Sunday Supplement – 9th October

Comic courtesy of Fat Gamers.

A trilogy in the making?

Peter Jackson will produce Halo the movie. He’s a fan, which is great of course. With a million-dollar script from Alex Garland (The Beach) and the production skills of the team behind The Lord of the Rings and King Kong on board, Halo could be the greatest movie based on a videogame ever.

Ahh, life sized plasma swords and digitised Flood, what could be better? But wait! There’s a clichè in all this excitement. Peter Jackson said he’s an avid fan of Halo, but don’t all moviemakers who make films based on videogames claim the same?

Peter Jackson said he played Halo 2 in the evening while shooting King Kong, but how can we be sure? Does he know the ‘three Needler’ trick? Does he share the same hatred for high-pitched US teenagers as the rest of us? Has anyone had the misfortune of taking a battle rifle to the face from Pete lately? How would you know? He’s hardly going to call himself Mr Jackson is he? Nor would he use his real voice on Xbox Live.

Which raises an interesting question about playing online games. Odds are some celebrities do it – and the odds are some of those are quite big celebrities at that. You never really know who you’re playing with do you?

But I digress. The point is, marketing managers know there are thousands of fanboys who obsess over a particular game franchise and want to feel their favourite game won’t be sullied by some ignorant director who doesn’t give a damn about the history and mythologies of the game universe. So, it’s an obvious thing to say at a game press conference. “Tell them you’re a fan and have played it for years,” marketing heads garble. “They’ll love that.”

Of course, I’m not suggesting Peter Jackson hasn’t played Halo. I’m just saying it probably doesn’t matter. He did a great job with The Lord of the Rings, an intellectual property that has one of the most passionate, loyal and obsessive fans in the world. He kept most of them happy with his interpretation of Tolkein’s work. Let’s have faith that his influence as executive producer on Halo the movie will do the same for Master Chief’s army of fans as well.

No one reads game reviews: discuss

First some facts. FIFA 2006 is the fastest selling football game of all time. FIFA 2006 is the fifth fastest selling game of all time. FIFA 2006 is not as good as Pro Evolution 5. FIFA 2006 is out now, Pro Evolution 5 is not. EA spend more money marketing FIFA than Konami do with Pro Evolution Soccer. FIFA 2006 has all the official players, stadiums and teams, Pro Evolution Soccer 5 does not. Most game publications in print and on the web say Pro Evolution Soccer is the best football series of all time. Most game publications have said FIFA 2006 isn’t fantastic.

So, what does it all mean? Well, there are a few logical explanations:

• People want to play a football game now, and FIFA is out now, so they buy it. It’s not a terrible game and will satisfy their casual desires.
• People don’t listen to game journalism at all (let’s not believe this one).
• Casual gamers do not absorb game journalism and so would only know about this new FIFA game because of adverts on TV and in the paper and would be unaware that PES5 is better and is coming out soon.

So what are the implications? Well, it means that game journalists don’t carry as much influence as they would like to think. It’s fair to say that the majority of people who buy videogames do not buy game magazines or read game websites on the web. They actually go out. Strange I know.

Also, PES is more of a hardcore game anyway. It’s hard to score and can appear frustrating to the uninitiated. FIFA, on the other hand, is instantly accessible, often has high scoring matches and spectacular goals are scored left right and centre.

To make it clear, FIFA is like Arsenal, and PES is like Chelsea. FIFA is beautiful to watch, scores lots of flamboyant goals and celebrates with an air or arrogance only found in the most technically gifted of Frenchman. PES, on the other hand, is organised, efficient, structured and challenging. Goals are scored, mostly on the break, and with ruthless accuracy. It is no less beautiful, but the beauty is subtler.

So, as you can clearly see, newcomers or those with limited time will obviously go for the game that provides the most entertainment quickest. It helps, of course, that EA pump millions into marketing the beast. PES, on the other hand, requires love over time.

What we have to accept is that most PES players are into their games more than FIFA players are. We also have to accept that game journalism only reaches a fraction of the game buying public. I’ll leave what we need to do about that for another Sunday.

EA face the music

EA this week paid $15.6m to employees who filed a lawsuit claiming unpaid overtime. EA employee Jamie Kirshenbaum and a group of his colleagues said EA had “improperly classified some of its employees, including ‘animators,’ ‘modellers,’ ‘texture artists,’ ‘lighters,’ ‘background effects artists,’ and ‘environmental artists’ as exempt from overtime, and therefore failed to pay those employees overtime compensation.“

The case at least points in the right direction for those working in the deep end of the game industry – the guys responsible for those lovely textures and lighting effects we take for granted.

Many have highlighted poor working conditions and criticised the treatment some working in the game industry receive, especially when ‘on crunch’. In an ideal world, everyone would be paid according to how much work they put in. Unfortunately, in the creative industries, this isn’t a realistic proposition.

Like those in the media, anyone who runs a small business or creative artists, you just do the work when it needs to be done. Sure, there are directives governing how long you are legally entitled to for lunch, and laws governing regular breaks from the computer, but this kind of stuff just doesn’t happen in the real world.

These guys have a right to be paid, but the problem isn’t hours worked – it’s the pay itself. Let’s be frank – it’s not fun re-building a game engine from scratch when you have six months to deadline. Let’s just raise the pay barrier for the guys who make the magic happen. Do this, or the industry will struggle to attract and keep its talent.

Last throw of the pad?

Nintendo’s sales figures have taken a tumble, pretty much down to the underperforming GameCube, but they expect sales to rise off the back of the weakening Yen and sales of the DS. Looks like developers have ditched the Cube and are heading for the Revolution. A cursory glance at upcoming GameCube games doesn’t exactly inspire delirious anticipation. Nintendo’s senior marketing director Yoshihiro Mori summed it up: “It looks like the product’s life is nearing its end.”

Bad news to those who have stuck by the curious toy-box these past few years. Who can forget the insane pyrotechnics of Ikaruga, the frantic survival horror of Resident Evil 4, the good bits from Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker or the sheer beauty of Metroid Prime?

It’s had some amazing moments hasn’t it? It’s a pity it’s had such a starved life, but that’s the nature of the game. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and Nintendo’s GameCube was gobbled up by Sony and Microsoft long ago. But never fear loyal fanboys – this little beast has a younger brother who might just bite back.

This week on Pro-G

If you’ve missed anything here’s what we published on the site this week.

Reviews

• Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance (PS2 and Xbox)
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Lockdown (PS2 and Xbox)
• Spartan: Total Warrior (PS2, Xbox and Cube)
• Sonic Gems Collection (PS2 and Cube)
• Tony Hawk’s Underground 2: Remix (PSP)
• Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (PSP)
• NHL 06 (PS2, Xbox and Cube)

This week’s new releases

Well, I hope you’ve got some money left after last week’s new releases as there’s plenty to pick up this week. EA continue to release more games than seems possible, with this week’s releases including the much anticipated Black & White 2 from Lionhead and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006. Ubisoft has released three games including Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood, Nintendo has finally released Nintendogs in the UK and Sega release the brutal Spartan: Total Warrior.

In fact, there isn’t much that we’d advise against picking up. Even less high profile releases like Geist, Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes and Sniper Elite are worth taking a look at. Of course, it might be sensible to save some money for next week’s line-up which includes the likes of F.E.A.R, Serious Sam 2, Ultimate Spiderman and X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.

• Black & White 2 (PC)
• Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood (PC, Xbox)
• Darkwatch (PS2, Xbox)
• FIFA Manager 06 (PC)
• Geist (Cube)
• Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes (Xbox)
• NBA Live 2006 (PS2, Xbox, Cube, PC, PSP)
• Nintendogs (DS)
• Sniper Elite (Xbox)
• Spartan: Total Warrior (PS2, Xbox, Cube)
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 (PS2, Xbox, Cube, PC, PSP)

Next week on Pro-G

Next week we’ve got reviews for Nintendogs, Dawn of War – Winter Assault, WWII Tank Commander, Conflict: Global Storm, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and more.