Wii U

I've been asked a few times if I will be getting a Wii U, and what my plans are in regard to the system. Basically, my plans are... I have no immediate plans. Nintendo will not be sending review hardware to GameCritics (they never send us anything!) and discretionary spending on a new console is on hold right now. Apart from that, I've looked at the release list and as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to get excited about.

Survival horror games aren't what they used to be. Once upon a time, they were about survival and horror. It makes sense. It's what the genre is called, after all. These titles would encompass qualities of mystery and exploration as the player fought to stay alive with every step. Over the years, they've increasingly become about action, gunfights, and an overload of cheap jump scares. I prefer the former, despite a plethora of the latter.

It's time again for one of my "house-cleaning" posts where I toss up a bunch of random bits and links to stuff and get it off of my computer.

I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers are "getting paid off" for good scores.

In the wake of the success of Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter, supporters are eagerly watching the stretch goals to see what promised goodies will be put into the game. Meanwhile, I am hoping to see one thing left out: voice acting. Done correctly, voice acting can significantly improve a Japanese RPG. However, recording voices for characters diminishes a Western RPG, regardless of the reading's quality. For this reason, I feel that Western RPGs should avoid having voiced dialogue.

Extra Credits has an interesting two-part discussion about the hero's journey, a concept explored by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thatgamecompany's Journey is the game example featured here (along with The Legend of Zelda) but this seems to be a concept exploited in all entertainment genres.

What do all of these big-name games have in common? They were all worked on by a studio you might not recognize—Demiurge. After helping the big boys with these heavy-hitting titles, they've stepped out of the shadows with Shoot Many Robots, their own original IP.

And you thought the worst that could happen to a Pokémon in a fight was that it might "faint." No sir, in fact there are repercussions that could come back to haunt you.

Caution: Crude language

A funny thing happens to a person when he or she gets older. The person remembers how things used to be, or, at least, how they used to be for that person. There have been times over the past few years where I've become increasingly more frustrated with video games in the current time, and I feel that my reasons are fair… but I might be unfairly basing my dissatisfaction and disappointment on my own perspective and memories of how I remember video games as I grew up.

The guys at Extra Credits take a look at "power creep." For those that don't know, power creep is when elements introduced in a game grow in power compared to when the game was originally launched. Or something like that. Given how prevalent persistent worlds have become and how common it is for games to be patched with new areas, features and items, power creep can become a huge issue for the loyal fanbase. This Extra Credits video takes a look at power creep and solutions that would fix it—or at least keep it at bay.