I already knew Mega Man was awesome. And Mega Man 2? Doubly so. That’s pretty much a no-brainer.The same can be said for the electric guitar, for yea, it is the only object known to man from which pure concentrated awesomery flows. However! You may be unprepared when these two crackling pillars of unadulterated awesomeforce intertwine and mingle into the raw, beating mass of downloadable music known as Mega Beardo. Exclamation point! Continue Reading

The last time I played D&D with my friends, I played as my halfling rogue. I had honed his skills in the art of stealth and assassination, but doubt lurked in my mind when we went on our latest campaign. Our party was surrounded by hostile mud monsters; the GM asked me what I’d like to do, perhaps he supposed something sneaky or dexterous, but I thought, as a hobbit assassin, this would be an ideal moment for my character to have a whimsical flashback sequence of his days as a young halfing playing in a field of tall grass and wildflowers, well before he fell in with a morally questionable group of mud-monster-fighting adventurers. The problem was that my choices were entirely limited to sneaky or dexterous things.

Sleep is Death, a new video game by Jason Rorher,  has no such problem. It is uses something much more primitive than even the simplest AI or game engine to generate the occurances within the game, but it so much more powerful that could generate a virtually infinite amount of levels.
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Today, Valve released new concept art of the main character (and a few mutliplayer robots) of their much-anticipated Portal 2. For those of us who didn’t even know a Portal 2 was in development, the new concept art is pretty exciting for a few reasons. If you don’t already know what I’m talking about, you might want to skip this one.

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It’s no secret that video game publishers are losing money to the used game market, to the tune of an astronomical figure I refuse to research diligently. Publishers - wh0 take the hard work done by game developers and pimp it out to retail - have been sailor cursing about this issue for years. Look pubs, I get it, I hate Gamestop too. Selling a used game back to the consumer for 5 dollars off retail after criminally underpaying another consumer is enough to make everyone in the video game ecosystem super bitter.

The Enemies

Consumers feeding the Gamestop beast used product would have better luck in most cases taking their wares elsewhere. The holy trinity of Goozex, Craigslist, and E-bay make unloading previously purchased product and not losing your shirt easy. If you are dead-set on trading your game at retail, various websites have tools that let you compare trade-in values. Cheap Ass Gamer is my favorite.

photo by Jacob Metcalf

The used-game market is not the only enemy of the mighty game publishers. Personally, I find renting my games at Gamefly is what works for me. With a 4-out-at-once plan and some careful planning, I can usually get AAA releases to my door a day after they hit retail. While some games still pack 90 hours of action onto the retail disc, there is no reason to purchase a 6-hour game. Hell, a 30 hour game is easily beaten in a rental month. I’m perfectly content with my rental strategy, but I’ve recently encountered a problem.

Fuck you, Cerberus

I mean, have you played the last two BioWare games?  Some of the best game experiences ever can be had In Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. However, as a rental customer, I became painfully aware of the new strategy in-place to deter the rental and used markets. Download codes. Dragon Age was almost forgivable; the included codes simply unlocked an additional character, and a mission. In Mass Effect 2, the code unlocked the Cerebus network, a platform for downloading additional content. The additional content amounted to another additional character and a few shitty additional missions. In both cases, after completing the main stories via my rentals, I felt compelled to purchase retail editions as soon as a sale popped up. In both cases I realized the additional content was underwhelming, especially after the the game was completed. I was a sucker!

 Borderlands

I’m not loving the day-one DLC that is only free for retail purchasers. It smells and tastes like a dick move. My preferred approach to this problem is what I call the Borderlands approach. Make your money on the comeback. I had a blast when I rented Borderlands. The game played like World Of Warcraft for people who have jobs and featured wonderful drop-in drop-out game-play. After completing my game, I sent it back to Gamefly and moved onto other things. After reading reviews of the DLC, mostly positive and already 3 installments deep, I was happy to purchase the game just for the ability to pay more to play more. No stupid codes, no arm twisting.

On The Comeback 

 Rather than discourage the rental and used markets, I think your energies should be focused on building a platform for expansion. Retail prices drop like a ton if bricks these days. Assholes like myself make it point to inform as many people consumers as possible that only suckers pay 60$ for new retail games. Even if the consumer purchased your title discounted, used, found it in a gutter, some excellent content could have them spending 10 dollars a pop on additional game. It’s much less annoying than gimping my initial play through. You can get me on the comeback.