Toronto Thumbs

Two tales
The welcome rumour and the crazy CEO

The August doldrums officially beat me down from any attempt at writing, and most attempts at gaming.

However, it seems that on the cusp of September, the ol’ Xbox has wooed me back to its warm and comforting bosom . . . wow, that sentence actually gave me the creeps.

Back on track, I was welcomed again into the video game world this week with one of the juiciest bits of gossip I’ve heard in a while. Gaming news site Xbox 360 Fanboy is reporting that a US$200 Xbox 360 with a Wiimote-style controller may be on the way for the 2008 holiday season.

Citing a source in Microsoft’s marketing department (who has already done a great job at getting publicity even if the rumour turns out to be bunk), the site said Xbox will be taking on Nintendo’s Wii, which has been killing the 360 and the PlayStation 3 since its release.

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Posted in Editorial | 2 Comments »

DON’T BELIEVE THE HATE
Too Human is surprisingly good

The Internet really seems to have a hate on for Too Human and Denis Dyack, director of Silicon Knights (the studio that developed the game). I’ve been following the development of this game somewhat closely over the last few years – in fact since the launch of the Xbox 360. Why was I so interested? Mostly because it was actually being made right here, in Canada, and on top of that not too far from where I live. In fact, in a town I spent much time in visiting family and friends.

The game’s development had been a slow process, and admittedly one that probably had its fair share of setbacks which other games have not faced. The earliest screenshots I’ve seen from Too Human were from a GameCube version and I gotta tell you, I’m glad it wasn’t released on that console. But Silicon Knights’ game that was released for it, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, was heralded as a breath of fresh air and many to this day still feel it’s one of the best games available for that system.

Me, I couldn’t see it at the time. At the time I was still dizzy from the flash-bang that was the jaw-dropping Resident Evil remake for the ‘Cube. While I had a review copy of Eternal Darkness, I ended up shelving it and eventually trading it in for god-knows-what. It’s a decision I sometimes regret, though I could always go out and buy a used copy.

Now, we’re on the eve of the release of Too Human (as of this writing), and it’s looking a whole lot better that the GameCube screenshots did. In fact, it’s looking a lot better than early 360 screenshots showed.

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Posted in Canada, Editorial, News, Xbox 360 | 9 Comments »

The Star Wars Kid in Me is Happy, Sad

Used to be I’d buy a Nintendo system just because there was a must-have Star Wars game for it. Super Nintendo had Super Star Wars. N64 had Shadows of the Empire. GameCube had Rogue Leader.

Wii? It has Star Wars Lego. I already have that on the GameCube and the DS (worst game purchase decision ever, as it’s a buggy piece of crap).

Being a Star Wars nerd through and through, I was of course very excited about the Wii’s motion controls being used for an awesome Star Wars duelling game – and we’re getting that, sorta, with the upcoming Clone Wars game. But wait! Just a day before showing off that game at E3, Nintendo announced Wii MotionPlus, which is a little dongle for the Wii Remote which will allegedly give the controller true 1:1 motion controls.

Me? I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m still a little stung from… oh, every third party Wii game having faulty controls that work properly half the time. Luckily some games have given the option of other controller support or they would have been a total lost cause (Mortal Kombat Armageddon, I’m looking at you).

Now the whole downside to Wii MotionPlus is that it likely won’t be used for this upcoming Clone Wars game! But is it really that big of a deal when I can just play Jedi Academy multiplayer over and over again without the fear of breaking all the lamps in my house? I guess not.

I mean, how stupid would LucasArts have to be to NOT publish a 1:1 lightsabre-heavy Star Wars game?

Posted in Editorial | 4 Comments »

The CON/text
Plague Dogs, Paper Gods, and Game Blogs for Dialogue

Growing up with the intention of writing blighted me with a severe tunnel vision for many years.

Even while struggling against the traditional path, I subscribed to some part of it. The idea of furthering education, of developing a sense of voice and style, and of cultivating a self loathing to the question of what it was I planned to do with my life, all of this seemed necessary if I was going to create a great work of fiction.

Today’s minor dose of “Know Your Jamie” is where I detail that intention: I desired only to write fiction if there was a way to augment style and narrative to create a work that felt new, or at the very least presented new challenges. Which is a fancy way of saying, I certainly did not want to write the same story someone else wrote but with new character names.

And that’s a very hard thing to do. My best advice to the aspiring writer is to try to lean heavily on the slipstream. But since I’m not on the best-sellers list, feel free to ignore my advice altogether.

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The CON/text
Should We Miss Sega?

On March 16 2001, Sega Corporation Chairman Isao Okawa died of heart failure at a Tokyo hospital. Even for long-time gamers the name may not be familiar, but Okawa was the founder of CSK, the conglomerate that bought Sega in 1984 while the gaming industry sought to emerge from the American video game crash. Okawa was deeply committed to the success of Sega, the Dreamcast console becoming his personal crusade in the then-battle to take back market dominance from Sony’s Playstation. The massive finances Sega required to launch the Dreamcast not only came from CSK, but also nearly half came from Okawa himself. Even after the demise of the Dreamcast and during Sega’s switch from console manufacturer to third party developer, Okawa donated shares of the company back to Sega to help create the cushion for the transition.

Though the primary concern for men of business is exponential growth, under Okawa’s leadership Sega became, and remains in many gamers minds the most striking example of a company committed to the risks of innovation. The consensus today is that this very spirit of creativity is what would ultimately stretch the company too thin and cause later disasters, and yet for all the market failures there were just as many memorable successes. Sega was a company always moving toward the future at a heightened pace, with innovation seen as the key to overcoming their competition. The true lament of his death is the loss of a figure that could hold a company together through such upheaval while maintaining creativity in an industry where management teams threaten to outnumber designers and artists.

Following Okawa’s death, CSK quickly sought to sell Sega, romancing companies such as Namco, Bandai, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. But it was Sammy Corp that purchased the majority shares, allowing Hajime Satomi to become CEO of the new Sega-Sammy Holdings in October of 2004. And that event led to the subsequent reorganization of the company that helped destroy one of the most creative environments the game industry has ever known.

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Posted in Editorial, The CON/text | 2 Comments »