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Tag: Overly Positive Thoughts

November 12, 2009

Overly Positive Thoughts: The Brand New Review Score

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Overly Positive Thoughts — Tags: , , , — 2 Comments

42-18969280Over at Destructoid, there’s a particularly great and meaningful article up by Jim Sterling about how to respond properly to a video game review. If you haven’t read it yet, feel free to go do so prior to coming back around to hear about today’s dose of sunshine. A couple of the tips involved: claim bias, make random comparisons, and attack the reviewer. I was definitely enlightened, and you will be too.

One of the things that Jim touches upon, and what I plan on talking about, is the idea that the review scoring system is broken – in the way that anything above a 9.0 is perfectly fine and anything below it means the entire system is borked out. Completely legitimate folks – as someone who likes to give a perpetual 10 to everything I touch, I have to say – positivity is always consistent (10) while negativity is just so darned subjective (what IS a 5.0 vs. a 6.0 anyway?). It’s certainly not because numbers provide a decent context and a fair scale of bad vs. good on an even keel, now is it?

So I say to ye, review scoring system, it’s time for you to go. But what shall we replace it with? Here are some amazing and insightful ideas I just had. Clearly one of these must be implemented as quickly as possible to ensure the future integrity of games reviews.

EleventyOneMade-up Numbers – Let’s face it, folks, math is hard. All these crazy numbers adding and subtracting and dividing into each other. Who needs that inconvenience when you’re reviewing games? Better to go with numbers you can actually trust, like “eleventy-one”, “fourbajillionzillion”, and “42″. With the randomness of the system assured, one cannot criticize the numbers for being vague because no matter what you score a game, it’s all vague. Equality, people – it’s the stuff of legends.

applesandoranges

Fruit – If we’re going to review something and subject ourselves to writing walls of text that will need to deal with the ADD that some people have about the Internet, we might as well make it tasty, right? Fruit’s been around for seemingly forever, and it’s already prominent in cultural colloquialism (apples and oranges are famous by now). Also, can you imagine rating something a “Succulent Strawberry” or a “Passionate Peach”? I’m drooling already. For the negative reviews, you could always go with fruit gone terribly wrong, too. I mean, it’s worked for one site that is totally not subjectively selective at all, right?

…but by personal favorite by far has to be:

funny-pictures-cat-will-kill-dinosaurCats - In the great cat vs. dog debate, cats are clearly on top right now. Why? Because dogs haven’t become an internet meme phenomenon that is an endless sausage factory of amateur-Photoshopped and outlined-text images, that’s why. Cats, being the self-thought rulers of the world that they are, are the perfect arbiters for the determination of whether or not a game is good. Nothing says “good” like cat holding sniper rifle or conversely, “bad” like pissed cat in moose costume. The range of cat emotions runs long and wide, so if you can’t understand that a cat has given a meaningful and intelligent review score, it is, perhaps, time to go back to school.

So there you have it – my totally infallible bunch of suggestions to fix gaming review scores. Better take note, because if you don’t, I might just implement the ideas myself and create great, totally non-biased, non-subjective, non-opinionated reviews of my own. Watch out!

October 29, 2009

Overly Positive Thoughts: The Considerate Facebook

by Frank — Categories: Internet, Overly Positive Thoughts, Social Geekery — Tags: , — 5 Comments

friendsSo I couldn’t help but notice the other day that among the ninja changes that usually happen on Facebook was one in which the social networking app tries to be just a little bit more helpful and considerate towards the friends you have on your list. Some of the suggestions it makes include getting people started, connecting with others, and in the case of this picture, finding more friends for folks.

I have to say, this has really sent the Facebook app to a whole other level in terms of the consideration it is giving to your friends and you. How can you call something like trying to find friends for the people who don’t whore themselves out to everyone they’ve ever chatted with pretentious? Clearly this is Facebook’s way of being kinder and gentler, not of trying to tell you that the way to use the application is to make sure as many people as possible see that picture of your privates from last night’s party.

Sure, some people might see the fact that Facebook suggesting your photo-less friends need more profile pics as jerky, but c’mon – who doesn’t want to see who gained the Freshman Fifteen and the Post-Grad Paunch? On Facebook, they totally encourage you through their multitude of shovelware apps and monkey-written self-tests to just be yourself and let it all hang out. Saying that people should be helped into “getting started” (and by getting started that means hurrying up and posting 10 notes about 20 Things About You, Your Friends, And Your Dog’s Poop) isn’t pushy, it’s more like a gentle nudge.

So folks, don’t forget to check your sidebar next time for a helpful suggestion from Facebook to make your friends less lame in its eyes. Who knows – they might get a suggestion about doing the same for you. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

June 25, 2009

Overly Positive Thoughts – Miyamoto Trumps Easy Mode

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: — 2 Comments
Ford encouraged the public to wear WIN buttons
Image via Wikipedia

Over at the multiple author gaming blog site Multiplaying, there’s a post by Abberant about Nintendo patenting the “I Win” easy button – a system wherein designer ShigeruMiyamoto is going to have a mode that allows players to skip parts of the games that are too difficult for them to accomplish. Apparently, this new system may make it into the next Super Mario Bros’ Wii game, making the platformer beatable no matter how bad you are at getting mushrooms or jumping gaps.

Now there’s been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over this new little development in gaming. Already hurt by the idea that Wii games are at times played by people who they could totally pull a teabagging manuever on in Halo, some core gamers feel that this system dumbs games down even more. They purport that this mechanic makes games lazy and unwilling to earn victory in a manner that requires effort. Some have even declared this the beginning of the end of any game that is challenging, since you can simply skip past any of it like a DVD.

Now, since I’m such a nice guy, I’m going to not mention the glorious irony of the typical hardcore gamer, couch potato and devourer of the food groups of Deep Fried, Grease-Filled, and Pizza, calling this something that makes people lazy. I would never be so crass.

Instead, let’s try to focus on how great this will be for the industry.

How about for the obvious benefit of games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Xenosaga that have cutscenes that make you go “oooooh” and “ahhhhh” with their wonderful, 20 – 90 minute goodness? If you just want to sit back and watch the game unfold, being able to skip that annoying area where you actually hae to use stealth or beat the boss’s weak point will get you to your CGI goodness faster. Obviously, you bought a game to watch the cinema and not play it, so why not make it easier?

What about the fact that guides and videos for doing something will go up much faster? No longer will you have to wait for that obsessive youtube speed run uploader to spend the first 24 hours of the game beating it flawlessly. Now, by pressing the “I Win” button, you’ll be able to not only watch how to beat something in the most effective manner, but also brag to your friends about your achievement. How are they gonna know that that isn’t you at the controller and just some mindless bot? Maybe you’re just that good, right? World firsts, here you come!

Achievement whores should be praising this as a wet dream. Why? Simple – now there is at least one built-in achievement for each game to get – beating the game without using the “I Win” button. Hell, these borderline OCD collectors are already losing sleep over trying to get that one achievement that makes them the king of their own gamer profile. By showing people that you can beat a game without making it do it for you, you can reach a whole new level of finding merit in your own existence by simply being a “have” in a world of “have nots”. Sure, that “have” is “I have actually spent more time beating this game than being laid” but it’s a “have” nonetheless.

So let’s rejoice the introduction of the “I Win” button, folks – Miyamoto’s at least allowed two more strikes since Wii Music was such a raging success, right?

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June 11, 2009

Overly Positive Thoughts: Milo Marketing

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , , , — Leave a comment
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 01: President, Lionhea...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Those of you who’ve been keeping up with the E3 news know that one of the highlights of Microsoft‘s Project Natal motion control was a demonstration by Peter Molyneux, now the director of Microsoft’s EU studios. In this demo, we got to meet Milo, a representation of a digital AI which could interpret facial expressions and answer questions. Milo, in the form of a young boy, apparently hates doing homework, likes fishing, and thinks you need a pair of goggles to make sure your eyes don’t get wet while staring into a lake.

Now, as much as there has been buzz about this new and exciting development in not only motion control but also in game interaction, there’ve been a lot of people that have been cynical. This is partly due to the fact that the immediate thought behind many a gamer’s “between the ages of 17  and 34″ brain is how to ultimately make him into the most mentally deranged digital child on XBox Live. On this front, Molyneux has given us reassurances that when Milo is released , he will have limitations put into place to stop you from living out deep-seeded, id-motivated evil scenarios.

That’s too bad, Peter. Surely this is contradictory to your Fable series, where you could screw with villagers, your significant other(s), and just about anything else. Denying gamers the ability to transform Milo into a twisted little hellion is denying them an outlet for the unbridled rage that they must feel for being made fun of for having pictures of FFVII‘s Aeris all over their locker. The emotional scarring of repeated dunking into a toilet or of being brutally rejected by countless objects of their affection would have nowhere to go, resulting in the decline of civilization ™. I hope Molyneux comes to his senses in time to prevent the downfall of man by limiting it to only destroying Milos all over the world. Choice is a good thing!

Really though, most of the negativity comes from Milo’s relevance in the game world. Lots of naysayers have the audacity to say that Milo won’t have a place in the gaming world and that the whole exercise is a waste of time. Poppycock I say! Clearly a company like Microsoft wouldn’t spend millions and millions on a product that was either not ready to ship or would ultimately cause more harm than good in the world. 

Besides, there are tons of relevant ways in which this little Milo kid could be put to good use:

-Milo Security System: ADT better watch out, because alarms with simply annoying audio are so 1990′s. With Milo projected on screens and shrieking in an 8 year old English boy’s voice for their mummy, no thief will come close to robbing your house. And with default alert set to “I’m being molested!!!!”, you’ll have multiple authorities descending to your place of residence to stop the threat.

-Milo Parental Training: Once in a blue moon, geeks and gamers reproduce. If you have no idea what it means to be a parent, look no further than Milo, who you can raise and interact with from birth! Women can simulate breast feeding on the screen, men can be shown how not to be clueless when changing diapers, and as Milo grows, he becomes more and more petulant about getting his way, giving you the opportunity to mete out simulated discipline with the requisite save points. That way if you meant to choose a menu item and instead happen to accidentally backhand poor little misbehaving Milo, you can go back and try again. And they say the Sims are immersive. Ha!

-Milo Friend Simulator - For the lonely gamer or the programmer who locks themselves into their room to develop the next big thing, Milo is there to rescue you from your minimalist social needs. Milo will try to pat you on the back, console you when you weep endlessly about how no one will read your Kirk and Spock slash fanfiction, and administer “tough love” with a modified infrared-based electric shock peripheral. If you ever craved the company of people without the hugely inconvenient tasks of “phone calls”, “having tact”, and “direct eye contact”, then you have a friend in Milo.

So you see, all the negative people need to just get another perspective. Milo’s just another step in the inevitable march towards everything we’ve ever hoped and wanted for, and that smart people have already realized, and that is a real life Skynet. I’ve always wanted to live out a post-apocalyptic sci-fi future with a contrived story!

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