Game Reviews ... How Do You Review Art?

The Escapist (easily the single best game industry "magazine" on the planet) is running a piece on the seedy underbelly of game reviews. I can't help but agree with a lot of the points in the article. Reviewing games (or movies, or any other sort of art) is always going to be controversial. They never seem to do a product justice, they're totally arbitrary and loaded with bias (or worse, favoritism), and really don't seem to affect how a game sells at all.

There are aspects of game reviewing that the article never quite gets to. Reviewers are unconsciously pressured into not only skewing a review score because of the pressures mentioned in the story, but even the language can be crafted to try to get a review onto the box or into an ad campaign as promotion for the publication.

The "games as art" thing is a oft-debated issue, and despite the fact that every game "journalist" (as if there was such a thing, don't get me started) has broached the topic at one point or another, I decided to wade into it for a research paper at the University of Washington. I took it in what I feel is a different direction, keeping it personal as all artisitc experiences should be. You can download a PDF copy of my "Video Games as Art" paper, or you can e-mail me for a file. One thing that I came across is that some of the games that were most like art (to me) didn't sell very well.

And there's the root of the problem. For as much as games (and movies) are an art form, they're also a consumer product, and anytime someone is exchanging money for something, they want to know what they're going to get in advance and whether or not it will be worth it. The product has to make a value proposition, and the end result needs to meet or exceed that proposition. Valve is a company that gets this on a deep, fundamentatal level. Gamers know that if they buy Half-Life, they'll get a great game. But they'll also get enough free content and other game experiences with it that they could play that game for YEARS. The reviews just don't matter, because the value proposition is blown out of the water.

So I've finally reached a level where I feel I can put my metaphorical foot down and say, I'm not going to review games anymore. Everyone's experience will be different with a game, so all I can really tell you is whether or not you should Buy It, Rent It, or Skip It. Anything else is just background and opinion, but those two words are enough to tell you whether or not a game meets or exceeds its value proposition. I could talk at excruciating length about how gorgeous a game's graphics are, or how the controls work, or how it sounds, but in the end, none of that matters unless you play the game (or don't).

Thus, I'm getting rid of all the fluff, and Two Word Reviews is born. The great part about this is that it simply doesn't matter how long I play a game, or finish it, or anything about me. It becomes all about whether or not a game is worth the price they're charging, or the price to get it into your hands temporarily. (On that note, I should specify that when I say "Rent It", I'm talking about a service like GameFly, so we're talking roughly $20/mo. or just under half the price of the game.) Pretty much all opinion is taken out of the equation, because by and large, the value proposition of most people is the same.

It'll be an interesting experiment. I'll probably never get my review on a box, most game websites wouldn't want to run these reviews (or pay for two words), but I know I'll feel a lot better about it.

Keeping up with the High-Definition Joneses

I graduated from the University of Washington yesterday, and it was a bit of a melancholy affair. The four-year grind has culminated in my Bachelor's degree, but it's also come at a fairly high price (not just tuition-wise, but relationship-wise as well). People keep telling me that they couldn't have done it, but at the same time I wonder if knowing what I know now if I'd have made the choice. I guess I'll never know.

Regardless, it's done now, and to celebrate, I ordered myself the 37" Westinghouse 1080p LCD TV (LVM-37w3) that I've been lusting after for a few years. Costco has the TV (monitor, really, since there is no tuner in the set) on sale for $799, and I just couldn't turn that down. Even after tax and shipping, it was $100 cheaper than I could find it anywhere else, and Costco's return policy is fantastic.

Of course, that means I'll be rewiring my entertainment center (one of my favorite hobbies), and probably moving my computer into a smaller media center-like case to take advantage of my HD card. I might upgrade my DirecTV receivers to HD, but since I may be moving shortly as well, I'm probably going to hold off, especially since Verizon has FIOS rolled out on Washington's "Eastside".

I'm also pretty excited to see how the Xbox 360 looks after the 1080p upgrade, since they rolled out a software release turning on 1080p upscaling a while back. The PS3 is still way out of my price range, but maybe after a year or two I'd be able to afford it.

New TV should be here in a couple of weeks!

Update on the HP TX1000

Tuesday was my first day of classes of my last quarter at the UW. I took HP's new machine to class and received a lot of interested questions from people, which was cool, but the way I grabbed their attention wasn't exactly ideal. Most people in a class won't even notice that you're writing on your laptop screen over the course of the class, but when you "break" the screen to put it in tablet mode, that will usually attract a few glances. Although in my case, I was pulling the screen back up because I just couldn't stand to keep trying to write on it.

Since the TX1000 is using a touchscreen rather than an active digitizer like my Tecra M4, HP had to turn the touchscreen sensitivity way down to compensate for the tendency for you to rest your hand on the screen while you write. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that you have to use a significant amount of pressure to get a smooth, unbroken stroke. The effort required to do this is not insignificant. Unfortunately, when you're trying to multitask during a class (especially late classes when you're pretty tired), you have to put as much effort as possible into thinking about the class and not thinking about writing. While the HP rep that I talked to last week said that it only took him a couple of hours to adjust, I'm finding it much more difficult. So sadly, I've gone back to my Tecra M4 for the time being.

This isn't to say that the TX1000 isn't great in every other regard, quite to the contrary, it's a great little machine. To make sure that you get a fair representation of the machine, I've decided to try something new: I gave it to my wife.

That in itself is a bit of a funny story. When I told her that HP was sending me this laptop to review, the first words out of her mouth were, "Goody! Now I get a laptop." Then I explained that it wasn't really going to happen that way. "So what, you get all the laptops and I get no laptops?" (I can always tell when she's irritated, but still playing with me, because she'll use just atrocious grammar.) "Yes, sweetheart, that's exactly what that means." So when I told her she was going to get a week or so to play with the HP, she was pretty excited. Maybe I'll even let her make a blog post to two about it ... we'll see how it goes.

One last note: in my conversation with HP a few days ago, I asked why they didn't include both digitizers (active and passive) in the machine. They said it was a cost issue, but when I asked them about thier target market, it seems to be targeted at segments that wouldn't be as price sensitive, so I'm not sure that I buy the explanation. Regardless, it seems that Annie is closer to the sort of person that they want to approach with the machine, so her feedback should be interesting. I know that she absolutely loves the size, and I don't know that she'd care so much about the touchscreen being less than ideal for writing, but we'll see how it fares with her under more strenuous use.

Oh My God of War II

I finally talked the wife into letting me get a new game as a present for making Dean's List again last quarter. After much hemming and hawing, I finally chose God of War II for my dusty PS2, since the praise heaped upon the title has reached near epidemic proportions. Not only did my lovely wife let me get the game, she (get this) bought it for me. Managed to get the last copy at Fred Meyer, too. She's the bestest wife ever!

I managed to hold off playing it for approximately 45 whole minutes (I was watching Planet Earth on Discovery) before getting my hack and slash on. The game is every bit as epic as the press would have you believe, and it's not at all an understatement to say that you'll be jabbing your twin swords into the eye of a Collossus inside of 15 minutes flat. The cinematics are also quite amazing, and it's possible that I might include this game in a project I'm working on about Video Games as Art for the UW. Not only is the art direction superb (the camera alone deserves some sort of award), but the game does a great job of conveying emotion.

My wife was half-stunned, half amused by the sex minigame and relative plethora of nudity to be found in even the game's first few hours. Nothing says "mature game" like nipples and ass-crack, I suppose. Still don't think I could tempt her into picking up the controller, though. She might like to watch it, but there's enough of a leap between watching and playing that I don't think she'd ever traverse the gap.

The only thing that would have made this game perfect? Achievements. Damn the Gods for making this game a Sony exclusive!

New Year and New Beginnings

2007 has officially begun, and yet, I'm still wondering what the hell happened to 2006. I know I've been busy and what not, but most of the people I've talked to said that it felt like this year just ended before it really began.

Not only is it a new year, but I'm now officially six months out from my graduation from the UW. I'll be filing my application for graduation here shortly, I start the first of my two Capstone classes, and I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself when it's all over. I mean, I do ... I've got a job already, but I can certainly see how traditional students can feel overwhelmed when it's all over. It's like, "OK ... now what?"

I expect that despite being nearly finished with school, I'll be working harder in the next six months than I have at any time in my brief 30 years past. More challenging classes, expanded responsibilities at work, time-intensive extracurriculars ... and trying to figure out how to fit everything into days that feel shorter and shorter.

I'm sure I'll miss it when it's over, but for now, June can't come fast enough.

Very Busy Weekend ...

I'm off in about half an hour to start the 2 1/2 hour drive to Leavenworth, WA for the ΔΕΧ Fall Orientation and Leadership Conference (FOLC). If you've never been to Leavenworth, October is the best time to make the trip. The foliage this time of year is amazing, and Leavenworth itself is an amazing town. The entire town is Bavarian, and around Christmas time, the town looks amazing.

FOLC should be fun, and it's a nice way to stretch my business muscles in a competition, something I haven't done in over a decade. Of course, that's a little stressful ... I'm going to feel like the old coot in a group full of young college kids. Still, maybe my experience will help our group. What's the competition? That's just it, we don't know. You don't find out until the conference, and then you have to construct a plan on the spot. I can't wait to find out who is in my group, and what the task will be! I'm going to try blogging the conference at the same time that I'm taking part in it, which might be tough ... we'll see how it goes. Worst case scenario, I'll write up a recap and post some pictures.

The competition part happens Saturday, and then I hop in the car and drive back to Seattle just in time to catch the UW Homecoming Game at Husky Stadium. Sunday, Nintendo's Wii console goes on pre-sale at Toys 'R' Us, and I have a group meeting for one of my classes after that.

Going Greek With Delta Epsilon Chi

Anyone that has known me for any length of time knows that I like to stay busy. They'd also recognize that as a massive understatement. I go through a great deal of my life on sheer momentum. Once I decided to go back to school, I realized that after 10+ years out of academia, it was the only way I'd be able to keep moving.

I packed in a few extra-curriculars while at Cascadia, and even with 20 credits a quarter, I felt like I had plenty of breathing room. Once I went back to work full-time, however, it was a challenge. My first year at the UW, I cut back to just my community involvement, work, and school.

That ended last week. Not only have I joined UW Bothell's ΔΕΧ chapter, but I've been "elected" Public Information Officer, which essentially puts me in charge of publicity. The up-side is that I can merge some of my community involvement with ΔΕΧ, as well as rejoin an organization I enjoyed so much in High School (ΔΕΧ is the college division of DECA).

We've got a ton of great stuff planned, and it's simply a matter of executing on it all. Fundraising, activism, community involvement, as well as the competitions that ΔΕΧ is known for are all things we're going to be working on over the coming months. It should be a blast!

Vista on a Tablet PC (and my resulting workflow)

Now that I've finally tracked down my sporadic ink issues to a bad pen (which coincidentally I ordered a replacement for the same day that the clip finally broke), I've get myself back into the habit of using my Tablet for school work. Each class is different, with different levels of use for things like notes, slides, handouts and whatnot. But I've gotten pretty comfortable with Vista on my Tablet, and along with Office 2007, things are moving pretty smoothly.

Here's kind of a snapshot of how I've set things up for my classes at the UW, and a bit of info on how I work with the tablet in one particular class.

First, I have a Notebook file set up for each class, as well as one for work, and one for "random junk". For each class, I have a section called "Syllabus". I log into Blackboard (which thankfully, each instructor I'm taking is using this quarter), and download an electronic copy of the syllabus. I then Select All, Copy, and Paste into a page, so that I have the text searchable (printing and using Send to OneNote 2007 doesn't seem to yield searchable text). Any other "first day" information will usually go in this tab as well, such as class schedule, unless we actually start to cover course material.

I set up new section for each lecture, usually titled by the theme (if there is one), or by the date. This particular instructor will give out the slides for each lecture early, however, they are only a preview (to encourage attendance, and to ensure the material has been read. I'll print these slides into a page for that lecture. In a new page, I'll take notes as I read the material for the day, with a new page for each assigned reading (so if there are three things to read, there are three pages). Any optional assignments will get another page as well.

During the lecture, I'll take notes right on the slides. For some lectures, if I don't understand the material well before hand, I'll record the lecture as audio (if the instructor permits ... some are touchy about that), and take just enough notes to make an audio bookmark and jog my memory. If we go off-topic, I'll start a new page in order to get those notes down. Any web resrouces mentioned get a quick lookup in IE, and either sent directly to OneNote, or copied and pasted using the Snipping tool (for stuff like graphs or charts).

Official assignments get their own section, where I'll copy and paste requirements and whatnot. Any research is compiled here as well, but the actual work is done in Word or whatever tool is needed.

Some classes require a journal. In those cases, I'll check with the instructor first to find out if using the tablet is acceptable. This quarter, one class requiring a journal had very unusual uses for it, namely that your journal can be used on quizzes. Luckily, this instructor offered to let me use my tablet in this fashion so long as I could limit what I see to just the journal. In this case, I'll put the Journal into its own tab to accomodate that request, but I'd probably have done that anyway.

That's just about it, though I'm sure I've forgotten things. If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know!

Windows Vista ReadyBoost on a Tecra M4

I've been running Windows Vista (Build 5728) on my Tecra M4 Tablet PC for a little over a week now, and I'm pretty impressed with how they've implemented the Tablet PC features. The whole system feels a little better put together than the XP and Tablet stuff that Toshiba had loaded. Could be that it's just the niceties of having a clean install, though. Still a few bugs (the Tablet does NOT like being put into sleep or hibernate while in Portrait mode), but overall, I'm very impressed. Resume from hibernate is snappy enough where I might just use that instead of Sleep.

Office 2007 (Beta 2 Technical Refresh) runs very well on Vista. I love how great all of my work looks, but I'm already starting to pine for the day that everyone's work looks just as good as mine. It's just so effortless to make quality documents and charts. I'm going to need to find some documentation on how to create my own themes, so that I have a look that's all my own. That'll also be handy for keeping documents limited to company-approved fonts and colors as well.

One thing I've been wanting to try out is ReadyBoost, a feature that uses flash memory to speed disk access (sort of like a tertiary cache, after CPU cache and RAM). I've got an SD card slot built into the machine, and I was surprised to see ReadyBoost offered as an option when I stuck an old 256MB SD card in there. Sadly, it wasn't fast enough to use the feature. I'd much rather use the SD slot than a USB stick poking out (especially since I use USB for other things).

Any Tecra M4 owners out there running Vista know of a brand/model of SD card that works with ReadyBoost? Please let me know ... I don't relish the idea of just randomly testing cards until I find one that works. According to Microsoft, you should have at least a 1:1 ratio of ReadyBoost to RAM, so I'm looking at either a 2GB or 4GB card.

School has started again at the UW, and this being my senior year, I'm going to be incredibly busy. I can't wait to be done; it seems like I've been at this grind forever. It'll be nice not having the UW suck a couple grand out of my wallet every few months, too.

Apple Suprises and Underwhelms at the Same Time

Apple announced a bunch of much-desired features today, including downloadable movies through iTunes, Gapless Playback (a BIG pet peeve of mine), transfer of iTunes purchases via your iPod (another issue I've had to deal with), and new iPod models across the whole line.

What they didn't announce was a new widescreen Video iPod.  And I just don't get why.

They upgraded the video quality through iTunes to 640x480, which is still a standard-def video format.  (No word on whether the new iPods have 640x480 screens.)  But every time they said (640x480), I kept thinking ... this is the only non-widescreen product in their product line, computers included.  Apple understands how important widescreen is when it comes to field of view, but they just keep dropping the ball on the iPod.

I was hoping to get a new one of these for my graduation from the UW, and while the new 80GB model is compelling, I have to think that they're just perfecting the technology.  So why wouldn't I wait?  Sure, my current iPod is absolutely full, but that's not a big enough determiner for me.

The big surprise?  The rumored set-top box, codenamed iTV.  Thinner than the Mac Mini (less than half as thick, it seems), built-in wireless, an designed to bring movie content to your HDTV.  Again, what's the point when iTunes is limited to 640x480?  Even 720x480 would have been a start, but that probably would have made the lack of a widescreen iPod even more apparent.

I'll download the new iTunes when I get home from work and see if the old 4G iPods will support the Gapless playback.  Jobs made it sound during the keynote that it was some sort of secret sauce in iTunes7 that makes it work.  We'll see.