Comic book video games have well documented crapiness with a few shining gems.  The problem is comic book geeks (like me) want these comic book games. We want to feel like Spider-Man, and Superman, and Batman.  These are the comic books game that will best bring to life a new super hero experience.

7. Flash

A sandbox Central City might not be on everyone’s Christmas list, but it’s the only way to do Flash justice.  This speedster needs a huge environment to zoom through, fighting Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master, and Reverse Flash as he tries to save his wife and kids (this is the Wally West Flash, Barry Allen’s unlockable). Key battles pit you against teamed up villains for high pressure boss battles.

6. Real Iron Man game

The recent Iron Man game unfortunately sucked. But this awesome character should be a video game staple.  Let’s revamp the controls (more control, less speed) and focus the campaign on the Mandarin and his rag-tag group of baddies. The twist is this is an action/business simulation game.

In Mega Man-esque level choosing, you fight Whirlwind, Dreadknight, Crimson Dynamo, and more. Give us some epic boss battles with Fin Fang Foom and Ultimo and even a Dr. Doom sidequest.

The business sim comes from Tony Stark. You choose how to run Stark Enterprises, with some investments making the company more valuable and other investments making your armor more powerful.  By running the company well, you make money in order to buy those upgrades and other armor types. If you run the company badly, Justin Hammer will buy it up and you won’t be able to upgrade your armor.

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Gamers love their love/hate relationship with video game critics.  When the critics agree with us, we’re happy. When they don’t, they’re trash. But the problem with video game reviews is not the reviewers, but the games.

The problem with video games is they often have problems: technical problems.  You never see a movie, no matter how cheap or out of the mainstream, released in theaters with bad audio, poor lighting, or people getting stuck in walls. Sure you’ll have a bad actor and some bad artistic choices, but most of the “bad things” were some director’s bad choice.  Video games, however, haven’t achieved that baseline to legitimize the medium as a storytelling and artistic form.

This means video game critics must assess the quality of the game in addition to its technical prowess, namely, does it break?  Bad camera, unresponsive controls, chugging frame rates, graphics pop-in/out, and more hurt games more than a crappy story or repetitive gameplay.  A game might be awesome, but enough glitches can turn it into a dud. Games like Advent Rising, Enter the Matrix, and Two Worlds were rushed products buried under paragraphs of reviews attacking the terrible technical quality of what could have been great games.

With the technical specs out of the way, reviews could devote their time to reviewing the actual game.  We all hate bad frame rates, so reviews need to explain gameplay, story, visual style with greater depth.  Doing so would help develop video game criticism, giving us time to discuss themes and methods rather than glitches and bugs. With flawless technical presentation inline with films, video games can start being looked at for their richer and deeper qualities.

Bug checking video games, especially the epics we now have, is hard to impossible.  But the industry needs to work to find a baseline of quality guaranteed by every game so games don’t have to fear buying a game only to have it crash because they went left instead of right.

Video games have made mundane jobs like mayor and farmer fun, so just think how good good jobs can be. These are the jobs we’ve gotten to taste in video games and realized we really like them and wouldn’t mind getting paid for our labors. Hell, for 20-40 hours, getting paid to play video games is the real number 1

7. Treasure hunter

The swamps might be gross and the monsters might be terrifying, but just think of the excitement. Now the best you can hope for is to vicariously live through your slutty friend’s dating drama. I’ll take Indiana Jones style tomb raiding over slutty friend’s any day.

6. Rock star

Color matching like a 2-year-old was never so fun. And add the cheering crowds, wild parties, and maybe even a psycho circus you’ve got a recipe for awesome fun and inappropriateness, which is by default fun. So let’s get ready to rock.

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After $60 and 20 hours of effort, I want to feel closure. I do not want a dark, to be continued screen. More games seem to end with an anti-climatic final battle only to find out the real big-bad was kept hidden until the next next, yet-to-be announced sequel. I enjoy my franchises, but waiting two to four years for a conclusion is just cruel. Video games take too much time to play and sometimes (not always) longer to make for half a story.

Halo 2 infamously left players floating (and only partially resolved in Halo 3). But several cliffhanger games have yet to get sequels like Shenmue II and Beyond Good and Evil, a cruel act since these are great games with amazing stories. And who knows if we’ll see real answers to God of War and Kingdom Hearts ever.

A recent trend has started announcing games as trilogies. Halo had that distinction as has the recently released Mass Effect and upcoming Too Human. This will only make things worse.
Too Human is a great example of the dangers in video game development. This yet-to-be-released action title first appeared back in 1999 as a Playstation title (Playstation 1 to be precise). Then it moved to Nintendo’s GameCube until recently showing up on the Xbox 360. Of course, now the developer is mixed up in a lawsuit with Epic, the makers of Unreal 3 engine powering Too Human. It’s unknown if this lawsuit will further delay the game.

And this is all for part one of three. At this rate of development, assuming the game even sells enough for a sequel, we won’t see the conclusion until almost 2020. No story is that good.

Movies have figured out how to make cliffhangers work - film movies at the same time. Lord of the Rings and the Matrix left short windows between releases to alleviate the cliffhanger sting. Video games don’t have that luxury. Compared to movies, video games don’t have the variety of revenue opportunities to make up money badly spent. A Hollywood blockbuster has theatrical release, DVD sales and rentals, enforcement deals, and cable and TV royalties to help pad the bottom line. This means Hollywood has more wiggle room when thinking about how much ticket sales alone bring in. Video games, however, have initial sales and rentals and that’s it. It makes taking a financial risk that much riskier.

On top of that, gamers require each part of a video game franchise to provide some kind of enhanced experience. This prevents simultaneous development of a game and its sequel. Though it’s unknown if gamers would accept less advancement if release windows were shortened.

Since simultaneous development like Lord of the Rings seems unreasonable at present, video game companies need to rethink how to develop game stories. Stop thinking about games as trilogies and more as series or franchises. We all know Halo won’t end as a trilogy. Aside from the cliffhanger ending in Halo 3 (which kinda defeats the trilogy idea), the game makes too much money to not make a fourth. So let’s model games more like an X-Men comic and less like an episode of Lost.

Basically, each game can be a self-contained story. With 10 to 40 hours of gameplay, there’s no excuse you can’t fit everything in one game (I’m looking at you Mass Effect). That’s called bad editing.

But self-contained doesn’t mean the story totally ends. Older comics had the major villain die after every issue with some hint that they might, just might come back (which they always did next month). Allusions to sequels are okay, but closure is required. Similarly, it’s okay to leave some questions unanswered. It only adds to our love of Master Chief not seeing his face or questioning why Marcus Fenix was in prison in Gears of War. Just make sure the game we play has a beginning, middle, and a real end. I don’t to beat the final boss only to find out they were just a pawn (much like - LIGHT SPOILER - Gears of Wars’ ending).

Basically, when I pay $60 for a game, I don’t expect half or a third of anything. I want the whole story. Just like wouldn’t accept half of the gameplay (like waiting a year for combos to be added to Street Fighter) I don’t want to wait forever for the story.

One of the greatest Star Wars video games owes it all to those little building blocks called Legos. Lego Star Wars gave the duel trilogy a hilarious and enjoyable romp through the galaxy with tons of collectables, vehicles, and playable characters. More Lego games including the just released Indiana Jones and upccoming Batman lead me to wonder what else can the franchise build.

7. Power Rangers

They might be campy and kiddy, but they still have awesome video game potential yet to be realized. Awesome martial arts moves with cool weapons and giant robots all to fight a bizarre assortment of monsters. With hundreds of monsters, Zords, and different kinds of Power Rangers over the years, there’s tons of unlockables to give this game long legs. Just remember co-op. This is a team effort.

6. South Park

Let’s see the mature side of Legos by turning the foul mouthed kids of Colorado into colorful blocks of fun. Let’s even risk the cliched sandbox approach, rebuilding the entire town of South Park in Legos with missions from the show, like fighting vicious turkeys and Mecha-Streisand.

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Playing video games requires intense concentration, physical exertion, and mental strain. Being interrupted by hunger can ruin the experience or worse, your high score. Keeping a stash of efficient and fulfilling snacks can be the key to successful, marathon gaming. Important factors to consider are the food’s greasiness (no slippery fingers), healthy (the worse, the better), crumbliness (less is more), and the fullness factor.

Bagel Bites

Filling and bite-sized, Bagel Bites give you the awesomeness of pizza on a bagel. And when pizza’s on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime.

Peanut M&Ms

They melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Plus, the peanut makes them healthy.

Pringles

The least greasy and best tasting (in this blogger’s opinion) potato chip. Stick with original over other flavors to limit finger discoloration.

Oreo’s

They can crumble and are better with milk, but if you solve lots of problems by keep them in the fridge, then eating each one in one mouthful. It’s challenging and fun.

Wheat Thins

A little healthy, but these cracker treats provide some fiber to offset the other crap you’re eating.

Foods to avoid

Buttery popcorn

Grease, messy, and it gets stuck in your teeth

Anything with a wrapper

Sadly, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, Rolos, and other bite-sized candies lose out

The mature rated MMORPG Age of Conan sold itself on the key selling point of “You’ll see titties.” The game has unsurprisingly been selling quite well.

News is leaking (ha) that the game’s buxom female characters are suffering shrinkage an it’s not even cold outside. Publisher Funcom made code changes in a patch that accidentally resulted in shrinking the size of character’s breasts.

Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed. This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts. We are working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon.

I will repeat that:

Your breasts should be back to normal soon.

I doubt college prepares you for writing press releases like this. How fast Funcom takes to fix this problem will be telling about how much boobs are to selling this game. Also makes me wonder how many women actually play it. Any thoughts?

Video game developer Square-Enix deserves credit for giving credit where credit’s due. The makers of the blockbuster Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises, has released disappointing 2007 financials, leading the company’s president, Yoichi Wada, to say his developers need to “stop making games that only they wanted to play.”

Square-Enix’s profits dropped 20 percent and it ceded significant North American market share to competitors. Most of last years sales game from Final Fantasy spin-offs.

Square already seems to have a strategy in place involving new, innovative properties as Wada says, “We need to go beyond traditional Square-Enix.” Instead of shaking the Final Fantasy-tree to economic death, Square released The World Ends with You, an amazing, creative, and deep game that plays to Square’s longevity as the premiere RPG developer while expanding include a myriad of genres in one game. Upcoming new franchises like Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant could be Final Fantasy-lite or rejuvenating franchises. The company doesn’t need to do away with RPGs or even focus on other genres. Diversity and innovation in any capacity can feed the industry and be rewarded with rejuvenated fans.

While the actors unions mull their contract negotiations, one actor feels slighted by the video game industry.  Actor Michael Hollick portrayed Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV, providing voice work and motion-capture acting over a 15 month period.  Hollick earned $100,000 for his efforts, which came out to $1,050 per day he worked, almost 50 percent more than the standard $730 rate.  GTA IV earned $600 million within its first week, none of which Hollick will see.  And that’s the way it should be.

Hollick negotiated his contract for a fee he found reasonable at the time - you can’t renegotiate after the fact just because you think you didn’t get enough before.  I’ve express issues with royalties before, but Hollick’s complaint shows an lack of understand the economics of his business rather than mistreatment by evil corporations. 

As Hollick admits, he was paid a premium over acting guild rates.  He just wants a piece of that huge GTA pie.  But who bought GTA IV because of this no name actor?  Even a big name actor wouldn’t pull me into a video game I didn’t want to play anyway.   Hollick had every right when negotiating his contract to ask for royalties and GTA maker Rockstar had every right to throw him out and hire someone cheaper.  And it’s hard to believe Hollick didn’t know GTA IV would make hundreds of millions of dollars when negotiating.

The media industry has evolved itself into a corner with royalties turning into an entitlement for actors and writers rather than entertainment’s form of profit sharing.  Some companies give employees stock options to give them incentive to make the company more money.  Actors and writers argue royalties are their way of getting a fair share of the millions media companies make off their hard work, but who said business is fair?  Royalties are

I do see royalties serving a purpose with big name actors.  Major movie stars do attract large audiences and are often worth their expensive salaries.  These stars then promote their movies on talk shows and at press events, work they do months after filming finished.  With royalties the actors are encouraged to promote the film because the bigger the box office the bigger the paycheck.

But what promotion did Hollick do?  Does anyone think he did a half-assed job because he wasn’t getting royalties?  Was $1,000 a day not enough?  Or is Hollick just doing this as a publicity stunt (probably)?  Hollick was willing to do the work for $100,000 and that means the job was worth $100,000 then and now.  Hopefully the experience would net Hollick a bigger paycheck for his next job, but after this publicity stunt, video game companies might stop calling.

Television uses commercials. Movies run ads and endorsements. Video games should join the trend.

Many sci-fi and fantasy video games cannot benefit from in-game advertising. No one wants a Coca-Cola ad in Final Fantasy. But maybe there’s a compromise so video game producers can pad their bottom lines and gamers don’t have to sacrifice quality. Video games can be sponsors by companies themselves. Just like a TV special brought-to-you by a lone or small group of advertisers, a video game could be brought-to-you by a car company or soft drink.

There are a variety of ways to implement this. The game could come with a commercial a the beginning, skipable with the start button. Even if the commercial is skipped, every time you play the game you see some quick logo to remind you of the sponsor. Before you scream at me, think about how many times you already have to hit start for all the game company logos you have to sit through (do I care that much that Havok’s physics engine was used again). One more time ain’t going to kill you, especially if it cuts $10 off the price tag (or at least allows for a bigger budget and a better quality game).

Also the game box could be valuable real estate. On the back of each game bottom, there already reside soon-to-be a dozen logos of game companies and partners. Why not charge McDonald’s a million dollars to put their logo there too? And to not piss off the gamers, maybe toss a coupon in the game. For even more synergy, let McDonald’s share commercial time or sponsor free trailers and demos. Advertising won’t suck if it gives us something cool at the same time.

Production costs for video games are rising fast scaring away ambitious development (damn casual gamers). Finding a variety of revenue opportunities can calm anxious executives worried about the bottom line and, hopefully, at the same time give gamers some added value.