61 Frames Per Second

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• The 61FPS Review: Battleforge

  When not volunteering for the Somali Pirates' Union or attending live tapings of Glenn Beck, guest contributer Dan Thompson can be found teaching in the South Bronx. In moments free from agitating for pirate rights or being corrupted by the youth, Dan dedicates his time to battling his cat, Bishop, and heckling John Constantine's Persona 4 play sessions. Phenomic’s Battleforge terrified me. Not terrified that this chimeric mix of collectible card game, real-time strategy, and MMO would be bad, oh no. My soul-shaking fear was that it would actually be good. I could already see it happening: my descent into a dark, screen-glare jaundiced, asocial existence, my only activity the furious clicking of virtual cards to unleash winged beasts of burning doom. Like the first time I read about aerosol alcohol’s promise of inebriation through inhalation, I was overtaken by a mixture of horror and wonder. These are three gaming genres I hold dear, and the battles looked great. This hybrid had the potential to cost me my job, friends, and family. I popped in the disc and watched the install bar crawl to the right. Thankfully, none of my fears were realized. Battleforge just doesn’t work. Read More... Posted Apr 13 2009, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: ea, command & conquer, starcraft, mmo, rts, daniel thompson, ccg, Phenomic, battleforge

• NYCC 2009 - DC Universe Online

  Editor's note: I'm still pretty darn worn out from the frenetic pace of New York Comic-Con this past weekend. My entire body hurts. Expect a good amount of post-con reporting over the next few days as I sift through my notes, photos, and edit together a few videos which will hopefully be fairly rad. For now, though, let's just start off with something easy, the first massively multiplayer online game to officially license characters and scenarios from one of the biggest pop-culture publishers in the world...oh lord, what am I doing? One of the biggest crowd-pleaser games at New York Comic-Con was Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online. The massively multiplayer online action title was set up for anyone to play using either keyboard and mouse or or the Playstation DualShock3 and there was a panel discussion about the game featuring several members of Sony's design team along with human-style-guide Jim Lee and story and scenario writers Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman. Those names should sound very familiar to you if you're read any superhero comics in the past twenty years or so. That they referred to it as an MMO action game rather than an MMO RPG is very telling in what we saw from the presentation and our play sessions. It plays just like all the other open-world action brawlers, only you're playing with other people to either cooperate or compete in objectives which are continuously sent to you from the game's servers (cleverly disguised in Hero mode as Oracle from Batman and Justice League). Run, jump, smash, repeat, no arcane spell casting. Read More... Posted Feb 09 2009, 03:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, derrick sanskrit, dc universe, mmo, sony online, dc comics, nycc

• New Zork MMO

  Dublin's Jolt Online is taking on the legendary text-based aventure game, this time in MMO form:  LegendsofZork.com will provide online gamers with a persistent online adventure, playable from any Internet browser. Players take up the role of a recently laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer, as he explores the Great Underground Empire. Designed to provide gamers with a casual MMO game they can play on their laptop, desktop or Apple iPhone (in school, work or on the bus), there’s nothing to download, just go to www.legendsofzork.com. Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 01:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, mmo, zork, text adventure

• The Videogame Ages, part 2

  In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future. The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996 8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• The Videogame Ages, part 1

  This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 05:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• Star Wars, Lucasarts, Bioware: You’re Doing It Wrong.

  Come October 21st, the inevitable will finally happen. After years of hemming, hawing, clamoring, and speculating, Bioware and Lucasarts are going to announce an MMO based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This is not a guess. Bioware’s leash-holder, EA, already spoiled the surprise in July when chief executive John Riccitello flat-out admitted it existed. I couldn’t be more disappointed. Read More... Posted Oct 08 2008, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, star wars, ea, lucasarts, bioware, mmo

• MMO Predicts Life in 10 Years

  Wonder what the world will be like in a decade? A new MMO hopes to evaluate the effects of five different "Superthreats" on mankind, and assess humanity's ability to cope with different sorts of impending doom. The human species has a long history of overcoming tremendous obstacles, often coming out stronger than before. Indeed, some anthropologists argue that human intelligence emerged as the consequence of the last major ice age, a period of enormous environmental stress demanding flexibility, foresight and creativity on the part of the small numbers of early Homo sapiens. Historically, those who have prophesied doom for human civilization have been proven wrong, time and again, by the capacity of our species to both adapt to and transform our conditions. Read More... Posted Sep 23 2008, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, mmo, facebook, superstruct, iftf

• DC Universe Online and the Console MMO Conundrum

  You’d think that people would be more excited about the reveal of Sony Online’s DC Universe given that it premiered a mere three days before The Dark Knight, but reactions have been decidedly mixed. It not too surprising to me. SOE doesn’t exactly have the best track record. The Untold Legends series is crap, they’ve been unable to recapture Everquest’s initial success, and Star Wars Galaxies was a complete nightmare. But even beyond SOE’s reputation and the wonky looking DC Universe trailer, there’s never been a truly successful MMO on home consoles. Read More... Posted Jul 22 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, star wars, final fantasy, untold legends, dc universe, mmo, sony online, the agency