A review on Reviews

Ugh, finally I get the mental clarity to write about this, and all thanks to Extra Credits, a series dedicated to the serious discussion of games and game culture. It's a video series but very worth watching all of the back history for the series. Trust me. As a well dressed person, you know this can be taken as fact, or law. Yeah, we'll stick with law.

So game reviews. I tend to find the system faulty in their traditional format. Assigning a number grade to determine if a game is worth your time is not really a valid way to present the information. And here is why: they are grading an experience. Can you place a value on the first time you went to Disneyland to your friends, or held the hand of a love interest, or played Super Mario Bros? You can tend to express if the experience was "good" or "bad", and you can try to say "On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7", but this doesn't really represent anything. It just says how you perceived the experience in an active way.

In contrast, movies and books, even music, are all passive. Regardless of genre, you can express the fundamentals of what each experience brings to the table, because everyone will be hearing the same song, read the same lines, and watch the same film. Though interpretations may be different, fundamentally there is an agreement on what is considered "good". Ipso facto, why "pop" music is called just that, because it's "popular".

Grading an experience is different. It's much closer to explaining a piece of art and it's relevancy. People will interpret their experience differently. One person may talk about how they took out a horde of Covenant with a needler and one plasma grenade, another my have sneaked around the same horde with a sword and assassinated them all. Game experiences are based on people's play styles, so for a reviewer, it becomes more of a "does the game work and play with minimal problems" and "does this seem 'cool'". Also, it doesn't help that much of game culture is viewed as having a juvenile sense of understanding.

This is where we need to demand more from reviews. Sitting in an office and having to write about Halo "X" and what it's like is a very different experience versus sitting at home playing with 3 other friends. While Duke Nukem being panned is not a shock, but the game might have scored higher if it was played with a friend, or the confines of a comfy couch and a cold beer nearby. Splatterhouse may not be the reboot of the decade, but I must confess, I enjoyed what I played in bed when I rented it, and though it's not a $60 game, it is still fun.

But rest assured, you can always trust the reviews here from the offices of Dressed as Lawyers. We're not lawyers, but we dress like ones. Making everything we say here information you can trust.

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I told the rest of my professional-looking team I would write a post about games or something last night... then I forgot. This is bad news people. People who dress like people who perform legal activities in a court of law cannot just forget things. So what am I doing about it? I'm writing this up at work, keeping a close eye over my shoulder and doing that alt+tab dance you do when your reading comics or watching Youtube at work, and hoping that I can get this finished before everyone else gets in to the office and noticed that lack of a fantastic gaming post. Yes, I know that this won't really suffice as an "awesome gaming-related post" but it's better than nothing. In fact, if you want to get technical (and I do, when it's in my favor) I never promised an awesome gaming post. I just heavily implied it due to the nature of the blog.
In other news, the Facebook page is being lame. Very lame. It isn't pushing the posts from the blog out like it said it was going to do. Yes it actually said it would, it was not just heavily implied. Anyway, I hate to cut this post short but more people are showing up at the office so I need to go pretend to do legal things... because that's my job.

Awww hell...

Here at Dress as Lawyers, we're human like the rest of you, (well, maybe not like ALL of you,), and that means we are subject to the same random bouts of indecision and writer's block, which is what I am apparently battling right now. There are a lot of things happening that I would love to talk about, but just can't seem to get the wording out just write. So at this point, I have just opted to try something: dumping all of my thoughts about some topics in one post. This is probably the worst idea ever, and I have no hope of this making any coherent sense, but we'll give it a shot.

Duke Nukem Forever tanked it in the reviews. Is anyone really surprised by this? It was "14 years in the making", which really means it was 2 and a half years, with the half being just polishing what the game was at when development stopped. This was a game that should have been scraped and rebuilt from the ground up, as the original was suppose to be poking fun at the conventions of where the first person shooter genre was at the time. Instead, it was just trying to ride the wave of it's predecessor. Really, the problem is not the game, but how PR and the circus that developed from this. No one cares if the guy who voiced Duke Nukem claims the game is great. You got paid to rip off Bruce Campbell, and thus you forfeit your opinion.

Also, since hacking has been the hot news to report, I though I should touch on that. Here you go:

Lastly, this game looks awesome, and I want to buy it. I really should just design my own. Someday...

Pandora? Siriusly now...

Did you see what I did there? I thought you would. So a few days ago Pandora Media Inc. went public on the  (ticker) with a crazy IPO (Initial Price Offering) of $20.00. Don't get me wrong, I love Pandora and I listen to it all the time. Hell, I'm listening to it right now. I would hate to see it fail but there are a few things I don't like about this whole situation.

First off, the bad. Pandora was able to talk up it's IPO to $20 because of "high demand." Ok the price did started to go up right away, but it quickly fell as well. The price peaked at 9:30, after the market was only open half and hour, and has been declining since then. After it's peak at $24.25 it fell to $17.62 by the close of that day (6/15/11) and currently is at $13.08. But! But! rising to $24 is am 83% gain! Yes, which only lasted for a few minutes and it's now down 65%, so in my totally ignorant opinion, they should have left their IPO at a lower amount like $15. These things combine with their contracts with the record companies expiring in two years will leave them investors a little shy, I think.

Second, Pandora has never turned a profit. Yes they have made money, but none in profit in the history of the company existing. In fact, I think I read they've lost about $19 million since they've started. I'm no business major, but that doesn't sound like a company I want to invest in. There is a lot of comparing Pandora to Sirius radio and even though they do allow you to listen online I don't consider them the same type of company. Sirius also cost more money. Pandora lets you subscribe for $36 a year, which is $3 a month and that's only if you don't want the ad's. If you are willing to put up with an audio ad every few songs, its free. Sirius on the other hand, has their cheapest plan at $12.95 a month. That's $120 more a year than Pandora's "most expensive" plan. It's true that Sirius comes with more options, but if you are like me and only listen on your computer on the internet and don't want to have to pick your own songs and make your own playlists then the choice between these two is really easy. Not to mention Pandora lets you create your own kind of station, where with Sirius you have to choose from one of theirs.

I'm not trying to trash Pandora though. They have almost 90 million subscribers which equals a lot of traffic and that, hopefully equals more money. The higher the traffic, the more Pandora can charge for the ad space/time. If I had a bunch of extra money, I'd probably put a little into Pandora, hope it explodes like Google soon, and then have that little bit of money turn into a big bit of money. The truth is, I don't have a lot of money. I don't have much extra money at all and I think a lot of the eager investors from a few years ago might be feeling like they are in the same boat. So I'll cross my fingers, keep paying my $36 a year and hope that Pandora does well, and if they do I will be happy for them.

E3 and Wii U

E3 is done! What a week! Man, I sure enjoyed going to that! Of course, that's what I would say if I did go, but given that this is not a "proper" news outlet and my industry cred is minimal, I'd say it will be a bit before I get a chance to see what is one of the biggest game industry events in person.*
*Side note: if you would like to sponsor Dressed as Lawyers to attend next year's E3, and grow our game "street" cred, we would gladly accept your free money.

That aside, I would like to take a moment to focus on what was without a doubt the biggest talk of E3: Wii U. Much of the talk from the arm chair public was of intrigue but minor acceptance, along some of the game journalists' pointing out areas where the Wii U was beaten to the punch by Apple and On-Live. It may be the cynic that is being called forth by the public-felt burn of the Wii, given that there was never much hardcore gamer support with it, and what was brought to the table was a large amount of waggle-mote games that never broke any interest beyond what Big N built in-house. This is what I feel is the biggest reason for the Wii U, to bring the core gamers back to Nintendo's shores.

It's biggest draw, and the main reason for my debate on purchasing one on launch day, is the ability to play games through the media-coined "WiiPad". The ability to do that has been something most grown gamers have wanted for a while. The ability for me to play Darksiders 2 anywhere in the house, while my wife reads a book and we have on the Advanced D & D episode of Community, (hilarious by the way), all at the same time, is a huge advantage over the PS3 and 360. It's what core gamers need, but the key to this will be if Nintendo can deliver the 3rd party support that has been sorely lacking. And if they stay away from too much gimmick work for the WiiPad to be used in novel ways; we don't need any more waggle-motion games. Come up with some genuine unique ways to use the WiiPad designers!

FACEBOOK!

You heard me; Facebook. We've created a Facebook fan page so people (just like you!) can Facebook-officially "become a fan" of DaL and see all of the posts, such as this, on Facebook. I'll also need to check with The Guinness book of world records to see if I just used "Facebook" the most times in one sentence.

I suppose you'll be wanting a link to the page then? Ok, that's a legit request and you can find it here. That's about it for now. I just wanted to give everyone an update.

Second!!! Plus: Munchkin Quest!!!

Hi there. Can I ask what you're doing here? Why don't you take a seat. Take a seat right over there...

I don't know where I was going with that, it just sounded entertaining to do. Anyway, as the currently other "half" or "contributor" for DaL, I just wanted to take the time to say hello. Now with pleasantries out of the way, on to my discussion: Munchkin Quest.

Wow, what a game. For those of you who have never heard of Steve Jackson Games, I suggest looking them up, and their designer. This is a guy who knows how to make a game. So far I have only played the Munchkin card game series, (future post!), so I was not sure how well this game would translate to the board game format. Well rest assured, if you've got 3 friends, (or 5 with the expansion added), some beers and a free hour to an hour and a half, this game will keep you entertained for quite some time.

The rules are pretty simple; explore a progressively growing dungeon, kill monsters, get loot, and make it back to the entrance to face the boss. What makes this game great is the level of depth that is added to those simple features. Take the growing dungeon; it starts with a simple "Entrance" tile, from which you move to other branches, allowing you to randomly draw a new room and connect it to the room you came from. Each room is unique, and all provide some humorous flavor in terms of art, name, and effects to your character or the monsters. The monsters are equally as entertaining, taking jabs at classic Dungeons and Dragons creatures, as well as being full of bad puns, like fighting some ZomBees, or the Wight Brothers. Some are groan inducing, but it just adds to the flair and spirit of the game.

Outside of the dungeon, the other dynamic is what you can do to the other players. There are various cards that can be played that bump monsters up to make them more powerful, curses can weaken another player, or treasure and class cards that can strengthen you. The big play in the game is working the other players. Do you help your friend hoping he gives you a hand later, or do you screw them over because they are stronger than you? It's all about reading the other people involved, and knowing just how far you can push someone. But this is what makes the game great: anything can happen. A player can be in last place, then make a come-from-behind string of moves to win it all, or it can be just a single player dominating the game.

Overall this is a fantastic addition to anyone's game collection. With the growing focus on games being very "digitalcentric", it's nice to see board games that break the tradition of the "cute family fun" stereotype. So dig this up on Amazon, or support your local hobby store,(yes, the place full of greasy nerds you're probably shamed from ever entering), grab it and a few friends. It's certainly worth the money.