Presenting…

…The Top Five Signs That a DLC Should Have Just Been Free

Brought to you by Fedora Man

Well it finally April and you have to love how easy it is to open an article with the lines “so it’s finally whatever month we’re in right now”. It’s time for the next step in my great journey to earn money through a video game blog. Now I know you might be wondering “I thought you had billions! Were you lying to me?” The answer is of course, no. Stupid. Why would I make something like that up? But the difference between that money and the money I’ll earn on this site is I actually had to do work to earn it, unlike my corporation where I really don’t do any work at all. I can show all my friend “yeah this is the ten dollars I earned THROUGH WORK!” and if they say that they also have a job and have made more money, I’ll pull out my emergency one million dollars that I always keep stashed in my pants and laugh at them, probably while rubbing the money all over myself.

Now I’m sure that everyone reading this right now loves to hear all the stories that end with me rubbing money all over myself (and there are a lot of them) but now is neither the time, nor the place for me to describe my achievements to the world. Mainly because I think that might blow my secret identity and also I don’t think anyone would let me post an article called “The Top Five Ways to Rub Money All Over Yourself Like a Pro”. Instead I’m going to write about some game related phenomena, but only because I have to.

That brings me to my greatest problem: what the hell am I going to write about? There aren’t any games coming out these days (according to me) and writing about one specific past game has been done by everyone and their grandma. At first I was thinking “Heroes of Might and Magic 2, everyone will love to hear about that!” before moving to and idea about specific overrated games. Then one night I was staying up late to try to perfect the insertion of a giant blade into my fedora. Some might call that an oddjob rip off, but those same people might find it hard to speak when, say, a razor-bladed hat cuts their entire mouth off. Anyway it was around 6 am that I decided “screw it I’m too tired to think up a new idea” and settled for this one.

Now if you’re like me (and you’re not at all like me) then you too have expressed frustration at some of the worst excuses for DLC (downloadable content if you somehow made it to this point in the article without knowing what that is) ever made. That’s not to say that all DLC is bad and that it should all be free because there are small amounts of DLC that actually seem to have been worked hard on and deserve some sort of monetary reimbursement (the shivering isles for Oblivion is the first thing that comes to mind). Of course for every shivering isles there are hundreds of “screw you, give me all your money” DLCs or as I like to affectionately call them “dog shit”. I’m sure that this isn’t just at 360 problem, it’s probably also a problem with the PS3 but I wouldn’t know now would I? So here are the signs to identify if the dog shit you just bought should have been free.

Number 5: When the DLC is Free Anyway

Example: Call of Duty 4: Variety Map Pack

This is probably the one that isn’t about dog shit (I’m very much hoping the editor doesn’t take offense to that word being used over and over again). This is one of the cases where the DLC might actually be good but in any case it isn’t free even when say, THEY OFFER IT FOR FREE ANYWAY!

Take the above example for instance. The Call of Duty 4 map pack was offered for free via a code in the Game of the Year Edition. The cost of the Game of the Year Edition is exactly the same as the original game so you’d think they’d start offering the map pack for free, right? Wrong (as always)! I’m not exactly sure why they’d do this (other than the obvious “I want more money” approach) yet it seems like around the time they started offering free map packs they’d just go ahead and put it out for free on the marketplace anyway. There’s only one possible explanation: to piss off hat-based crime fighters.

Hell, that reminds me; before I go on I’d like to tell a little story about my experience with these “free” maps. It started like any other day, random death hurricanes mixed with volcanoes and a zombie apocalypse, you know, nothing special. So I decided that I’d go and get Call of Duty 4 because I was in a crime fighting slump (only because I imprisoned all my enemies) and so I decided to blow off some steam by mercilessly killing people on the internet. I picked out my game and brought it to the Gamestop counter where the cashier was like “I’ll give you the game of the year edition, it doesn’t cost anymore and it gives you free maps.” So I was like “sweet free maps, thanks you pimply faced bastard, I’ll be sure not to violently attack you in the future over game prices.” So as I got back home I opened the box… nothing. There was a game and an instruction booklet but that pimply faced sonofabitch lied to me! There wasn’t any map code at all! Now my first reaction was to don my fedora and jacket/trench coat (have to protect my secret identity) and go back to that store to kick all kinds of ass. But I’m a detective too and my detective-like instincts told me that it probably wasn’t that pimply faced bastard’s fault. Using my fedora-shaped super computer I quickly got confirmation that this had happened to many other people as well. In the end, after a brief bout with tech support that should have just began and ended with the word “bastard” I never got my maps. I’m just waiting for the time that they become free, WHICH THEY NEVER WILL!

Number 4: When the Game in Question has a Sequel

Example: Call of Duty 4: Variety Map Pack

Call of Duty again? Really? Well that’s just an example; there are many games like this. Again this isn’t necessarily dog shit but I promise that the next one will be about dog shit, you dog shit enthusiast you. Anyway the reason I claim that the DLC (which may or may not be dog shit to appease all you crazy people) should be free once a sequel comes out because sales probably drop rapidly over time once the sequel hits stores. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, but don’t take my word on it, it’s not like I know a lot about business (although I do run a multi-billion dollar business in my free time). I don’t think anyone is rushing out to go buy Halo 2, or Mario Party 3 (despite how awesome Mario Party 3 was) so I’ve taken this rule and applied it to damn near any other game. Maybe I can understand not immediately making it free but in the above example Call of Duty 5 (or Call of Duty: whatever the hell they’re calling it these days) has been out for nearly half a year and I doubt that the Call of Duty 4 will have those free maps in another four or five months time. Granted the two were made by different developers but that’s beside the point. Give me the free maps! I demand it!

Number 3: When the DLC Doesn’t Add Anything Special to the Game

Example: Bomberman Live: Bomb-Up Packs

So NOW we’re talking about dog shit. Again I’m hoping the editor doesn’t come to my house and challenge me to a fist fight for using that so often. In any case I could talk about this in depth but the name says it all. The dog shit doesn’t add a whole lot to the game so it should be free on the grounds that I don’t want to pay you to add pretty much nothing to the overall gameplay.

Take my above example… for example (does that even work?) Bomberman’s bomb-up packs should definitely have been free or just included it in the original game. With the pack comes a bunch of gametypes and maps no one online plays anyway (we’re all too busy playing on the good starting maps with the non-stupid game variants to care). It’s like opening a gift on Christmas to get a playstation 2, a gamecube, or an xbox when you already have the better console. But gosh there’s really not more to say about it, maybe I’m complaining too much or maybe… just maybe… you’re not complaining enough.

Number 2: When the DLC is Just a Little Polish to an Otherwise Bland Turd Sandwich

Example: Crackdown (whatever that weapon pack is called)

I wanted to research what the dog shit was called here to retain my journalistic and genius vigilante integrity but I honestly didn’t care. Now let me set one thing straight, whereas Number 3 on the list (the one you just read if you read like a normal human being or super being) was about something that should be free based on the fact that it added little to a good game, this one is about DLC which could be good or bad that adds little to a horrible game. That’s right; I beat the system by having ALMOST identical but still slightly different types of DLC on display. Wooh!

Anyway I’m sure you (yes you, the guy in the red baseball cap) can think of a ton of DLC and games like this, but let’s go with my example because I already took the time to write it down. Now Crackdown wasn’t THAT bad of a game… okay yeah it was. The whole game was GTA or Saints Row with a ton of collection and not a lot of anything else. Shooting civilians was a power-up losing crime too, so there goes all the random slaughtering fun. The goal of the game is to collect orbs and kill a bunch of bad guys. You’re basically like Super Man except with a gun (or a slightly more athletic Fedora Man, with super powers, a gun, and no awesome hat). So after the fun of jumping around rooftops and shooting people wears off about six hours into the game what’s left to do? Well Realtime Worlds (the developers) has the answer in the form of a content pack sure to add a couple more hours of fun to the game. You get a weapon like the harpoon gun which is cool in that you can fire harpoons at people and stick them to cars and buildings and trees and other people. Where was the downside again? Oh right the fact that there’s a fuggin’ price tag associated with it. What the hell?! I paid sixty dollars for your game! There is no way in hell I’m going to spend six to ten dollars more to make your game NOT suck as much. You may think I’m being a little frustrated this time, because if there’s anything Fedora Man is known for its definitely not violent outbursts of vigilante justice. But that’s what happens when you stay up too late and you keep slicing off your fingers with your stupid razor-blade lined hat that STILL DOESN’T WORK!

But hey let’s look on the bright side. I’d like to take this time to get away from all the anger and pessimism and quickly point out Left 4 Dead. It’s a decent game, not too bad, not too good. But it appears that they’re coming out with DLC soon to make the game better. You know what I like the most about it without even having to look up gameplay videos on youtube? The fact that valve decided to not be a bunch of assholes and release the DLC free. So there, at least I tried to make this article slightly happier with a contrast between dog shit and decent DLC, as well as decent business practices in general.

Number 1: When the DLC in Question Sucks

Example: Too many to count

Damn even the example is a little depressing. There’s like a sea of dog shit out there (not literally you creep) and you know a DLC should be free when the DLC itself sucks. Really, this one ties into every other group category. By now you must be wondering “is there some kind of evil video game-themed villain out there causing all the DLC in the world to suck?” Well no, there was once, but he died in 1983 when the video game crash happened. It was weird and sad because the one thing he was trying to destroy was the only thing keeping him alive. Once the games became bad enough the crash happened and he died. It’s tragic, which is why I’m writing a play about it. I’m thinking of starring the lead role to Adam West and maybe get Jackie Chan in there somehow; we’ll have to see how it turns out.

Anyway there’s really not much more to say but hell I have time to kill in between creating my razor-bladed fedora and fighting demons from beyond time and space. So I’ll start with a little known game called Halo 2 (does anyone remember this game?). Halo 2 had four or five map packs, with the last one having two levels “Desolation” and “turd sandwich” or… something like that, I can’t remember (and I refuse to look it up). Anyway both were remakes and both were TERRIBLE. Although I’m not ashamed to own the Halo series, I am deeply ashamed to have put any money down toward this map pack. Turd sandwich was a terrible level and desolation was… also terrible (cut me some slack I’m tired AND I saved the world yesterday, shut up). Look I’ll give you another example: Halo 3. Halo 3 (and I use the halo series because of its general accessibility so people know what I’m talking about) had the “Heroic map pack” which was so bloody awful that I had to think twice before ever purchasing any kind of map pack EVER AGAIN! It was like they had a staff meeting but only three people showed up and they left after five minutes after someone said “but think about the customers” and someone else responded with “screw the customers!”

I’ll give you one more you might not have thought about: gamer pictures. Yeah those things, you actually have to pay for them. I think I’ll leave it at that instead of pointing out the crippling stupidity in paying for tiny pictures rather than picking up a fedora to hide your identity and going out to vigilante the shit out of the gaming industry.

Some people will dismiss it without playing it and those people suck, if you’re going to bash a game, at least try it first. That being said, Halo Wars, believe it or not, is a good game. The missions are interesting, and even challenging, and everything just seems right. Let’s run through some of the strong points.

Strong Points:

• Great Controls/Easily Accessible: Now I want to get this out of the way because as I mentioned before, a RTS is all about the controls and the functions. Though Halo Wars lacks some extra features (hot keys, patrol, etc.), the game has essentially everything to make it accessible. This does involve a select all button which many hardcore RTS fan despise, but I highly doubt hardcore RTS fans are the target market for this game. That is to say that, yes, this game is somewhat easier than the conventional PC RTS, but it is in no means easy on higher difficulties.
• Everything just fits: This applies both to the graphics, music, levels. The units look amazing and very clear, and also match the Halo realm, which I find surprising, add to that visually stunning cutscenes and you’ve got some nice eye candy as battles go on. The music is the same type of orchestrated pieces that you would find in other Halo games, and to be honest it suits the game better than the Halo games. The orchestrated music brings a feeling of a grand scale, the feeling that you’re involved in something epic, and that is what Halo Wars is about.
• Varying Missions: Though there are the usual “go here, destroy base” missions, you’ll find there is often evac/escort missions, specialty type missions, and the occasional dodge the fucking scarab that kills you one hit mission, that thing is a beast to take down on legendary.
• Co-operative Campaign: This was the basis of my co-op article because the game is barrels of fun when you play with a friend. You would expect that things would get confusing and frustrating with two people sharing one base, and you’d be wrong. Yes you share resources, no you are not bound by what another person does (in most cases). What you build is yours to command, though you can also select to transfer units to the other player, and this comes in very, very handy in most cases.
• Unlockables: The skull system returns again in Halo Wars, along with optional objectives, if the skull system works like it did in Halos 1-3, then you could have one hell of a time using all of them on legendary.

Weak Points:

• Units don’t know when the fuck to stay still: This may be a pet peeve but it really annoys me to no end, if I command you to go somewhere, I don’t expect you to be moving in the opposite direction due to one group of grunts being there.
• Human Campaign: This was covered by Gamespot but the fact is you can’t play as the Covenant or the Flood in campaign, it’s a bummer I know, but there may be definitely will be DLC including their campaign. You can play as the Convenant in Skirmish mode though, so if you’re iching for some alien play, head on there.
• Where’s the story: Maybe I’m just slow, but it seems to me that there isn’t a huge story regarding Halo Wars, it seems to just jump into the Halo universe and follow the events of one John Forge, I was expecting a little more out of it in terms of story, that’s all.
• Progression: It seems the game never really confirms itself, even past half way through the game you’re still being introduced to new units that only have a one time use or one mission. I’d prefer the first maybe 5-6 missions was with introducing new units, and the rest was how you play it.

All in all, Halo Wars is an amazing game that has lived up to it’s hype in my eyes (probably because there wasn’t too much hype), and it’s worth a look over from any Xbox 360 owner. It has challenge to offer to the hardcore RTS group while remaining accessible to the newbie RTS folk. If you are planning to buy it, go for the mythic map pack bundle because even if you don’t use it yourself, you can sell it on ebay for about 40 dollars USD.

Most people remember the monstrosity of StarCraft 64, I remember renting it for my Nintendo 64, and I remember loving the game for being StarCraft but hating how it was done. If you have never paid StarCraft 64 let me tell you this: Don’t. The consoles are a huge deal in RTS games. StarCraft 64 takes good controls and decides add a nice layer of shit upon it. This isn’t about SC 64 though, so let’s get to Halo.

The first thing I noticed about the demo is that the graphics are very well done, and the cutscenes are amazing. This time around we have more story from the Halo world, and we get a better sense of what was going on in the war between the Covenant and the Humans. Story is a major part of an RTS, and from what I’ve taken so far from Halo Wars, it’s not going to be on the short side of the plot stick.

Who cares about graphics and plot though, it’s all about the controls. Here is where the Halo Wars does fairly well! I was expecting to be fumbling with my controller to get simple tasks complete and I was very surprised. Though playing with a mouse and keyboard is infinitely better then a 360 controller, the controls work for the game.

The game itself, well here is where we reach a bit of a bump in the road. See because Halo Wars was built from the ground up for the Xbox 360, you have a more dumbed down RTS experience. Building bases is limited to where it lets you, resources are automated and limited only by how my supply pads you have. The battles feel more battle then strategy, but all and all the demo is actually fun, and that my friends is what it boils down to (for myself anyways).

So final impressions? Halo Wars will be a positive step in console RTS games, I could go as far as to say even some “hardcore” RTS players will grow to like it. It’s only a shame that it may do worse than Halo 3 because the fanbase seems to not have the patience required for an RTS game, then again, that Mythic map pack comes a month early with it. You never know.

Duke Nukem 3D

If you’ve ever played a Duke Nukem game, you’d know why I’m recommending it. The games are pretty damn good. You play as the lovable Duke, who returns from fighting aliens to find his lovable planet turned into a not so lovable wasteland. You gotta shoot the aliens up, saves the babes, watch the porn, drink the brews. The game has an amazing sense of humor, quoting movies like Dirty Harry and Duke’s phrases. If anything, pick this one up for the laughs. It’s originally on the PC where it has a ton of expansions, and it was on the PS1, N64 and a few other consoles under different names.

Halo: Custom Edition

That’s right, I said it. This is a PC only game of awesome proportions, mostly because it’s customizable. There are Zelda mods, a Metroid Prime mod in the making, and in all actuality, Halo has good multiplayer anyway. If you have an old Halo: Combat Evolved CD(Or .exe, I won’t tell…), find the download.

The Orange Box

Alright, alright… This isn’t just one game… It’s five. Five REALLY good games. If you don’t have this, go get it now.

Like, RIGHT now.

This box contains the most complete Half-Life 2 collection to date, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. And for $50, probably less since it’s been out well over a year, that’s just  a plain rip-off.Half-Life 2 and it’s Episodes are awe-inspiring shooters telling how Dr. Gordan Freeman is attempting to save and rebuild the world after the hostile take over of the Combine. Portal is a puzzle shooter where you use, you guessed it, portals to move things and yourself around a closed environment to hit switches and such. Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to Team Fortress Classic, an online only team based shooter. Nine classes give you a roster of near endless possibilities for support, defense and offense.

Here’s one thing though: PLAYING AS ONLY A SNIPER ON 2FORT ISN’T COOL, DON’T DO IT. EVER.

Resident Evil 4

Alright, whoever marketed this game as horror is a damn idiot. It’s got a scary setting, but the action is happening so fast you won’t have time to be scared. Except for a few parts.

You play as Leon Kennedy, a sarcastic badass sent from the U.S. to find the president’s daugter, Ashley.

You get an over the shoulder view on this one. It fits the game well. You got your guns and you got a deadly knife. The inventory really gives it a little more of a survival feel, even if the merchant sells you a bigger one. Anyway, so you’re in Spain, killing insane infected Spaniards and they catch you and Ashley and load you full of them, too. Fun stuff! You now not only need to escape, but find the antidote on your way out. You’ll come across a few different kind of angry Spaniard from Farmer, to Cult Member to Crazy Mohawk Biker with Machine Gun. Most of the game, you have to protect the president’s daughter from being killed or taken away, sometimes a bother, but nothing too serious. The game has lots of cool things to get for beating it a number of times, like a mobster-type getup for Leon and a suit of armor for Ashley that makes that part where you snipe the cuff off of her SOOOO much easier. Anyway, this baby here is for the Gamecube, PS2, PC and Wii… I’d recommend the Wii version, myself. Easy controls, and the best graphics you can get for it.

Bioshock

This game is pretty damn sweet. You have some Irish guy talking to you the entire game, and you re-write your DNA via magic vials.

Now, when I first played this game it was at a party and I couldn’t tell what the guy was sayings, but I know he was telling you to do stuff… But when you get to the first Plasmid and inject it into yourself, he doesn’t tell you to do it. Anyway, you’re in an Atlantis kind of place, only instead of a thriving utopia… You have a dump. Mr. Ireland tells you you have to either rescue or harvest all these children called “Little Sisters”. However, each one is guarded by a Big Daddy, a large brute in an old fashioned scuba suit with hooks/drills/pain for arms and such. I have to admit, for as tough as they look, they’re pretty easy to take out. Anyway, you harvest or rescure these Little Sisters, get more genetic code magic so you can do new things, some guns, a wrench and an underwater world. This game is longer than Dead Space, but still a little short, but I guess that’s because all I did was play it till I beat it. This one’s a keeper, good story, good gameplay, good graphics, good setting… What’s to go wrong?

Welp, that’s all for shooters for today. I’m giving you enough games for a long time every time anyway. Hoho.

Don’t forget to listen to my radio up there in “Live Streams”!

Till next time!

Jumpluff~

Written for GIANT ENEMY BLOG

Before Halo, first-person shooters usually fit into one of three categories. First-person shooters were usually either frantic frag fests (Quake, Unreal Tournament), slow tactical team oriented combat (early Rainbow Six, Counter Strike), or the old classic run-n-gun style games (Half-Life, Duke Nukem.) Halo used a blend of all three, primarily adding a tactical element to the faster styled multiplayer games.

The main difference lies within the ability to only carry two guns at a time. No longer could you just pick up every weapon you encountered like in the old run-n-gun games. You had to think and make choices on the field based on what you think you’d come up against. You had to balance your loadout, because if you end up relying too much on long, medium, or short range combat a good player could take advantage of your weaknesses. Older style tactical games allowed a small selection of weapons, but for most missions you never changed weapons and stuck primarily with what you started with. Halo blended all three styles of play, to allow a fast paced tactical run-n-gun game.

Staying on why the combat of Halo is what made such an impact was giving grenades their own button. Most games before hand had grenades as their own weapon, making it difficult to use on the fly. Grenades became a very tactical part of the game, becoming much  more than just a weapon, it became a tool. Making it easy to access allowed you to use it during a retreat to lengthen the gap, could use it as a distraction, or even to create a quick way to block LOS from a sniper. While this feature was hardly revolutionary, it helped to create that fast paced tactical gameplay.

While not a Battlefield game, vehicles helped play a large role into what made Halo so fascinating. While hard to control, the Warthog was a fast vehicle, and got teammates where you needed to be with that extra firepower from the chain gun. Vehicles became an important part in team work in objective based games, very often making the difference between winning or even making that comeback. Vehicles of course had been done in games before, but the vehicles in Halo worked so seamless into the fast paced gameplay, that they just had that extra charm other games had lacked.

While the gameplay was a lot of the glue that kept the game together, the story is definitely the material used. While there is no denying that Halo does take inspiration from various different sci-fi stories throughout history, there is no way you can say it rips any of it off. The Halo universe is very expansive, even from the first game. Even if you didn’t know the motives and story behind the Covenant, it was still there. This created an atmosphere of mystery, and as a player you wanted to know more. Not only did you want to learn more of the Covenant, but about the Forerunners and their installation you are battling over. The story was as much about survival as it was about learning more. And while the first game didn’t give you too many answers, it still gave you enough to want to play more to find out.

Many people like to point out how stale and unrelatable Master Chief is as a character. Some see this as a bad move, but I honestly think it worked out better in this setting. As a first-person shooter, you’ll find it easy to immersive yourself into the actual role of the person your playing. By giving this person a personality, it distances you further from filling that first person role. Many other games do this, primarily in older RPGs and action adventure games (Zelda and other “silent protagonist” games come to mind.) It wasn’t the fact that Bungie couldn’t make characters with personality, as the supporting cast (and later main characters) filled the role of relatable characters.

My last point is personally, one of my favorites, and is why the game was so immersive to me. And that’s the music. It’s no question at all, that good music and make or break a game series. Music moves us and when done properly, resonates with you. Music can get stuck in your head, and drive you nuts until you hear it properly. Some of the most memorable parts of some of your favorite games was the music. And Halo is no different. Even those who hate the Halo series can admit that the music is some of the best to be in a game. The music helps create the feel of the game so often and so well, it exponentially enhances the experience.

None of these examples were perfect, nor the sole reason Halo became so popular. They were however done very well, and helped change the first-person genre. While none of the ideas and features were necessarily new or revolutionary, they were all done well and flowed to create a very enjoyable experience. Even though it all comes down to a matter of opinion and preference, I honestly can’t say Halo is over rated. It does what it does well, and creates a fast paced tactical first-person shooter. Is it the deepest and most complex game you’ll find? Not at all, but there is a balance between complexity and simplicity that when struck appeals to a large amount of gamers, and Halo did just that.

“It’s a CASUAL game”

A casual game. A game, that is casual in it’s design? In it’s use? In it’s plot or art? What does that mean? What do you THINK you’re saying?

Video games are NOT casual. Nor are they Hardcore. Video games are video games. There is no such thing as a hardcore game and a casual game. There are obscure games, there are popular games, there are simple games, there are complex games, there are pretty games and there are ugly games. But there is no hardcore game, and not a single casual game. They don’t exist. A game cannot be hardcore or casual. A video game can have a target audience, an art style, a plot, no plot, it can have complex controls, it could use a motion sensor, it might even require you to type words to progress, as opposed to ever controlling anything, but none of these choices will ever make it casual or hardcore.

Katamari Damacy is obscure. It’s also colourful, and it’s simple. It’s kooky and straightforward in design. It’s intention is not to appeal any one demographic. It’s intention is to take a risk in game design. Would Katamari Damacy be a hardcore game or a casual game? Both, and neither. It qualifies for either. So how can we even begin to categorize it with a straight face, knowing full well that it would hypocritical and idiotic to do so?

The same goes for all video games. Another example? Grand Theft Auto. Difficult, traditional, risk taking, and immensely popular. How could this seemingly hardcore game still be hardcore if non-gamers play it casually everyday? GTAIV received endless criticism due to it’s popularity, calling it casual and mainstream when in fact it was ONLY mainstream. I am an avid gamer. I own a slew of consoles, I play them all. I own 2 copies of GTAIV, and will be getting the PC version in December. Now, I do not play it that often. I never play it for more then an hour. I play it, casually, you could say. BUT, it is not a casual game and I am not a casual gamer. It is also not a hardcore game. It is an action adventure open world sandbox game. I am a hardcore gamer, or as I like to say, “gaming enthusiast”. My brother is a casual gamer, he doesn’t spend long on a game, except for GTAIV. He plays the game hardcore, because he payed for it and read into it, and invested himself into it.

Catz and Dogz and Horsez are not casual, they are not hardcore, they are shovelware. Katamari is a puzzle game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a party game and Halo is a first person shooter. I own and play all these (with the exception of the shovelware). Famously, on the internet at least, Halo is casual, Katamari is hardcore and casual and Smash Bros. is the epitome of casual. But I’ve played SSBB for at least 100 hours now. How could that be casual playing?

It can’t be, and it’s not. I am a hardcore gamer. People who own Wii’s and play for 40 minutes at most in a day are casual gamers. My friend is a casual gamer, he owns an Xbox 360. My other friend is a hardcore gamer, he only owns a Wii. My brother is a casual gamer, he owns a $1200 gaming PC. How a game could be casual boggles me. Games are not designed like that. Games cannot be casual. It is the GAMER that is casual or hardcore. The gamer plays it their way, invests in it their way, spends as much time in it as they like. There has never been a casual or hardcore game. Only a casual and hardcore gamer. It’s really that simple.