A while ago I watched a pretty good video on YouTube called Should Video Game Characters Age??. When I think about it, this is a really interesting concept. The kids who grew up reading Harry Potter (not me; I was the nerd who read them all within a year) grew up alongside the characters. In the first book (1997/1998) Harry is eleven years old and in the final (2007) he’s seventeen. Not only do the characters themselves grow and mature, so do the plot and themes. The early books were overall more whimsical children’s stories but towards the end there were topics such as race/class warfare and death. This is the best example I can think of that shows how to keep your audience with a story. So why don’t video games do it?

Maybe because Harry Potter games suck?

Take a look at some popular franchises (especially Nintendo ones) and see if we can find a pattern. Did you guess what they all have in common? No? I’ll just keep the prize to myself then. For the most part, the age of their protagonists and the tone of the game stay consistent. Some have been around for so long that they’re over a decade older than their target demographic. I don’t have a problem with this, but you really don’t feel as much of a connection to a character who was the same age as you were when you first played the game two kids and a wife ago. This has been done a little bit before. I’ve seen it in Kingdom Hearts 2 and maybe in Jak & Daxter (I say maybe because I never played much). But what if we had a game where the maturing of the character is really a huge focus? As always, I have a great game idea. Maybe if I do this enough someone will pay me… Nah.

We start off with our character. Billy, for boys or Jenny, for girls. Billy and Jenny are 10 years old and they deal with ghosts and monsters in their town. I know it’s vague, but the story isn’t what I’m focusing on right now. The first game is rated E10+ and Billy and Jenny have childish additudes, childish dialogues and childish personalities. Just like the real ten year-olds playing the game. Five years later the sequel comes out. Billy and Jenny are still fighting the ghouls but they’ve matured. Not so much that you forget they’re kids, but just enough that is believable to have happened between ten and fifteen. The game is rated T for teen and has darker themes and a more serious tone. The fact that Billy and Jenny are teenagers will noticably change the gameplay. Since a high school student generally has less restrictions than a ten year-old, the game world will be significantly larger.

Not included: the level where Jenny spends two hours stalking her ex on Twitter.

Finally we end the trilogy five years after the release of the second game. Jenny and Billy (now Jennifer and William) are young adults just like the kids who played the first game ten years ago. The game is rated M for Mature and it really starts to get dark and serious. There’s murder, religious themes, torture, intelligent glimpses of how the characters have grown and also been affected by these supernatural occurrences. This would be the only game franchise to go this far into following their original customers into adulthood.

Unfortunately, this game may never be made. No one with a budget wants to do anything original. Also, I doubt many studios could really plan a franchise ten years ahead. Even after L.A. Noire was such a big hit, the studio closed its doors. Oh well. It’s not like it’s my first game idea that will never happen.

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 2. Freakazoid

You know how everyone loves how lovable insane Deadpool is? Well if you crank up the insanity by 1000%, give him superpowers that operate on cartoon physics and make him  kid-friendly, you have Freakazoid. Freakazoid was a show on Cartoon Network brought to us by the same people behind Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. There’s even a great scene in Freakazoid where the three essentially go back in time and murder the fourth wall’s parents, but I digress. Click to read the whole article at GamerSyndrome.com

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I’ve talked about Halo before. Halo 2 was my first FPS and even today the more popular franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty are boring in comparison. There’s a reason that Halo was the defining franchise for the Xbox. It is the only FPS to have such varied gameplay while having a rich story and universe. It is the only thing that makes me want an Xbox is the upcoming Halo 4. Sure having an Xbox means I can play with my friends online, but if it weren’t for Halo there wouldn’t be any multiplayer game I would want to play. Since Microsoft refuses to play nice and make Halo cross platform or port to PC (a platform they own), those of us with a PS3 are missing out. If any of you have a mind for marketing you’ve noticed something very important. For those of you who don’t, I’ll fill you in. There is a market for an original franchise.

For as long as the Playstation 3 has been out, no one has taken the Halo formula and used it to make a game. Now when I say “Halo formula” I don’t mean I want a Halo clone. I want something original that does right what Halo does right. The way I see it, the Halo formula is as follows:

• Protagonist that the player can project themselves into
• Medium-sized assortment of weapons, each with their own distinct specified purpose, pros and cons
• Quick and easy use of vehicles in single-player and multiplayer
• Rich story and universe that makes room for well-written novels, comics, movies and sequels
• Unique and easily distinguishable enemy classes
• Story mode that makes the game satisfying even if you never touch the multiplayer mode

This is what makes Halo so unique and it’s so simple. You’ll notice that the COD franchise has none of these. Just six bullet points and you have the guidelines to make a great game. This is coming from a guy who isn’t paid to come up with ideas for games. Why hasn’t anyone caught on? Are developers too scared to try to come up with something great? I just don’t understand why that in the last 10 years since Combat Evolved we haven’t had anything pop up that could rival it. Maybe Dust 514 will fill these shoes, but I doubt it. I might as well give up and buy the cheapest Xbox 360 I can find and huddle up with every Halo game I’ve missed. If you don’t hear from me until spring, that’s probably what I’ve done.

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Well it’s about that time again. There’s new hardware in the wings and everyone wants to get their hands on a shiny new gadget. The iPhone 5 and Wii U have been announced months ago and now all that’s left is to sit back until they’re on shelves. But this isn’t good enough for some people. Some don’t have the patience to wait a few months. That’s why right now people are willing to spend $700 to get their hands on the Wii U. The starting bid for the iPhone 5 is $900. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Not just people, but adults, are paying for these. If you have $900 at any given moment, you should know better than spending it on something that is going to be hundreds of dollars cheaper in a couple months. It’s not like there’s any benefit in getting these early. Whatever they can do with the new iPhone that couldn’t be done before (which is nothing) can wait until it’s being sold for retail price. They just have to have it before everyone else; it’s like they’re the world’s most frivolous hipsters.

Well I had the iPhone 5 before it was popular and I see no contradiction in this statement.

This isn’t a new thing either. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was sold early for over $9000. Over $9000 is this many dollars. Someone actually payed that much to play the new Call of Duty game early. Let me tell you some things that you can buy with $9k:

• A year’s rent on a nice apartment
• 150 brand new video games
• 300 used video games
• Have a mercenary as a bodyguard for ９ days
• Give a needy family 69,120 meals (16 year’s worth)
• Hire a guy in a superhero costume for a half hour every day for three months

Yet somebody spent that money on Call of Duty. If any of you reading this are anxious to get your hands on the latest gadget, don’t get any bright ideas. Just wait like everyone else. Imagine that you’re getting paid to wait a couple weeks to not upgrade your phone. It’s really not that hard. Don’t be stupid. Please don’t. I have to lie down now, I still have a migraine from that guy buying MW3 for $9k.

One of the more sophisticated indie games.

I did today what I do every Sunday: lurk the internet from my bed for a few hours then get up and do my lurking in the basement. Because I have a penchant for low-quality cam recordings of Paranorman where some jerk decided to play their radio at the drive-in (buy a ticket; it’s worth it), I visited The Pirate Bay. On the front page I saw that a game developer had put up an ad letting people know that for today only (lucky me) he was giving away his video game, McPixel. I have to say, it’s one of the… stranger games I’ve played.

You play as the titular character, McPixel (that fellow urinating on the dynamite). You play through a bunch of levels where you have a few seconds to stop an explosion using his wits and amazing crotch-kicking skills. To tell you the truth, at first I thought the aim was to cause the explosion. Old habits die hard, man. McPixel is a puzzle game, so you’re going to have to use your imagination to win. In one level you’ll find yourself on Samuel L. Jackson’s plane with a bomb. I had to kick the bomb into the mouth of the snake and then use the shovel to force the bomb down the snake’s throat, containing the explosion. Still had enough of these motherf**king snakes on this motherf**king plane?

The style of this game is very much adult humor. And by adult humor I mean the kind of stuff on you’d find on cartoons your parents wouldn’t let you watch as a kid that really cater to twelve year-olds more than anyone else. The default result of clicking on a person is to have McPixel kick them in the crotch or butt. Other times you might get flashed by an Inuit lady flash you or, well…

I think it’s very important context that he’s going inside the robot.

But that’s not to say this game doesn’t have any funny moments. In the volcano level there’s a sign that tells you to throw in a virgin. After seeing that the woman was not a sufficient sacrifice (and unintentionally pleasuring a cow) it turns out that you need to throw yourself in. That kind of humor can only come from real life.

If I’ve learned anything from this game it’s that indie video game developers are all virgins who assault the elderly.

I’m sure that by time you’ve read this article they’re no longer giving the game away for free, and I won’t give you the torrent I used. Sos is cool enough to let you choose your price for the game. You can give him a penny or over nine thousand dollars (his joke, not mine). If you want to pay for this game I suggest at least a couple bucks. I haven’t played the whole game, but there’s probably around ten hours of gameplay on here, plus a bunch of secrets and even free DLC. This may not be one of the best games, but for what it is it’s pretty entertaining. Go to McPixel.net for more.

Also Sos is trying to get this game on Steam, so if you like what you see please take a second to greenlight it.

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Does anyone remember what it was like before streaming was a thing? If you wanted music you could either buy it or pirate it. Of course if you were too cheap or lazy to do either then you might have been able to find the track on Youtube, but that really wasn’t a very good way to enjoy your favorite songs. A little later we got Pandora, but if you wanted to hear a specific song then you’re out of luck. Earlier this year Europe finally started being cool and brought Spotify to the US.

Imagine being able to listen to around 90% of your favorite songs as many times as you want on your computer and phone with minimal ads. That’s Spotify. It seems too good to be true but this really is what Spotify does. It has a huge library to choose from, and even the way it’s organized is done really well. At the top of the artists’ pages you can see their biggest hits. Below are their albums and their guest appearances. Did you know that Less Than Jake has an entire album of TV show and commerical song covers? If it wasn’t for Spotify I never would have heard the punk-ska version of the iCarly theme song (don’t judge me). And if you’re a super cool hipster and Spotify doesn’t have the band you’re looking for, you can integrate Spotify with your local music collection. Plus Spotify’s reach isn’t just limited to older releases. I listened to Reel Big Fish’s and Suburban Legend’s new albums not too long after they came out. You’d be surprised how much easier this is than pirating.

Miranda Crossgrove here I come!

I don’t know about you, but a problem I’ve had with Pandora is that since it doesn’t let me listen to music on demand I would hear a really good song and then forget it exists. Now that I’ve been using Spotify for a few months I’ve starred 266 songs. Most of these I would only hear on rare occasions if I was only using Pandora. I even found an hour’s worth of Rap music I like. What’s even more amazing is that only three of the songs are about cartoons (I swear!). I’m surprised that more people don’t use Spotify. Only two of my friends on Facebook have it and they’re both from Europe. It’s a really good service that every music lover should be using. Right now it’s free and unlimited in America but it would be more than worth it if I had to pay $5-$10 a month for it. If you get the $10 a month package then you can listen to all of your songs even when you’re offline. They have a free radio service too, but it’s not that great. When you’re in the mood to discover new music you should pop into your browser and use Pandora. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go listen to my theme song.

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