Sunday, April 28, 2019
Top Five All Time
By: Patrick Morris
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is
the video essay series where I get to talk about the games I've been playing
and what I think of the medium as a whole. You can see everything we do all in
one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com and don’t forget to hit that subscribe button
for a new video and two new podcasts every week! This week we will be talking
about my top five favorite games of all time so lets get right to it!
Please consider this
your official spoiler warning. I will announce the game I am about to talk
about then everything I have to say afterward is fair game so if you hear a
game you don’t want spoiled make sure to hit pause and back away from the video
slowly. But also the newest game on this list came out in 2013 so I think we
are beyond the statute of limitations on all of these.
#5 Metal Gear Solid
3: Snake Eater
I have made some
bold statements about Metal Gear Solid in general over the past year on our
podcast and I'm about to make some more. Metal Gear Solid is the best multi
part story ever told in a video game series. It's like Star Wars but better.
And of all the Metal Gear games Snake Eater is the best. Knowing that Big Boss
would eventually go on to become the main villain of the series but still
agreeing with him and becoming so invested in his motives and decisions as a
character made me want to play Peace Walker as soon as Snake Eater was over.
The progression of the fall of Naked Snake throughout the big boss trilogy is
one of the best character arcs ever written and it all started with Metal Gear
Solid 3.
#4 Halo Combat
Evolved
All Halo fans that
have been with the series since the first game remember the first time they
heard that song and saw the main menu. I was stopping by my friend Evan's house
after school one day in December of 2001, he asked if I wanted to play Halo with
him and having no idea what it was I declined but as I was on my way out the
door I heard it and I froze. Halo completely revolutionized first person
shooters on consoles and Combat Evolved was the catalyst of a sci fi series
that would eventually go on to rank amongst the top series the genre like Star
Wars and Star Trek. Halo Combat Evolved is one of a kind and purely out of
nostalgia I suspect it will never be surpassed by another Halo game.
#3 Donkey Kong
Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Literally the best
sequel ever made. DKC 2 takes what was established in what was already one of
the best platformers not only on the console or of the generation but of all
time Donkey Kong Country and improves on it in every single way. DKC 2 serves
up a better story, better characters, better gameplay, better graphics (didn’t
think that was possible on the SNES), better game design, and even tighter
controls than it's predecessor. And it does all of this while locking up the
main character from the first game and putting the sidekick center stage.
Donkey Kong Country 2 is flat out the best of it’s genre and as close to a
perfect game as has ever been made.
#2 Bioshock Infinite
I am a huge fan of
thriller stories and no not that kind of thriller. So I'm always chasing that
next huge revelation moment whether it be a game, movie, TV, or a book those
twists that nobody could have possibly seen coming are some of the most
treasured moments for me in the media I consume. I'm also a big fan of sci fi
and time travel stories so naturally BioShock Infinite had to show up somewhere
on this list right? I just don’t know how this one evaded me until the BioShock
collection was released in 2016. But anyway, that game really sunk its hooks
into me when I played it and had me guessing all the way up until the end. Then
at the very end when its revealed that Booker and Comstock are the same person
from different universes and in order to kill Comstock Booker has to have never
been given the opportunity to be baptized…wow. BioShock Infinite left my jaw on
the floor and that’s where it stayed for weeks.
#1 The Legend of
Zelda Majora's Mask
I know I know
Majora's Mask is such a typical pick and everyone and their brother has a video
about how dark it is which is undeniable the game is dark, hell I even made a
video a few months back all about this game. But Majora's Mask did something
that is so difficult for any medium, it told an ominous story with a positive
upbeat tone. The game was about the pain a child goes through as he loses his
best friend but more importantly it’s about how he moves on and pushes forward
with his life while accepting and properly grieving loss. Majora's Mask can
serve as a lesson for us all in that everything will pass with time we just
need to use the time we have to be better.
So those are my top
five favorite games of all time, this is a constantly evolving list and I
typically keep a really solid idea of what the top five are because my top ten
would be to liquid. Are there any on my list that rang true with you? What are
your favorite games of all time? Let me know in the comments down below.
If you liked what
you heard don’t forget to hit that subscribe button for a new video and two new
podcasts every week. You can also go see everything we do all in one spot over
at ColdNorthPro.com. I will be back next week talking more about Metal Gear Solid
2 so until then just go play some games!
Virtual Reality
By: Patrick Morris
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is
the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing
and what I think of the medium as a whole. Don’t forget to subscribe here on
YouTube or see everything we do all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. This
week we are going to be talking about what I think of the current state of VR
so lets get right to it!
We are currently in
the midst of the second coming of virtual reality that all started just a few
years ago. As someone that was alive but not old enough to really have a handle
on the state of VR during the first wave of consumer VR in the nineties I cant
say for certain but something tells me things are going a little better this
time around. There are several different headsets available that utilize
different technologies to achieve a virtual reality experience that varies in
quality from complete dog shit to what we all have actually hoped VR would be.
For now VR has settled into two different experiences, the entry level
experience and the premium experience. Three prominent players have come to the
forefront of the VR industry and as it stands the industry has settled into
steady growth and will continue to grow and evolve as most technologies do once
they have a sustainable audience.
The first wave of VR
looked bad and somehow played worse. The hardware was rudimentary and difficult
to use and the single most popular headset of all the commercially available
ones was the virtual boy which sported a red and black display. It was obvious
even then that the technology wasn’t ready for the vision of what VR was
supposed to be. The first wave of VR died quickly but what is impressive even
after the death of VR round one is that the idea showed so much promise that
hardware developers, software developers, and consumers alike kept it in the
back of their minds for when the tech finally did catch up so they could all go
back and give the VR experiment another try.
In 2019 we find
ourselves in the thick of VR round two. The initial hype from 2016 has for the
most part died down but unlike in the nineties there is a small but loyal
fanbase that makes a small VR venture a sustainable business for a handful of
companies. VR is used in a wide assortment of ways but the most popular and
most prominent once again is video games. Going back to the promise of VR that
was seen in the first wave many people are able to buy VR just as a tech demo
of what it could eventually be and that gets plenty of people excited enough
about the product to spend their hard earned money. The primary difference
between the first wave of VR headsets and what we have now though is that after
that tech demo there are some VR experiences that are delivering on the vision.
As a consumer we are
forced to make a few choices when purchasing a VR headset; do we want an entry
level experience or a premium experience? For those of us that arent 100% sold
on VR the natural thought is to buy the entry level headset, essentially a plastic
shell you can slide your smartphone into with some lenses that magnify the
screen. Personally whenever speaking to someone about VR I urge almost everyone
to not buy these entry level headsets. I had a PSVR preordered in 2016 and
after using a friends galaxy gear VR I immediately cancelled my preorder. I
wasn’t assuming that the PSVR was going to be an identical experience to the
galaxy gear but the galaxy experience was so bad that I assumed that even a
much much better VR experience couldn’t possibly be what I had hoped it would
be. Luckily I was wrong.
About a year after
trying the galaxy gear my girlfriend surprised me by buying me a PSVR as a
birthday present. I put on that headset and as soon as I was in the calibration
grid I was immediately sold. The premium VR experience is so much better than
entry level headsets that it's difficult for me to even call them both VR. It's
me in college working in a warehouse compared to me now working in an office:
technically the same person but a completely different experience for everyone
involved.
As for the premium
experience there are three viable and supported option: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift,
and PlayStation VR. Prices of all three have come down significantly since
launch but generally the same principal's have driven purchasing decisions.
When accounting for not only the headset but the hardware required to drive the
headset whether it be a gaming PC or a PS4 the Vive offers the best no
compromises experience at a significantly higher price, the Rift makes some
compromises in some of the most puzzling places and still comes with a pretty
steep cost of entry, and the PSVR is by far the cheapest to get running but
makes the most compromises of the three.
When this wave of VR
began Oculus was by far the most vocal of the three companies making their
headset and sadly pulled quite the Molyneaux on all of us. Talking a big game
then launching a clearly inferior product at a similar price point when
compared to their main competitor the HTC Vive Oculus stumbled right out the
gate and honestly I think that it has been a mistake they are continue to
suffer as a result of. As it stands right now Sony owns the console VR and VR
hobbyist but not enthusiast market with their low price of entry and excellent
selection of games and HTC is THE headset to own for VR enthusiasts. Oculus is
being squeezed out of the market and has even turned to making a more mid tier
level experience with stand alone headsets that provide significantly stunted
games but are notably better than strapping a phone to a human face.
At this point the
selection of VR games has gotten so good that the idea of a repeat of the
virtual boy with its 19 total games is laughable. Fantastic games like Job
Simulator, Superhot, Wipeout, Subnautica, and Star Trek Bridge Crew are all
available and many of them even offer unique multiplayer experiences. But more
importantly there are still so many people even in the games media industry
that claim that VR hasn’t gotten it’s killer app yet. That one game that
completely revolutionizes and legitimizes this new technology, the one that
everyone NEEDS to play. But that game is already available and regularly on
sale.
Resident Evil 7 is a
superbly terrifying game when played on a TV. Gameplay is engrossing and tense
and the story is gripping. But when played on PSVR RE7 becomes an entirely
different experience. Suddenly what was a really solid jump scare is screaming and
yelling as you hide from whatever just appeared on screen. What was gripping
the controller extra hard becomes twisting and throwing the controller until it
nearly breaks. What was clammy sweaty hands is a cold sweat across your entire
forehead. Im not the type that typically rocks back and forth with the movement
or becomes vocally startled at all while playing but there were multiple
instances of me screaming and tipping over my entire chair while playing RE7 in
VR. Resident Evil has revolutionized VR in the same way Super Mario 64 did 3D
gaming and Halo Combat Evolved changed the first person shooter genre on
consoles. RE7 is an absolute must play.
So overall virtual
reality is here to stay. The technology has gotten to the point where games are
convincing enough that people continue to want to play them and people playing
those games means that developers will continue to invest in making them. The
Vive pro is a fantastic device that is worth it's insanely high price tag and
the PSVR will probably move forward into the next generation with the PS5,
fingers crossed for that rumored wireless headset. As the technology increases
more people will buy it and games will continue to become more immersive. The
virtual reality foundation has been poured and construction has started.
Do you own a VR
headset? Which is your favorite game to play in VR? Let me know in the comments
down below.
If you liked what
you heard you should hit that subscribe button for a new video and two new
podcasts every week. You can see everything we do all in one spot over at
ColdNorthPro.com. Ill be back next week talking about my top five favorite
games of all time so until then just go play some games.
Remote Play
By: Patrick Morris
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is
the video essay series where I get to talk about the games I have been playing
and what I think of the medium as a whole. You can see everything we do all in
one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. This week we are going to be talking about
Sony's Remote Play endeavor so lets get right to it!
Remote Play is
actually quite the technological feat even by todays standards. For the
uninitiated: when a PlayStation user plays using a remote play capable device
their PlayStation is doing all the heavy lifting somewhere else and simply
streaming a feed of what it's outputting to the players screen over the
internet. Then as the player inputs controls through that device whether it be
a dualshock 4, the god awful on screen controls on the iOS and android apps, or
even the almost entirely useless rear touch pad on the PlayStation vita the
device then streams those inputs back to the PlayStation. What makes this so
incredibly impressive is the round trip that all this data is taking can be
done quickly enough for some less twitchy games to even be playable.
Remote play is a
seriously intense technology but it hasn’t been able to really gather any
meaningful momentum in the years since it's inception because not only is the
tech extremely situational but the use cases haven't been really well defined
or at least they haven't been advertised to the end user effectively. What we
have seen of remote play in advertising has been college students playing giant
adventures like The Witcher 3 in between class on their PS vita's or gathered
together on their lunch hour playing online multiplayer games on their vita's.
Come on Sony we all know that there hasn’t been two PlayStation vita's in the
same room since they left the factory, that’s about as laughable as people
gathering to watch a Killzone Shadowfall match. Now I understand the point of
showing off these idealistic use cases is to make the consumer believe that if
they buy into the product this is what their life will be, its simple
advertising but those arent use cases that I would want.
After watching
several ads for the PS4, PS vita, and PSTV I was only able to find one ad that
portrayed the exact message Sony should be trying to send with remote play: use
this shit like a Wii U. When you want to have something else on in the
background, when someone else wants to use the TV, or when you cant decide
between spending your entire Saturday in bed or playing PS4 that’s when you
should be using remote play! Frankly remote play is an incredible concept that
was introduced before the technology was ready for it but now the tech is
catching up and we can only hope that Sony doesn’t abandon such a good idea as
they prepare to move onto the PlayStation 5.
It's funny that
technology is finally catching up to concept as we close out the PS4 generation
because remote play was introduced in early 2010 on the PSP and PS3. At the
time it was seen as a pie in the sky idea that nobody really wanted but over
the last nine years Sony has continued to stick with it developing hardware and
software to cater to what they see as a major feature in the future of gaming.
The PS vita was released shortly after the announcement of remote play and what
was a cool idea on PSP was suddenly starting to seem more realistic on PS
vita. While remote play between the PSP
or PS vita and PS3 was only ever really a proof of concept Sony backed the idea
hard as they moved into the PS4 streamlining the development process then
requiring every single game on the platform to support the feature. In the
build up to the release of the eighth generation of consoles both Sony and
Microsoft were positioning themselves behind one killer accessory, Microsoft
the Kinect and Sony the Vita. Remote play was used as a major selling point in
a ton of the advertising for the PS4 and they were trying to use the feature to
sell PS vita's.
After a few failed
years of their attempt to pivot the vita from being it's own robust platform
the way the PSP had been to being a way to take your PS4 with you the cracks in
the dam were starting to show. In 2015 Sony released the remote play app on Windows
and macOS allowing users to connect a dualshock 4 to their mac or PC then
remote into their PS4 from anywhere in the world. Once this was released I
personally started using remote play more often and the image Sony had sold me
was starting to become a reality. Suddenly a two hour break between classes
wasn’t spent browsing reddit on my phone or working on homework I was sitting
down in the library and playing my PS4. The picture was starting to come
together for the vision Sony had used to sell me a PS4, a PS vita TV, and two
PS vita's. and actually just recently another big push was made towards making
the remote play dream a reality.
On March 7th Sony
quietly released the remote play app for iOS allowing iPhone users the world
over to log into their PS4 and play with some of the worst touch controls the
world has ever seen. Overall the app works really well, connection is great,
the functionality is limited but simple to use, and if you're really dying to
use a controller the app is compatible with all MFI controllers. Sony has
finally stopped trying to use the PS4 to sell remote play capable hardware and
made most hardware remote play capable to sell the PS4 which is the direction
that relationship should have been going this entire time. Now if they could
just get off their asses and make a MFI certified dualshock 4 with a first
party phone clip they would actually be able to sell me that hardware.
Since its release on
iOS remote play has breathed new life into my day one PS4. When I upgraded to a
PS4pro my original PS4 became the living room's PS4, used once in a blue moon
when my girlfriend wants to play overcooked or gang beasts. But since the remote
play app was released that PS4 gets played every single day. As I mentioned a
few weeks ago my girlfriend is obsessed with the Sims and she loves to play her
Sims on PS4. So I wanted her to be able to play her Sims in bed or on the couch
while I watch TV or in my home office while I play something more interesting
but once again the on screen controls became a problem. I looked into it and
found a remarkably effective workaround that lets you play the PS4 with a
dualshock 4 on your phone through remote play the same way you would enjoy the
Wii U.
To make the
explanation quick: download the remote play app on your iPhone or iPad. Don’t
log into your PSN account. Create an alternate account and log into that
account on both your PS4 and your app. Boot up your PS4 by connecting to it
through your phone, youll automatically be logged into your alt account. Now as
long as you're within Bluetooth range press the PlayStation button on your
dualshock 4 and select your main account to login. Press the PlayStation button
one more time to be taken to that profile and feel free to wander your house
and play your PS4 like it's a Wii U. I keep saying that and it's only just
occurring to me how sad it is for Nintendo that Sony was able to implement the
main selling point of the Wii U into their console after release.
It's really easy to
say that the video game industry hasn’t changed or innovated in years but
looking back over even just the PS4's lifespan Sony has brought an ass load of
innovation to market. Remote play, PlayStation VR, and PS vue all spring to
mind. These are all truly game changing innovations that while they havent been
able to find a ton of success this generation I really hope are maintained
moving forward. With as much as remote play has improved since 2010 I want to
see it continue, they are so close to what was originally envisioned. If anyone
from Sony is watching this please PLEASE have a remote play app ready on launch
day with the PS5, please get that MFI certification so I can connect my
controller to my phone wirelessly, and please build a more portable folding
version of the dualshock 5 with a built in phone mount. The age of the Sony
handheld is regrettably over but that doesn’t mean that they cant pull a Sega
and utilize other manufacturers hardware to keep the dream alive.
Is anyone here as
big a believer in remote play as I am? What have your experiences with remote
play been like? Let me know in the comments down below. If you're new here
don’t forget to hit that subscribe button for a new video and two new podcasts
every week. You can find everything we do at ColdNorthPro.com. I will be back
next time talking about my thoughts on the current state of virtual reality.
Until then just go play some games.
Extreme Sports
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth joint. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the
video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and
what I think of the medium as a whole. This week we will be talking about some
of my favorite extreme sports games so get into it brah.
I was a suburban kid
growing up in an upper middle class household in the late 90's and early 2000's
so naturally I fit a stereotype. Just like most other kids I fell in love with
the Tony Hawk video games which eventually led to a deep dive into a genre of
games that is almost completely non-existent in todays gaming scene: extreme
sports games. There was a period of time, mostly during the sixth generation of
consoles, that I could not get enough of any game that gave me the illusion of
extreme sports. Skateboarding, Snowboarding, even regular team sports played in
an extreme way, I wanted it all! I was out of ideas this week so I just decided
to make a video about some of my favorite extreme sports games. Tony Hawk's Pro
Skater 3, SSX Tricky, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix, SSX On Tour, and some
honorable mentions are the games that completely consumed my gaming time and
convinced me that I could be much much cooler than I ever have or ever will be.
So lets take a look at some of these games and what made them great!
Starting off with
the big dog, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Not only is Pro Skater 3 the best Tony
Hawk game ever, not only is it the best skateboarding game ever made, Pro
Skater 3 is the best sports video game ever made and I will fight anyone that
disagrees with me in the comments! Pro Skater 3 refined everything that was
already great about Pro Skater 2 which is still considered one of the best
video games ever made. Pro Skater 3 does everything that Pro Skater 2 did but
bigger and better and it looks better while doing it. Level design, objectives,
difficulty, progression, tricks, style, unlockables, cheats from head to toe,
start to finish Pro Skater 3 is a damn near flawless game. And after executing
on all of that Pro Skater 3 added the revert which with the exception of
manuals is the single most important mechanic ever added to the series.
Allowing players to string combos together from one quarter pipe to another
using a revert to manual to really push those point totals into the
stratosphere was nothing short of a stroke of genius. The third entry in the
series was also the first to introduce online play on the PS2 and was one of
the few games on the PS2 to not require the network adapter for online play.
Pro Skater 3 was the epitome of what a generational jump should be for a game
series. To this day as we head into the ninth generation of consoles Pro Skater
3 stands as a beacon of quality that all games should strive towards.
Extreme sports
consist mostly of people either standing on or strapping boards to their feet
so it comes as no surprise that the second most stand out game of the genre is
SSX Tricky. Even when the first SSX game was released in 2000 snowboarding as a
sport was still in its infancy and as a result snowboarding video games kind of
sucked, Cool Boarders 4 was about as good as it got at the time. Come at me
1080 fans. SSX introduced a concept for a new type of snowboarding game, an
idea of making snowboarding an even more extreme sport than it already was.
While SSX fell short in many ways and wasn’t able to gain a whole lot of
traction being a PS2 exclusive about a year after it's release SSX would be
succeeded by a follow up that would realize the conceptual basis in almost
every way. In late 2001 EA Big released SSX Tricky and snowboarding games would
never be the same.
Tricky was the total
realization and embracement of a new type of snowboarding game. From the start
the developers threw out any sense of realism and immediately acknowledged that
SSX was not going to be a sim snowboarding game or even a believable snowboarding
game, SSX was going to be a fucking radical snowboarding game! Tricky was so
full of life and oozed so much charisma that it was impossible not to be
seduced by it, and even if you weren't Tricky didn’t care it was so well
established and defined as exactly what it was supposed to be the game, an
inanimate object, was more confident and smooth than I have been in my entire
life.
Tricky looked great
and felt even better. An exaggerated aesthetic gave off the vibe that this
snowboarding game was what real snowboarders everywhere wished they could be.
Movement felt fast and gratifying, tricks felt so good to pull off and the most
extreme ones came with animations that were endlessly rewatchable, and when
mashed together the gameplay experience became an incredible contest of who
could strike the perfect balance of slowing down to pull off enough tricks to
get the boost so they could win the race; lean to far into straight speed or
just tricks and any experienced SSX player would cleanup against you. SSX
Tricky revolutionized the snowboarding genre of video games to the same extent
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 did for the skateboarding genre. I poured so many
hours into SSX, Tricky, 3, and on tour that every year I hope to hear that
incredibly obnoxious "EA Big" at E3 and get a reveal for a new SSX
game but unfortunately that probably wont ever happen, and if it does it most
certainly wont be this year since EA has dipped out of E3 altogether.
Throughout the
aughts my consoles were dominated by extreme sports games and I was so
engrossed in them that the moment a similar experience was available on
handheld I had to have it! And I'm not talking about the Gameboy Advance games
or the DS games I'm talking about the handheld that showed everyone and their
brother that you were a real "gamer" in junior high, I'm talking
about the PSP.
Real quick
backstory: When I was in sixth grade my dog had puppies and when we sold them
my sister and I got $50 each per puppy. To a sixth grader in 2001 $350 was more
money than I could comprehend. I saved that money in a shoebox under my bed for
almost three years but then walking home one day in April of 2004 a seventh
grader showed my friend and I his PSP and he was playing Tony Hawk's
Underground 2. I was impressed but it wasn’t until he showed us that the god
awful speaker grill in the bottom left corner of the console was a joy stick
that I was blown away. I literally ran home grabbed my money and made my sister
drive me to the mall to buy a PSP and THIUG2. Gone was my $350 on a total
impulse purchase that I couldn’t have been happier with and when my mom found
out that I had spent all my money boy did I get a talking to. My mom hated my
PSP.
Tony Hawk's
Underground 2 Remix…it was literally the PlayStation 2 Tony Hawk experience
that fit in my pocket. The game made zero concessions! Graphics were amazing,
gameplay was amazin, maps were huge and one to one recreations of their home
console counterparts, everything was there and suddenly it was everywhere I
went on a gigantic 4.3" screen. I played so much THUG2 Remix on that tiny
little console I couldn’t have been happier with it. To this day THUG2 Remix
specicially is my second favorite Tony Hawk game because of its flawless
experience on a handheld. In fact in preparing for this video I watched several
graphical comparison videos of THUG 2 and THUG 2 Remix and I still have trouble
distinguishing between the two. That game was truly a triumph and a giant leap
for handheld gaming.
But THUG 2 Remix
wasn’t the only extreme sports game that the PSP gave me on the go, I also
played SSX On Tour on my PSP almost nonstop when it was released. While I don’t
have nearly as fond of memories of SSX on PSP as I do of Tony Hawk on PSP I do
remember it being a very good game. On Tour offered a deep immersive experience
with many different game modes, courses, objectives, characters and of course
the patented SSX attitude all on a tiny UMD. In fact I owned and played
literally dozens of games on my PSP but the ones that really cemented
themselves in my mind as synonymous with the console were THUG 2 Remix, Need
For Speed Underground Rivals, and SSX On Tour. I know I just mentioned it
before when I was talking about Tricky but please EA I'm begging you please
bring SSX back on Nintendo Switch.
So now I've spent
the vast majority of this video talking about SSX and Tony Hawk games and well
this is supposed to be a video about extreme sports games in general. So I'm
about to rattle off some honorable mentions that I would love to see make a
comeback in some capacity.
Amped: a more
realistic snowboarding game that was still crazy fun and leaned more into real
world snowboarding culture as the games progressed.
Skate: the skating
game that finally toppled the titan Tony Hawk with innovative gameplay and
finely tuned mechanics.
NHL Hitz: 3v3 hockey
on the moon in big head mode 'nuff said.
All the Mario sports
games: I know we got Tennis Aces last year but what about golf, hoops, and
super strikers? The EA street series left a hole in a lot of peoples hearts
that Nintendo could easily fill.
For many of us video
games have played a huge role in our lives and it may sound stupid to say but
some extreme sports games have contributed in a very significant way to my
becoming who I am as a person. I skateboarded throughout all of middle school
and while I wasn’t good at it I did get to the point in skating that can only
be achieved through practice and that was all because of the Tony Hawk games. I
snowboarded for 13 years and when I wasn’t able to be on the mountain playing
SSX kept me involved and thirsty for more driving my love for the sport. My
taste in music and even my personal sense of fashion are still an evolution of
what I chose as an anti-establishment teenager. At the risk of sounding
hyperbolic these games are part of what made me who I am today. EA, Activision,
Neversoft (rest in peace) please bring extreme sports games back. The list of
game announcements that could make my head explode is short but on that list is
definitely Tony Hawk's Underground 3, and a new SSX game.
Did you guys love
extreme sports games as much as I did? Which one was your favorite? Let me know
in the comments down below. While you're down there don’t forget to hit that
subscribe button for a new video and two new podcasts ever week. Don’t forget to
check out our website coldnorthpro.com for everything we do all in one spot. If
you're still here seriously thank you for watching my video, this is just a
hobby of mine right now but I'm hoping to work in games media some day so
everyone that subscribes and watches you're the ones that are encouraging me to
keep going every week. Thanks. Ill be back next week talking about Remote Play
so until then just go play some games.
The Sims
By: Patrick Morris
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth joint. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the
video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and
what I think of the medium as a whole. This week we are going to be talking
about a drug that all of us were introduced to at a very young age and how it
has changed over the years, so without further ado let's talk about The Sims 4.
I used to play the
shit out of the Sims when I was a kid, my sister played it while staying
overnight at a friends house one time and the next day she begged my mom to
drive her to Target to buy a copy. I had no idea what this game was all about
and as a result I had very little interest initially but after seeing her play
I, just like everyone else, was inexplicably driven to play this silly game. My
sister and I were hooked early and The Sims went on to become one of the few
games that she was more interested and obsessive over than I was. She bought
ever expansion pretty much as soon as they were released and would play for
hours on end and honestly some of my most treasured memories of video games are
watching my sister play and feel as excited about a game as I was. It was a
series that I fell off of almost as soon as the first full blown sequel was
released and for a while I've wondered what has become of the games so when The
Sims 4 was on sale on PSN for $8 a few weeks ago there was no better time to
find out. This isn't a review of the Sims 4 its just a perspective of a player
coming back to the series after a long time away.
The Sims used to be
a game that was two very different experiences that complimented each other
well. Turns out it's still a game that is essentially two games in one that
feed off each other. The Sims consisted and still consists of a building game
that allows players to design their own homes and run wild with cheats and a
completely absurd life simulation game where players have to handle the
smallest details like sending their sims to the bathroom on a regular basis and
the unrealistic like being haunted by dead family members you didn’t even know
existed. These two radically different experiences are designed in such a
perfect way to make the player want to expand on the other that even before
Minecraft The Sims was a life sucking monster that always pushed the player to
just do this one last thing then before they knew it they had lost their entire
Sunday to building and living and building more then living in the building to
drive themm to build so they could live to build. Two unique games that have
been engineered to fit perfectly into one another can be a dangerous thing and
it is the reason I don’t get to spend as much time with my girlfriend anymore.
Not much has changed
when it comes to the building game. It is still made up of what seems like
unlimited options and potential but when you really need something to work a
certain way the game couldn’t possibly be more limited. When I was a kid I was
a firm believer that The Sims was the best way to model building a home for
anyone who is rich enough to design their own home and build from the ground
up; and today with absolutely no expanded knowledge on the subject I'm willing
to say that hasn’t changed. It's a fantastic way for teenaged couples to
fanaticize about a future they will never be able to afford, young adult
couples to design something together and fight about the color of a bathroom
wall that will never exist in real life, and older couples to map out how they
want to put off retirement until they're 80. In fact, as I was writing this it
occurred to me that The Sims is essentially just Ikea in software form…would it
be considered a conspiracy theory to think that The Sims was somehow financed
by Ikea? Or that Ikea is secretly owned by EA? Regardless, in the Sims 4 the
building is still ridiculously easy to learn making it approachable for even
the most inept players while still offering a level of complexity that makes it
impossible to master. While almost nothing has changed the building portion of
the Sims 4 still gets a passing grade in my book.
Once you're done building all of your houses
and pools and doorless sheds you use to lock unwanted step children in so they
don’t bother you while they're starving waiting for child protections services
to take them away what's left is the living game and this is where the biggest
improvements have been made. When I first started playing the living portion of
the game I was blown away! I could take my sims to other places to meet other
sims!? I wasn’t forced to just wait for the neighbors to walk past and hope I
was quick enough to sprint out and have some sort of human interaction with
them!? This was amazing! But then after two weddings, one failed marriage, two
girlfriends, one boyfriend, two children being taken away by CPS, and an hour
of gameplay it occurred to me that there were two full entries with their own
numerous expansions between what I last played and this game. After some
research it appears as though there has been some level of regression back to a
more contained experience after The Sims 3 was a far more open and free
experience. From my perspective what is available now is fantastic and fun but
if I was someone that had stuck with the series I can see myself being a bit
disappointed, but I'm not that person so I'm not disappointed!
As someone who only
played the first game and all of it's expansions The Sims 4 is an excellent
update to the core concept of the original game. Managing the needs of the
Sims, progressing their lives, and providing them with social interactions is
all still there but now there are some excellent new additions. When creating
my Sim the very first thing I was prompted to do was select their interests and
aspirations, initially I wrote this off as a stupid and meaningless decision
but as I got more and more into the game it became apparent to me that those
decisions that I made at the very outset are what guide a meaningful sense of
progression. Sim's don’t live their lives exactly how we want them to anymore,
they have long term goals that need to be satisfied in order to keep them
happy. While it can still feel like a mundane game with no real progression
there is a new give and take balance between the players goals and the Sim's
goals and working in harmony together is how both the player and the Sim
progress. It's very strange to think about but the game has gotten to the point
where rather than being a hollow avatar for the player to inhabit Sim's have
become the player's partner in the game and exuding desires beyond eating and
going to the bathroom makes each Sim a much more unique character.
So would I recommend
going back to The Sims after all these years? Yes, but only do it when the game
is cheap and when you do be careful to only play the game for one day of
nostalgia because above all else it is designed to be addicting. I was excited
to get the base game at such a reasonable price and it wasn’t until around hour
eight on my first day of playing the game when $200 for all the expansions
started to not sound so bad that it occurred to me: EA is a straight up drug
deal. They gave me the first taste for a measly $8 because they like me right?
But then once I'm hooked they jacked up the price. It was a fun game when I was
a kid and to no surprise it's still a very fun game. The improvements that have
been made to the series are substantial and exciting and would definitely be
worth buying if this was the only game I was playing. But it's not the only
game I'm going to play. My 11 hour day with The Sims 4 was an excellent trip
down a drug addicted memory lane and for that reason I don’t plan on going back
to the series until The Sims 7.
Have you played The
Sims recently? What was I missing out on during the formative Sims 2 and 3
years? Let me know in the comments down below.
If you liked what
you heard don’t forget to subscribe for a new video every week. And if you just
cant get enough check out our video games podcast HardReset for more free form
video game discussion or our movies podcast NoRefunds the podcast that watches
bad movies so you don’t have to. You can find those on most major podcast
services and right here on YouTube. I will be back next week talking about
extreme sports games so until then just go play some games!
Gamepass
By Patrick Morris
Hey everybody
welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth joint! I'm TheLawMorris and this is the
video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and
what I think of the medium as a whole. You can find everything we do all in one
spot over at ColdNorthPro.com, this week we are going to be talking about Xbox
Gamepass so with no further ado lets get into it!
Quick disclaimer:
everything I'm about to say is based on my own speculation. I have an economics
degree so its not baseless unqualified speculation but just keep in mind that
it is speculation none the less.
I want to come right
out and say this at the beginning: in concept Gamepass is a great idea…honestly
it's a game changing idea…in concept. In execution it's a great idea with some
major flaws that prevent it from being anything more than a decent service.
Microsoft has positioned Gamepass and advertised it as the best to play their
first party games. The problem with this is that when compared to the onslaught
of third party games the emphasis should be the other way around. Gamepass
should be sold as the best way of playing third party games inherently
positioning Xbox as the best platform to play most games on. For the past three
or arguably four generations Nintendo hasn’t concerned themselves with third
party experiences and the reason to own a Nintendo console has been the first
party offerings. In Nintendo's case this has been a decision they consciously
made but if Microsoft were to play their cards right the first party offerings
being the sole reason to own a PlayStation could be thrust upon Sony.
Regardless of
whatever magical land we want to live in where everything is free and we all
skip home holding hands every day that’s not the real world. Things cost money
and companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo arent running a charity.
Revenue streams need to be generated in order to fund the big budget titles
that we all love and at it's current price I don’t think Gamepass will be able
to simultaineously sustain the fixed operative costs of the service and fund
new big budget games that are system sellers like Halo, Gears of War, Fable,
and Forza (yes I am still a believer that Fable is coming back). Cost of
production of massive triple A and now as Microsoft is referring to them
quadruple A titles is insanely high and without the traditional revenue model
funding the next major title will be difficult. It's similar to why MoviePass
failed so spectacularly except in Microsoft's case they have directly related
hardware sales to subsidize the losses incurred, and they have a hugely
diversified business to make it so that the entire companies future doesn’t
depend on this one thing. In fact I would now like to issue a formal apology to
Microsoft, I'm sorry I compared you to the flaming bag of dogshit that is
Moviepass. Well I suppose I now offer flaming bags of dog shit an apology too.
Flaming bags of dog shit everywhere, I'm sorry I compared you to Moviepass it
really was uncalled for.
When looking at the
revenue that Microsoft is trying to generate from Gamepass you have to look at
who their target audience is. The people who are supposed to be paying for
Gamepass is, well it's everybody but the people that are actually paying for
Gamepass are teenagers parents and people that are simply not that into video
games. When I was 13 and 14 years old every summer blockbuster would offer a
three month pass to check out one game at a time and swap it out as much as you
wanted. If I'm remembering correctly it was something like $30 per month. For
my mom who was working from home at the time this was an amazing value so every
summer she would shell out the $90 and I could play as many video games as I
wanted and I also got a lot of exercise riding my bike to and from Blockbuster.
I would guess at least half of the Gamepass subscriptions are parents doing
exactly what my mom did, paying a subscription fee to be able to get something
done for a change.
Who I think makes up
the other half of the current Gamepass subscribers are the adults and college
kids that simply arent that interested in video games. The people that buy Call
of Duty and Madden or Fifa every year and pretty much nothing else. To these
people video games are a good way to pass the time but they aren't their
primary hobby or even one of their primary hobbies. These people are willing to
spend roughly $120 to $150 per year on video games and that's about it. And
considering the price of Gamepass being $120 annually Microsoft is faced with a
challenge. They have to either convince those people to spend their money on
Gamepass all year instead of Call of Duty and Fifa or they have to convince the
demographic that is one of their most casual audiences to essentially double
their annual video game budget. With the omnipresence of Call of Duty, Madden,
and Fifa and the increasing popularity of free to play games like Apex Legends
and Fortnite I think Gamepass may be targeting the wrong audience.
Fourteen years ago
video streaming was in it's infancy and over time different services have
experimented with different strategies and at this point there are three fairly
apparent winners, Netflix (obviously), HBO, and Hulu. Each of these three
services approaches the streaming game in a different way and each has
different strengths. Country club like subscription services in the Video Game
industry should be able to learn a few lessons from the video streaming
industry and emulate the behavior and emphases of one of the three big players
in order to user their recipe for success for skip a few steps.
Netflix is in my
opinion the worst of the three. Netflix's strategy in the last several years
seems to have been to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, oh and
uh don’t bet on seinfeld, not their finest moment. Netflix is focused on making
their original content the primary reason to subscribe to their service and
every year they are either making or buying more original content than they did
the year before. What started out as a fun little experiment has become an
unrecognizable mass of widely varying quality like Jack Baker at the end of
Resident Evil 7 and it's all called Netflix Originals. Sure we still get things
like Stranger Things season one and The Santa Clarita Diet from time to time
but the vast majority of the originals is mediocre at best and 13 Reasons Why
at worst. And on top of the pile of originals Netflix has all the movies from
ten years ago that nobody wanted to watch! What a deal!
HBO has taken almost
the exact opposite approach as netflix. Yes they are still focused on their
original series but that's almost all there is on HBO and they are so few and
far between that when one comes you know it's going to be worth watching. I'm not
a Game of Thrones fan, in fact that show is getting to Breaking Bad levels of
obnoxious to where I just cant wait for it to be over so people will shut the
fuck up about it. But no matter how annoyed I am with the fan's I cant deny the
insane level of overall quality that show has. Production value, acting,
writing, sets, story tellings, it's all fantastic. It's almost like it wasn’t a
poop in the urinal they waited for their audience to find and hoped they would
think it was funny.
And finally the
middle of the road most level headed little brother of the bunch Hulu. Hulu's
focus isn't about creating their own content it's delivering other people's
content. When I don’t know what I want to watch, I go to Hulu. I go to Hulu
because they put effort and investment into having a great library of third
party content and that bankrolls a significantly smaller library of their own
originals that for the most part kick ass, The Handmaids Tale and Castle Rock
jump to mind.
Unfortunately it
appears as though Microsoft is trying to emulate the Netflix model. Just
throwing everything at the wall including things that shouldn't have been like
Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, and Crackdown 3. I said it at the beginning
of this video and I'll say it again now: Gamepass is a game changing idea (pun
intended). But what they need to do is build up a great library of third party
titles then up the monthly premium so it's a better value and more intriguing
to players who are the ones who will eventually adopt this as just another bill
that has to be paid once per year like Live of PSN. Chase a different crowd
Microsoft, I'm willing to pay $20 or even $30 per month if we get big name
titles on the service within eight months of release. Increase the value to the
customer to appeal to the core gaming audience then increase the price because
I really don’t think we will mind! That way youll get more revenue and then use
that revenue to focus more intently on fewer games. Essentially what I'm saying
in this video Microsoft is that if you let Gamepass fuck up Halo Infinite I
will never forgive you!
Is anyone here
watching this video subscribing to Gamepass? What made you finally pull the
trigger? Let me know in the comments down below.
If you liked what
you heard don’t forget to subscribe for a new video every week. And if you
loved what you heard and you just cant get enough you can check out our podcast
HardReset for more free form video game discussion or NoRefunds the podcast
that watches bad movies so you don’t have to! You can find everything we do all
in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com, I will be back next week talking about
the Sims so until then just go play some games.
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