Hey all. Here are a few thoughts about a comment made by Adam Sessler of G4 at GDC '09 during the rant session. Hope you enjoy the read, feel free to comment!

Sessler: "Shame on you, publishers, for using Metacritic to determine whether or not a game is good. We have a method for determining whether or not a game is good. It's called the market."

Not entirely true. Who hasn't purchased a game based on hype and potential only to find later that it stunk? I got burned big-time on Timeshift when it came out. I work in video game retail, and I can say with certainty that if publishers (and by extension copyright law) allowed for new-game refunds the market would show a very surprising trend: Purchases do not determine quality, only success of marketing strategy/IP/license. The phrase "can I return this, it was terrible" is pretty common. Take Halo Wars, for example. A great game with an engaging story in my opinion, but successful largely by name-recognition, strength of license, and a familiarity with the studio developing the game (Ensemble). Copies of the game flew out the door, but easily one in ten (not a large number, but somewhat significant) were brought back within the week simply due to the fact the purchaser either didn't like the gameplay, thought it was a different genre or thought it was actually ODST. Ignorance of the obvious by the consumer aside, this is an all too common occurrence and with the sudden glut over the last eighteen months of mediocre to poor games that sold better than they should have punctuated by a few wildly successful titles, there's really no way Sessler's statement can be a sensible one. The market determines whether or not the game is successful from a marketing/financial standpoint but has little or nothing to do with whether the game is "good." Was Resident Evil 5 "good" because it sold a lot of copies? Or Grand Theft Auto IV? Killzone 2? Halo 3? No, it was strength of brand combined with massive marketing strategies. Halo 3's "Starry Night" commercial aired once, during Monday Night Football, and it was a huge hit by itself. RE5 commercials are still running during March Madness to get that target audience. I saw the Killzone 2 "War. Perfected." commercial a hundred times during the playoffs. Do any of these things help a game be "good?" Of course not. They help it sell, nothing more. Take Tomb Raider: Underworld, for example. The market, and Eidos, said the game underperformed by selling 1.5 million units worldwide (US numbers not found). Still, the game averaged a 7.4 from reviewers, putting it in the "good" category. So, did the market determine the quality rating of the game? I don't think so. I think Sessler's comment vastly oversimplifies the point he was trying to make, which was publishers using a single source for measuring the quality of a game. In this, I happen to agree. Publishers should be, and hopefully are, smart enough to diversify sources and identify different opinions from original source material as opposed to a compilation source like Metacritic.

Hey guys and gals, just a quick note to let you all know that I'm BACK! That's right, my darling wife bought me an XBOX 360 for my birthday! The game collection is still a bit thin, but I've got the important ones like Halo 3 and Gears of War. My new gamertag on XBLive is KragVal. Fans of the Star Wars novels may recognize the name. Anyway, if you still have UnstableTriad on your Friends List, you can drop him for KragVal. Hope to see you online soon!

Long time, no blog. Anyway, I have had a unique opportunity to play three different versions of The Force Unleashed, and while I have not finished the game on any platform, I can certainly give some impressions.

So far, I have played all three Sony versions of the game. The PS3 version is, of course, markedly different than the PS2 or PSP versions, with unique levels but the same basic storyline. The PS2 and PSP versions are essentially identical, with a few detail changes to the overall story and vastly different level designs.

All three versions suffer from a "wonky" camera to varying degrees. The PS2 and PS3 camera is controlled by the right thumbstick and seems to alternate between frustratingly slow and ridiculously fast. The PSP camera is more-or-less auto-controlled which can be both good and bad depending on the situation. The camera tries to stay in the "follow me" position directly behind and just above Starkiller, but sometimes turning a corner causes camera confusion and it takes a moment to re-orient. In the meantime Starkiller may very well be getting pummeled by an Imperial Guardsman. The PS3 and PS2 versions of the game suffer from similar camera hangups, although the manual control with the right thumbstick helps to alleviate issues somewhat. All three platforms have issues with the camera getting into a bad spot when Starkiller is up against the wall.

The rest of the gameplay is quite remarkable on any system. Aside from the frustrating targeting that grabs the little rock and flings it instead of the frightened Stormtrooper, usage of Force powers is simple and relatively fluid. The combo system usually works, although some of the better multi-button Force combos don't always work, and believe it or not, all three versions use different buttons for powers. Yergh!

Graphics are...well, about what you'd expect on each system with the possible exception of environmental hang ups. Levitating Stormtroopers in the PS2 and PSP versions are quite common, and Starkiller frequently gets blasted backwards into, and then THROUGH, walls. The Digital Molecular Matter in the PS3 version looks great, until the environmental havoc you just wreaked disappears, that is. Blasting down bridges and archways in the PS3 version as Darth Vader on Kashyyyk was fantabulous until the leftover pieces and chunks almost immediately fade. Bodies occasionally disappear before the enemy is even "Dead!" These issues do detract from the experience for me and are really inexcusable for a game in development for as long as this game was.

The best part of the game, by far, is the story. I'm only halfway through but already I'm completely amazed that we haven't seen this in movie form. Think about this: The storyline in this game shakes the foundation of Star Wars canon in a GOOD way, restores the image we want to see of Darth Vader as the evil, unrepentant force of nature we saw in A New Hope, and really completely shames the prequel trilogies for story. It is a fantastic addition to the Star Wars canon, and I can't wait to read the novel.

Overall, I have to say I'm pleased by The Force Unleashed, but a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps it was the hype, or the played-to-death conceptual trailer, but I was hoping for much more from this game. Instead, I got what I expected: A Jedi Knight-like game with amped up powers and better graphics. Overall, I give it a 7.5/10, and that's a shame, because this could have easily been a Game of the Year candidate.

Please remember these are my personal opinions and they may not jibe with your own. If you disagree, I have no problem with that, but I am not an idiot for holding my opinion and I would appreciate intelligent disagreement and not personal attacks. Dboy, et. al., what do you think?