God, it's been a while. Have you missed my Cynical Nature? My friends would tell you that I can be quite the Cynical Bastard, but in recent history I've moved to a new state and my Cynical Nature has been placed on the back burner as real issues consume my life. Life is good and all, and while I've been furloughed for four days I still have a job and that's fantastic.

Lucky for those of you that enjoy my Cynical Nature, I am writing this article. I mean there's plenty of things to be cynical about if you're American. For the sake of this article I'll keep it to limited to gaming. Let's jump into a few of those topics, after all it's been a while and some things have certainly happened.



Let's start with the subject of my last article, Mr. Luc Bernard. See, he had this game known as Eternity's Child, and on paper it looked really good. It excited me, it really did. Unfortunately, what's good on paper doesn't always turn out great, and apparently Eternity's Child just was not good. If you trust Destructoid's review it's God awful, and that's just sad really. Such high expectations dashed by the general panning of this game by reviewers. So how did Luc take it? Like a baby! He said he would never develop games again, and the world shed a single tear.

So, flash forward to today and what's happening? Why, Luc Bernard is developing games! Why, Luc, you pretentious ass! You make such a damn scene out of everything, make everyone hate you, and in the process of doing so we all know your name now that you are developing legitimate games. Your story inclines me to believe that you planned this crap out all along. You sir, are a marketing genius, or incredibly stupid. Here's to you, Mr. Bernard. You might have pissed off half the gaming world, but at least we all know who you are.

Moving on, I recently bought a PlayStation 3, and it's fantastic. While the Wii isn't the shovelware console that it's sometime depicted to be, the fact still remains that it's quite obvious that the casual gamer is Nintendo's Priority. I've come to terms with that, and that is why I own a George Foreman Grill. But, fortunately for you, Nintendo, while you don't seem to care much about the core gamers right now, some of your third party developers do. God, Mad World and The Conduit will be fantastic. I'm not a violent person, but Mad World and it's violence will be amazing.

While the third party developers have a few gems, I still have to wonder where the hell Nintendo is with their AAA titles. Animal Crossing was for the "core gamer"? I call bullshit. You're a smart company, Nintendo, and you know how to maximize profit. And profit maximization is simple with the Wii! All you need to do is cater to the "casual" gamer. There are a lot more of them than there are of us, and well, Nintendo's Advertising crew knows how to make the Wii and Nintendo's games seem absolutely necessary. Thing is though that they aren't! Super Smash Bros Brawl felt eerily like Melee, except with a nerfed Ness. Bastards. Animal Crossing was the same Animal Crossing released on the other consoles. Let's face it, you're not releasing games to satisfy the true gamers any more, rather, you're placating them. It's sort of sad, but you got to do what makes the investors happy. I understand.

Cynicism doesn't just mean having a general disdain for other people, but also being overly pessimistic about things. Well, for the gaming industry, the economy and its effects on the industry have caused me to be pessimistic about the future. I don't think Sony will ever return to being number one in the market. Sony took a gamble by releasing an expensive console years ahead of its time, and the economy decided to collapse around them, making their console out of the reach of consumers even at a price point lower than what it launched for. Developers are falling left and right. Factor 5 and Free Radical both are gone. EA is laying off 1000 or so people. Midway is bankrupt. Surely this is a bad time for a lot of companies, and the gaming industry is not immune from the economic fallout.

What does the future hold for the industry? I think you're going to see more game companies fall over the course of this year. Companies will probably try to maximize efficiency, which means layoffs are impending for those that stay open. Got to survive with lower profit margins, and a lot of companies will need to do that. This is 2009. We're in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Companies are finding that a few companies are selling most of the games, leaving a small piece of the pie for the rest of the developers. Can this small piece of the pie support the large number of developers during the recession? Probably not.

Well, I apologize for the long, long hiatus on Cynical Gamer articles. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, it's a new year, so hopefully new articles from your neighborhood friendly Cynical Gamer. Of course, your neighborhood friendly Cynical Gamer also happens to code the PHP pages on this website, write for this website, and act the Site Director of this website; so who knows when the next time you'll see the Cynical Gamer actually will be. So, until next time!

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2008 is over, and has been now for almost three days. Is it sad? Nah, sure the economy hit the dump and many developers went belly up but that does not mean that there were not some great moments in gaming over the year. Sadly, there were also bound to be some disappointments as well. Being now 2009, it seems like the perfect opportunity to reflect on the previous year as it pertains to games. Let's all do that, shall we? I'll start.




The Good
My Wii Library: Sure lots of people like to knock on the Wii as the perpetual source of shovelware (see Target: Terror), but that doesn't mean that there haven't been quite a few diamonds in the rough. I mean, look at No More Heroes. That game is absolutely pure awesome, and it's an exclusive. I mean I liked it so much that it had an unsolicited ad on the site. That's a quality game right there if you ask me. But it's more than No More Heroes. Okami was awesome, even if it was a port. De Blob was probably the biggest breath of fresh air that I've played in a long time, and then there some gems in WiiWare, namely World of Goo. I mean, damn, that game is fun, certainly not my game of the year (No offense to you IGN but DeBlob was better, but still a treat). Surely, for all the flak the Wii gets it does in fact have some gems, and I enjoyed them. Here's to you diamonds in the crap.

Buying a PS3: Sure, it's expensive as hell, but I enjoy having it. I have GTA IV, Eternal Sonata, Guitar Hero, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (for free), and LittleBigPlanet; and so far I love the games I have. Sure, GTA is just a nicer version of III, but I still love it and there is the gem that is LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet is interesting. At it's core it is just a good platformer, but then they take it to a whole new level through community interaction. There are so many community levels that it at times seems like a totally different game. It's really damn cool, if you ask me. And then there is Guitar Hero: World Tour. Sure, it's a Rock Band knockoff and my guitar tilt sensor is broken, but it's fun to play drums and the likes. While I imagine my electric bills will be a tad higher now that I have the PS3 and subsequently rehooked up my audio receiver I'll survive, even with my four day furlough.

The Bad
Playstation Home: It was supposed to be AWESOME! Instead it seems to a place where you wait a long time to bowl and if you're a girl you get surrounded by guys who won't let you escape while they dance around you. Here's to you, PlayStation Home, you're the nongame I thought would be interesting but in your current manifestation is terrible!

Spore: Spore was supposed to be the game to end all games, Will Wright's biggest achievement. Instead, to me it seems like five mini games strewn together in a game that makes you wishing for more. Sure, you can design stuff til your heart's content, but if you want a game, there's just not much there, and that makes me a sad panda.

The Ugly
DRM and Spore: Let's not kid ourselves here, SecuROM is an evil, evil thing that deserves to be sent to the lowest circles of hell. Unfortunately, EA deems SecuROM a necessary evil and has included it on several of its games, including Spore. Well, its inclusion into Spore was ugly, very ugly. See, in its original form you could only install it on three PCs and you could not deauth installations, so if you like to reformat you were pretty screwed. This copy protection caused the Amazon rating to tank, and it was precious. EA has completely some improvements to the DRM in Spore, but to a certain extent it's still atrocious. Here's to your future EA!

Goodbye, Studio X: God, the economy in the second half of 2008 has been brutal. If you are looking for a job, or if you have a government job (like me) this economy probably has you a little bit jittery. Sadly, the recession did not bode well for quite a few developers. Factor 5 was known for Rogue Squadron and most recently the poorly received game Lair. Unfortunately, economy hasn't been to kind to Factor 5's employees, as the company was forced to close. It's sad really, but they aren't the only ones to close. Free Radical? Essentially closed. Midway? Bankrupt. It's sad times we live in, and when you look beyond the realm of games the times we live in are truly scary. It's an ugly, ugly time for game developers, and I hope the future is brighter for them.


So, 2008. How was it for you? What's your, good, bad, and ugly? I imagine your thoughts and my thoughts are different, and as such I want to know, I really truly want to know, what they exactly are. Share them with us in the comments.

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