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CS 1.4

The biggest gaming news of the week is definitely the release of Counter-Strike 1.4. Of course, every revision brings some changes people like, and some that are absolutely horrible. On the “like” part was the “fix” to hopping. Sort of. It’s great to eliminate people from bunny-hopping like maniacs, and dodging every shot in the process, but someone should have fixed the maps in the process. Too many areas are now unusable due to the speed penalty you take from hopping up to them (the middle route on cs_italy comes to mind). Leading my “dislike” list yet again is the seeming increase in headshots, yet again. Planned shooting is no longer favored, rather running and spraying seems to be the best method to kill your enemies.

Team Fortress 2

I loved the original Team Fortress for Quake, but the “sequel” is turning into the biggest joke this side of Prey and Duke Nukem Forever (scroll down to the news from March 25, 1998 to get a good chuckle). As far as I know, Prey is officially dead, but DNF is in development. But back to Team Fortress 2. The website is a giant joke. There is a picture there, under the “Overview” section, that states that TF2 won the “Best Action Game” and “Best Multiplayer Game” Awards from E3.net. In 1999. 1999!!!! So what’s Valve’s problem?

Personally, I think CS is just too damn popular. Sure, TF2 is going to be oriented at a slightly different style of gameplay, but why the hell would you release a game so similar to the one you already have out there, dominating the market? You wouldn’t. Which brings us to a piece of really crazy talk. Does anyone out there get the feeling that CS is a giant experiment to see how much crap developers can throw into a game and still have it be played? Obviously, CS is going to die at some point, so why wouldn’t Valve learn something in the process?

Security in Gaming

If gaming companies want to survive, they need to take a serious look at the security of their products. Both Jedi Knight 2 and Dungeon Siege were available via warez channels before they were on shelves. These are major titles, from major publishers, with absolutely horrid copy protection and obviously leaky tester control. Sure, Serious Sam took a similar approach, but it wasn’t so freely available on the ‘net.

Of course, protecting the game is important, but so is protecting the gameplay. I have heard that CS 1.4 had a wall hack out before it was officially released. Diablo 2 has been hacked numerous times, and had the economy ruined as a result. In any game that comes down to player vs player competition, there will be a high incentive to cheat. Duh. But for a long time now the resources and distribution methods haven’t been there for hacks to develop and spread so quickly. Companies should take heed now, because the hacking community won’t go away.

Console Madness

The second biggest news item (well, group of items) recently, IMO, was the chaos in the console market. Price cutting:

GC cheaper in Australia, pre-release.
GC cheaper in Europe.
XBox cheaper in both Europe and Australia.

These cuts are obviously a win for gamers, but what do they mean for the companies? Clearly, Sony is sitting pretty, and dominating sales figures. Nintendo, while not doing spectacularly, seems to be doing well enough with very few of their best series. Luigi’s Mansion? Please. When Nintendo rolls out Metroid, Mario Sunshine, Star Fox, and Resident Evil, GameCubes will fly off the shelves, regardless of the quality of the games. They can’t all be good, can they? I’m picking Mario and Resident Evil to rock, Metroid to be decent, and Star Fox Adventures to be a heaping pile of platformer dung. But that’s just me talkin’ crazy again.

Microsoft is hurting. Maybe Nintendo anticipated price wars, maybe they didn’t, but the GameCube is a hell of a lot cheaper to make than the XBox, and Nintendo will be able to beat any price Microsoft throws out there. It’s kind of sad, when you think about it, because the XBox is a nice system, and it did attempt to push consoles forward. As I see it, there are two problems with the XBox:

1. 1. Microsoft’s strength has traditionally been in iterative improvement. Remember how bad the early version of Internet Explorer were? Or how much of an improvement Windows3.11->95->98->98 SE->XP has been? Hell, even most of Office has improved, if not bloated beyond belief. The main selling point of any console, though, is it’s stability, and MS can’t start adding features, drastically changing firmware, or adding more levels and options to games. Of course, that’s where the real problem lies. The games.
2. 2. The second problem, also in my opinion, is that the XBox’s best features,Dolby 5.1, HDTV support, and High Speed Online, all aren’t widely supported in any market. If you own a HDTV, or a nice home theater system, than buying the XBox might be worth it to take advantage of your sweet setup. But if not, it’s hard to justify sinking $1000 on a nice setup to get the most out of a system with a second rate library. The lack of any online service whatsoever is really just a kick in the nuts, both for gamers and Microsoft. Doesn’t MS realize 100,000+ people pay $13 a month for an old, ugly game? I think MS should concede their losses in Japan, concentrate on getting a good online service up and running, and make their money back in the US and Europe.

Honestly, though, it seems like the XBox can’t get a break. Having it’s creator resign, for whatever reason, looks bad, and being outsold in Japan by the Dreamcast is worse. Although, the Dreamcast is the best console since the SNES, in my opinion. At least there’s hope that the competition from MS has forced Nintendo and Sony to elevate their games, because the final software for the PS and N64 was pretty sad.

Next-Gen Consoles

Yes, I hate to start talking about them already, and no, I don’t know anything super-secret-special, but looking at this generation of consoles, some things should become clear:

1. 1. If You’re Serious, think backwards. Backwards compatibility, that is. Having the best titles from this generation to boost the launch titles of next generation (and at great prices!) proved invaluable for Sony. Of course, having to think about compatibility is a major headache for console designers, but any console that doesn’t do it is going to have trouble keeping pace.
2. 2. Have your online solution ready at launch. Having developers try to make great games for a non-existant online service with a moving launch date and ever-changing prices is like expecting to have an intelligent discussion with 14-year-olds online. Ain’t gunna happen. Many gaming companies aren’t in good financial condition, and they can’t afford to spend millions developing an online title, buying servers, and securing support staff, only to have the service pushed back 3 months.
3. 3. Different markets have different tastes. This one wasn’t really evident to me until recently. Chatting, online, with people from different countries has opened my eyes to the plethora of hit titles that never make it to the States. It stands to reason, then, that not all hit titles here will make it everywhere else. Microsoft appears to be learning the hard way, but I suspect, that if they stick it out another round, you’ll see them attack the market with a much more diversified library.

That’s really all I have to say right now. Let me know what you think.

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