In my last post, I talked about some of the basic components of what I feel comprises a good virtual collection.  One of the things I mentioned (about first-party Nintendo collections in particular) is that the act of collecting becomes more compelling when the player is given greater opportunity to appreciate the collection.  In this post, I’ll explore a corollary to that assertion: a collection becomes more compelling when a player is able to appreciate another player’s collection.  I think it’s safe to say that when collections move beyond the isolated realm of single-player, the driving motivational forces of collection become not those of tangible experiential rewards, but of those age-old vices of envy and pride.  The potential to demonstrate one’s superiority (or better fortune) to others is enough to make the other set-collection guidelines practically obsolete.  The very idea behind a game like Progress Quest is evidence that the compulsion to achieve in the eyes of one’s peers can be used to motivate any activity – even if that activity is purely comprised of watching numbers go up.

When considering the profound effect of exposing a player collection to the outside world, my mind immediately jumps to the Animal Crossing series.  The advent of WiFi support for the DS’s Animal Crossing: Wild World allowed players to enter each others’ towns via WiFi, a feature lauded by many reviewers as one of the best things to have ever happened to the series.  Why?  Because the player’s collection of fossils, fish, bugs, and Tom Nook’s eclectic decor suddenly went from being an odd, private obsession to an odd, shared obsession  – one in which players can admire each others’ wealth or fulfill each others’ wants.

So clearly, making a collection “public” adds a lot of motivational force to the act of collecting.  But what does it mean to make a collection “public”?  The ultimate goal of a “public” collection is to grant players the necessary means to demonstrate their ownership of particular elements of the collection and to foster social interactions within the context of the collection.  Of course, this doesn’t really narrow our definition down because, at the very least, every player can demonstrate ownership of a collection by, well, showing it to someone else.  Even in a single-player game, a player can bring his friend to the TV, load up the game, and point at all the little baubles that he’s discovered.  Or he can take a screencap and boast about it on a blog or forums or whatever may be his e-peening channel of choice.  So really, designing a collection to be “public” becomes more about optimizing and enriching the – ahem – “collective” experience.

Typically, games publicize collections in two ways.  The most straightforward method is to allow quick and easy viewing of others’ collections.  And, as is the case for collections in isolation, the extent to which one is able to appreciate a collection, whether it be his own or not, can easily influence the strength of the motivation to complete that collection.  On one end of the spectrum, there are collections such as Modern Warfare 2’s emblems, Virtua Fighter 5’s emblems, and Street Fighter IV’s titles.  These collections allow players to show off an individual element of the set as part of their avatar or their online identity, much like one might wear particularly rare or powerful loot in an online MMO.  On the other end of the spectrum are Xbox 360 achievements.  Players can easily view their accrued achievement collections on xbox.com.  They can sort their collection by game, they can compare their collections with other players, and they can view various stats – total across all games, total per game, percent completion, etc.  There’s even a third-party web widget that can be added to blogs and forums to show off total gamerscore.  All of these are simply tools that players can use to further appreciate and share their progress in the great hunt for achievements.  It’s no wonder such achievement-based collections became such a widely adopted standard in gaming (PS3 trophies, Steam achievements, game-specific implementations that are far too numerous to count).  And when Playstation Home was first announced years ago, my neurons lit up at the thought of admiring glistening, unique trophies from across all of one’s game collection adorning a vast, customizable trophy case in all three glorious dimensions.  Maybe for PS4?  I still dream of it…

The other primary means of involving others in the collection process is to introduce a greater sense of community and collaboration by allowing and supporting trades.  This obviously isn’t as well-suited to achievement-based challenge collections, but it works particularly well for steady-stream collections and possibly even for exploratory collections in some instances.  The ability to trade has been key to many gaming franchises that are built upon collections.  What we old timers once universally called “collectible card games” (CCG) are now more often known as “trading card games” (TCG), with the emphasis clearly placed on the appeal of the trading aspect.  And, when referring to the ability to trade elements of a collection, Pokemon is probably the first videogame that comes to most gamers’ minds.  Its last iteration (and the only one I’ve played over the last decade) – Pearl and Diamond – augmented the pre-existing wireless trading process by giving players the ability to trade Pokemon over WiFi.  Players could search worldwide for people willing to trade for the Pokemon they wanted and offer their own Pokemon up for trade by setting up criteria for the Pokemon they wanted in return.  Viva Pinata allowed trading of pinatas between friends.  Fable 2’s hero dolls could be traded online (although, to its discredit, online trading was the only way of acquiring them all).  It’s practically heresy for a modern-day collection-centric game to forgo online trading.  Culdcept Saga really missed an opportunity there by neglecting to implement a trading system.

And then there are probably collective interactions that we as gamers have yet to discover and experience.  Here’s hoping some talented designers find some new and exciting ways to foster creative interaction between budding collectors.

In my final post on the subject of collection gameplay, I’ll be exploring a particularly subtle yet important property of set collection whose absence becomes a noticeable detriment to the extremely niche DS game Treasure World.

Slight aside: minutes after finishing up the text of this post, I saw this in my RSS.  An Escapist article on the very same subject of collections!  It tackles tangential issues with collection gameplay rewards, but you might want to give it a read for the sake of thoroughness.  I was going to leave a comment on it, but since I don’t have an Escapist account (and don’t really feel like getting one since the content has, in my humble opinion, degraded since they moved to the 2.0 format – bring back the print-worthy format and the amazing writers!), I’ll just leave my comment here:

“…the orbs disappear until I earn enough XP to change to Silver tier.” Seriously?  As a collector, that frightens me.  I’d have to re-explore the entire environment after reaching each tier to make sure I didn’t miss some invisible orbs.  And even if you just made it so that you can continue to collect them and the Silver tier rewards are put on-hold until you reach that tier, you still get an (admittedly more localized) issue where the collecting player will be immediately overpowered after each tier transition.

This may be a couple of months old now but I stumbled across it yesterday and laughed like a fool. Ash and her dad brilliantly capture the emotions I and no doubt all fully grown adults who probably should know better felt when playing Viva Pinata all those years ago. It’s short, it’s sweet and it’s really quite funny.

Ja jeg kommer nok til at snakke en del xbox 360 de næste par dage <3

Jeg fik den sat op igår, mangler dog et ordentlig netstik så der ikke svæver ledninger igennem stuen.

Problemet er bare at jeg har nul spil. Har 2 arcade spil men i morgen kommer Cecilies far(ham der gav mig xboxen) og aflevere Cecilie og spiser aftensmad her. Plus jeg låner lige en ti spil af ham^^ (også nogle bøger af hans kæreste). Glæder mig^^

Det spil jeg allermest ville låne kunne jeg ikke men istedet får jeg bl.a. blue dragon. Et rigtig fedt spil. Og viva pinata som jeg syntes er rigtig fed men lidt børnespil. Eller det er det sådan set.

Graphics

Considering the fact that this is a family game involving living pinatas competing in a variety of different mini-games, I don’t think the graphical expectations were set too high for this party. Although this title looks like it could have been executed on last generation hardware (by the end of the cycle more so), the excellent use of vibrant colors and hilarious character animations do keep this from being an eyesore. However, given the lack of stand out environments or a true variety of pinatas available, you might not decide to accept the invitation to this party if you judge a book by its cover.

4.5/10

Story

This game lacks any form of a story but in retrospect it honestly doesn’t rate one. This is a collection of mini-games and is strictly designed for families to play together.

Not Applicable

Gameplay

As previously mentioned, this title takes a step in a different direction from the mainstay pinata series and gathers 8 of the pinatas together to compete in various mini-games. Before we break down the different things to do, it’s worth noting this supports 4 player gaming locally and online.
The most consistent of the mini-games is a race with 4 pinatas vying for the finish line. Along the way you have a wide variety of power ups to use, such as using honey to leave the course hard to trudge through or missiles which will hit and stun an opponent. This is a very basic mode which doesn’t leave a strong unique imprint on the mind of the gamer but it is a fairly entertaining venture when playing with your family. Now, for every race you complete you will get two challenge modes to play in. There are a decent number of them to participate in (although far too many are simple variations of other challenges) and will amuse most of the younger players. Some of the more impressionable ones were using button presses (in a similar vein of the game Simon) to perform disco dances or running around trying to eat candy while avoiding a massive hand trying to slap you off. Many of these are simple to perform and enable the youngings to catch on and truly take part unlike some of the oddly complex mini-game titles found on the Wii.
Now for any gamer 13 or older, the simplicity of the challenge modes along with the lack of true variety in the different modes will leave you craving for a much deeper experience. Throw in the lack of customization from not being able to make a set list of favorite mini-games or races to partake in and it will probably be traded in within a few days.
I have to admit even after writing this section and seeing some of its key shortcomings, I can’t ignore the fact me, my wife and my son all had a great time playing this title together. In the end, that means a lot more to me (and should to most gamers this title is targeted for) than anything found from nitpicking or combing through the games details.

7.25/10

Achievements

This game is going to be fairly easy to rock out the achievements for, at least for the older gamers as the difficulty in the game isn’t what I would call intense or menacing to say the least. In addition, you and some buddies (or unmanned controllers) can boost matches without fail. The key issue is having the mini-game you need the achievement for to show up.

7/10

Overall

This title may not be the most technically amazing or meaty title to sink your teeth into but without a doubt any family who picks this game up is almost guaranteed to have a good time with it. However, any gamer who is a teenager or older and will not play this game with the little ones should look for a different party to crash.

6/10

Recommendation:
Purchase (For families with children)
Avoid (For 13+ year old gamers without little ones around)

And today we welcome into the family:
Quackberry
Raisant
Newtgat

I’m so happy <3

EDIT: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the Badgesicle ate my Newtgat!
I now own a Badgesicle tho

EDIT: And a Lickatoad :3

I swear that balloon has a life of its own. There is no breeze in this room but every now and then it just traipses off across my room.

Transgenders, more than meets the eye (8)

My brain is slightly fried from sleeping around four hours in total and working a nine til half five day as a temp secretary at my daddy’s work place. I had a lot of fun. Calling randomers is fun. I wonder how many people would’ve forgotten their appointments if I haven’t called? Not the pawsh old man from (insert place here), he sounded very narked when he said “Yes, I remember! You don’t have to call me about it!”. I also got to stamp stuff, and label stuff. I’m not being sarcastic, it was funn.

You can tell I am tired, I’m not putting any flare into my story at all. And this is the most exciting thing that has happened in weeks of the “wait for uni” existence, aka Limbooooo.
Neither here nor there…

I wanna see my awesome bean because he is awesome and I am his pancake

Thought trail: Pancake = Cooking Mama = de-legging squid = leggings = my sister = STOP HERE (mega pointage at the fullstop).

Anyway, I am no officially enrolled academically and financially for univeseetay. Fun times to come!

Ok, I’m off to play Viva Pinata.

AdIoS

     Here we are for my second strange remembered dream. This one involves the game Viva Piñata: Classic. It is a children’s game where the object is to attract various piñata species (yes, animal piñatas) and breed them, produce various goods with them, let them be food for other piñatas or to just let them sit there and be pretty. My obsession with this game began when my former roommate, Chris, purchased the game for reasons beyond me. As he played it, I constantly made fun of him. But after watching for a few hours, I decided to start my own garden and see what I could do. Let me tell you, this jaun is ridiculously addicting. I really don’t understand how it’s a children’s game because it is incredibly complex. There are over sixty species of piñata, as well as buildings to house each species, other houses to process animal products, various plants that the piñatas eat. There are also ‘evil’ piñatas that wreck your garden, but can be converted into ‘good’ piñatas that can benefit the garden. Some of the species do not get along with one another and fight, and there are various species variants. Most of this can only be discovered on the internet (Viva Piñata has its own Wiki) and it is necessary to play with a laptop open next to you in order to figure out where to go next. Anyway, I guess my obsession with the game led to one of my patented Clint’s Strange Dreams®.

     In this dream, I was a participant in a Viva Piñata competition. Except this time the game is real. Can you handle it? So the producers of the game sponsored a competition where all of the piñatas, plants and buildings were real. The goal was to be the first team to max out the game by unlocking every possible species, variants and achievements. Chris and I were a team and we had our garden adjacent to other teams so we could see how they were doing. Only the best Viva Piñata gamers were involved and the competition was fierce. I remember commenting to Chris at one point that one of the other teams had achieved the coveted blue Reddhott (firefly) variation. To even get the Redhott, you need to direct a Taffly (fly) through a torch and put it out with the watering can before it gets sick. Not an easy task, because the Taffly goes pretty crazy after it catches fire.

     I started out by concentrating on the Flutterscotches (butterfly). The Flutterscotches are a tough species, because when you turn them into their variants, they become a separate species. Along with the White Flutterscotch, there are also Red, Green, Blue, Pink, Black, Brown, Yellow, Orange and Purple Flutterscotches. To get these variants, you have to feed a White Flutterscotch a certain object, usually a flower or a seed. To get the Master Romancer award, you have to have bred seven of each species, so I had to breed seventy Flutterscotches. These are potentially the most fickle piñata in the game. They almost never go where you direct them.

Oh you beautiful variants.

     By the time I had finished with the Flutterscotches, I found that Chris had made some amazing progress so we were in good stead. He had worked through about twelve of the lower species and was starting to attract some of the more high quality piñatas. He was working on breeding a Twingersnap, which is no easy feat. You have to breed two Syrupents (snake), and then wait around for the egg to make three big bounces before hitting it with the shovel. If you go too soon, you destroy the egg and have to start over again, go to late and you just get another Syrupent. But hitting it at the right time gets you the two headed snake, called the Twingersnap. After getting the Twingersnap Master Romancer award and all three variants, he was going to move on to work on the Fourheads, where the process is repeated with two Twingersnaps to get a four headed snake. I was kinda pissed because I wanted to get to smack the eggs, but he was rollin’ so I moved on to convert some of the ‘evil’ piñatas.

Try hitting a real snake egg and see if this happens.

     The ‘evil’ piñatas are called sours. I rolled through the sour Shellybean (snail), the sour Sherbat (bat), the sour Crowla (crow), the sour Profitamole (mole), the sour Macaraccon (raccoon) and the sour Cocoadile (crocadile) without too much trouble. When I got to the sour Mallowolf (wolf), Chris saved me by having already bred a Pigxie, which the sour Mallowolf has to eat to become tame. The Pigxie is gotten by breeding a Swananna (swan) and a Rashberry (pig) and the result is kind of frightening. After taming the Mallowolf, I moved on to the sour Bonboon (baboon). This species has to lose a battle to a Syrupent, a Twingersnap or a Fourheads to become tame. Most often, the Bonboon wins and you have to heal your snake and start again. That’s what she said. I eventually got through that and started working on plants while Chris concentrated on working on the Horstachio (horse) to try to get the Chewnicorn (unicorn) to appear.

The sour Profitamole. Those teeth are terrifying.

     In order to max out the plants, you have to apply the right type of fertilizer at various times during the plant’s growth cycle to achieve full growth. This is a pain considering that there are thirty-one different types of plants, all with different growth cycles and fertilizer application times. In addition, some of these plants can make your piñatas sick, so you have to keep them away.

     The dream kept going for a while, but this seems to be getting pretty long so I guess I’ll wrap it up. The prize at the end of the tournament was that you could keep all of the piñatas that you created. Since this was the only time that the piñatas would be real, the piñatas were going to be worth a ton of money and Chris and I could sell them and live off the profits forever. We didn’t actually win, but we sure got a ton of piñatas. GO US!

Someone made this Taffly. The ones we got looked better than this. Still that probably takes some skill.

—

Listen: Brand New, “Jesus Christ”
Quote: “Your heart is my piñata.” – Chuck Palahniuk

watching s. play Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. there are these characters that you hire to dig stuff up for you. they are paid laborers who work for chocolate coins. they work super long hours, kind of slouch and drag around like people forced to do hard labor for food payments. they kind of totter when they walk. this effect is heightened by the fact that they were conical hats and those wide brims make their sways more noticeable. they also wear little slipper sandals. so i’ll just come right out and say it. they are coolies and they made them look asian.

see for yourself:

image via pinataisland.info/images/4/4a/Diggerling.jpg

you kind of need to see them in the game to fully appreciate.

I always thought that procrastination was the thief of time, turns out he was just covering for the real culprit – Xbox!

Last night Dave and I decided to do a bit of gardening on Viva Pinata – Trouble In Paradise. Dave spent a couple of hours compiling a game plan of pinatas we wanted and how to get them while I watched Hollyoaks and Gossip Girl and wished I had Blake Lively’s hair.  Then the gardening began, we started off well, attracting a Jameleon, capturing a Lemmoning and taming a Profitamole but then disaster struck. We were attacked by Professor Pester, Dastardous and a a bajillion weeds. In no more than 5 minutes our pinatas were getting ill and being broken but as we had our shovels out battling the Dandelions and Hemlock we couldn’t get the Doctor to them in time. After about half an hour of tireless hacking and smashing we finally got ahead of the evil doers and faced the aftermath of the battle.

Jammie the Jameleon no longer has his mate, Dodger, Turk the Tartridge is without his good lady wife Carla and the Reservoir Dogs Flutterscotches are down to just Mr White!!!

I realise most of you won’t have a clue what I am talking about but this is the other problem with computer games, they suck you in, you become obsessed with them and start referring to them as if they were real life!!!

So, about 3 hours of playing have resulted in far less pinatas than we started with and so ultimately were a waste. Procrastination would probably have been more productive!!!

by AXIS of Reality

©2009 Alex Baldwin

In the never-ending battle for technical graphical supremacy, there aren’t any winners.

While we can compare spec sheets, polygons, parallax mapping resolution and pixel counts, in the end it doesn’t mean a thing.

What’s important is how it artistically appeals to you as you are immersed in the carefully crafted virtual world.

So with that in mind, it’s time for an artistic look at the Top 10 Best Graphics This Generation.

#10 Crysis

Starting at #10 is a game that could actually win some of the spec sheet arguments. Crysis was unleashed onto our PC screens in the crowded release period of Christmas 2007.

Having been teased with numerous videos of photo-realistic beaches and tropical jungles, it was with dismay that when many gamers hit play for the first time they were presented with what appeared to be a tropical island slideshow.

Yes, Crysis was known for making even the most overclocked beast of a machine cry as it threw around DirectX 10 effects without a care for your poor wheezing PC, but a few PC hardware generations later and most gamers can get it running along happily.

And what a sight it is – sun streaming through the leaves as bullets go whizzing by (with object-specific motion blur naturally) that created the illusion of reality so well it was truly beautiful for it.

While some may argue that mimicking reality isn’t artistic in the usual sense, the detail and care taken in crafting the environments was striking as many natural effects we take for granted in real life were suddenly apparent in a game that made the beaches and forests (and ice eventually) so convincing it was hard not to just sit and stare in wonder.

#9 Prince of Persia

Ok, no surprises here (unless you were thinking of The Sands of Time, in which case get up to date!). Prince of Persia’s 2008 revival was a great success with a new ‘illustrative’ art style to mark the occasion.

They have mixed hand-painted textures with selective cell-shading (though don’t say that to Ubisoft – they don’t like anyone saying it’s cell-shaded) to create a visual feast where at any one time the scene could look like an image straight out of a graphic novel.

It also helped that the animation was silky-smooth as the Prince and Elika leaped and bounded through a variety of landscapes that once at the end of each level would be transformed into a lush paradise.

The use of thin black outlines only on the characters contrasted brilliantly with the washed-out more painted-looking environments to really make them seem to jump out of the screen.

#8 Viva Pinata

This is one most people would forget about when doing a list like this. Rare’s new IP for the 360 was a critical success (if not commercial), and the first sign that the magic Rare’s games used to have was back.

The visual stylings were taken directly from the theme – taking care of pinatas in a garden.

Everything looked like it was made from the same paper the pinatas were, fully 3D with oversaturated colours but avoiding the ‘kiddy’ look by giving everything a soft velvety glow.

While the pinata designs and animation were fantastic, it’s some of the more subtle effects that help give the game its trademark look.

Slight variations in colour between adjacent paper ‘leaves’ on pinatas and the grass prevent any appearance of repetition, while when viewed from up close it has a more organic look.

Most games with set land areas such as RTS and city-builders appear very tiled and predetermined but Viva Pinata neatly sidestepped this trap so that no matter what angle it was viewed from, it always looked appealing and less ‘gamey’ with no visible polygon edges or imperfections.

#7 Assassin’s Creed

The game itself may have disappointed some buyers after the massive hype, but it can’t be denied that it was a fantastic visual experience.

The highlight was of course the animation, providing smooth freerunning across rooftops and scaling walls.

The procedural animation engine ensured that no matter what angle a wall was climbed at or how far a jump was, Altair’s hands and feet would always connect with the most natural points. No simple cycle animations here.

The colour palettes and city architecture were also a treat, giving each of the 3 major cities a unique look and feel through building details and colour filters.

Everything blended perfectly, with little of the flaws some other games have where certain objects will stick out like a sore thumb or have a strange appearance such as the ever-common physics objects lacking the same lighting everything else has.

#6 Mirror’s Edge

Again, a staple inclusion for the utterly unique imagery on show here. Despite underwhelming sales, absolutely every gamer on the planet has at least seen screenshots of this.

Rendering every surface in pure, over-exposed white, key objects and naviagtion markers are coloured a single bright standard colour such as red, blue, orange and green.

This is in stark contrast (literally) to the hyper-detailed world many current games are spalshing on our screens.

The purpose of this unusual visual choice is to remove all unneccessary ‘clutter’ from the player’s first-person view as they run and leap across rooftops following the coloured cues.

The feel and identity of the game is a result of the styling, and worked great even if some other aspects of the game could have used the same care. DICE are definitely to be commended on this brave move, especially with a more rigid history of games primarily in the Battlefield series.

Your vote wanted

Part 2 Coming Soon

In the next part, I’ll be covering the top 5 most beautiful games of this generation. For any of the titles you aren’t familiar with, a quick Google (or ‘Bing’) for screenshots and videos should get you up to speed.

After all, while gameplay is incredibly important in a game, the visual identity is also a major contributing factor to your experience. So much so, that one of the top 5 games I actually may not have even enjoyed if it wasn’t for the art…

So did you agree with the list so far? Disagree with any? Thinking of any I missed? Feel free to voice your thoughts in the comments, and you’ll need to see if the top 5 matches what you would put there or not in part 2.

©2009 Alex Baldwin

Please share us around

It is very different from the other list of titles released. Here’s the list:

Idolmaster
Idolmaster Live 4 U
Viva Pinata
Need for Speed: Most Wanted
Perfect Dark Zero
Bullet Witch
Fight Night: Round 3
Rainbow Six: Vegas

These games will be priced at ¥2000 (USD$21). The main problem with this is that you get the games a lot cheaper than this.

Games on Demand will be released worldwide on August 11th.

Recently gotten addicted to Viva Pinata: TiP again. Brian got a 360 and was looking for ways to catch up to me in gamerpoints, so I reccommended the first Viva Pinata – pretty much every 5/10 minutes you get an achievement

TiP isn’t as free with doling out points though and watching him play got me itching to go back to all my gardens. How gutted was I when I start up the game and find my save file had been corrupted, just like my Fable II one?! I reckon this is down to me copying the saves and the game over to the new harddrive a while back, because for both games I had to re-install them in order to play the game from the HD, and all other saves I had from before, that I didn’t install to HD work fine.

So I had to start all over again. I think in terms of level I’m at the same level I was in my old game, and that only took me a day or two of play in total. I also got to be better organised this time, like work on attracting and achieving Master Romancer one pinata species at a time, then boxing up 4 for variants and any others separately if they’re needed to meet other requirements. I love the collecting aspect of the game!

The thing with Viva Pinata is it can be pretty crazy for a while;. Every so often you do something that’ll attract even more pinata to your garden, you’ve got to keep an eye out for Ruffians and Professor Pester and tame/keep out the Sour pinatas. But I’ve completed the Tour of Sour, bought the Captain’s Cutlass and built a small fence to keep Pester out (this is a glitch I think, but it works wonderfully), as well as become a Master Romancer of 18 pinatas now so I can keep them out of my garden too. It’s all very peaceful :3

I love how much better all the controls are compared to the original VP too. Getting the plant awards is much easier now you don’t have to go to Lottie’s shop to get seeds and then get fertiliser (once you plant a seed, press left on the D-pad and it brings up the fertilser menu). I’ve also made more of an effort to get wildcard pinatas this time around – I think I only forgotten to do it for the Bispotti so far. Still have to work on getting the twin pinatas achievments though, only managed to get twins with 3 that I’m an MR for…

Haven’t tried out the co-op aspect of VP: TiP yet either. Since B has started a game on TiP too, I’ll see if I can either co-op with him in one of his gardens or him in one of mine. He’s playing Lego Star Wars at the moment though, and I’m starting to get Pinata Island withdrawl

My old garden before it got corrupted

I love video game merchandise. I think there is always room for more stuff in my cluttered room, and the more creative toys are much cooler. So here are some games I think have room for improvement in the merchandising department.

Nuka Cola (Fallout)

Tons of possibilities here, from a Nuka Cola mascot (like the polar bears- maybe a zombie bear?), Nuka Cola plushies, t-shirts, posters, and actual Nuka Cola products, like those 1-Up and T-Virus Antidote energy drinks. And don’t forget Nuka Cola Quantum (kinda reminds me of Slurm).

Murlocs (World of Warcraft)

Seriously Blizzard, make some Murloc Suits IRL. They’re in demand in game, so Blizzard should just sell them at conventions. I would buy one. Or a Murloc plushie. Hey, they’ve got Cthulhu plushies, and I think a Murloc plush would look good next to my Christmasthulhu.

Piñatas (Viva Piñata)

My friends and I heard Burger King had Pokemon toys, and we went to go get some, so I went up to the counter to ask what kind of toys they had, peeked inside and saw a plastic Fizzlybear and walked right back to the table. My friend and I routinely sing the theme song from the game, so we were super excited. They also came with a few tiny cardboard stand-up characters inside. This is one example of good merchandising, not so good PR work- more people should have heard about this! So that wraps up my contribution to the video game toy market. Please steal these ideas, game companies!

A friend recently applied for a job at High Voltage Software, so I decided to check them out. Right off the bat, I liked the pleasingly retro use of the word “software” in their name. (Although on second thought, perhaps it wasn’t retro usage when the company was founded in 1994). Browsing their unusually diverse collection of past and future titles made me wonder why I didn’t already know more about them. Their current high-profile title is The Conduit, one of the few FPS outings developed for the Wii.

The Conduit seems pretty rad, but what really caught my eye was the trailer for Animales de la Muerte, a game about a zombie apocalypse in a Mexican zoo. Seeing cartoonish, cutesy animal zombies taking bites out of each other’s heads reminds me of what might happen if Left 4 Dead and Viva Piñata were left to melt in my car in the North Carolina summer, congealing into a single sweet and sickening title.  The publisher is still TBA, so here’s hoping this intriguingly weird venture has the funding it needs.

Also, I’m all for names like “Animales de la Muerte” that make me feel like I’m multilingual while barely taxing my memory of high school Spanish.

From/De: Video Games Live

VIDEO GAMES LIVE PREPARES FOR 12 BIG SHOWS IN JULY

Special Performances and Special Guests to Compliment Record Breaking Tour

Highlights Include Performances with the National Symphony Orchestra at WolfTrap, 3 Day Gaming Event in Winnipeg a Special Blizzard Performance with the Houston Symphony and the Return to Comic Con with the San Diego Symphony

LOS ANGELES, CA – July 3, 2009 – The worldwide phenomenon Video Games Live (recently enshrined in the Guinness Book of World Records) is proud to announce 12 performances throughout the month of July.  Each show will be unique and many will be highlighted by special performances, conventions and/or special guests.  Video Games Live has grown tremendously over the past 5 years of touring and currently has over 60 shows planned around the world for 2009.

Some July tour highlights include a special 3 day gaming event in Winnipeg with the Winnipeg Symphony (July 6 – 8).  The 3 day event includes 2 unique show performances and a half day festival event with Future Shop including a major Guitar Hero competition, special industry Q&A panel, video game cover bands, prize give-a-ways and more.

On July 10th Video Games Live is honored to once again be performing with the National Symphony Orchestra.  After 2 very successful sold out shows at the Kennedy Center in 2007, this time around they are headed to the 6,500+ seat WolfTrap Filene Center for a day of family fun and entertainment.  The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will be on hand supporting Video Games Live and passing out important industry facts and information to attendees.  Very special guests will include Civilization creator Sid Meier and the original Civilization IV vocalist Ron Ragin.  Also joining the show is legendary game composer Grant Kirkhope who is best known for his scores for Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye, Banjo & Kazooie, Perfect Dark & Viva Pinata.

On July 18th the Houston Symphony has teamed up with Video Games Live and Blizzard Entertainment to put on Gamer MusiCON 09 which will include an entire day of gaming activities (courtesy of Game Crazy) and TWO show performances.  The first afternoon show entitled Blizzard Live! will be a special presentation showcasing Blizzard Entertainment titles including the Warcraft , StarCraft and Diablo series of games.  Included in this event will also be a World Premiere of never before performed Blizzard music.  Five Blizzard composers will be attending the event and participating in panel discussions as well as Q&A sessions and meet & greets with the audience.  Halo composer Mike Salvatori will be making a special guest appearance a few days earlier at the Ft. Worth, TX performance taking place on July 14th.

On July 23rd, Video Games Live once again returns to the San Diego Comic Con to perform with the San Diego Symphony on the waterfront behind the Convention Center at the beautiful outdoor Embarcadero Marina Park.  Synchronized fireworks will be a part of the production as well as many special guests from around the world.

VIDEO GAMES LIVE JULY TOUR DATES

July 6, 2009 (8pm) – Winnipeg, MB – Centennial Concert Hall – Winnipeg Symphony
July 7, 2009 (6pm) – Winnipeg, MB – Centennial Concert Hall – Special Festival Day
July 8, 2009 (8pm) – Winnipeg, MB – Centennial Concert Hall – Winnipeg Symphony
July 10, 2009 (8:30pm) – Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap/Feline Center – National Symphony Orchestra
July 11, 2009 (8pm) – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Hall – Pittsburgh Symphony
July 12, 2009 (2:30pm) – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Hall – Pittsburgh Symphony
July 14, 2009 (8pm) – Ft. Worth/Dallas, TX – Bass Performance Hall – Ft. Worth Symphony
July 18, 2009 (3pm) – Houston, TX – Jones Hall – Blizzard Live! – Houston Symphony
July 18, 2009 (7:30pm) – Houston, TX – Jones Hall – Houston Symphony
July 23, 2009 (7:30pm) – San Diego, CA – Embarcadero Marina Park – San Diego Symphony
July 27, 2009 (8pm) – Cincinnati, OH – PNC Pavillion
July 31, 2009 (8pm) – Lewiston, NY – Artpark – Buffalo Philharmonic

Complete tour dates, details and tickets are available here:
http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates.

Recently I’ve been having weird dreams. Not the common “I’m falling off a cliff” or “I’m being chased” ones, I’m talking about “where the hell did that come from?” ones.

Let’s start with my dream I had Saturday night … in this dream I was gay and romantically involved with a black male (a recent acquaintance of mine in real life). The dream starts off with me seeing my lover off as he leaves to go somewhere with someone I assume is a business associate because of that person’s attire and the vibe of the dream.

Next thing I know I’m being questioned by police for his disappearance, and this passive-aggresive bull-dyke of a cop with a sweet and innocent voice asks me to lay on the ground so she can handcuff me, which I do. While she’s telling me in her sweet innocent voice that she understands I probably think I’m not the one who did it, she’s wrestling my arms as if they’re trying to get away – that’s some contrast there.

As Officer Hooks (“Police Academy” reference) is wrestling with the cuffs, I see a group of business people walking past us without any sign of acknowledging my ordeal, and one of those gentlemen was the person who was with my lover as he left. After seeing them I somehow ask Hooks if I can go talk to that man to see where he and my lover went, but I wake up as soon as we meet face-to-face.

Last night my dream was even more surreal. It started off with a group of people getting together with our “Viva Pinata”-themed vehicles (they were similar to the back of older fire trucks) in a dark area. I wouldn’t say we were free-floating because I did notice we were on something, but I don’t recall anything else around us other than darkness.

As we’re chatting away, our vehicle benches flip back, we’re suddenly harnessed inside a wire mesh ball surrounding our vehicles, and then we start spinning. During this whole episode we have our eyes closed. I find it amazing how I can understand things when I’m impaired in a dream, and yet in real life that would be far from reality.

As we’re spinning, a distant head (a combination of a clown and the Michelin Man) draws closer in the dark space of our thoughts, taunting us. After spinning and being taunted for a while he finally says we can open our eyes, and the spinning sensation immediately stops. We notice that we are in space with the head now in front of us, and then we somehow start to freefall horizontally in slow motion towards it.

What I find funny is that I was afraid because of the scenario, but the head wasn’t scary in a typical “scary face” way – it was cute and smiley, and as we hurl towards it, it continues to smile big, no gnashing teeth or lip smacking, just smiling with a sideways glance.

Another odd aspect of the dream was that I shifted back and forth between a first-person and a third-person perspective. While in a third-person perspective, I notice that the ball we are in is the same size as the head, and then I woke up.

I first played Viva Pinata a few years ago around a friends house. Spent hours on it, addicted from the onset. I really shouldn’t be let near addictive sim games… Harvest Moon… Animal Crossing… those kinds…. I waste hours and hours on these types of games, and buy multiple versions of whats basically the same game with a few added bits. Sometimes not even extras… I bought Viva Pinata on the PC when I first got addicted, but alas, no 360, so had to settle for the PC version, still awesome. Tho on my slow-ass computer it wouldn’t run nicely… much like Sims 2 wouldn’t on my old laptop… runs ok on this one. (Thats another game I shouldnt have been let near…)

So… reason for a Viva Pinata rant, tis what I’ve been doing for the past week, instead of spending 12+ hours a day online lol I’ve migrated from one screen to another. I have Klonoa to play too.Vision 5-2 is a bitch… or…one part of it is…. lots of those bomb-critters… tis hell to avoid being pushed on the platform by the explosion if I jump for one of the important bits you gotta collect. Back to bashing in Sour Sherbats and any other interloping Pinatas….

Ahhhh Fudgehogs and Fizzlybears. Don't Fudgehogs sound just a little bit rude? Or is it just my filthy mind? lol

Viva Pinata is one seriously sweet game. I mean sickly sweet. Not just cos the pinatas are named after food, but just all the colours, the graphics, its so pretty, and you can dress them up too, not right away, when you’ve leveled up a bit. Just today I put a bonnet on one of my Quackberrys. And a wind-up key on a Fudgehog, and a scarf on a Pretztail. (I resent having to feed my Quackberry army to my Pretztails in order to breed them…. but it has to be done… to be a master romancer in each species…. My Mousemallows and Bunnycombs were bred, then sold or eaten afterwards. Made quite a bit, but not sure where those chocolate coins have gone… need more cash….

Ahhh pretty little Bunnycombs… I had to feed my precious bundles of joy to the Pretztails to get them to be residents… had to do that with Sparrowmints too… that reminds me… must become a master romancer of Sparrowmints… keep selling them when they become residents lol… Can’t do that… hehe…..

I think I might go see if the TV is free downstairs.. to get a bit of late night VP in, since I’m always up stupidly late anyways, might aswell do something semi-productive with my time hehe. I wil try to update more!!!

On a side note, finished Sexy Voice and Robo a few nights ago… the end was so sad… why did they have to leave it that way…. am gonna have to read the manga now, see how that ends… not even sure if its finished yet….. anyways… Ja ne!