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Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category
There’s a heck of a discussion going around these days about how the PC as a gaming platform is dying. Some people – foul heretics, no doubt – have gone so far as to even suggest that PC Gaming is “dead” or that its future is “bleak” at best thanks to rampant piracy. One might tend to believe such people – until you realize that almost all of them are, or are deeply associated with, the major game publishers in some form or the other; or alternatively, are rabid console fan boys.
I honestly don’t know where these people are pulling their numbers from or getting the feeling of PC Gaming being dead. If these figures are coming from traditional market sales at Walmart and the gaming stores, maybe one could understand. This of course fails to recognize the not-insignificant number of sales that are going online these days. With services like Steam, Stardock, or even Amazon and Ebay, there’s really little incentive to go to the games store or to deal with annoying stupid staff that always manages to screw up your experience somehow and thus might result in the low numbers that people are claiming to see.
I’m sure by now that many of you have already probably heard the news of Jack Thompson’s fiasco in the Florida court, which would most likely result in him being debarred from practicing law for ten years. That’s right. Count it on both hands, baby – 10 Jack Thompson free years! I’d like to feel a little bit of joy and more than well-deserved feeling of “Finally!”, but I can’t help but feel a sad bit of pity for him now.
Judging by the objections he filed with the court (which had refused to let him read it out), and the wild claims he made about the Judge Dava Tunis before walking out of his own hearing it’s quite clear that the he missed the Sanity train not once, but probably twice in a row. The entire fiasco was quite pathetic and pitiful, and I have to wonder how the hell he ever got to be a lawyer in the first place.
Still, as a gamer, it’s a relief to hear such news and see such an anti-gaming extremist out of the picture… but as a human being, I can’t help but be naturally curious. What hatred could drive this man into willingly jumping into the seas of insanity? What reasoning does he holds against gaming – that which is essentially an indoor extension of the physical activities and games of make-believe we once played as children?
Could it be he really feared that playing such violent games like Quake, Doom and the like made us naturally more violent? Well, does it?
Whenever we catch breath of “news” like this, our somewhat attempts at analyzing it usually draws to the same conclusion. Indian developer announces or shows off game project. Indian developer assures that the game will hold significance when released to the masses. The Angry Pixel pans Indian developer, with the sort of reasoning you get after getting being butt-whipped with a wet towel in the boy’s locker room while changing. Rinse, lather, repeat. And trust me, I don’t like it coming down to that. I want India to grow as a viable platform for game development. But this is just making it too easy, that even Ravi decided not to comment about it. And he wrote the book on Bollywood bashing around these parts.
UPDATE: Apparently, these screens are from an in-house engine test and are nowhere near the current version’s visual representation. Expect to see some real hard facts, and less PR blunder. Thanks to Sanjit for the coolly, collective clarification. Gosh, aren’t I the bumbling douche bucket now. I don’t suppose anyone from the Rocking Pixels team would be interested in dressing up as a ninja, eh?
In between conceited guffaws and outstanding fits of mockery divided between “serial entrepreneur”, “significant online gaming presence” and “expert speak” for so little as a coffee mug associated with FX Labs, I came upon this misshapen fool’s gold nugget. Hm. Quaint. If you bother to actually go through all of brotha Reddi’s drivel, chances are you’ll come up with much less subtle and infinitely more scathing remarks on what is ultimately an opinion on what constitutes a selling game in India (undertones of “And we know how to do it, beetches” included).
Salutations, to all you folk. Say, did you know we recently turned a year old? No, no - not ourselves. Although having a bunch a young, thumb-socking misfits writing an Indian Gaming blog would suffice for more of a relevant plot device than anything the Super Babies movies were ever about. And god, you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to take a crack at the Super Babies. Imagine if your feces sprouted it’s own civilizations and… wait, where am I going with this?
Anyway, theANGRYpixel blog is now one year old (and then some). How did we get this far?
FX Labs - how about those guys, huh? After the “unique” attempt made to remodel Riverdale life and the subsequent announcement on Dhoom 2.5 (many months ago announced, with little to no info on it, and still counting), the wizards of WTFery have supposedly turned their attention to creating a third-person action game featuring sassy mama sita, Malaika Arora Khan, called Agni: Queen of Darkness. The real bamboozledness of the whole issue? Not the fact that several random sources erratically post about how great the gameplay is (even going on to the extent to say Oblivion and Prince of Persia can’t compare to it) by mentioning absolutely nothing about said gameplay. Not the fact that the vaunted Mumbai Mirror decides to criticize the game for using a woman to sell it, even though they know just as much about this game as the developers know about the effects of gravity on the above-average female anatomy (read: zilch). Heck, not even the fact that the game is being marketed with a music video that features the most delusional mesh of 3D modeling, live-action dancing and India tunes this side of…well, this side of nothing in the name of sanity.
Just the fact that this game was The Lost that Irrational Games teamed with FXLabs to create, and went by the name of an early vision of Bioshock before less hallucinogen-induced minds prevailed and Irrational took the game into their own hands, makes you twitch and feel nothing is sacred. Everything about the game provokes the same, as mentioned with the propaganda (it’s too biased to be anything else) likening this title to the second coming of Ram and the impossibly demeaning pivotal motion of the heroine Tara’s hips. Seriously, what can we honestly say about a game where nothing honest exists? One of us from TAP could probably pick up this game (and I mean that in the loosest sense) and review it, but I for one like my eyes. And ears. And God. And I’m an Atheist.
Official word on an Agni review: Never-ever-ever and counting, by the infinitely far looks of it. Maybe we should pitch this one over to Yahtzee.
About a few days ago, the World Cyber Games association announced their official roaster for this year’s global competition, and I gotta say, India better be getting a good chunk of what’s being offered. Project Gotham Racing 4 seems like a no-brainer, but Virtua Fighter 5? Oh, I’d be hitting that with a dash of chilli-sauce. And you should too.
Speaking of which, when we spoke to Cyril Ferry during last year’s preliminaries in Delhi, one thing Reggie and I asked him was the deal on the lack of recent game titles (Project Gotham Racing 3 makes an appearance, but Gears of War doesn’t?). He reasoned that because of the costs involved in owning either a high-end rig or next-gen console, older games running on older systems will always make for a bigger draw in the hearts of competitors. With a year already gone by, I hope to Hercules that this isn’t so much the case anymore, especially if you look at Guitar Hero 3, of all things considered. It’s widely available on a number of platforms (even on the DS, for Christ’s sake), and if folks don’t feel like purchasing the pricey peripheral, they can always jam for free on their keyboards with Frets on Fire. What does IndiaGames got to lose on this one?