Spirit of Gamer [Best Game Review]

Video game industry tries to broaden its appeal

2008-07-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

A tough little blob must splash color over a town wallowing in gray.
Bug-eyed rabbits do a dance routine. And then there's the "perfect
equine farm" of wild horses for little girls to tame and train.
These video games don't sound like anything that would grab a
teenage boy's attention, and that's the point. They are part of an
important expansion of the video game industry as it works to pull in
women, girls and other demographics and cement its place as mainstream
entertainment.
A year ago at the E3 Media and Business Summit here in Los
Angeles, Nintendo Co. declared that anyone can be a gamer, and that the
company would break down the divide between hardcore players and those
just beginning to dabble in interactive entertainment. While the divide
still exists, games for people who don't fit into the stalwart category
of 18-to-34-year-old men are a fast-growing segment of the $18 billion
U.S. video game market.
Analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan estimates that five
years ago, up to 90 percent of gamers were the core audience of young
men. Today, it's more like 60 to 70 percent.
To be sure, much of the focus in the video game industry is
still on games like the upcoming "Fallout 3," set in a post-apocalyptic
Washington, D.C., where players can kill the enemy in "ridiculously
violent ways," as its executive producer, Todd Howard of Bethesda
Softworks, put it.
But big companies like Nintendo, Microsoft Corp., Electronic
Arts Inc. and Ubisoft Entertainment SA have realized the enormous growth
potential of mass-market games. A quarter of Ubisoft's worldwide sales
of $1.5 billion came from its "casual games" business in the most recent
fiscal year -- casual games often being the industry's extremely broad
term for everything other than what the young male demographic wants.
This was the first year the company measured casual games as a separate
division, said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
To try to reach more girls, Ubisoft offers its "Imagine"
series, which lets 6- to 14-year-old girls play fashion designer, rock
star or figure skater. Ubisoft also has "Horse Riders," in which players
can create a farm of wild horses.
It's unlikely to get any love from gaming blogs and reviewers,
but if Ubisoft's past games for girls are any indication, it will at
least make the company some money.
Game companies that have long been selling to teenage boys now
want to rope in not only their sisters but also their kid brothers and
parents. No company has been as successful in this as Nintendo, which
has sold more than 10 million of its $250 Wii consoles in the U.S. since
its late 2006 launch, despite widespread supply constraints.
Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata, says he hopes to
eventually blur the lines between games and other forms of
entertainment. "We should expand the (games) business to music and
movies," he said through an interpreter.
As an example, Nintendo has "Wii Music." The game turns the
Wii's wireless controller and "Nunchuk" attachment into more than 60
musical instruments. Players mimic the way musicians play those
instruments -- and that's it, they are making music even if they don't
know a thing about pitch or rhythm. It's a long way from involved games
like "Halo 3," where a novice would be hard-pressed to survive more than
a few minutes.
Over the past few years, Pachter said, console makers have
alienated gamers as they got older. With jobs and families and new
responsibilities, people who grew up with video games in the 1980s now
have less time to immerse themselves in complicated first-person
shooters and adventures.
"Nintendo is bringing those people back," he said.
But the trick is to figure out which specific demographics to
aim for.
"To succeed you need to target your product in a more focused
way," said Kathy Vrabeck, the head of EA's Casual Entertainment
division, which was formed a year ago as the company realized there was
gold in accessible, mass-market games. "It's a rare, rare product that
appeals to any gender, demographic, age."
The exceptions might be the music simulations, including "Wii
Music," Activision Inc.'s "Guitar Hero" and EA's "Rock Band." And then
there's EA's "Spore."
Designed by "Sims" creator Will Wright, "Spore" gives players
simple tools to design creatures of their own imagination, with no rules
other than that they have a mouth.
People have uploaded 1.9 million thorny monsters, lumpy
hobbits, psychedelic bugs and walking household objects that they
designed to the game's Sporepedia Web site since June 17. This, Wright
pointed out, is more than the known number of existing species on Earth.
The full version of "Spore," which will feature the characters
that players are making now, goes on sale in September. EA hopes it will
become a franchise at least as successful as the "Sims."
With "De Blob," designed by a group of college students, THQ
Inc. wants to offer a game that "succeeds in a mix of accessibility and
challenge" and attract both a casual and core gamer audience, said Brad
Carraway, vice president of global brand management.
Anyone can pick up a Wii controller and play the game, in
which the main blob character has to give a town some color. But the
further you go, the more challenging it is. As players advance through
levels, they have to fulfill missions such as painting buildings
specific colors (which they must mix themselves) and fighting the evil
I.N.K.T. Corp. honchos who have rid the town of its hues.
-xinhu

God of War - Chains of Olympus (PSP) Review

2008-03-16T04:02:00.001-07:00

God of War is the most famous games of Sony entertainment company.It is time for this big title game to come to PSP machine, for the sake of hand-held game war.However this episode is developed by After dawn studio not made in Sony itself.

The most attractive point of GOW series is that player will feel excited by control Kratos killing and slaying the enemies, solve the game puzzle and various type of traps.You will appreciate with the well made and well define game content such as..

- The dramatic animation of Chaos blade, Kratos main weapon, which is look like chained sword. It can swing, collide, charge and act reality and beautiful.
(Even you may will feel like it copy from Rygar - Namco game :P)
- Character and enemy animation also very good too. Notice the animation when Kratos swing chaos blade, when he claim the cliff or wall, when enemy is attacked or attacked, they look powerful and build your emotion.
- Violation is the fine tool that this game use to persuade player to continue to play this game. You will feel excited every time when see Kratos use defined method to kill each enemy, such as pickup the head of gorgon, put his feet to crash the soldier skull etc..
The game present its violation in a good style, does not look ugly so you can enjoy it with out disturb feeling.

Almost of this GOW PSP version is look good. The seamless area feature, no loading screen, still have on this portable version with the beautiful graphic near to the PS2 version. The game has many level of difficulty, which easy is real easy and hard is real hard. Game also has a well design save point and check point, they appear frequently. You can save your game every 5-15 minutes. This make it is very suitable for portable game. So every player can enjoy this game without worry about get stuck or no time left until they meet the next save point.

However the bad point of this game is that the content of game are so less.
- This game is too short, very short!Average time playing this game is 5-6 hours in first round playing on easy mode. Which the game on PS2 has average at 10-11 hours. It means the PSP version is half short of normal GOW game. We may understand that due to the limit space of UMD disc, it cannot keep more data than this.
But why does the developer made the game to be on 2-3 disc?
- The famous god of war trap, puzzle was gone. Yes due to the game content is short then its chain effect is to make it has no place to put many trap and puzzle on to the game (such as spike beam trap, Pandora architecture puzzle, etc...).
You will feel like something was "missing" on this GOW game.
- Then the weapon and spell in this game are got reduce too. There are only 2 main weapons, which also has 4-5 main weapons on PS2 version. More than that the second weapon will got at the near end of the game. And this thing happen to the spell too. The lack of game content show the lazy and/or low budget of the game developer.
- The special feature, Challenge mode has not much stage. It should be the strong point of portable game that player can play a short thread on short mission then quit the game without worry anything. So it should have many mission for player to play, like 200+ missions in Crisis Core Final Fantasy7. But this game has only 5 missions, again lack of game content...

Finally, conclusion, give it 8.5/10 score. It had target to be 9 score maximun due to its extremely mistake in the lack of game content. And other little deduct 0.5 scores due to some thing in the game that not perfect. However this is one of the best game on PSP that the machine's owner should play.

God of War - Chains of Olympus - Trailer (PSP)

God of War - gameplay

God Of War - developer walktrough

Reviewer Score

Super Smash Bros. Brawl [Wii]

2008-03-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

- Overview -

Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Game Arts
Platform: Wii category : Fighting games / Online Multiplayer
Officially announcement for more than a year. Fan wait for this gem. It has finally place on the store!!

- Graphic / Sound -

The Graphic of "SSBB" isn't outstanding but really cute , eye catchy , funny. Music tune is fully orchestrated, The music in Brawl has got to be one of the greatest game soundtracks nearly every nice tune.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Trailer

- Gameplay -
SSBB doesn't change much in the Smash Bros. series. Up to Four characters enter a selected stage. SSBB feature is rich of characters, game modes, stages , long single player mode and ease of playing . Anyone can play it with easy controlling ,two attack buttons style. Each character has their own special moves called "smash" attacks to finish foes. The Goal is to knock your enemies out of the arena with one of the aforementioned smash attacks. For more fun, items fall from time to time which can either help or hurt.There are 4 mode of Game control - Wii Remote and Nunchuck, Wii Remote alone, Classic Controller.Brawl is very customizable , given that a deep of game play. Wide variety of parameters can be tunned when you join in the special brawl mode. Tons of ways to customize your matches Only complain on online play is custom levels can't be used . special brawl matches and regular battles let you customize which items are allowed and how often items will spawn, what kinds of handicapsTournaments are a snap to set up due to a built-in mode that facilitates up to 32 players on a single Wii. There are actually quite a large number of ways that you can battle in Living room. Final Smashes is an great to introduce but should be balance. Some of them banned for online match play.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Game play

Reviewer Score

Game review from the Hard core Gamer.

2008-03-16T02:44:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my Spirit of Gamer blog. Here you will find good Information about game review from the Hard core Gamer.