My colleague and coworker Leigh Alexander yesterday published a semi-defense of Visceral Games’ (nee EA Redwood Shores) upcoming “adaptation” of Dante’s Inferno (entitled Dante’s Inferno). By “semi-defense” I mean she didn’t explicitly and enthusiastically endorse the game, but generally supported its right to exist under EARS’ chosen title and its self-professed association with a work that, to a large extent, set the direction for the modern Italian language.

It’s definitely a reasonable point of view. Certainly no developer has any responsibility to be particularly literary or high-minded. Anyone who listens to Idle Thumbs knows my personal distaste for the game is hyperbolic and probably comically exaggerated at times. But, actually, it’s a genuine frustration, because to me it is emblematic a larger issue. Here, slightly tweaked, is the comment I made in response to Leigh’s post:

“I just don’t see why this is based on Dante’s Inferno. If, as some have claimed, the core market doesn’t care about the game’s adherence to its ’source material’ — and surely it doesn’t — what usefulness is it to claim association in the first place?

“This could have been simply a game influenced by Dante’s imagery, as so many creative works have been over the centuries, rather than actually claiming to be any kind of even remotely meaningful adaptation of the poem. To me, it’s an amazing vindication of the claims of video games’ inability to thoughtfully construct ANY kind of meaningful thought: here’s how video games adapt one of Western culture’s defining literary works, and it consists of brutally ripping apart demons for eight hours, surely complete with idiotic throwaway one-liners.

“I know it’s not the duty of any individual game designer to ‘justify’ games to anyone who doesn’t play them, and it shouldn’t be, and obviously as a gamer I know full well that games are capable of more than this. But the reality is that most games DON’T have anything to say; most games DON’T communicate any meaningful thought; and most games DON’T deal with their subject matter in anything other than the basest, most ridiculous way. You could say the same for most fiction of any medium, but it’s certainly even more true for games.

“That’s clearly not a dealbreaker for me, since I still play a lot of video games, including the ones covered in the category I described above, and it doesn’t bother me all that much; if it did, I wouldn’t play, write about, and talk about so many games.

“But by claiming to have anything to do with Dante’s Inferno, this game loudly echoes that trend in a particularly frustrating way. It could have simply been called ‘Righteous Duty’ or whatever bullshit name [edit: Clint Hocking suggests 'Demon Hunter,' 'To Hell and Back,' 'Love be Damned,' 'Infernal'] with the same plot and mechanics — they could have even given Dante a shoutout in their ridiculous PR pitches — and I don’t think I would have batted an eye. But as the game industry’s big-budget, highly-publicized representation of a work that everybody knows by cultural osmosis, even if they’ve never read a word of it, it’s a big huge fucking depressing failure.”

God of War, which many have pointed out as a counterpoint to the general opinion I espouse, takes that latter approach. But while I’m not personally a God of War fan, it doesn’t offend me as a gamer; it’s just not my kind of game, mechanically speaking.

God of War is directly influenced by Greek mythology, but it doesn’t claim any kind of definitive association with a particular work in its title. Rather, it uses the cultural source material as a rough touchstone. Dante’s Inferno, ironically, appears to depart even more from its source material than God of War does, but makes an implicit claim that it is more related.

As Clint Hocking points out in a comment following mine, this also has the side effect of delegitimizing any hypothetical future video game interpretations of The Divine Comedy. (There have been “adaptations” in the past, but none with anywhere near the visibility and marketing might of an Electronic Arts production.) It basically guarantees the video game take on Dante’s epic to be juvenile nonsense. It may be a fun video game; I make no claims about that one way or the other, but it certainly isn’t what its title says it is.

I also don’t mean to imply I have any desire for a better Divine Comedy game; it’s never something I’ve particularly longed for, and I don’t mean to call for it now. I’m not saying EA should be making a game closer to the source material; I’m saying they should never have claimed the association to begin with.

If none of my arguments have been at all convincing, just load up this incredible video and skip to about 4:50. Maybe the whole interview is a piss take. But is that really relevant, when it appears to be 100% accurate anyway?

EA Supports Ashton Kutcher in Twitter Showdown

In supporting Ashton in his efforts, EA is offering Kutcher’s 1,000,000th follower on Twitter a copy of every game EA makes in 2009 for the gaming system of their choice and, to have a character based on them that can be played in The Sims 3 if Ashton wins.  The Sims 3 will also donate 5,000 mosquito nets in the name of the 1 millionth person who follows Ashton on Twitter (REGARDLESS of a win).

Earlier this week, actor Ashton Kutcher announced via YouTube that the number of his Twitter account followers rivaled that of the CNN Breaking News Twitter feed, and that upon beating them to the 1 million member milestone, he would punk CNN founder Ted Turner if the Internet made it happen.  (Click here to watch the video that started it all.)

Specifically, he said he would ding-dong ditch Ted Turner’s house and post the video of it if he won the showdown.  To sweeten the deal, Ashton also promised to donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity for World Malaria Day on April 24.

Check out this update on EA’s offer by Ashton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI

[I have no idea what "event" this is all about. I'll leave out the PR contact addresses, but at the bottom of the press release it looks like somebody forgot to actually fill out all of the press release template information. Observe:]

Promotion Name
Try phrases like: dramatic savings, clearance, overstocked, reduced rates, buy 1 get 1 free, treat yourself, you deserve it, and don’t miss out. Insert a link in the promotion to your website. Because links are tracked, you can see which promotions generate the most interest in your customers.

Our Price: $
List Price: $
S & H: $

Use this block to tell the audience about your company. A short paragraph or a few sentences including your company’s location, description and website is ideal.

# # #
Add any trademarks here

[This whole amazingly ridiculous block of text appeared in my inbox just minutes ago, accompanied by the following image:]

I was in GameStop several hours ago picking up Ubisoft Montreal’s Far Cry 2 for PC (a game I have been anticipating to an unusual degree for the last eight months), and I saw something on the rack that caught my eye. Besides the fact that GameStop even had a PC section that was on a wall-mounted rack rather than just a ramshackle endcap, I mean.

From the checkout line, I noticed the game on the right, Shattered Suns, which from a distance appeared to be Games for Windows-branded; compare the front panel strip with Petroglyph’s GFW-branded RTS Universe at War. Though Games for Windows Live has failed to make even the slightest splash, I’m an advocate of the broader GFW initiative, which aims to standardize various elements of PC gaming in useful ways, so I wandered over to check it out.

As you can clearly see up close, developer and publisher Clear Crown Studios (a small local outfit, as it turns out, just south of San Francisco) simply listed itself and the game title at the top, using the same layout, color scheme, and a similar font to the Games for Windows strip. (more…)

It’s a bit cheesy to keep linking to new Idle Thumbs episodes, but we’re trying to cobble together a listenership so here it goes again. You should totally check it out, that would be rad.

This week we featured special guest Steve Gaynor, designer at 2K Marin on the upcoming BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. Steve’s a great guy, and he writes a great blog—I’m sure you will find his comments sufficiently insightful and enlightening.

The biggest topic of the podcast was BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, whose announcement event Nick and I attended, but there’s also discussion of weird Fable II shenanigans, Yakuza 2, and a dubious sponsorship by little-known Gaming Grub competitor Ultra Boost. iTunes!

So far, so good with the weekly schedule. We recorded the second episode of Idle Thumbs last night and got it published this morning.

This week features plenty of hands-on reporting on Diablo III and StarCraft II, as well as discussion about the various Blizzard announcements (some of which are a little controversial) and a bit from TGS. There’s also plenty of hands-on from LittleBigPlanet and Fable II. Hands-on is in the air. ‘Tis the season.

Also, I composed and recorded the track “The Fanboy’s Lament,” this episode’s namesake. It can be heard during the podcast in context, with the discussion of the events that prompted it, or downloaded directly from the Idle Thumbs front page. The goal is to feature this kind of musical interlude from time to time on the show if people enjoy it.

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS if you haven’t yet, and we do have iTunes up now. Tell your friends about Idle Thumbs! We don’t really know how to promote this thing.

And feel free to send questions, comments, or feedback to questions@idlethumbs.net — we’ll read and address it on the show.

(Update: iTunes support kicked in! Hooray!)

First things first: Idle Thumbs is back in podcast form. Go check it out. If you never knew Idle Thumbs existed in the first place (a likely scenario), feel free to read on for some self-indulgent history and explanation:

In 2004, as part of a team of mainly San Francisco Bay Area- and United Kingdom-based writers, I helped launch Idle Thumbs, a gaming site that (we think) at least partially succeeded in its goal of delivering video game writing simultaneously entertaining and informed. It’s hard to pin down what exactly the Thumbs ethic was (there was more than one heated argument to that end) but it definitely had one.

At least, for a little while. As it turns out, that sort of endeavor is difficult to maintain indefinitely, particularly when you’re doing it entirely in your free time. On top of that, the limited-but-fairly-unusual exposure we got through the site became for many of us something of a springboard to other (paying) jobs involving games. (more…)

(Edit: Hey, somebody Dugg me! Go Digg it up! Hooray internet!)

This man wants to become the best game designer ever.

As such, he’s making a game. He is also homeless, buried in credit card debt with nearly no money to his name, and living out of a shelter, equipped with nothing but a computer and a copy of Game Maker 7.0. As he states in his blog profile, “I hate working!”

At first, it is difficult to know whether to believe his claims, this being the internet. A bit of investigation reveals that he asked on the GameDev forums, “Is it possible to design and/or program games, while being homeless?” In that post, dated September 5, he noted he was “losing my place of residence soon.” Two days later, he created his blog. In the inaugural post, he says, “I’m broke, homeless, and I don’t have a job,” and lays out his plan to develop his own game, without necessarily getting a job dedicated to “making someone else rich.”

He also welcomes monetary donations, explaining, “I’m broke niggas. I’m broke.”

Early on, I fluctuated between being belief and skepticism. These days, the default reaction to this sort of thing is that viral marketing is afoot, but it seems too self-contained to be that. His GameDev posts don’t promote or link to his blog in any way, not even subtly, nor do the scant few other posts I was able to dig up elsewhere, all of which seem to be earnest game development inquiries.

The game was originally a platformer entitled The NeoVerse, and included moving platforms, the ability to swim “exactly like it is in Super Mario,” and a rocket launcher. This game seems intertwined with another idea, “a blend of old school Castlevania 2D type of game with Super Mario RPG,” which eventually became more focused on the platforming elements and was redubbed Me Vs. My Robots. (more…)

My iPhone sits charging on my computer desk when not in use, and occasionally it emits that wacky GSM buzz that manifests itself through nearby speakers, the same one that impressively prophesies an incoming call seconds before the phone activates its primary, much more confident, vibration.

I was just hit with one of those minor electronic tempests, except this time it actually manipulated Windows. My browser actually started scrolling up and down, perfectly in sync with the Morse code-like patterns of the buzz. Also, I didn’t get a phone call.

Now that my blog is read by more than a dozen people, maybe somebody can explain how that possibly could have happened. Until further explanation is provided, I am assuming Steve Jobs engages in witchcraft of some kind.

If it helps, neither my mouse nor keyboard are wireless. That my brain made the logical leap in deciding this information might be relevant may have further exposed my stupidity on the matter.

But they are also quite entertaining to watch, especially when accompanied by surprisingly compelling and comprehensible commentary in English.

For the next couple months, something that the website calls the Averatec-Intel Classic 2008 Season 2 and the video intro calls the TG Sambo Intel Classic is taking place in Korea, and a fellow named Nick “Tasteless” Plott is on location to deliver a spirited play-by-play alongside the amiable but rather less enthusiastically knowledgeable “Lil Susie.” The organization running the event is streaming it live as well as archiving the videos on its site. (Note that the videos are listed newest first.)

As someone who hasn’t played StarCraft in years and would probably receive a negative ranking just for logging onto Battle.net, I still find these matches to be a great watch. Plott’s audible excitement curve appears to track with the events of the game (not that I would be able to independently understand the in-game actions well enough to be able to verify that), and even my minimal level of StarCraft knowledge—I know the names of the units, basically—is enough of a grounding to allow me to keep up with the calls. (more…)

[Update: EA has sent out final details on the PC. The full specs are as follows:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @2.66GHz
- Video card: Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
- Motherboard: G31 mATX
- RAM: 2GB
- Other components: 250GB 7200RPM hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, network adapter, integrated Realtek audio, keyboard, mouse, Ultra X-Blaster ATX Mid-Tower case, one-year parts & labor warranty

Prospective buyers can sign up for updates over here.]

Original story: About a month ago, I reported that EA was planning to market a Crysis Warhead-ready PC. I have now learned that the machine—which, at least among the Crytek staff that specced it out, is called the “Warhead PC”—will be officially announced next week.

In my original post, I pegged the price to be between $600 and $800; as it turns out, it’s almost exactly in between, at $699, and it will apparently be coming in a single SKU. It will be sold by UltraPC, and unveiled by EA.  Crytek, Nvidia, EA, and UltraPC were all involved.

I spoke with Crysis franchise producer Bernd Diemer, who explained the history behind the machine. ”When we started working on Warhead, we decided performance was a big issue,” he said. “So we said, ‘Guys, we’re going to build a PC which has a maximum price of six or seven hundred dollars, and it has to run Warhead in high spec at an average framerate of 30.’ We built that PC—Crytek in the Budapest office [where Warhead was developed]—and we put it in the middle of the studio, and every review was on that machine. All the milestone presentations we did for EA, for the Yerlies [founding brothers Cevat, Avni, and Faruk], for the team, all the new prototypes, we showed on that machine.”

Eventually, they began referring to it as “the Warhead PC,” and used it as a way to force efficiency and optimization: if frames were dropping on the Warhead PC on a high graphics level, the team would tweak the game to better scale to the hardware. (I can attest to the results, having played through a full level today and being impressed by the consistent framerate and visuals, before being told it was a “Warhead PC.”)

“For us, it was really helpful, because we sort of had a hard cap,” Diemer told me. “You couldn’t say, ‘It works on my computer, looks great on my machine.’ No no no, this is the benchmark, guys. If it sucks on this, the whole thing sucks. For us as a team, that was really valuable. We had a tangible border we could bump our heads into.”

The Crytek team originally planned simply to give the Warhead PC’s specs to EA to use for the recommended requirements, but eventually Nvidia got involved and it became clear that there was no reason that such a machine couldn’t simply be sold straight to consumers looking for an easy entry (or re-entry) into PC gaming.

Though I don’t have every nitty gritty hardware detail, I did get the machine’s most important specs:
- CPU: Intel Core Duo e7300 (@2.66GHz)
- Video card: Nvidia 9800GT
- RAM: 2GB

I snapped a picture of the Warhead PC I used today. It had no external branding, and it wasn’t clear whether the final version (which can be preordered next week and will ship alongside Crysis Warhead on September 16) will, although a Crysis-themed desktop background will be preloaded. It’s a visually conservative rig, but I appreciated that there weren’t a dozen obnoxious blue neon lights swirling visibly through a plexiglass window—we’ll see what the shipping machine brings.

As Diemer was sure to point out, ”EA’s not getting into the hardware business, and Crytek isn’t either.” Rather, the companies are trying to practically combat the idea that to play high-end PC games at high levels of detail, you need to spend in excess of a thousand dollars. “The biggest thing for us is convenience,” Diemer added. “We want to make PC gaming convenient.”