Daily News Spin — September 6, 2001 (Thursday)

NY Times on Max Payne, Majestic

We missed this last week. The NY Times reviews Max Payne and Majestic. First their thoughts on Max:

Three years ago Half-Life revolutionized the first-person shooter by mixing a simple but effective story into the mindless killing frenzy. Max Payne surpasses Half-Life as an interactive movie, but more remarkably it almost equals it in terms of game play. It also has an amazing feature that Half-Life lacked: it adjusts its level of difficulty depending on how well the player is doing, so the game is always challenging but never impossible.

The most extraordinary sequences in the game are those in which Max revisits his family's murder, first in a dream, then in a drug-induced hallucination in which Max believes he is in a computer game. Max says he can't think of anything more horrible, but that is probably because he has never played a computer game as good as Max Payne.

The critic did knock the writing, though:

Like many action films, Max Payne is more notable for its world- weary attitude and gorgeously bleak graphics than for its hackneyed story. The unconvincing plot is as bad as any of the "Lethal Weapon" movie plots, and the game maker's attempts at hard-boiled Raymond Chandler-style narration are prose at its purplest. Twilight crawls across the sky, laden with foreboding. Police sirens wail like banshees or sing "in the off-key harmony of a manic-depressive choir."

The Times was a bit harder on Majestic:

But Majestic's designers seem to have made the assumption that the game would be played by idiots. The player must use clues on Web sites and in faxes to ferret out information, but even though these puzzles are not difficult, Majestic would lead the player by the nose to the answer. After criticism from the game's players, Electronic Arts sent out a notice stating that the game's difficulty would be increased and puzzles would be added to the existing episodes. The second episode starts with the cleverest puzzle so far.

Now that it has become more challenging, Majestic just needs to become more interesting. With its trite conspiracy story and cardboard characters, it fails to draw the player into its world.

Worst kids ever! says killologist

The world's leading, and probably only, killogist has proclaimed that the bad kids in America today are the worst in history, according to this story in the McPherson Sentinel.

The kids that are bad in America, a tiny, tiny percentage, are worse than ever before in American history." And that, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, one of the world's leading experts in the field of human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime, can be laid at the doorstep of television violence, movie violence and violent video games.

This guy's a one man crusade against violence in video games. He's invented an academic discipline for himself.

He is the founder of a new field -- killology, in which he studies killing in war, psychological costs of war, causes of violent crime, healing victims of those crimes and how to prevent youngsters from developing the predisposition for violence.

And yes, he does drone on about video games.

Youngsters today are immersed in virtual reality. They routinely blow the heads off "targets" in video games. Not only are they not punished, they are rewarded with extra points.

That is dysfunctional, according to Grossman. In pre-video game life, children who hurt another child or a pet were punished.

Now they are rewarded for "killing" as many targets (people) as quickly as possible.

But...but...when the Russians emerge from the caves beneath Michigan to take over the U.S. of A., our extensive video game training will allow us to blow their fool heads off! Then once we save the country, we'll go back to school and get degrees in killology!

Microsoft not to be broken up

Instead, the Justice Department will pursue other remedies to Microsoft's illegal monopoly, according to this AP story posted by Yahoo.

The government told Microsoft that it does not intend to pursue a breakup and will drop the bundling issue to ``facilitate consultations'' in the joint report, the department said....

On Thursday, his [Attorney General Ashcroft] department said that since an appellate court agreed that Microsoft illegally maintained a monopoly over the market for operating systems, the government ``believes it has established a basis for relief that would end Microsoft's unlawful conduct, prevent its recurrence and open the operating-systems market to competition.''

It will be interesting to see what the Justice Department proposes.

Scary picture of Sid Meier resurfaces!

Now the New York Times is running that frightening photo of Sid Meier where his face is half in the light and half in the shadows and you can only see one eye and it's glowing, sort of. The photo accompanies an article about Civilization III and discusses the role of history in these kinds of games.

In a market often associated with blood and guts, what compels so many people to play a game in which the most dramatic moment is, for example, the discovery of the wheel? In Mr. Meier's opinion, it's a matter of using familiar real-world achievements to provide a springboard for player fantasy.

"We're not trying to duplicate history," he said. "We're trying to provide you with the tools, the elements of history and let you see how it would work if you took over."

Bruce Shelley also talks about the how the games can't really faithfully recreate history.

Mr. Shelley said such an approach would be inappropriate for his company. "Every quarter we get a letter about how to redo a game that's about all of history," he said. "But that could kill our business. We'd end up with something that appeals to a small group of teachers that can use it as curriculum."

The article's interesting. Just don't look at the photo. You've been warned!

Activision eyes billion dollar mark

The Financial Times has a look at Activision, including quotes from its CEO. Some interesting stuff:

The company, which has often failed to meet its profit forecasts, was the fastest-growing American publisher last year, reporting record earnings.

Mr Kotick, a youthful 37, has little doubt about the reason for Activision's new-found success. "The economies of scale are huge," he says. "Three years ago our sales were under $300m. We have now had two years at above $500m and the difference has been amazing."

One of the advantages of increased sales and size is in recruiting and licensing.

But more importantly, expansion has improved the quality of Activision's games. "In the first place, our new-found size has helped us attract programmers and developers, internal and third-party," says Mr Kotick.

"We have also been able to obtain licensing rights much more easily. Before, we just did not have enough credibility. Scale has given us access to some valuable properties," he says. These include Spiderman, The Simpsons, Star Trek Voyager and Toy Story 2.

Activision hasn't turned too kind of an eye to its PC products, though.

...the company has given free rein to Ronald Doornick, president and chief operating officer, who joined Activision in 1988 from food group Con-Agra. He has been strongly identified with efforts to streamline the business, and kill off poorly performing games, particularly in the PC market.

Guess he's the guy who Borged the Cyberlore Star Trek game. The article also mentions that the goal of Kotick is to "institutionalise the process of creating computer games." Activision expects that the release of the next gen console systems will increase the demand for games and they hope to reach the one billion mark in sales.

Hooligans, a new kind of RTS

It's about soccer fans who like to pound the brewskis and then pound other people, and it's coming this fall. The BBC has the story:

The game is played out over a football [sic!] season in which a hooligan gang travels Europe trying to prove it is the most violent and anti-social group.

It lets players gather funds by looting shops, recruiting troops with drugs or alcohol and features pitched battles with police forces and rival gangs.

The creators, Dutch developers Darxabre, claim that it's all about strategy and tactics.

He [Jason Garber, chief executive of Darxabre] said the game had more in common with strategy games, such as Star Craft and Commandos, than it did with violent shoot-em ups such as Kingpin or Quake.

The game rewarded players that outsmarted rather than outpunched opposing hooligan groups, he said.

Not everyone is happy, though.

But even before it is released Hooligans has attracted criticism with the Football Association and Home Office condemning the game.

Mr Garber said one French tabloid newspaper branded him a "fascist" for creating and promoting the game.

Darxabre has at least one defender.

Roger Bennett, general director of the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, defended Hooligans and said the game makers were just reflecting life as it is now.

Indeed. Which are you more likely to run into at a soccer game, a hooligan or an elf? Well, maybe if you have enough to drink, you might see a few elves too.

Update: Here's the link to the official game site.

If it's not Scottish, it's cr-r-r-ap

Scotland wants to be come the center of the computer gaming world, according to this story in The Scotsman Online.

Scotland's bid to become the computer games centre of the world will be given a major boost today by the minister for e-commerce, Douglas Alexander.

Alexander will announce a package of new measures to support the industry at Abertay University�s International Centre for Computer Games and Virtual Entertainment (IC Cave) - the Scottish epicentre for computer entertainment.

The article details an upcoming trade mission to Japan, new studies that will be commissioned -- you can never have too many studies -- and so on. Some guy from Chariots of Fire is helping out too. Sounds like they've got it all figured out.

If Scotland does become the focal point of game development, we think Romero will look quite fetching in a kilt.

Also, here's a brief article penned by the minister of e-commerce himself, Douglas Alexander, about the initiative. He himself plans on doing research for a Geisha game while in Japan. Well, we read between the lines to figure that out. Actually, it's just guesswork on our part. Ok, we made it up.

Spielberg to computer: "Don't hurt me!"

We missed this one. Apparently film director Steven Spielberg is scared of his laptop computer, according to this Ananova story:

Spielberg says: "I don't want to live the day when my laptop jumps off the table and walks through the house.

That does sound creepy, but if it can be trained to fetch us a beer, we'll put up with it. He also had this to say:

Steven Spielberg says he is terrified of computers developing minds of their own.

Spielberg told German magazine Cinema his latest film, Artificial Intelligence, is a warning against irresponsible development of science.

Now if only someone would issue Speilberg a warning against irresponsible development of dumb movies like A.I.

British army unhappy with the Nintendo generation

Seems like a lot of recruits are washing out of boot camp because they're unfit, according to this News Telegraph story.

Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary, said the "Nintendo generation" was not fit and was having to be encouraged to get into shape before joining up.

Senior officers say that while it has no problem acquiring new recruits, many of them are so unfit they cannot make it through basic training....

"The 'Nintendo Generation' brings its benefits, with IT literacy and a familiarity with the sort of high-technology equipment that is ubiquitous in the modern armed forces. But, the armed forces cannot - indeed we dare not - reduce physical standards, since to do so would endanger both operational success and personal safety."

We're getting conflicting messages these days. On the one hand, games turn us into bloodthirsty killers. On the other hand, we're unfit to serve in the armed forces? They're so hard to please!

It's a gold rush!

The last day or two we've had a number of games going gold. Here's the list, according to Gone Gold.

Red Faction
ZAX Alien Hunter
Jekyll and Hyde
Pool of Radiance
Far Gate
Monopoly Tycoon
Road to India
Xtreme Air Racing
Runesword II
Rails Across America
Spiderman

3am

TDK Mediactive has acquired the rights to make games featuring Mercedes-Benz autos, according to Excite. Platforms are yet to be announced.

Toys R Us and Amazon sold out their first batch of Xbox preorders, but didn't disclose how many units that represented. We wonder if there are people planning on grabbing an Xbox and then reselling it above cost? Our fond hope is that such speculators get to speculate on what they're going to do with their extra Xbox units they can't sell. That probably won't be the case, unfortunately.

There's a Max Payne demo out now. It's 130 megs. By now it should be available in all the familar spots.

Myst creator Rand Miller says he expects that a film will be made based on the Myst series, according to Ananova. However, nowhere in the brief article does he mention that anyone in Hollywood has expressed interest in making such a film, so we're left wondering if this isn't just wishful thinking on Miller's part? Ah, we shouldn't be so cynical. No doubt we'll see it as a double feature paired with that Doom movie that's coming out any day now.

Seems like Mother Teresa was exorcised in her latter years. CNN has the story.

Howard Stern sidekick Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, winner of People magazine's Most Beautiful Person poll in 1998, is dead at the age of 39. Wired has the story.

Update: We've been informed that the top story at Fuckedcompany is about Salon asking stockholders to approve a 20 for 1 consolidation. Submitted here for those of you who enjoy rubbernecking at the wrecks on the information superhighway.

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