With the arrival of Alan Wake this week, a game that claims to be deep in the horror genre,  ’Horror Games’ are once again on the tips of every gamers tongue. And while this game has yet to reach my hands, and I’ve yet to make a judgement, I’ve been thinking about, and investigating, the types of Horror Games that have been released over the last 2 decades. And while taking an in depth look at each of these games is beyond the scope of this article, a cursory glance and criticism of some of the more popular horror games begs to be written.

Take Dead Space. On paper it should be the type of game made for me: mutated creatures, space, death by dismemberment. Silent Hill too. But these games fall to the same problems that so many horror films fall victim to: because they don’t know what horror should be, they try to recreate the elements of what current pop-culture tells us what a horror movie (and game) should be. They don’t understand or know how to shock the psyche of the gamer, and because they are trapped by the very definitions of what a modern game is, they contrast their frightening jumps with a lack of anything happening at all.

In Dead Space you are alone, trapped on a space-ship infested by aliens that were once human. The ship is quiet, but occasionally monsters jump out at you. That’s the premise, but here’s the problem: what is horrific about humans turning into monsters, if you’ve never met these humans before. What’s terrifying about a quiet spaceship if you’ve never seen it bustling with activity? What is at the core of good horror is context: the Dog Monster at the beginning of The Thing is terrifying not only because it is grotesque, bloody and just strange to the crew of Outpost #31, it is because it used to be the dog that we were introduced to at the beginning of the film. The Norris monster is absolutely terrifying because shit man, that was Norris not 3 minutes ago! In Dead Space there is nobody in the ship that I can connect with: every human I connect with is done through glass, or through communications and video recordings. Nobody is left in the ship and I have no context as to what this strange place was like before. Ridley Scott’s Alien introduces us to the Nostromo as a ship that is fully functional and we see it running in its day to day. So when an alien infiltrates the crew what was safe is now unsafe: it is the predatory grounds for something to which we the audience have never seen before: and it’s in the area that the characters deemed safe.

But it’s not just about giving context. Alien, Jaws and The Thing and any H.P. Lovecraft story all have a deep-rooted theme that the situation is exploiting. Alien is the fear of the unknown; The Thing asks what would you do if you couldn’t trust the  people you were trapped with; Jaws looks at our fear of sharks. What theme is Dead Space or Condemned trying to explore? Most of these games seem to be trying to mimic what was succesful about successful horror movies.

Dead Space and games like it also fall prey to what they think will heighten the fear of a game. In a movie you always fear for the survival of the main character – in Alien it’s Ripley. In a game the point is to survive, so the player knows that there is never a danger of the main character permanently dying. Instead Visceral Games and developers like them relying on ammo and save point mechanics to heighten the fear: you will always be afraid of not having ammo and you’ll have the fear of having to redo an entire section of a game because you cannot save your game except where the developer tells you to. Unfortunately this goes against the root of all sound game design: never frustrate the player. And really it doesn’t make any logical sense: if the player is conserving ammo, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having the player kill all creatures with the weapons you provided? And why on earth would you punish a player by having them repeat, sometimes over and over, a long section of gameplay that really, you only intended them to play once?

While a poor game in implementation, I think Alone in the Dark had the idea right when it comes to weapons: if you have the player create the weapons themselves then you elevate the fear not by running out of ammo with which to kill your enemies, you limit the player in what they can build by what parts are available to the player. Sorry, looks like you can only attack this creature with a can of spray and a lighter. Pretty brilliant when you think of it. And Dead Rising had the same idea: the entire mall is full of weapons you can utilize, so the fear doesn’t come from will you have enough ammo to get rid of these monsters that you must kill, it’s will this item I just picked up be enough to take out the zombies that are attacking me. Unfortunately Dead Rising’s mechanic and enjoyment was completely exorcised by it’s horrible savepoint system; a system in which you must run to the bathroom to save over your only save point. For many it drove players away because the mechanic was taxing and drove you out of the gameplay.

We’ve seen many attempts at getting horror right. And some fans of Silent Hill or Resident Evil might argue that I just don’t get Survival horror. My counter-argument is that Survival horror, based on Japanese minimalist and psychological horror, doesn’t have a place in games, especially in the current market where action reigns the dollar. The point of a game is to entertain, and you can’t entertain if you don’t have anything happen. And by no means do I think that the solution is to go with the current fad of slasher horror: Rockstar’s Manhunt showed that the gaming community had no interest in that. Instead we need to look where a player feels the safest and jump them there; we need to look at building up relationships with other digital actors, and literally rip them apart. We need to take those situations and make important thematic messages about environmental degradation, a collapsing economy, war, universal health care and poverty because the best horror movies — Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, Jaws, Nightmare of Elm Street —  do just that. Right now our industry is trying to find it’s footing and discover what is a money maker and what is not, and until they do there won’t be many publishers and developers willing to risk the money the way that George Romero, FW Murnau and John Carpenter did.

1. Chud.com: Before games my first love is movies and when you work in the games industry and you’re a father of 2, sometimes it’s hard to be a movie buff: you’re either at work, or you’re at home with the kids. I’ve been reading Chud since the late 90s and I feel like my movie nerdisms are kept intact by the folks there. And the site really has elevated itself with the somewhat recent addition of Devin Faraci and their games column written by Trevor and Alex. Thanks guys for making me feel in the loop, even if I don’t get out to the theatre anymore.
2. Transcend Coffee: I had an admiration for coffee for years before coming out here, but it was this little shop in an industrial district in South Edmonton that elevated that admiration into love. I’ve come to appreciate the many layers that coffee has, and learn to hate it when I’ve not cleaned my french press enough that it tastes ashy. The guys there all rock (Josh and Poul especially) and make me feel at home whenever I come in.
3. My music collection. I don’t think I’ve ever been so appreciative of having a very broad taste in music as I have this year: with many hours sat in front of my work computer trying to come up with fun designs, being able to switch from Judas Priest to Radiohead, from Muse to Pantera, from Depeche Mode to Skinny Puppy has got me through the day.
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum Because finally a superhero game was serious and fulfilling. And it showcased some of my favorite Level Design techniques (that I neglected to write about): Spoke and Axel (free roaming central node with spokes of linear level design), multi-pathing, and elements of choice within a linear design. This game was tight, and while I don’t agree with every (boss) design choice (boss) they made (boss), we should all strive for the marker of excellence they made.
5. Blade, Near Dark and Nosferatu: As reminders of what great Vampire films used to be.
6. BioWare: I say this all the time because it’s true: I am a fan of BioWare before I am an employee. I feel on many levels that Dragon Age was made for me because it was made for fans of Baldur’s Gate, and I live and breathe those games. It is why I am here: to make games that everyone talks about…I think we’ve done that with Mass Effect 2.  But beyond as a gamer, as a developer BioWare was something to admire because of all the love and care they put into their games, and now, as one on the inside I can say: Holy CRAP to these guys care about their games. And now I am one of their fold. BioWare also puts up with a lot of shit from me and lets me flex my muscles at what I’m good at. Thanks Ray and Greg: you guys really have set something special here.
7. Dragon Age: Teeheeeheeheeheeheeheehee. I LOVE THIS GAME!
8. Supernatural: TV is fun again! Most of my favourite shows (Deadwood, Twin Peaks, Carnivale, The Wire) are fantastic shows that have no equal…but man are they dark and depressing. I remember sitting down and watching the entire series of Buffy with the wife and even through the crappy episodes having a really good time. And then Angel came along and pooped all over that. We’d heard from a few people about how great Supernatural was, and we finally bit the bullet when the first season was on sale. And wow. We’re 1/3 into Season 2 now and…well take everything you loved about the great episodes of Buffy, add some of the great things about the great horror movies over the last 40 years and you have Supernatural. And Sam and Dean..man I don’t think I’ve seen chemistry between two characters like this in a while.
9. My family: puts up with a lot of shit from me: coming to this cold hell called ‘Northern Alberta’, putting up with long hours, grumpiness, a vegetable on the sofa at the end of the day… I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing at a great company like BioWare. And my kids constantly remind me of what’s important: colour of your dress, the importance of Barbie Stickers, the placement of food on your plate for dinner.

So there you have it. A little insight into what I’m thankful for this year. Mass Effect 2 would have definitely made the list had we shipped in 2009 but alas like you I have to wait until Jan 26th.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you out there. Keep an eye on some new posts in 2010 (the year we make contact).

There’s a lot of great features on the 360 that they could be advertising, such as downloadable games and video marketplace.

1. Market in the United States the things that Xbox already does, out of the box (such as Netflix, Video renting, Games on Demand, photo viewing, mp3 playing and watching your videos on your tv). Microsoft changed the face of gaming by doing a complete overhaul on the dashboard last fall, yet there’s not a single plebe who knows that this was done, or what it means to their dollar.
2. Increase the availability of features such as Netflix and Video Marketplace in other countries. I’d go so far as to say they need to consolidate features through all countries so they are the same everywhere. Canada and many other countries are continually shafted in this regard getting secondary and sometimes significantly reduced feature sets than what is found in the United States. And countries like Canada should get off their ass and deal with these  copyright, distribution and in sometimes laws that are hampering with these availabilities.
3. Simplify the video watching process: I still have a swarm of personal avis and movs I can’t watch on my 360 because the container format isn’t compatible.
4. Significant bundles: Chances are people won’t decide on the 360 because you’ve bundled two shitty games nobody wants with it. What they do want are more controllers, a wireless adapter, an HDMI cable, gamer points. Perhaps Microsoft could kill two birds with one stone and make Zune bundles giving people an mp3 player with their console. What if there were a Rockband bundle?
5. Casual Gamer Developer Exclusives: Forget Natal, what if they took some significant mainstream games from renown casual developers and gave had exclusives from them for the 360? Imagine if you had a bundle for these exclusives? ‘From the maker of The Sims’ or ‘World of Warcraft’ or ‘Roof Rats” or ‘Peggle’ can have a lot of clout with the mainstream crowd, especially if marketed to them. Just look at the sales and numbers of these games!
6. In-Store visibility: I was just in my local Future Shop and perused the games section. Each section is white, with the name of the console emblazoned over white over the shelves. There was nothing pointing me towards one type of console or the other, nor any immediately easy way to identify the consoles. The End of Row and Kiosk displays were no more than more shelves of more games, or piles of existing consoles. If Microsoft were to, let’s say, make a giant Xbox 360 that you could sit in and play a game, think about what the consumer would see: a giant 360 the minute they walk in the store. Even if they had designs on a Playstation3 the first thing they would do is gravitate towards it.

There is one thing Microsoft should not do to compete with the increasing popularity of the Playstation 3 and that is introduce another console. Bringing another console into the market would only confuse the already confused Joe Consumer crowd; it would tick off a great number of people who already bought an Xbox360, and it would probably tick off a number of developers who would have no desire to support more than the 2 existing Nexgen systems. No, there’s enough on the 360 as it currently is that it could stand up next to the Playstation now that their differences have been reduced. But it’s going to be a long hard fight, with no doubt some casualties on the way, while they try and regain the ground they have lost.

I’m here at this loathsome store to pick up party gifts for my daughter’s 3rd birthday. But the real story begins when I arrive, to browse, in the games section. That locale inhabited by pimply, uneducated employees watching from afar the locked glass that stands between you and your purchases.
I’m looking at the DS games, to see if there’s anything for my kids, when I overhear, as I always do in these stores, an employee giving misinformation — or more appropriately information that he’s been told to say. The conversation was between a father, in his 40s, and an employee, in his 20s and it went something like this:

Father: Do you have that new PS3?
Walmart: No. That comes in next week.
Father (moving to the locked glass): What’s this then?
Walmart: That’s the one that came in last week.
Father: Oh…is this not that new one? The one in the news?
Walmart: No this is different. This doesn’t have all the features.
Father: Does it have a remote?
Walmart: Yes. No.
Father: It doesn’t? It does? Is it wireless? Or have that string?
Walmart: Er….no it’s not wireless
Father: Does it play that, what do you call it, Blu Ray?
Walmart: (Silence)

Frustrated I speak up, as I always regrettably do in these situations and informed the Father and corrected the employee. And then it began: the father asked me what he should get. We talked a bit: I told him I had a 360, that it had many games on it and you could download more. He told me that he didn’t get a lot of time to play games because of his wife and kids, but PlayStation 3 had The Blu Ray right? He wasn’t going to buy any BRDVDs. He was going to rent them.  So I told him he could ‘rent’ HD movies on the 360. And he informed me that he didn’t realize that and his face contorted with indecision.

For Father of Four the inital attraction of the Playstation came down to the name: Playstation has been around for over a decade and people know it and the Sony brand.  The deciding factor came down to a count of features, and even if Father of Four doesn’t understand what BluRay is, or what the future of the technology is, it is the latest buzzphrase because there’s a whole section devoted to it at the local Walmart. And if the PS3 has this Brand New Thing then Father of Four must have the console with the Brand New Thing.

It was an interesting conversation and not the first one I’ve had about this topic since the price drop announcements: my neighbour, Guy Who Likes Sports Games, decided on the PS3 for the very same reason that Father of Four did.  It used to be that everyone, including hardcore gamers such as myself, wouldn’t dish out the steep pricetag of a Playstation 3: there were more games on the Xbox 360  and you can get an Xbox 360 that plays games for $199. Who’s going to pay $599 for a PS3?  Sony and subsequently Microsoft’s announcement of a price drop put these two consoles on even ground: price is similar, the library is eerily similar, and the features at root the same, but on the surface only are they unbalanced by BluRay.

In the past Exclusives were the way Sony and Microsoft waged the war and right now the war is being waged the same way. But I don’t think this has the power it once did, at least not for Father of Four or Guy Who Likes Sports Games. God of War III, Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2, while potentially stellar games with a lot of media surrounding it, will only interest people like me: people who are even aware that these games exist. I guarantee that Joe Consumer will buy a 360 expecting God Of War to be available, only to find it’s not. No if Sony and Microsoft think that Exclusives will help get the install base, then they should be looking at the Maddens, the Sims and the NHL games: the games that Joe Consumer plays, and plays for an entire year until the next one is out.

What about these so-called Casual Gamer Features like Natal and Playstation 3′s Motion Controller. Will they be the exclusives that these companies are looking for? While each are neat, and Natal moderately compelling in what new it brings to the industry,  I don’t think they are the selling features that will change minds. After all, the people they’ll be marketing to are casual gamers, and these casual gamers already have a Wii ‘And doesn’t that do the same thing? Why would I want two?’

So if not Exclusives, then what? Well I think Sony nailed it when they released the PS3: BluRay. But to adopt BluRay wouldn’t make sense for Microsoft: that move would just match them in features to the PS3 and wouldn’t make the 360 stand out.  And no company in their right mind would limit some of the best selling games in the industry to only one console.

So what is it that Microsoft should do to compete with the growing behemoth of Sony? In the next part I’ll list out some ideas that Microsoft can do to compete.

Then BAM, a deadline looms like Damocles’ knife.

It’s hard to explain to someone not in this or another entertainment-based industry what it’s like doing crunch. In many ways it is the same as any other deadline in any other office: you work until it’s done. But the difference is that in the game industry, while you’re putting in the extra hours, balancing stress with productivity, while you’re feeling beaten down with no end in sight you fight with the fact that you are making games. How can you feel beaten down if you’re making games for a living?

So I’ve been doing what’s called crunching off and on for the last month and it hit stride last week. But crunch at BioWare, and specifically on Mass Effect 2, is a different beast than what I’m used to. It’s been mostly voluntary for not only me but for everyone (meaning I’ve chosen to stay at work to get stuff done as opposed to someone else telling me I have to stay to get stuff done, or staying at work to get stuff done because I have to make an entire sequel in 6 months). But everyone’s work is coming along amazingly. You’re in for a real treat.

Crunch is a very strange beast and one that doesn’t exist solely in the games industry. My wife works for the provincial government here in Alberta and sometimes she’ll have to spend a few hours after work to get things done, or spend a week of long hours (though that is very rare). The film industry has been doing it for a while and I think that the games industry thinks that it is like the film industry. And in some ways that’s not incorrect: a creative industry requires whatever you have to bring to the table to make the product the best product it can be. So sometimes extra time is required to get to that gold standard.

Is Crunch a sign of bad scheduling? Sometimes: I’ve experienced that on 2 of my projects not at BioWare. Poor planning for either the department you are in, or a department that impacts you can cause unwanted long hours. And sometimes, the worst kind of Crunch is when it is dictated by production: you must stay because other members of your time must stay. You begin, in those situations, to not only dislike the project, but those people who are having to stay late, whether or not it is justified.

Sometimes, and I mean this with as straight a face as I can, that it’s done out of love. No shitting. We crunched on Cel Damage because for most of us it was our first game, it was a launch game for the original Xbox, and we wanted it to be the best it could be. There was a bit of ‘OMGOMGOMG we’ve run out of time for this level! Crapcrapcrapcrap!’ going on, but also there were many late hours trying to get the population just right on the Junk Yard level so it’s the most fun; or spending several 17 hour shifts trying to get cartoon trees to look just right. The same can be said about Mass Effect 2: everyone is putting the hours in to make it the absolute best it can be. The difference is that the Mass Effect 2 team is comprised of seasoned veterans and on Cel Damage we really had no idea what the fuck we were doing.

In the next part I’ll talk about some of the ways I get through Crunch.

I’ve been doing this website, and variations of it, for almost 13 years.  It started, as most websites do, as a way to promote myself when I started working back in 1996: The website was a fucked-up compilation of animated gifs resembling the tentacly art-nouveau and gothic art-style I was doing back then, and it was hosted on the now  as exciting as sandpaper, tripod.com

When I left my first job to pursue something on my own I formed A Little Off The Edge Productions and thus www.alote.com  My mascot was a laughing pumpkin and the site showed a gallery of my work in broadcast design, update with each new job.

By 2000 I had decided to move into the games industry and once I had snagged my first job as a 3D artist at Pseudo Interactive, I registered www.feltham.ca and began the first of many incarnations of this website. The site continued as a gallery of my work and was very rarely updated: in fact the main reason for registering the site was to have a consistent email address.

When The Wife was pregnant with our firstborn, and Pseudo was becoming a little more infamous in the industry, I decided to start a blog and create my own personal photo gallery. The former was fun and something I started through Blogger when I went to GDC in 2003. The latter started as something fun that all my family and friends enjoyed but ended up, with the technology I had at the time (this is pre-Flickr) it cost a lot of time. By 2006, the year my second was born, I unfortunately abandoned the gallery.

The last 3 years have seen a surge of blog posts on the site and over time I started to see a few common things I liked and a few that I didn’t. Those posts that insist on detailing minuta about my life are better left for twitter; feature articles and editorials on games, gadgets, music and movies will continue and more common; more information about the projects I’m working on (the stuff I can tell about) will be available.

And there are a few new article-types I have in the works to make this a site that people want to come to for entertainment, for information, for fun.  Look for guest writers, interviews and the like in the near future.

So welcome to Shut Up and Read This, your one-stop place to hear a guy bitch about the game development industry, talk about gadgets and blather on about music. We’re angry here, and we like it.

Dave Feltham

Sr. Designer

BioWare.

#5. Inconsistant Save Game Methods
I’ve had a long-standing gripe about Save Points, and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is the biggest example of this culprit. As a man in his mid-30s, with two children and a full time job, I don’t want to have to play and play and play the game until I get to the point you’ve told me to go to so that I can save the game. I don’t have the patience or time for that. I stopped playing Dead Rising, a zombie game for cripe’s sake, because of this very ‘feature’. No. It doesn’t add to the sense of tension; no it shouldn’t be used as a gameplay mechanic.
But this year I’m happy to say that there weren’t many games like that…but there were other annoyances. Let’s take Fable 2 for instance: while I don’t mind a single savegame slot (it forces the player to think about their choices) I do mind when the game can be completely corrupted by unsightly bugs. And Fallout 3…while it’s nice to be able to save anywhere, the process is annoying AND gets slower with every save game I make. And I have to admit to abusing the system and I know others who have: save before making a choice and reload to see the other outcome.
Let’s look at Gears of War everyone: not once have I ever had to think about a savegame or point. That’s how it should be. And I applaud their efforts.

#4. Crappy Movie-based Titles
Get it right people! I’m really dreading the Watchman game, especially when they announced it was a Brawler. That game should be an RPG, and nothing else. We know there were other masked vigilantes during the period, why not BE one of them with the Minutemen in your party? Have we not learned anything from the Lord of the Rings games? Build the system, swap in the content. And release the game when it’s ready, not when the movie releases.

#3. Escort Missions
Please. Just stop it. There was a few in Grand Theft Auto IV, I’m currently in the middle of one in Fallout 3…and no matter what game it is, the end result is that the designer diverts (not vary) from the established gameplay and the entire gameplay experience revolves around whether the A.I. has been coded well. Which in most cases, it has not. Let’s get these out of our repertoire and move on. Please?

#2. Weak A.I.
We’ve all been a victim of it and we’ve all been astounded when it’s good. While we are seeing greater quality of artificial intelligence and design, we’re still seeing comrades run headfirst into gunfire and NPCs that run into a wall because they can’t pathfind. Even in Fable 2 and Fallout 3, two of my top games of 2008, we’re still in that ‘uncanny valley’ of character behaviour that make the digital actors seem more like damp sock-puppets hooked on the ends of dogtails than parts of your game experience. And many times it pulls you out of the experience and reminds you that you are, indeed, in your underwear, on your couch, watching pixels and vectors on your shitty-ass TV. There are a lot of games making great progress in both design and programming of artificial intelligence and it’s been on more than one occasion when I’ve wished for one game’s AI to be in another game’s experience.

#1. Lack of Standards and shared resources in the Game Industry
If you look at all of the comments I made about the last year’s issues, you’ll find that the common theme is shared resources. If you look at established industries like auto-manufacturing and film, you see that while there are many different studios that work within these sectors, they all use established and common standards and technology. It is these standards and technologies that make the process more of a factory, where people are less concerned with how they will make hair move real, or characters react convincingly, or animations not look they’ve been sopped in a rue of cornstarch and glue, or how a combustion engine will work. They concentrate on making the next best story or blockbuster, or the next best-selling car. If the Game Industry would share their findings more, we’d see an increase of the quality of games and, hopefully, a decrease in the overhead cost of them because a majority of the time wouldn’t be spent on making engines, or developing the next best shaders. Our industry has matured over the last 10 years and we are just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this: engines like Unreal are becoming more common in the industry; while some look on EA buying developers up as a bad thing, what is great about this, as a member of one of those bought developers, is that we are seeing more shared resources: people are talking to people to find out how they did their great thing. And I for one would love to see BioWare’s story and conversations in a Medal of Honor game featuring Oblivion’s open world and Burnout Paradise’s seamless online tools.

All in all, it was another great year for games, but we have a long way to go to get out of our early twenties and into a more mature stature. But despite the state of the global economy, I hold a lot of promise for the future. Tugging purse strings can do great things for creativity (Star Wars) and being smarter about how things are made can only mean great things for the long term.

As summary, here are my top games from 2008:

Fable 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Fallout 3
Braid
NHL09
Dead Space
Parts of Mirror’s Edge

So instead, here is my list of The Most Annoying (and disappointing) Things in the 2008 Gaming Scene.

#10. PS3
I used to be a Playstation fan: I traded in my defunct old black Xbox for a PS2 and never looked back . My introduction to Guitar Hero was on PS2. But since day one of when I was working on a PS3 launch title and we found out about the ‘motion controller’ via a press release along with millions of others, to the price point, to the contract-killer like tactics to rub out HD DVD, to the ridiculousness of Home, to the little oversights on it’s online positioning, Sony has just screwed everything up. I figured, loosely mind you, that 2008 would be it for Sony, but no. Microsoft grabbed it’s balls and put one stamp on those dreams. PS3, even with my gaming background and career, is still a console that I have no wish to shell out cash for: the games are weak, few and far between, and it would end up in the same rattan basket that my psp sits in. When a new exclusive game only comes out every 6 months or so, I’d rather be playing on my Xbox, getting achievements and saving my money.

#9. Weak Story
Come on….hasn’t BioWare been doing this long enough? Hasn’t Rockstar showed how a story can be great, but not epic or complex? Why do we still have such weak stories in such mega-blockbuster hits? Why do we see such a lack of desire to hire real writers as full-time employees to ensure that this happens? No, not every game needs it (I could care less what the story is in Geometry Wars 3)…but if you’re shelling out ANY kind of story, then you need to do the Hokey Pokey with both feet in the circle. That’s what it’s all about.

#8. Sequels that drop the ball
Sadly I’m looking at EA Blackbox here. (if you’re an employee or friend, kindly look away). Underground could have been great. And there are moments, fleeting, when it is (that Miami Vice opening is killer). But you dropped the ball. I have a feeling it had to do with development cycle and producer pressures but…you really have given nobody any reason to play this over Most Wanted…or really Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2. Rock Band 2: sadly, while there is much praise for this game, I think that it is nothing more than a ‘Title Update’ (read patch) with, admittedly, a killer lineup of songs. But I’m loathe to pay the full price for that. Yes. I’m a cheap old man. But that comment leads me to point #7

#7. Short Games that are the same Price
Can I even begin to relate my fury when my daughter finished Dora and the Snow Princess in 15 minutes? $39.99 for this? That is unforgiveable CRAP. I love that mature games are getting shorter because it means a more refined experience…in most cases (Mirror’s Edge excepted), but should I pay $69.99 for Fallout 3 which I have been playing for 60 hours, and pay that same amount for Gears of War 2, which is significantly less? While it could be said that the cost to make these two games are the same so the hours played can’t be considered in the pricing, I see us going down a slippery slope. This isn’t about a half hour difference between a children’s movie and a 3 hour epic. This is the difference between me getting two nights of gaming versus several months. If we don’t start to price our games accordingly, especially during the beginning of an economic depression, we’re going to see the shorter (and probably more polished) games lose out on the dollar: people would rather play Fallout 3 for 3 months, than Mirror’s Edge for a weekend.

#6. Weak supporting Downloadable Content
Developers need to start thinking about strong DLC for their shorter games. A skin for your character doesn’t cut it: it does not provide incentive for replaying a game. Games need to be designed, from the beginning stages, with DLC in mind. Consider Oblivion and Fallout 3: Bethesda has done fantastic jobs and providing content that encourages players to revisit their games, providing even more incentive to shell out cash for their games. Imagine if Dead Space, a fantastic but albeit short game, were to provide a whole new extension to their story, rather than the armour skins that they released.
While there are developers out there who have really nailed supportive downloadable content, nobody has figured out how to market it. While someone like me, or you if you’re reading this blog, stays on top of gaming news via RSS or websites, consider those who don’t: how do they know about this content? NXE, Xbox’s new interface, has helped with this: advertising slots on the interface greet the player as soon as they log into Xbox Live. But what about at purchase point? If someone has Dead Space and Gears of War 2 in their hands, how does EA ensure that that person is going to pick up their game, when they both look very similar in style, gameplay and content? DLC could help here. Knowing what your downloadable content is before you’ve released to manufacturer can help and could be listed as a bullet list item; Point of Purchase advertisements, and TV advertisements, can help as well.
Finally, on this note, let’s consider some of weak attempts to get the consumer dollar: being able to BUY advancement in Need for Speed Underground, or the special Edition content is a ludicrous attempt at milking consumers. It is, at it’s root, also establishing a class-based gaming culture where the people with money and advance through a game and create a stronger online presence.
Let’s all follow Criterion’s example and give people the type of content they want to extend their experience on a game.

Coming tomorrow will be my final top 5 annoyances of 2008.