Xbox Focus - Clarity Awaits You

Columnist Information

Steady Aim

Being a hardcore gamer across all platforms myself, it's sometimes hard for me to deal with fanboyism and bias in articles. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all have their strong points. For the time being, however, Microsoft just has more of them, and it's all thanks to its loyal fanbase.

So why not acknowledge that fanbase? That's what Steady Aim is all about. It's what bothers you, what angers you, what satisfies you and well, anything that has the capability to evoke emotion; those are the things I want to address. They won't be my qualms (though, believe me, our qualms are shared), they will be yours. Afterall, it's time to give the people what they want!

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Column List

• Five Games the 360 Needs

  by Alex Yusupov June 24th 2008 2:24 AM EDT0 Comments

  Imagine a uni-consular (new word I decided to create just now) world, my friends. One gaming system, one only. One with the capabilities of the Xbox 360, the Wii and the Playstation 3. Gamers could simultaneously look forward to the release of games like Gears of War 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4, and only need to spend a few hundred dollars for a single console. Fanboys would no longer exist, at least not to such a great extent. PCs and consoles would be joined into one mega-plutonium-powered-sex-driven-machine of ultimate gaming prowess.
  
  Now let reality sink in, because we will never see that, nor would we want to. On a practical level, having one console to rule them all (allusions are fun!) would just result in whatever company manufacturing them monopolizing the market. You think paying $59.99 for a game is tough? Imagine having to pay that much for a mediocre arcade title!
  
  However, it would still be interesting to see how some of the most popular games on Sony’s and Nintendo’s systems would look like on Microsoft’s Xbox. (Saying that almost sounds like “Microsoft Sexbox!!) I have compiled a list of five great blockbuster titles from today as well as the days of yore and transformed them to fit the flow and demographic of the 360. Let the countdown begin!
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• Are Music Games getting old?

  by Alex Yusupov May 28th 2008 11:33 PM EDT9 Comments

  The Guitar Hero (and more recently, Rock Band) games have come a long way since their introduction several years ago. From the clunky, colorful and wired guitars of yore came new, sleek wireless ones. Thanks to the innovations of Rock Band, we also got a feel for what it was like to sing (albeit badly) and drum (noisily) like rock-stars. And boy was it fun.
  
  However, the formula gets old somewhat quickly. It’s always fun to do a few songs when you’re bored, but it’s the same playlists over and over, and a good 70% of the songs on those playlists you either don’t know, loathe, or a solid mix of the two. And that’s fine, because grinding out some notes was still fun, especially with some friends.
  
  
  
  
  And yet, these games have only skimmed the surface of the pool of potential when it comes to their innovations, for example. For one, why can’t we have some other instruments in our band? Why not a keyboard? What if I want a drum set with two base pedals? Or why not have two guitarists for songs like “Rock You Like A Hurricane?” Rock Band had no problem selling all its peripherals, so adding more wouldn’t water down the experience at all. In fact, a five-member band is very common, and more often than not, I find myself yearning for some fifth instrument to be available because there would be a fifth guy playing with us today.
  
  Whatever, that’s really a very minor issue, so let’s move on to a more recurring, and more prevalent one. I want my own goddamn playlists, and not the steaming pile of garbage offered to me by Red Octane and Harmonix. What if I want to play another song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Disturbed? They don’t care, because they want you to spend precious money on more retarded music from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace! Rejoice!
  
  
  
  
  And it’s not even that difficult to let people have their own playlists. How awesome would it be to be able to chart your own music and then share it with friends? Who can create the most accurate depiction of what is being played on this kickass new song, and who can actually play it? That right there is the kind of interaction I want. Let gamers bring in their own music from their computers and let them chart it. If there are multiple instruments, let them chart all of it. In a local band? Awesome, chart your music and upload it for the whole world to play!
  
  Granted, perhaps there would be technical limitations, but are people working on getting around those? I doubt it. Remember, custom playlists mean no more making money from people buying downloadable content for a hefty price.
  
  Thankfully, we can hold our breathe a little while longer with the new features coming out with Guitar Hero 4, and perhaps Rock Band 2. Creating your own songs seems like crazy good fun, and will definitely satisfy our cravings for innovation for at least another year. After that? Let’s hope a year is enough time to develop a way to chart our own music.
  
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• Our Industry's Best and Worst

  by Alex Yusupov March 31st 2008 4:59 PM EDT7 Comments

  Games have been around for quite a long time, but in the past twenty or so years, some real revolutionary ideas were borne from the minds of geniuses. Many of these ideas impacted the industry permanently while others were whisked away, never to be remembered. Heck, there were even some that scarred our precious minds with their atrocious schematics. Just what were the most key events, the greatest games, the worst ideas and the most popular concepts? Keep reading to find out.
  
  
  The Best:
  
  
  10. Modern Controller Template
  The modern design for the typical controller is a standard for handhelds, most consoles, and can even be found on phones. The design includes a directional pad on the left side and the action buttons on the right. Then you have the shoulder buttons and trigger buttons, located on the back of the controller for use with your index and middle fingers. Console controllers like the PS2 or the PS3 have analog sticks and the Xbox 360 switched the location of directional pad with the left analog stick. This standard design has given us some of gaming’s greatest controllers, and won’t be going away anytime soon.
  
  9. Game Boy Advance
  Coming in at number nine is Nintendo’s infamous handheld: the Game Boy Advance. This was neither the first handheld to introduce great graphics and gameplay nor was it the first to introduce a long battery life and mobility. It was, however, the first to have both. With great games like the new generation of Pokemon to the Golden Sun series, the GBA is still churning out new titles each week.
  
  8. Halo
  Little doubt comes to mind when labeling Halo as the first-person shooter game that has made the most impact on the genre. Back in the year 2000, there was a drought of high-caliber shooters. With the Xbox’s release, more and more terrible games came out, and it wasn’t until Halo was released in 2001 that people finally had a terrific reason to throw some money away for the gigantic console it was on. Seven years since, Halo 3 is the most popular contemporary game in the world, gaining critical acclaim from every major reviewer and even receiving recognition tributes in places like Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the infamous Master Chief stands in all his waxy glory near the entrance and among historical figures such as George Washington, Muhammad Ali, and George W. Bush.
  
  7. Zelda + Final Fantasy
  The Zelda and Final Fantasy series can be found on almost any “Top Games” list, and only a fool wouldn’t recognize them as the most innovative and impacting RPGs ever created. Zelda had been the first adventure game of its time, shaping every adventure, RPG and even platformer game for years to come. Final Fantasy made its debut in 1987 and was supposed to be Sakaguchi’s last game (hence the name). The series, however, took off like crazy. And who can forget the prodigious musical composers of the games, who forever cemented in our hearts and minds that a good game always needs a good soundtrack. To this day, countless games use the ideas Final Fantasy and Zelda had brought to the table, and if it weren’t for these two games, it’s safe to say the RPG genre would be all but dead.
  
  
  6. Achievements
  It’s hard to believe achievements for the Xbox 360 are coming in at number six, but these little accomplishments, coupled with the Gamerscore idea, gave incentive never before seen in games. Whereas beating a game on a hard difficulty often resulted in no award other than bragging rights to the few friends you have that play that game as well, achievements give you added incentive to accomplish tasks like getting 10,000 kills in an online ranked match or playing through a game twice on a harder difficulty. And because of Gamerscore and leaderboards, it’s now easier than ever to track how you’re doing in comparison to your other friends. Bragging rights never tasted this good.
  
  
  5. Mario
  The number five spot is awarded to Mario and all of his endeavors for the Nintendo consoles and handhelds as he and his team of comrades single-handedly shaped the world of platforming, kart-racing and mini-games. With every single iteration, a mainstream Mario game throws its fans something new and never before seen in gaming. A few months later, we see other developers horde in on these ideas and mimic them as best as possible. If there is any single videogame series that has impacted the industry the most, it’s Mario and everything that has to do with the little plumber.
  
  4. Playstation 2
  The Playstation 2 was undoubtedly the winner of the sixth generation console wars. It’s still doing amazingly well as people buy the system and its games well into it’s 7th year on the market. This console mixed the perfect controller with every genre imaginable. It had its fair share of casual and hardcore games as well as games for youngsters, teens, adults and every age group and classification of human beings on the planet.
  
  3. Nintendo Wii
  The Wii may not be the most powerful system out today, and it’s far from the most “hardcore,” but there’s definitely one thing that it does amazingly well: combine innovation with loads of fun. While the Wiimote design itself may have some gamers loathe the design, the motion-sensing is first rate and one of a kind. Its cheap price-price tag of $250 isn’t so bad either, making it the must-have system for any gamer.
  
  2. Disks
  Odd thing to have at number two, but disks have been the optimum place to put any game onto. Before Sega CD and the Playstation, gamers relied on bulky cartridges to hold their prized games. While these cartridges were fun to collect, nothing was worse then spending thirty minutes blowing all sorts of something out of the damn things to get them to work. And while the disk comes with its fair share of problems (scratches and decay, mostly), it’s been with us for almost twenty years now, and it won’t be going away anytime soon.
  
  1. Xbox Live
  Finally, at number one, Xbox Live. It successfully introduced console gaming to the series of tubes known as the Internet. Before the Playstation Network or Wifi fun on the Nintendo DS, people only knew one mode of online play that didn’t suck: Live. And now on the Xbox 360, the community has never been closer. It’s a great way to meet great new people (and admittedly, some annoying ones as well). Albeit a little expensive, and the downtimes get down right annoying sometimes, Live has opened up an entire world of gamers to…well, each other.
  
  
  

  
  The Worst:
  
  10. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

  This game, while not impacting the industry, heavily impacted our souls. In what has to be the worst game ever created, no scratch that, the worst THING that has ever been created, Big Rigs shames everything on the planet. From the ridiculous “YOU’RE WINNER!” screen to the complete idiocy and glitchiness of the game itself. In fact, playing some of the maps causes the game to crash. After a patch was released, one of the maps turned out to be a simple mirror image of a previously working one. Never mind that, it’s impossible to lose the game because your truck is the ONLY truck that moves from its starting position. The game is ridiculous and because the publisher was Activision (Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero), it perplexes me further.
  

  
  9. HDTV

  Before you start crying, hear me out. HD is awesome, and gaming on an HDTV is like nothing I’ve ever seen. But thanks to this, we have to usher in an all new kind of fanboy: the HD fanboy. This is the gamer that won’t play anything unless it’s on a 305-inch plasma TV with hi-definition and 7.1 channel surround sound audio. This does get pretty annoying when talking about a handheld game or a game for any previous generation or even the Wii.
  

  
  8. Official Console Magazines

  Garbage. That’s the easiest way to sum up any “official” console magazine. Not only are the perspectives narrow (most gamers nowadays own more than a single console and invariably want or need updates on more than just Playstation or Nintendo hardware), the opinions tend to be bias, and if they’re not, there is absolutely no way of telling. These magazines are useless for everything except an occasional demo disk that’s thrown in, and even that is iffy unless there’s some awesome new game on it.
  

  
  7. The Crappy Host

  With online gaming comes a little thing called the “host.” The host of a game generally has some sort of booting ability to kick players out of matches, and everyone’s connection is dependant on the host (in most cases). In Gears of War, the host gets no lag and has a far superior advantage than anybody else in the match. This is bearable, but then you get a game like COD4 which essentially perfect, except that it allows the host of a game to end the match if he or she is losing. Actually, it lets him or her end it for any purpose, and there is no way to kick that host or pick a new one.
  

  
   6. Achievements

    Wait, what? Weren’t these in the “best” list? That’s not fair! Actually, in all honesty, achievements have hampered gaming just as much as they’ve helped it. Because of achievements, playing games for other systems seems pointless because your efforts aren’t awarded with anything. What’s the point of doing New Game Plus, for example, unless all your friends can see that you’ve achieved this miraculous feat?

  
  5. Useless Downloadable Content

  Coming in at fifth are the heaps of terrible downloadable content available for the Xbox 360. Charging money for gamer pics, for example, is blasphemous. And I think we all remember the visual hell provided by Epic and their lovely Gears 2 dashboard theme. What about all those terrible arcade titles and demos? Perhaps not as “evil” as some of the other contenders here, UDC is for sure a nuisance; especially when you need to pay for it.
  

  
  4. Subscription Fees

  Subscription fees are perhaps the most annoying, and the most “evil” money-making schemes created. It’s not enough that you pay loads of money for the game or system, but on top of that you have to pay additional fees to actually play the game or utilize that system for what it’s made for.
  

  
  3. Lag

  Okay so this one is basically impossible to fix. We can improve our connections by connecting our consoles directly to the modem or disconnecting other users from linking to our routers, but in the end the lag is ever present. Its presence in and of itself, however, is a menace to anybody that has played a game online has encountered this everlasting curse.
  

  
  2. G4’s Demise

  This isn’t about Tech TV or the merger or anything like that. It’s about G4 airing stupid shows nobody watches anymore. What the hell are “COPS” and “Cheaters” doing on a network for gamers? Great shows kicked the bucket and were switched out for garbage like reruns of Star Trek or the stupid filth that is “Wired for Sex” and anything Banzuke or Banzuke related. Where is the multiplayer fun of Arena, where are new episodes of Cheat and Icons? Where is Brainiac? The only shows that remain true to their roots are X-Play and Attack of the Show! Well, there’s also Code Monkeys, but that’s not going to last too long, I’m sure. G4 turned into complete garbage of a channel. It’s worse than anything I’ve seen on TV so far, and if you take out X-Play and AOTS, all you’re left is a steaming pile of bullsh*t. Heck, with the current lineup of shows, G4TV may as well rename themselves “The Redneck Cesspool Network.”
  
  

  
  1. Fanboyism

  Sweet number one will grace us with its undying love for a certain something; a love that will never go away and a love that is worth dying for. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to: Fanboyism. Fanboys have gained notoriety for being some of the most annoying pricks on the internet and occasionally, off the net as well. These people know no wrong, because common sense tragically left them when they left the womb. Arguing with fanboys is pointless, and facts are no better than opinion when it comes to dealing with these atrocious scoundrels. If it weren’t for these fellows, it’s safe to say that gaming would be a much greater experience for everybody.
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• Ignorance Killed the Video Game

  by Alex Yusupov March 24th 2008 8:57 PM EDT2 Comments

  I simply love this generation’s uneducated adults. You know, the ones that fail so often, they end up blaming other people for their own problems. Parents are a great example. Their blaming of media for their children’s problems has not only become a force of habit, but a routine. Back in the day, it was movies and music that were the targets of scrutiny. Now, the blame game has evolved into the current ethical "problems" that are present in the video game industry.
  
  
  Why videogames? They’re fairly new, and countless studies have already proven adults wrong in their speculations that rock and roll, comics, and violent movies provoke kids to (well, at least in their minds) become insane murderers. Don’t get me wrong here: it’s not all parents. In fact, it’s a small minority that believes in videogames being “evil” or “Satan’s voodoo.” If anybody is at fault for this huge misconception, it’s the modern news media, which is sure to point out whenever there is an Xbox within a mile of a crime-scene.

  
  What critics refuse to acknowledge is that videogames are now a modern form of art, just like movies, music and books. It can take a team of up to a thousand people to create a single game, and when the media lambastes those people, they’re insulting their life’s work and their passions. But hey, videogames take viewers away from television, reducing ratings. Instead of providing better programming, however, the television media would much rather defame their competition.

  Okay let me put it this way: movies constantly depict bad conduct. That conduct is mimicked in the real world. You may ask, “Why?” The answer is simple: movies attempt to depict real human emotions, and real human reactions. If real humans commit crimes, then movie directors have to show those crimes in their movies. If real people have sex, then in movies, people have to have sex. Same thing goes for books and music.

  God forbid the media uses facts to back up their arguments (but when has it ever?). They spread their ignorance without even having played the games they deride. Not only that, but they completely neglect a little graph that proves every study conducted in their favor wrong. The graph shows that since 1993, youth violence has been at a dramatic decline. More so, ever since the release of Grand Theft Auto III, violence has continued to decline dramatically. None other than the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, provides the graph.
  
  Parents, stop blaming entertainment and the government for your idiot kids committing murder. You’re the ones raising them; you’re the ones telling them what is right and wrong. Take some time from drinking booze and gambling, and teach your kids. Teach them the difference between what they see on a television screen and reality.
  
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• Live Etiquette

  by Alex Yusupov March 20th 2008 4:12 PM EDT5 Comments

  I’ve only had Live for about eight months now, but with the amount of time I put into the games compatible with the service, I know what I’m talking about when I say it’s about time somebody teaches a little etiquette to the nubs that think they’re all that.

  Quit your bitching, nobody cares that the same sniper killed you three times a row or that some noob is using a rocket launcher to make your game-time miserable. Instead of complaining, go ahead and put together a team to take that sniper out, or gang-bang that noob. Feel free to tea-bag your accomplishments.

  It’s just a game! This means that if you lose, it doesn’t matter. It really is just a game. If you got stuck in a match where virtually everybody is scores of times better than you are, leave it. Find matches with people who are around your skill level, you’ll have more fun in doing so.

  Whatever game you are playing, you’re bad at it. That’s a fact. Unless you’re the guy or girl at the top of the leader boards, you suck. There is somebody out there who is better than you, so acting like a hotshot is just pissing people off and will make you look like an idiot in the long run if you ever get beaten.

  Turn off your goddamn mics! I’m so sick of some loser playing some crappy music while he or she is playing, forcing the rest of us to listen to that garbled junk through an earpiece. Sure, we can mute, but when that person is on your team, you simply cannot do that if you want to win. So either mute your mics so you can hear what we say, or turn that god awful music down.

  Stop Harassing Players for stupid stuff. They may be having an off day, or the map they’re playing on just isn’t one that they’re good on. Heck, if it’s a team-based game, maybe it’s the entire team, including you, sucking, and not just that player. If somebody is new to the game, rather than flaming them, give them tips. Cursing them out will just make both of you angry, which will lead to both of you playing worse. Now in an instance where they decline your seasoned advice, feel free to own them all you want, just make sure it’s not at the expense of the match.

  And finally, for the love of god, don’t glitch; at least not in ranked matches. I mean come on, it does not show your skill; it just shows how much of a piece of crap you are. I mean yeah, when there is a consensus for glitching, nobody will care. But when you join a match and start going crazy with it, you’ll just piss people off, get a bad review, and if enough people complain, be kicked off XBL. It’s just not worth it. Take all this advice with you the next time you sign on to play a game online.

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• Freaking Play This

  by Alex Yusupov March 12th 2008 9:18 PM EDT4 Comments

  I can’t bear it anymore, a whole city full of novice gamers with idiotic opinions and incorrect facts (if facts are incorrect, they’re not facts anymore though, are they?). Alright let me get to the point here, all of the fanboy gamers can go shove it. I’m so sick of listening to people babble about the one game they played for the past three years and somehow comparing it to every single other title in the industry.
  
  Hell, I remember a friend of mine going on a tangent a few weeks ago comparing the Halo series to the Final Fantasy series. Now this guy plays Halo 3 day in and day out. The only other game he has played in the past three months is Skate, with which he also compared Halo. Apparently, there is so much in common between shooting oddly colored aliens and rolling down a hill using a plank of wood and four small wheels. But wait till you hear what my buddy had to say about Final Fantasy.
  
  Now to those of you who live under a rock and somehow don’t know what Final Fantasy or Halo is, they’re both videogames (no way!). The former is, for the most part, a turn-based role-playing game. The latter, Halo, is a sci-fi first-person shooter. The two could not be more radically different in their content. From game play to story, the series share nothing in common. They’re not even available on the same platforms.
  
  And yet my friend (whom we shall call Bugle, for kicks), rants on and on about how the Halo series kicks Final Fantasy’s ass. I asked him why, and I swear to you the response I got was “because Halo sold more copies.”
  
  Dumbfounded, I decided to do some research. Final Fantasy has been out three times as long as Halo, there was simply no way Halo was doing better. I compared my results, and Final Fantasy outsold the “competitor” four-to-one. Now of course, anybody with half of a brain knows that sales say little about a game’s quality. We all remember the Halo 3 hype, and how it wasn’t even close to living up to it. And Final Fantasy had been out for twenty-something years, so sales figures no longer meant a damned thing.
  
  I reported the results to back to our buddy, Bugle, who was furious with my findings. I told him exactly what I told you, that sales didn’t matter. For some reason, that only enraged him further. “Final Fantasy is just a boring RPG,” was his main argument. Granted, Bugle used a more colorful word choice, but for our sakes I cleaned it up.
  
  Something hit me, as if out of nowhere. “Have you ever even played Final Fantasy?” I said. The answer was “no.” Here we were, arguing about two games for over a week, and Bugle hadn’t ever even touched a Final Fantasy game. At least I played both of the series to death.
  
  After a long conversation, I realized it would not end in any significant result. I mean this guy didn’t even know stuff about his own all-time favorite game. He was befuddled by my usage of “Bungie” (makers of Halo), for example.
  
  I know and agree people have got plenty of better things to do than sit on their asses all day and find information about games, or anything for that matter. Bugle is an exception though. He belongs to the cult of idiots that play a certain game(s) for hours a day, but know nothing about it. They’re the guys that would die before using common sense, logic, or an ounce of their brain matter.
  
  Suffice to say, Bugle and I are no longer friends. It seems like a harsh punishment, but would you hi-five anybody who is determined that Nintendo is a subsidiary of Microsoft (again, his language lacked word’s beyond two consonants, so I paraphrased)?
  
  Tip of advice, fellow gamers, don’t compare RPG with FPS, and maybe look on the loading screen when you startup a game to see what company made it. You have no idea how easy it is to avoid getting embarrassed like Bugle. Oh Bugle…don’t procreate.

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• More Orange, Less Green!

  by Alex Yusupov March 12th 2008 8:37 PM EDT0 Comments

  It's been a while since The Orange Box from Valve has come out, but I just recently got around to playing it. Now, I was never a Half-Life fan, and even now, I'm not avidly freaking out about Episode 3. What I am freaking out about, however, is how I just got the greatest deal in the history of videogaming: Five games for the price of one. No scratch that, five amazing games for the price of one.
  
  And what gets me is how there are households that own a 360, but not The Orange Box. I mean come on, Sure the games are short, but the amount of replay you get from TOB triples, no, quadruples that of Halo 3. You can easily spend hours playing through Portal and Half-Life 2, making your weekends seem more like a single weekday. And let's not forget about the never-ending, online death-fest that is Team Fortress 2. All this and a very bright orange box, for only $60!
  
  It's about time other publishers take note, people. Sixty-dollars is overkill for a single game. Limited editions hike up to $70 and thanks to Bungie, $120! It's no wonder gaming is still a closed-off medium for most of the populace, you have to have a solid six-figure salary to avoid not only a $500 console and over $200 in necassary peripherals, but to get a gaming experience worthy of the money you invested into the former, you need to invest another $1000 in games!
  
  It seems alright now, but let's not forget games are climbing up in prices. The sixth generation of gaming saw $40 and $50 games, while the fifth saw cheap $30 ones. If this pattern continues, can we expect $80 games in two-three years? With the economy in the crapper and the dollar becoming more and more useless, people may be detracted from gaming and we may just see another crash.
  
  Then again, more expensive games means that p0eople will be forced to buy less of them, leading to any game that isn't sheer excellence getting thrown in the drain, and forcing developers to make better titles.
  
  And yet, my empty wallet begs to differ.
  
  
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