I haven't posted in a while. Thinking of starting my own blog.

In the meantime, I wrote a user review of Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's

Check out the gamespace or.. there should be a link around here somewhere.

Arguably the best way for a potential game customer to know if they want to spend their money on a game is to play a “demo”. the game companies know this, and frequently release demos (either before or after release) of their titles.

Demos are my number one way of deciding if I want a game. They’re the reason that I got “DarkStar One”, and will be getting “Dark Messiah of Might & Magic” - as well as the reason that I will not be picking up “Bad Day L.A.” I don’t believe that I am alone in using demos extensively as a determining factor as to where I will spend my hard earned fifty bucks.

The problem is - Game developers need to understand this. As a gamer (your customer), I have two very simple bits of advice:

1. Make the demo a viable sample of the actual gameplay.

It’s become all too common for me to read in a forum, “Forget the demo - it was horrible. The actual game is great.” No. no, no, no. Am I really supposed to plonk down fifty bucks based on this? My experience with the game - through the demo - is that it’s sloppy, buggy and boring… but the full game is “great”? Doesn’t make much sense to me. How can there be such a discrepancy when the demo is supposed to specifically be an example of the game?

2. For god’s sake, include a Tutorial.

Developers - You know that no one reads the damned manual, unless it’s an extraordinarily complex game. And you know that demos don’t come with manuals. I want to actually be able to figure out how to play the game with the demo so that I can jump right in when I purchase the full game. Hell, I just want to be able to play the demo -period-. Games aren’t like Pac-Man or Galaga anymore; they’re complex enough to require a little training. I think I really want Caesar IV and Flight Simulator X… but the demo for the former has no tutorial, so I can’t really figure out what to do (even being a veteran of the previous version) and the latter has video tutorials that are as informative as someone saying “this game lets you fly! OMG!”

Please. No more unplayable demos. Thanks!
Your pal, Mark.

I gotta hand it to Microsoft. I really like the direction that they’re heading with this new XNA thing.

XNA is a development kit that allows anyone can use these make games
for Windows or XBox 360. It’s targetted at hobbyists, so it will be a
heck of a lot easier than learning C++.

It’s currently available
in a sort of “express” version, which allows you to make the games and
then distribute them either for Windows or XBox 360. Later they’ll be
releasing a “professional” edition which will allow you to actually
SELL games for either platform.

This is completely awesome. Imagine all the creative people in the
world who have great ideas and the desire to great games. Now they have
a great tool to get their games made and distributed. This will surely
lead to a number of very talented people who haven’t had the
opportunities to get through training and degrees and such to get their
name out there in the gaming public, and even get hired by big game companies.

Hell, I might even try this stuff -myself-