VenusGaming

When I caught the headline on Kotaku , I had a “wait, wut?” moment, but there it was: Wal-Mart is testing a video game trade-in kiosk.

According to Kotaku, there are machines being tested in the northeastern United States, noteably New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. After scanning in a game box and getting a quote, you can turn in the game and get money onto a credit card (no cash, and currently, no Wal-Mart credit - not that you’d really want that, unless you’re selling games for much needed groceries.) This is only a one-way street, too: you can’t buy used games at the kiosk.

Which begs the question: where do the used games go? I’m guessing, since the kiosks are hosted by e-Play, that they go to the company’s other kiosks to rent or sell out to other gamers who use the kiosks. But not at Wal-Mart. Crafty move by e-Play, if you ask me - and by Wal-Mart, who would rather convince people to go buy new games in Electronics than lose business.

If you want to trade games for cash, and don’t want to get yanked by GameStop, and you’re out of local game stores, screw the kiosk companies. Try SwitchGames, or better yet, FlakWolf, and trade your games for free, without the middleman. I mean, look at SwitchGames’ mission statement:

• Empower The Gamer
  SwitchGames is putting the power of trading back into the hands of the game community. As gamers, you will always decide what fair value for your game is.
• Respect The Gamer
  SwitchGames will only offer products and services that are of value to the game community. Furthermore, we will never require our community to pay us to participate in trading.
• Protect The Gamer
  The SwitchGames Marketplace is a peer to peer marketplace, where members never trade anything with SwitchGames directly, but with each other. We are dedicated to actively monitoring the site and working with our community to provide tools and services to help reduce fraud, and ensure safe trading.

Don’t keep feeding companies that don’t deserve your cash in the first place, and don’t pay you back fairly. Promote the free gamer-to-gamer business!

When I discovered Levers by vectorpark.com, I wasn’t even sure it was a game. I thought it was an interactive mobile builder. And while building a mobile is the premise of Levers, there is a puzzle to solve, that will require a knowledge of basic physics, energy, and weight balance to succeed.

Levers is easy on the eyes, with bright, simple vector graphics done in a playful, child-like style. There is no soundtrack to the game, although the sound effects that are present, such as the splashing of water, are playful and unobtrusive.

To master Levers, you’ll need a bit of understanding of mobiles. Mobiles are sculptures that rely on movement to provide their artistic effect, with  equilibrium being the key factor to keep all ends of the mobile balanced. Although they’re most common in nurseries for the average person, don’t expect to hang the mobile of Levers in a nursery: I’m sure the squid or the (eventually) headless snowman might traumatize a tyke.

The object of Levers is simple: for each stage, balance all objects on the mobile for ten seconds straight without any item touching the water below.  As the stages progress, you’ll get more hangers to attach items too, and more objects to hang. But be aware: this isn’t just a balancing of scales. Many of the objects are interactive or change over time, and require some readjustment along the way.

There’s no theme to the items on the mobile of Levers, and you can view this as either whimsical or cluttering. Once you beat the last stage, though, that’s game over: no more levels or objects await you. With reduced replayability - there may be more than one solution, but how likely is it for you to find others, or care? - it’s unlikely this game will keep you busy for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Levers is the kind of game you’d recommend to someone who really enjoys physics, mobiles, or puzzles - but nothing worth linking to all your friends.

Play Levers at vectorpark.com.

Critics of Wii Sports claim that playing “sports” as a video game -even on an interactive system such as the Wii - doesn’t compare to the real thing. And you know, they’re right - it doesn’t. But it’s a game, and it’s still fun. And when it comes to bowling on Wii Sports, well, there’s a lot of good reasons it does beat the real thing. Here’s my top ten:

1. Everyone follows bowling etiquette. The people in the lanes next to you will never, never bowl at the same time you do. They’ll never sneak up right beside you while you’re walking forward to bowl.
2. The people bowling next to you are nice. They don’t laugh at you or insult you behind your back. In fact, if they could talk, they’d be as pleasant as those nice folks in Pleasantville.
3. No drunken carousing - except your own.
4. You don’t need bowling shoes. Heck, you don’t even to stand up if you don’t want.
5. Your fingers don’t get stuck inside the bowling ball, getting nails broken or knuckles scraped.
6. You don’t have to wait for your ball to come back.
7. You don’t ever have to reset pins or call an attendant.
8. The lanes are always perfect, even if your bowling isn’t.
9. The food’s better, and bowling with a drink or nachoes in one hand is perfectly OK.
10. Bowling alone doesn’t make you look like a total dweeb in front of dozens of people.

As you can guess, I went bowling tonight and had some of these issues. After coming home in a murderous rage, I remembered how peaceful Wii bowling is. Ahh, Nintendo, how you soothe the angry beast.

I am normally very  calm, even when I am pissed. So the statement below is a rarity from me, but I’ll say it anyway. 

Fuck you, Blizzard. 

The above picture is of the achievement “The School of Hard Knocks.” One of the Children’s Week achievements, it is required for the Children’s Week title and, more importantly, for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been - that rewards the violet proto-drake. And I, along with many other people, have just abandoned their shot at the Violet Proto Drake because of this single achievement.

Yes, it’s that much bullshit.

See, here’s the thing: each of those achievements are individual based. If that’s not clear for you, let me explain: in Alterac Valley, you must be the one to cap the tower flag on the assault. Not on defense, and your buddy getting it a second before you doesn’t count.

You know what that means?

40 people trying to get credit for one of 4 towers. Not just 40 people, 40 people, most of whom don’t care about the BG, aren’t PvP geared, aren’t PvP minded, and just want their !%)&#! achievement, screw the rest of the people.

That means in every Alterac Valley, there are about 72 losers, and 8 “winners.” More winners, if by chance a tower gets defended and can be reassaulted.

And that’s AV. The worst of it, admittedly, but the fucking worst.  Now, some battle groups are going to have it better than others. But the fact of the matter still remains, you’ve got to be damned lucky to get this achievement done. No amount of PvP skill or player skill is going to net you this achievement. 

Oh, and by the way, Ghostcrawler said the achievement isn’t going to change. I guess that’s one way to force the year long drake achievement to be ultra exclusive. Brava, Blizz. Brava. 

Last week, the Washington Post cited a study by a sir Douglas Gentile that claimed 8.5% of American youths have behavioral addiction to video games. The Post described it as “the first nationally representative study in the United States on the subject.” The Post went on to say:

The study found that 88 percent of the nation’s children ages 8 to 18 play video games. With 45 million children of that age in the country, the study would suggest that more than 3 million are addicted “or at least have problems of the magnitude” that call for help, Gentile said.

The story was shocking, and was quickly all over the media. But Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, was quick to question the results. Langer said, “his study was conducted among members of an opt-in online panel – individuals who sign up to click through questionnaires on the internet in exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts.” In fact, the group that conducted the poll doesn’t even offer a sample of error - which Mr. Gentile did.

Douglas Gentile was quick to retract. “I guess I’d assumed they had gathered the population initially as part of a random probability sample . . . I missed that when I was writing this up. That is an error then on my part.”

85% of statistics are made up, aren’t they?

So the dramatic “1 in 10 teen gamers addicted” is, at best, a great exaggeration, and at worst, a flat out lie. The data was highly inaccurate, and should have never been used in something that was (and it was!) published in a scientific journal. All it indicated was that about 100 of the voluntary surveyees showed signs of pathalogical addiction. That’s nothing we can draw conclusions about.

This is why I hate the media reporting on the video game industry: they often grab data that is misinformed, skewed, or otherwise non-representative of the gaming population, and make grandious claims that end up becoming cited by the common man for years to come. Bravo for media men like Langer for rooting out the truth.

 I will confess: shoot ‘em ups have never been my genre, even if I’ve indulged in them from time to time. I never stood in the arcade, glued to Galaga or Raiden. I suck to this day at Asteroids. But in the two days since I’ve been playing Retroshoot by Armor Games, I’ve been hooked .

 Retroshoot is a side-scrolling spaceship shooter with all the basics intact: weapon powerups, special attack power ups, shields, and enemies that just don’t stop coming. It gives a lot of credit to many retro shooters of the day (hence the name), but particularly Galaga.

Retroshoot features great, simple game play - the only control you need to worry about is moving your ship with your mouse, although you can pause the game with the space bar. Your ship’s weapons are set to shoot automatically and consistently: a benefit since the pace of the game is set automatically. Enemies vary from asteroids, aliens, spaceships, and more.

You get three lives in Retroshoot, and if you run out of them, you will have an option to continue with a reset high score. Be careful, though - you only get three continues, and then it’s back to the game screen!

Retroshoot’s graphics are easy and pleasant to look at. Although the game aims for a retro feel with its spaceship and enemy graphics, they are given a soft, neon glow that contrasts great against the dark space background that moves as if it’s alive. Although the screen gets busy very quickly, you can always keep track of what’s going on.

The sound is also a treat. Although the sound effects are simple, they are not a nuisance. Your weapon is muted, and enemies are destroyed with a dull balloon popping sound that makes its own beat as you go. The music is a catchy techno beat that doesn’t go on long enough on one strain to become annoying.

There’s one thing to say for sure: Retroshoot is a great space shooter, for ex-arcade junkies and web junkies alike.

Venus Gallie’s work in the Fighter’s Guild last had her doing important missions - suddenly, we’re thrust back to doing tasks for hire. We’re off to Brittlerock cave, to help someone with their Daedric research.

As every escort so far in Oblivion has been, the experience is frustrating. More than once, she runs off into the fray ahead of me, and nearly gets killed. And when I try to get ahead of her and clear it, she just stops dead. Arggh. At least the adventure ended up being worth it:

In the midst of all this, we level to 13. Another simple task is given to us, this time to beat up some fugitives. They’re supposed to be big, tough, and scary, but they end up being incredibly easy to dispatch. Pah. At least I picked up a glass bow, and took the time to clean out my chests of some unnecessary loot.

So Venus heads back, to find Oreyn’s called. This means story time again. What is it, Oreyn?

. . . oh no. He’s not just missing, he was sent off several days ago and we’re just now investigating? Great way to take care of the guild master’s last living son. So it’s off to the Forsaken Mine, and already it looks foreboding:

I didn’t have a good feeling about going in. I had a strong feeling what I was going to find. And I was right.

Bodies everywhere; well over a dozen guild members slaughtered. There’s even a Blackwood Company man fallen in the midst. They were sent off to kill trolls. . . that’s all.

At the back of the mine, hidden behind a rock wall, lies the bodies of the young Donton and his friend, Eduard. On Donton’s body, we find a journal, that goes into detail about the poor young man’s feelings and chronicles of being shoved away after his brother died, and his joys of being given a real assignment. Sure enough, the Blackwood Company did come in. And then, the last page.

…
(it hurts)

I could practically imagine Oreyn jumping up and down, saying “Guess what, guess what?” when I picked up my next mission. Maglir defaulted on a contract again. The damned loser. . . and he’s none to kind to us when we pay him a visit in the Lonely Suitor Lodge.

Maglir tells us off, and says he’s with the Blackwood Company now. Alright, now I can see where the guild storyline is going. None the less, Oreyn acts surprised when we tell him the news.

Any way you cut it, we have to go clean up Maglir’s mess again. This time, it’s fetching Imp Gall for the Bravil Mage’s Guild. I’m noticing a trend, that the Fighter’s Guild is a friend for lazy alchemists. The cave our contact recommends to us is rather unexciting, but the extra reward she gives us is not:

Well, I suppose I did pick this up as well:

Oreyn, my dear dark elf “friend,” is severely ticked off this point, and thinks that the Blackwood Company set them up in a previous mission. Of course they did, they’re stinking mercenaries, Oreyn. We head off with Oreyn to one set of ruins, and then another, in track of the truth. Along the way, Oreyn gets shot in the arm by an arrow, and just walks it off, even as it protrudes through his arm as a clean shot. No blood!

We find the truth we’re seeking. As a result, we’ve been promoted twice, first to Defender, and now to Warder. Huzzah.

But where’s the twist? Oh, please tell me there is one.

Yesterday, EA announced MySims Agent, a mystery-solving game for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS:

-Love mysteries, twisting plots and sinister villains? Love puzzles, adventure and high tech gadgets? Now players can enjoy the thrill of solving the mystery, while re-joining their MySims™ friends. EA Play Label of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced MySims™ Agents, an original IP, mystery-solving adventure game for the Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ where players are the heroic agents who must stop a sinister plot that threatens the fate of an entire city.

The Wii version of MySims Agent will feature recruitment of various MySims to build a mystery-solving team. Players will use gadgets, solve puzzles, and collect clues to solve the mysteries set forth by the lord of the criminal underworld, Morcubus. Players can also collect treasures to decorate their base with. The DS version of the game will feature 10 mini-games, interaction with favorite MySims, and more puzzle-solving.

MySims Agents is scheduled for release in Fall 2009, and has not yet been rated by the ESRB or PEGI.

Now, maybe it’s because I’ve never played The Sims franchise, but is EA going too far with it? It seems like EA is milking the franchise for every penny before letting it die. Then again, there are still a ton of Sims fans out there, and I’m sure they’re happy to see the games being produced and released.

I look at it this way: with KOEI’s Dynasty Warriors series, I drew the line at Dynasty Warriors Gundam. I realize that KOEI’s milking the series, and in a way, Dynasty Warriors to the nth power is just repeating itself for playability, not innovations, at this point. Has EA reached that point with the Sims franchise? Maybe. But that’s for the fans to decide.

Images: Business Wire/EA

Stuck with Maglir, who’s only concerned about his pay day, Venus heads off to take care of more “theives.” Only this time, they’re Bosmers like us - and our point of civilian contact is a man with no eyes and a mug that never lets ale go cold:

Thankfully, Maglir stays rather quiet during this trip - maybe because he’s guilty too! Stinking mercenary is what he is. . . any way, the place holds a lot more than a silly mug. I came up with a rather nice haul:

Nice little cache, hmm? I was particularly happy about the bow. And Mr. No-eyes the Porter is happy to have his mug back - so happy, he opens his eyes a little.

Next up, we head off to help some poor lady near Leyawiin. She needs to pay off a 1,000 septum debt, and she’s thinking about selling some ancestral armor to do so. Well, hell lady, let me take the armor, and I’ll give you 1,000 septums. Thankfully, the game lets this be an option. So I head off and pick up a full set of this armor - decent stats, but unfortunately too heavy for me to wear the full set, so I end up just putting a few pieces on. I must say though, that the tomb is rather pretty:

The person who gives me this task doesn’t entirely seem happy I spent my own coin to do this, but clearly he underestimates the value of magical loot. I’m promoted to Protector of the Fighter’s Guild, which begs the question - do I now protect the Fighter’s Guild, or am I protector, which comes from the Fighter’s Guild? Ahh, poorly worded titles. . .

The next mission, I get to take the guild master’s overly mothered son on a mission to investigate a missing guild member. Pretty boy is a lot friendlier than Maglir, but has worse intuition - that is, he runs off frequently ahead of me. The cave we investigate leaves me one nice haul:

Mm. Tasty. We find out the missing guild member is dead (no surprise there), and meanwhile are introduced to ogres and even a minotaur, as well as the ape-clones known as trolls. I bring the boy back safe, and I’m rewarded with a nice frost dagger. Hurray, daggers - I’ve been missing one for the last few missions, so it’s nice to have a good one back. Who knows what awaits us next. . .