta testers" a trial version of the game in order for them to test it for bugs, glitches, and other such various errors. Often Beta testers will suggest various changes be made in order to fix balancing issues and/or other gameplay mechanics that could negatively impact the game in it's final form.

Once the testing is finished and the bugs, glitches and various other changes are fixed and finalised, a game is now considered to be ready for retail, although how finished the game is, is debatable at times... As many of you here are probably all too aware of, too often a game hits retail while still needing a few things "ironed out" this can be for any number of reasons but a good example would be. The dev team ran out of time and/or money so the publishers push the game out anyway in order to recoup their losses. Actually, I have my own theory for why many games are pushed out prematurely these days, I believe that often publishers force a game out before it's ready in order to use the profits generated through sales, to pay for the inevitable patches the game will require instead of dipping into their own pockets in order to keep a long overdue project going. Day one patches and DLC, along with drawn out weekly/monthly patches and DLC, seem like a intelligent (if not a little underhanded) way for a company to continue development of their game while consumers are already playing it.

This is of course a purely presumptive theory, but never the less it got me thinking. If we are knowinlgy being sold unfinished, bug riddled games, and we are often the ones who take it open ourselves to report those bugs to the developers, then are we not "Gamma testers"? Only instead of having the privilege of playing an early build of an up and coming game, we get to pay full price for what may in fact be a game that is still in development?

I honestly don't want this "theory" of mine to come across as some kind of "conspiracy theory" my conclusions here are merely presumptions based off of speculation, and as far as such underhanded activities pubs/devs may find themselves involved in goes, that's anybody's guess.

Now, obviously not all publishers or dev teams are underhanded and are up to no good, many development studios do a great job of pushing out worth while titles even if their games may have a few minor bugs here and there, also we have seen many cases of DLC coming out that does actually add something truly great to a game, instead of only attempting to capitalise on the IP's current popularity. Far Cry 3 had great DLC in the form of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and the same can be said for some of the Dead Space 3 and Borderland 2 DLC, also the Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea DLC looks to be another promising and worth while purchase that adds to the original game instead of just adding cut content, and fixing issues present in the original.

However, more and more these days it seems that many games are being put out at retail that have either glaring bugs and glitches, broken gameplay mechanics, serious balancing issues or any and all of the above, needless to say the overall quality of many current gen releases is questionable at bet. So What happened during testing? Were the Aplha or Beta testers not doing their jobs? or did the programmers on the development team responsible simply not get around to fixing the issues before development time ran out?.

You have to admit that certain bugs, especially the blatantly apparent ones almost seem as if they were left in intentionally (not that any self respecting dev team would want that) Take Skyrim for example, are we honestly supposed to believe that all those glaring bugs, glitches and other such issues were just over looked? If you want to argue that it's an open world MMO then fair enough I suppose, but what excuse does a primarily offline game like Tomb Raider, The Last Of Us, Assassins creed and DmC: Devil may cry have when they have glaringly noticeable bugs and glitches? Before I go on I'll give credit where credit is due, Naughty Dog did an incredible job with The Last Of Us, so any criticism I have towards the game in regards to bugs and glitches, is diminished somewhat by the shear effort and polish that went into developing such a game like The Last Of Us, but I would be lying to you if I were to say that such instances, like when enemies aren't alerted by Ellie, or other AI members in your party when they blatantly walk (or run) out in front of them while you are sneaking, didn't take me out of the experience at times. However, I do agree that such "errors" aren't "game breaking" and if recent reports are to be believed, they probably weren't "errors" at all, and most likely came about due to needing to get the game out on time and not wanting to have the AI characters constantly alerting the enemy.

But then there are games like DMC: Devil may cry, that have textures still loading 10 seconds after the cutscenes have started, events not being triggered after boss fights due to buggy coding, and the game completely locking up during gameplay. But let us not forget the bug fest that was Aliens: Colonial marines (pre-patches) I think we've all heard enough jokes by now about there being more bugs in the coding than there were in the actual game.

All I ever ask for when I purchase a game is for it to be functional, but what is "functional"? Well, probably a great many different things depending on who you ask, but as for me. Functional is when a games "core mechanics" work without being inhibited by bugs or other such glitches. If you have glitches in the combat, platforming, environment and/or physics mechanics, depending on the type of game you are playing it may make playing the game a chore.

Nobody likes bad hit detection, having the game freeze, getting caught on the walls or other parts of the environment you're in, and nobody wants to see enemies or allies disappearing through walls due to poor collision detection. So long as these few issues aren't present I'm willing to forgive, poor framerate, choppy animations and even pop in textures.

I'll never fully accept the argument that says, games today being broader in scope, more technical and therefore more difficult to create, means that glaring bugs, glitches and other such issues should be expected. The priority devs should have (above all else) is to make their games functional, pretty much everything else should be considered secondary as far as I'm concerned. As I've discussed before, the spectacle many games use as the focus to draw gamers in today, eventually wears off after a while, so if the games core mechanics have glitches or are poorly implemented then it will become apparent sooner or later. The time to fix such issues is not when the game is already in a consumers console, from having been purchased at full retail price, along with day one DLC most likely.

Consumers aren't "Gamma testers" any glaring issues a game has should be dealt with before it hits retail, not after the publishers have accumulated enough revenue from sales to start fixing the bugs and glitches, now that they know their game is profitable enough to make it worth while. Even if this theory of mine is wrong for the most part, if you're expecting consumers to purchase a game then you damn well better make their game worth the price. The leniency shown towards certain companies like Gearbox and Ninja Theory, that seems to come from consumers who think only of the work involved in developing the games they happen to enjoy, extends only so far. When all is said and done, a game being sold at full retail price needs to be of a certain standard, lest we lower the bar in regards to "quality control" and "gameplay functionality" any further.

Thanks for reading my blog, if you have something to add or disagree with any of the points I've made, then please feel free to leave a comment.

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:46:02 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/14/gamers-or-gamma-testers-the-continued-development-of-games-out-at-retail#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Sequelization: It's a double standard.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/11/sequelization-its-a-double-standard There's a question I often hear posed by many gamers and it goes something like this.

"Why is it that Mario games always seem to get a free pass when it comes to sequels and rehashes, yet game franchises like Assassins creed, God of War, Halo and the like get criticised and sometimes even marked down for it?"

Well I have a theory for why that seems to be the case and it goes as follows.

You see as much as this may seem to be a double standard (and I'm sure many will argue it is) there is a fundamental difference between games like Mario and Assassins creed, Mario in my opinion is very much like a Children's cartoon. Take the old classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, Stop That Pigeon and Road runner for example, we would all tune in expecting a certain repetitive premise each week, but with some minor variations to the plot here and there to keep the show fresh and interesting, however the main premise was almost always the same. Tom would concoct an elaborate plan to catch Jerry and Jerry would foil Tom's plans, the Pigeon would always escape Dickdatardly and so would Roadrunner escape the coyote, sure we get games like Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy and the Mario RPG, but they are often an attempt to revitalise the franchise or give us as peak of what it would be like to take the series it in a new and interesting direction, essentially it's akin to a network station bringing back an old classic cartoon series or doing a TV special, Same Yoshi different colour, if you get my meaning.

What Mario has become today, is an exercise in rehashing tried and true game mechanics and plot assets, and combining them with whatever current gen gaming allows, we've seen this whith games like, Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy and Mario 3D. The Mario games are for better or worse, a video game cartoon with a mascot as popular and versatile as Mickey mouse (if not more so) If you think about it, the very fact that we still get so many Mario games is testament to the very fact that Mario games offer us something enjoyable and timeless, whether that be classic platforming, enjoying a party game with your friends or family, or racing with them at a game of Mario Kart. Now most sequels of these games I've mentioned don't vary much from the games that preceded them, but I believe that's the point. No matter how much you may dislike Mario games they are a near perfect merger of game design meets nostalgia, new gamers will enjoy them because they are fun and accessible, while older gamers will enjoy them due to nostalgia and familiarity, that's not to say older gamers wont find them just as fun due to their game design, it's just that they are more likely to appreciate Mario games due to enjoying the familiarity they offer along with the variations each title offers.

Basically the point I'm trying to make here is that Mario games are so popular, because they offer us a kind of fun, repetitive and familiar enjoyment that's similar to the kind we would find in a long running cartoon series.

However, the problems faced by many games like Assassins creed, God of War, Halo and other such videogame franchises these days, that often focus on an individuals exploits or an overlapping plot/story, is that the following games are expected to take the franchise forward, often also while remaining faithful to the previous games but doing enough to justify themselves as stand alone titles. These "sequels" also bare the unfair, but very important stigma of being judged as to whether or not they are an improvement over the previous installments.

Assassins Creed 3 came under some scrutiny when the choice of location was discovered to be 18th century America, before, during and after the American Revolution. The much smaller, scattered houses and monuments were certainly a far cry from the towering steeple tops of ancient Italy, although it's debatable as to whether or not such a change really posed as a negative, it is worth remembering that when the franchise was first announced way back when, the main features such as climbing tall buildings and performing assassinations were the main focus for Assassins creed, so seeing the franchise appear to be slowly moving away from this and focusing on other features such as tower defence mini games and sailing, is both interesting if not also a little disappointing to say the least. We'll probably have to wait and see how Ubisoft Montreal's Assassins creed 4 fairs which does look to be tacking the series in a more positive direction, before we assume that the Assassins creed franchise is growing stale.

Another sequel that ended up getting a lukewarm reception due to its predecessor is GTA IV, the game offered an improvement in both graphics and gameplay mechanics, yet many believe it to be inferior to GTA San Andreas as it's believed to have maybe taken itself a little too seriously by becoming a bland and boring in some places, though the fact that GTA IV was lacking certain features such as Jet packs and jet plains didn't help with the feeling that the GTA IV was lacking in comparison to GTA San Andreas. However, again it seems that Rock Star are about to fix that issue with their new entry to the franchise, GTA V which could quite possibly be the most content heavy and enjoyable GTA game to date.

God of War on the other hand, is a franchise that I personally consider to have pulled of the idea of sequels masterfully. The first game introduces us to the shamed Spartan Kratos, tricked by the God of war Aries, Kratos sets out on a blood drenched quest for revenge against the God who wronged him. The sequel then builds on the premise by furthering the extent to which Kratos is betrayed by the Gods, whilst also fleshing out Kratos as a character, and the added gameplay mechanics and improved combat helped to escalate the game above that of the original. The final game in the God of War trilogy brought the whole story to an epic conclusion, firmly closing the door on Kratos's journey. This actually takes a lot of guts to do for any developer, but because they were able to provide a concise trilogy (and some decent spin offs) the experience didn't feel tired or over done. Far too many games franchises these days try to milk a franchise for all it's worth, so then by the time the series is nearing its end many gamers have become bored and/or disillusioned with the overall repetitiveness of many games that exist as padding, at least until a official sequel is announced.

Once our hero (or heroes) have "finished the fight" or essentially completed their journey, adding any more to the cannon can make the experience feel cheapened, more so if it feels as if that the only reason a game exists is for the developers to milk some extra cash before dropping the IP completely.

So to summarise.

I feel that games like Mario often get a free pass because they are essentially like a cartoon, they often have a single premise with a story and gameplay mechanics that are constantly being, revised, restructured and rebuilt in order to keep the series fresh. On the other hand games like Assassins creed, God of War, Halo and Metal Gear Solid come think of it, all follow the exploits of a protagonist along their journey toward the inevitable end, the games they appear in are expected to constantly reinvent themselves all while keeping true to the original formula, and adding enough new content and gameplay advances in order to prove that the franchise is still relevant.

I'm sure many of you can think of games that follow the cartoon theory approach to game design similar to the one I propose Mario follows, and hopefully you all understand what I mean when I say that other games which follow a plot or story, that has an inevitable end should not be thrown in with games that are designed to be "endless" Anyway I think I'll wrap up here.

Thanks for reading my blog and as always if you want to add anything or disagree with any of the points I've made, please leave a comment.

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 10:07:45 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/11/sequelization-its-a-double-standard#disqus_thread
<![CDATA[Portrayal of Women in video games: Acceptable sexualisation vs over sexualisation.]]> http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/05/portrayal-of-women-in-video-games-acceptable-sexualisation-vs-over-sexualisation Now here's a topic the googly gaze of the main stream media never seems to shy away from "the over sexualisation of women in video games" It's fair to say that not many subjects cause as much controversy between gamers as whether or not blatant sex appeal in video games is "nothing but harmless entertainment" or "degrading to women everywhere" My personal take? Well I'm not one to cast such blanket statements, or hold such black and white views. Instead I would like to pose another "broader" question to you all, and that is. What is the difference between "acceptable sexualisation" and "over sexualisation" of female characters in video games?.

The first thing I think we need to consider here is, is there actually such a thing as "acceptable sexualisation"? Or does the very fact that a character was designed to look sexually appealing in the first place already classify such a character as "over sexualised"? Now my personal take on the matter is, no, I do not believe that a female character who was designed to look sexually appealing should automatically be labelled as "over sexualised" games are entertainment after all, and sex appeal is as valid a part of entertainment as any other. So with that being said we can now go about setting the defining parameters regarding what is "acceptable sexualization" and what is "over sexulisation"

A female character that I feel does well to define the term "acceptable sexualisation" is, Samus Arran of the critically acclaimed Metroid franchise, although some could claim that Samus's more recent design being a striking, blue eyed bomb shell in a skin tight suit, is in and of itself a form "over sexulisation" however the very fact that she spends the majority of the games she stars in, inside of a full body armoured space-suit does well to detract from such claims that she is "over sexualised" Samus is being sexualised, of this there is no doubt, but I personally believe it to be well within the realms of "acceptable sexualisation".

But then does this mean that a female character's attributes must be covered up in order for her to be acceptable? Not at all, we have many games with attractive women who needn't hide themselves behind a few inches of steel. One such female character is Lara Croft of the critically acclaimed Tomb Raider franchise, "Lara Croft!" I hear you gasp, "but isn't she practically the original over sexualised female characters of video games? Surely the big breasts present on her original character design serve to define her as over sexualised!" (Ok, maybe you didn't say all that, but I bet you gasped at least) Well to answer this perfectly plausable question. Nope, many women in real life have big breasts, even without having received surgical implants, though granted Lara would have found many of her attempts at acrobatic stunts hampered by paralyzing back pain, purely being a large breasted female video game character doesn't make her "over sexualised" because lest we forget, Lara was also (the) ass kicking heroine and female video game Icon of the 90's. Lara hardly ever used her sexuality in order to get one over on her enemies, and her personality was such that her resourcefulness and intelligence was what lead to her surviving many of her perilous adventures, that right there goes a long way to defining Lara Croft as an acceptably sexualised female character, as far as I'm concerned at least.

But what about a female character who is a little bit more up to date? Well how about Lightning from Final Fantasy IIIX? Even though Lightning returns has yet of hit store shelves many pictures highlighting Lightning's new threads have hit the interwebs, one of which has caused more controversy than the others, but wait, let me take a step back a little. Now while I never really saw Lightning as a sexually appealing character before, there are without a doubt those who did and I'm sure still do. It has been mentioned a good few times before how her attire in Final Fantasy XIII-2 was a little more "revealing" than that of her clothing from the first game, however I doubt many consider her valkyrie-esque armour in the second game makes her appear "over sexualised" but what about her clothing in Lightening returns? Or better yet, what about her new breast size? yep Lightning got a level up in the breast department, and it's created some controversy to say the least, but does her larger breast size mean she is now "over sexualised"? Well maybe, but wait! What about her new sexy Final Fantasy XIV inspired threads? Surely that along with her larger breasts means she is being "over sexualised" for sure!...

OK, I have to be honest here, I'm a little conflicted, you see on the one hand there was really no reason to increase Lightning's breast size outside of making more sexually appealing, and some have said quite rightly that such a change in appearance to her original design was unnecessary, but if I have to be truly honest (which I do) I'm OK with it... Now please don't hate for saying that, just hear me out OK? You see I understand why Square Enix did it, they wanted to make Lightning more sexually appealing, (evidently) and that, like I said earlier isn't necessarily a bad thing, it was kind of disrespectful and many female gamers have every right to be a little annoyed about it, but like I said, sex appeal is just another piece in creating entertainment, so Lightning's larger breast size while not entirely necessary is also within the realms of "acceptable sexualisation. But what about her sexy new FF XIV inspired clothing? Well again I have to say I was a little conflicted, but I've decided on where I stand with it. You see I think that because each one of the costumes Lightning can wear are "optional" (unlike her new breast size) it's not technically "over sexulisation" unless you yourself choose to dress her up in sexually appealing clothes and decidedly "sexually objectify" her, but even then having seen the clothing I can't say that I would agree on those clothes in particular making her look "over sexualised" A fair point many gamers have made about some of her new clothing options available (clothing options that apparently range from 100 different choices so far) is that they are not the kind of attire many fans believe Lightning would wear. Now this is very much a valid point but, I honestly think that given the fact the player gets to (choose) what Lightning wears stands in the games favour and helps Lightning returns fit neatly into the category of "acceptable sexualisation"

OK, had to make some tough calls there that maybe some people disagree with, but I stand by my points made so far. anyway, I really hope you're still with me because now we're going to discuss what I personally define as "over sexulisation" in regards to female characters in video games.

And what better way to do just that than with the female characters of DOA (Dead or Alive) which in all fairness is honestly a solid beat 'em up franchise, regardless of that though, even the creator of DOA (Tomonobu Itagaki) admitted that the female characters of DOA where made to look sexually appealing purely so the player would want to ogle them. Meaning that from the outset the DOA girls where being "over sexualised" by design (not too surprising to be honest) However, not much comes close to DOA: Volleyball, which takes the well endowed ladies of DOA, and puts them on an Island resort along with a change of attire in the form of various skimpy bikini's. If there is such a thing as blatant over sexulisation in gaming, DOA: Vollyball took it to a whole new level.

Next I want to talk about another recent game that has caused some controversy. From the very early screen shots showcasing the unique art style and controversial proportions of certain female charcters featured in the PS3 and Vita exclusive "Dragon's Crown" there has been debate going back and forth between gamers themselves, and the media arguing whether or not the exaggerated body proportions of certain female characters (mainly the sorceress with freakishly large breasts) are over sexualised or not? Well as for my personal opinion, Yes, yes I do think the sorceress and certain other female characters in Dragons Crown are over sexualised. So, should I hate the art style, the game and the developers who chose to design such overly exaggerated characters? Maybe I should, but I don't and I'll tell you why. Vanillaware are one of my favourite developers and have been ever since I first played their still criminally underrated PS2 game "Odin Sphere" which I still to this day hold up on a pedestal as one of my favourite games of all time, I also happened to really enjoy Muramasa: the Demon Blade although to a lesser extent. So what I'm getting at here is that Vanillaware isn't just some new dev team trying to make a name for themselves by deliberately causing controversy to sell copies of their latest game (though that didn't stop the mainstream media from pretty much helping to do just that) Vanillaware are a very talented dev team with true passion, they are capable of creating beautiful looking worlds and characters all in a hand drawn art style, and I find the attention to detail in many of their character and monster designs to be breathtaking. So while it is true that certain female characters in Dragon's Crown (especially the Sorceress) are over sexualised, it shouldn't really interfere with our enjoyment of what I am hopping to be a fantastic game, and I for one am looking forward to finally getting my hands on Dragon's Crown once I get a replacement PS3 or shell out for a Vita.

As mentioned above, the subject of women being over sexualised in games is nothing new, this is partly due to the fact that there honestly is much legitimacy to such claims. As you already know by now you don't have to look too far to find a female video game character that was created solely to be gawked at, but it is also true that many there are many bloggers, journalists and others in the media wishing to create a name for themselves and wish to use such a controversial topic as "over sexualisation in video games" as part of their own personal agenda, attempting to create controversy and choosing to see a problem when there honestly is none to be seen. So, please do keep that in mind when reading articles and blog posts regarding controversial topics.

Before I rap up here I jut want to "reiterate" or better yet "re-structure" and "flesh out" a valid point Jim Sterling made a while back in regards to how men are portrayed in video games as apposed to women. What he basically said was that men in games are often portrayed more or less as "ideals" something we as male gamers would want to aspire to be like, as apposed to how women are generally portrayed in games as "things to be rescued and/or objectified" This was to counter a point that many gamers state when they claim men are sexually objectified in games too. And in all honesty I actually agree with Jim on this, you see when developers create a male lead they usually create one that we, the player would desire to be, and often they are either large, adventuress, muscular, grizzled, confident and/or capable, or a combination of any and/or all of the above. These attributes can be seen in many popular male leads such as Kratos, Marcus Fenix, Master Cheif, Solid Snake and even Nathan Drake.

My point being here is that there is a vast difference between "objectification" and "aspiration" and that when it comes to the roles male and female characters play in video games, it would be nice to see a little more diversity, but I do honestly think we are getting there more and more lately no matter how much the media tries to blow certain subjects like this out of proportion.

Well if you managed to stick with me till the end, thank you for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed it and as always if you have anything to add or disagree with any of my points made then please feel free to leave a comment.

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 05:06:05 -0700 Edit http://www.ign.com/blogs/dcdunham/2013/08/05/portrayal-of-women-in-video-games-acceptable-sexualisation-vs-over-sexualisation#disqus_thread