On StupidGamer.com's"The incestuous relationship between games journalists and PR"

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The following is a reply to an article on StupidGamer.com:
 The incestuous relationship between games journalists and PR

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I agree with everything Jeff Rivera said... to a point. What people have to realize (and remember) is that most game PR and game developers love games. They are gamers who found a way to earn a living while keeping involved in videogames. Members of the gaming media also love games and, often, have future aspirations of getting into game development or PR in the future. Some aren't just casual friends and acquaintances; some play games together online. The simple fact is that PR people are going to be more forthcoming and friendly with those who are friendly back, show interest in the product and, yes, are impressed by a given game. Something to bear in mind when it comes to previews, however, is there may still be changes made later, so a preview may point out the good points and gloss over the weak spots - especially if there is talk that those areas are still being worked on.

I have been flown in to press events where a nice spread of food was made available to everyone and seen a few members of the press sneak off with PR people to get some "real food" as Jeff Rivera recounts. However, I have also overheard a local journalist condemning other members of the media for flying in, accepting accommodations and eating the provided food, accusing those members of the media as being, "on the take," and "obviously biased." We'll presume for the point of argument that the local guy brought his own food, paid for his own gas and didn't accept anything from the company. For the sake of argument.

Do large mega-corporate gaming media outlets get scoops? Sure. Is this unfair? Of course not. If you went to work for the mega-corporate gaming media outlet, you too could get some inside information. If you start your own mega-corporate gaming media outlet, you could do so on your own terms. If you can put your opinions and analysis in front of bazillions of people, you'll find that people will shower you with money, gifts, perks, scoops... and be oh-so-concerned about your personal opinion. Why would those companies give an exclusive to a small site with a limited readership when they could give it to a mega-corporation who, for enough money, will say whatever they want? The only reason is that with enough elbow-rubbing, yea-saying, schmoozing and bribery, the resulting message is worthless. The first time some poorly-made game gets glowing reviews, it sells a lot of copies and the game developers, publishers and PR people are pleased with their sales, if not their product. As this happens more and more, however, the gamers will start to distrust the mega-corporate gaming media outlet. Soon, it doesn't matter what they say, because no one believes any of it, anyway. Then the mega-corporate gaming media outlet finds that their ad revenue begins to fall off, as fewer people think it's worth it to buy the magazines for the screen shots and look for other websites with information on the game. The problem is, companies want to control what gets said about their games, so behind every news story is a carefully crafted press release - the same press release is typically behind every story that comes out at the same time, regardless of the media outlet.

It would behoove PR companies to find ways to select some unique "mini-scoops" to divide up between the various media outlets they deal with. This could be details on character classes, character or vehicle models, game modes or even just unique screen shots. If every site had its own unique information, rather than the same press release, games would get more coverage and gamers would actually find useful information from reading articles from the game on multiple websites. In this way, the various media outlets could all get their little something "extra." Would it take effort? Sure, but the results could be coverage that's more valuable to the game companies, the media outlets and the readers. And the mega-corporations shouldn't get too bent out of shape; they still have their big scoops to tell everybody about.

Modding Gratuitous Space Battles

I am a gamer, a tinkerer and a programmer. This led me to dabble in game development (I started my own game development company, but that hasn't gone anywhere... where does the time go?) and to try my hand at modding videogames. While some major videogame companies will create a game and then make editing tools available so players can make their own maps, scenarios or what-not, my favorite games to mod are often games by indie developers which don't have game editing tools, but do little to nothing to obscure their art assets and other interesting files. I enjoy spelunking through the files to find out what makes a game tick and then changing those files to customize the game.

I recently reviewed Gratuitous Space Battles: Collector's Edition, and enjoyed it quite a bit. In fact, I asked Psibabe to request it for me after seeing an banner ad for it and checking the game out. The idea of creating my own space ships and then pitting fleets of them against a rival fleet seemed like it would be fun, and the fact that you have to predetermine your tactics before the battle begins, by giving your units "Orders" only sweetened the deal, in my eyes. However, I was a little bit disappointed to find that I was only able to outfit my own ships from the included hulls; I couldn't design ships that looked like whatever I wanted.

This was quickly alleviated, however, when I poked around the files. I was quickly able to locate where backgrounds were kept, and just as quickly able to use Google to locate some amazing deep space photography I could use as backgrounds. I was able to find where the name randomizers were located and very quickly able to follow the format of the name choice list to make my own, adding in one for Star Wars names, Klingon Names, the elements, and US Battleships. The existing randomizers could be modified just as easily.

I also located the images for the ships. These came in three flavors: the ship itself, the ship with battle damage, and a burnt-out hull. A few minutes on Google and I had found a good top-down image of the Millennium Falcon. I cropped, rotated, cleaned up and scaled the image to match that of an existing Crusier (the Rebels' Minotaur) and created my own damaged and burnt-out hull versions. I then replaced the files for one of the ships with my own versions (and moved the original copies into a different folder structure for safe keeping) and voila! The Minotaur hull now looked uncannily like a Corellian freighter that any scruffy-lookin' nerf herder might own.

This was all well and good, but this ship simply putted around the battlefield. I expected a bit more speed from the Falcon, so I copied and edited one of the Cruiser engines. I started with the top notch engine and from there, added a zero to the end of the speed value, bumping it up a level of magnitude. I saved that with a new name (I christened it the "Infinity Drive") and loaded the game up to give it a test. It was there, it looked just like the engine I'd copied it from (I didn't change the icon), and... it was locked. Nice. The game keeps track of what you've gotten access to and if anything new shows up, it's locked until you buy it with "Honor" (a "currency" gained by winning battles decidedly). This wasn't a problem, as I had already cloned and modified a level, upping my budget but not modifying the enemy forces, resulting in a major victory and enough spending cash to finish unlocking whatever I had left to unlock at the time. So, after buying my engine, I swap it into my Millennium Falcon and give it a spin. It's faster. (Duh - about 10 times faster) But, somehow... it's still not quite got the "oomph" I wanted. No problem; I exit the game, add another zero at the end, save my engine and return for another shot. This time, the Falcons (betcha can't deploy just one) are out-pacing the fighters. I gave a few of them orders to "Keep Moving" and let them loose on a much larger opposing force and watched gleefully as everything that shot at them missed woefully. My fleet of Falcons were pretty much spinning like tops, but they were making swiss cheese (you know, the kind with holes) out of the enemy.

That's where I stopped. For now. I had finished my review, and as a game reviewer, I rarely get to revisit even my old favorites. However, I think I might look into creating an expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles... or, perhaps, an editor of some sort. It would be a nice game dev-ish programming project. Oh, and, no... don't expect to see me come out with a Star Wars expansion pack... I believe in licenses. What you roll up and mod for your own enjoyment is one thing, but selling - or even giving away - someone else's intellectual property is just wrong. I am sure that (if they decided to) Lucas Arts could make a much better Star Wars expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles than I could.

At any rate, it was really interesting to see how dynamically coded Gratuitous Space Battles is. Getting a level to show up in the level list is a matter of making a level configuration file and putting it in the correct folder. Adding a random name generator is as simple as duplicating the format with your own list and saving it in the right place - the name that shows in the game is the filename of the random name file. Simplicity itself. The backgrounds are easy to simply drop in. The ships images are easy to add, and, once in place, some animations (such as the particle effects on the damaged ships and the parts of the broken hull rotating aimlessly - and separately) are simply taken care of behind the scenes. The engine I made showing up to be bought is another example... this game has a lot of automation in putting gaming assets in to play. This makes it really easy to mod - for the player community or, for that matter, for the developers.

For the joy of playing and ease of modding Gratuitous Space Battles, I say "Kudos" to Positech Games!

The SoulCalibur IV Character Doppelganger Files

So, I consider myself to be somewhat of an artist. I also am fairly impressed with the Character Creation mode in SoulCalibur IV. I also wanted to find a reason to continue playing SoulCalibur IV, so that my wife and editor, Psibabe, wouldn't get upset when I try to play it some. (Typically, once a game is reviewed, our time is reserved for other, yet-to-be-reviewed products and, even if I'm taking a break from that, she needs the consoles or the TV for other reviews.)

I thought it would be cool to create some look-a-like characters, mimicking characters out of popular fiction, movies and other videogames, and then post little stories that show what the character looks like and what settings make up that character. I figured I would capture some in-game video of that character in action and capture some screenshots, as well, to accompany the piece. I had planned to use the PCTV HD Pro Stick to capture the video and drop some screenshot from the video as well. However, I'm trying to capture Xbox 360 output using composite signal and it's looking like utter crap. Ug.

The next step is to try to get my hands on a Xbox 360 to S-Video display cable and see if that looks better. In the mean time, I was able to get some passable (but just barely) video out of the composite signal. I really need to set up a lab for capturing screens and videos for this sort of thing... I guess I'll put it on the incredibly long list of things-I'd-like-to-do-when-I-get-free-time-and-disposable-income.