31 posts from May 2007

As surprising as it sounds - to me at least - despite being into games, I never actually owned a console until the PlayStation. And even then that was second hand, bought off a friend a good few years after it first came out. It wasn't that I was staunchly computer-centric at that point, rather that the thought never crossed my mind that I needed a console. I never pestered my parents to get me one as I was perfectly happy with what I'd got on the Amstrad and Amiga. In fact, it was my sister, who's four years younger than me, who got the NES and Gameboy, and she's as casual a gamer as they come.

The reason I never felt the need was because I got all the fix I needed at friend's house. He was the one with the Super Nintendo and, thanks to a good swapping scheme and a part-time job, never short of a game to play. I must have underestimated the time spent over there, because now it feels like we were constantly on the console playing Mario Kart, Super Probotector (or Contra III if you will - we both only played it with infinite lives and it was still brilliant) or Mario World or any other of the big name classics. I even managed to borrow it twice for marathon sessions of Zelda and Secret of Mana. Happy days.

It was the same with the Megadrive, Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 (the latter of which I did eventually own at the time of its innings), where I would spend others either watching the singleplayer or participating in a spot of multiplayer.

Ah, Contra / Probotector. Virtual Console / Live Arcade / PSN seems assured.

Education was filled in with magazines. Computer & Video Games and Zero naturally kept me abreast, but I found myself subscribing to Super Play, Game Zone and Sega Zone even though I owned none of the relevant hardware. Yes, even though it was mainly because I was in love with the writing and style of the mags themselves, it was also because I was learning quickly that console games were a world apart from their computer counterparts.

So, in a way, I never feel like I missed out on that part of my gaming childhood. And if any gaps do need filling, I've got the downloadable classics and/or illegal ROMs to do that job. I did eventually buy a SNES and Megadrive second hand about five years ago. Both failed almost soon after. Is that ironic? I'm not sure.

OK, a little short today. Cheerio 'til next time!

I experienced my first red ring today. No, I didn't eat a vindaloo, I... Aiieee! I'm being dragged away by the joke police!

Anyway, start again. My Xbox 360 displayed its first system error message today. I'd only turned it on to watch a DVD. It was having none of that and hung at the startup screen before switching to another that told me to contact Microsoft to fix things. Thankfully, turning it off and on again solved the problem and it worked fine. For now. That's not the first unusual thing that's happened: it's also developed the habit of turning off halfway through a movie then refusing to eject the disc for the first couple of times.

Seriously, it's just under four months old and already I'm getting problems. Before this day, I'd partially dismissed those outcries by other 360 owners about their faulty machines as a minority clamouring for attention. Now that I've seen it for myself, it feels like it's not a question of 'if' but 'when'. Maybe I'll get lucky and wrapping a towel around it will be enough, but from the horror stories I've heard it's probably going to mean a trip back to the depot and a reported refurbishment model replacement. I haven't even been playing it that much - a couple of hours every few days at best, if that. Certainly nowhere near as much as I've got out of my big-box PlayStation 2, still going strong after five years (touch wood). It's a real bugger that Microsoft seem to have messed up the build quality for a console that looks and feels like it should be robust and reliable. I hope this is something they're going to acknowledge in new models pretty soon.

Here's Ring of Red, an alternate past turn-based strategy game. Coincidence? No.

But the console going kaput isn't what I'm fearful about: it's losing my files. Not just on 360, but any console or computer. Memory cards, like 360, seem reliable, and yet you hear horror stories of wiped save games or accidental formats sometimes and you can't help but worry. On those cards of mine are save game files of games in progress, games given up, andcrucially games I've thoroughly bested. These are finished game saves, countless hours invested. While the games themselves may never be played again, these files stand as the pinnacle of myachievement. They're trophies in a digital cabinet and even though they're not grandmaster high scores, it somehow doesn't feel right to delete all that hard work, let alone let it get corrupted.

That's one thing that troubles me. And if a memory card can hold a handful of permanent memories, then worry for the hard drive which can hold a wheelbarrow. Sony and Microsoft's HDs can store hundreds of megabytes of data, so what happens if they break down? If you've got more invested in one place, especially with digital downloads becoming the norm it could be devastating to lose it all.

Well, yes, of course there's a safety net in place. You can backup and info can be stored elsewhere, yet it's an irony of life that the one time you don't do it is when you lose your data. At best it's going to lead to an annoying time re-downloading all that was lost. It might not help if you were in the middle of a game, though. When there's a slight possibility that something may fail, it pays to be cautious. It doesn't help to be paranoid, however. It doesn't happen to everyone.

Then again, imagine if you lost your sixty-hour Final Fantasy XII, your thirty-three hour Zelda, and your forty-seven hour Oblivion saves all in one freak deletion accident. Eek! I need a lie down.

The last time I really got into a fighting game was Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. That was years ago - Capcom's classic captured my heart strongly enough to spend a huge amount of time dedicated to playing it. Time enough to learn moves for each character that I can still reel off today. And time enough to learn to gallantly hold my own in a two-player bout. Lovely days. Truth be told, actually, I never owned the game as such, I just played it at my friend's house. Nevertheless, it was my defining beat 'em up experience.

I've dabbled in others since then - bouts of Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur with friends - but they've been casual collaborations, button-mashing fun; I never got into the whole complex combo ballet of today's games. And yet, despite that, I still follow the scene. Not avidly for sure, but I'll keep my eye on the genre. I'll read about new games coming out, check why Virtua Fighter is regarded as the peak of arcade combat, what the latest Dragon Ball Z flailer entails, or what krazy minigame Mortal Kombat are going to kome up with next. I may have lost touch with the physical side, but I like to keep myself informed.

Here's King of Fighters 2003. It's a beat 'em up so I heard.

It's interesting that I still check up on it all even if I've never really been hands on. It's ultimately a fondness stemming from my SF2 days, yet I'd not really call it fan support in the way someone may follow a well-loved sport. I think, perhaps, it's more to do with gaming as a whole. I've mentioned this in passing before: the way that we as gamers tend to lump together all genres into one inclusive 'videogames' genre in a way that books or music do not (though film is perhaps the closest equivalent). There's no real discrimination between playing a turn-based strategy one day, a rhythm action game the next, and a platformer after that. Indeed, it's positively encouraged. I could reel off a list of beat 'em ups I've never played and probably give you a good estimation of their good and bad points, as much as I could also name a whole dozen RTS games or cutesy platformers I wouldn't even lift a finger to. It's simply through being a self-proclaimed gamer at heart do I possess that knowledge. It seeps out of magazines and websites and forums easily and I can't help but know about it and sometimes be intrigued about it.

It's a well-worn point that gamers spend as much time (or more) talking about games as they do playing them. But, to twist the negative connotations around, that can sometimes be a good thing. Why shouldn't we be able to consume information about all aspects of our chosen pastime because it's never just about playing, it's about the community and social aspects of gaming and of seeing how everything pieces together. I'll probably never play a game of IL-2 Sturmovik but I can appreciate the enthusiasm and praise that other gamers lavish on it simply because I describe myself as a gamer as well. A gamer and nothing more nor less. This diversity of content freely available and the open invitation for anyone to personally acknowledge all aspects of videogames is precisely why I love the medium so much.

I don't seem to have much time to play games now. I don't? Oh, seriously, this blog's all about me, me, me. Well, hey, I guess it is.

Er, so I never feel like I'm playing enough nowadays. Why? That's probably because I'm spending all day writing about this blog or thinking about writing about this blog or sleeping. But there are certain other things that also seem to get in the way of a good session, things like sleeping, eating, washing the dishes, paying bills, watching Lost, etc. Those kind of chores and activities that it's impossible to put off for long. Small things that, when added up, amount to a lot of the day missing. Indeed, gone are the days when I'd sit in front of the computer or TV for hours on end doing nothing but play one game.

Oblivion: a compelling reason to ignore the 'not playing enough games' argument.

Then again, I'm not even sure if those days ever existed. Sure, I've spend long nights on games in the past, but there'd always be something like the above to interrupt it. And I don't think I've ever spent an actual day in thrall to a joypad at the expense of other immediate responsibilities (long term goals like exams may have suffered, mind). It's just false nostalgia for the free time I had as a kid. After all, work takes up just the same amount as school and, considering I don't have homework to do or coursework to research anymore, you could say I've got even more time to waste.

Yet somehow I feel I'm not playing as enough as I should. Back when I was younger, I didn't have as many games as I do now. Today it's easy to go out and spend money on a whole lot without thinking. With so many games to get through, it's no wonder I'm having trouble finding the time to fit them all in, and that leads to the idea that there's less time to do so overall. This is probably why I don't play MMOs. I want to experience as much as possible, and to get sucked into a WOW or an Eve Online isn't going to be productive to my time. But is that a misconception? I wonder if I'm missing the point. After all, I have to resign myself at sometime to the fact that there'll never be enough hours in the day, and that I'm really here to enjoy myself, not tally off how many games I've played. If I'm not having fun, that's the real waste of time.

And so the best I can do is to keep chipping away at what I've got and try to have as an entertaining a time as possible doing so. There's no point, I understand, in complaining that I've got less time to play games when its an inevitability that other things need to be done. At best I've got to make the most of what time I do have.

Oh, wait. That sounds awful. I want to spend a whole weekend immersed in nothing but Zelda. I crave that luxurious self-indulgence. Not every day, but every once in a while. It's good to go off on a pixelated bender now and again, because really, when the kids come along, that's really it for regular extended sessions until they leave home (so I've heard is my duty to say as a responsible parent). After that, roll on retirement. Maybe I'll finally get the chance to plug through Baldur's Gate 2.

I was playing F.E.A.R for the 360 today. Not for too long, mind. I got to the first major firefight and promptly tied in a hail of bullets, my health depleting rapidly in every doomed attempt. Perhaps it was my fault: I'd selected the hard difficulty mode, expecting a challenge, only to find myself, as the young kids say, pwned.

So I turned it off. I couldn't really be bothered to go back and start again at an easier difficulty level, especially as I'd spent half an hour going through a combat-free intro right beforehand. Maybe another time.

I don't know exactly why I'll always go for the harder difficulty level first. I guess because I want to feel I'm getting value out of the game; to not beat it in one setting. And also to bring some of my skills to the table and learn new ones. But when a game becomes too hard, the upper level of play can become an arduous uphill struggleand dying all the time can sap the fun out of things pretty quickly. It's only when you find that sweet spot between gradual progression and testing combat can you truly find a great game.

Trouble is, it's tough to know how to define that. Easy, medium, and hard options are all contextual and need experience to bring meaning. Really, you need to see them in action to decide what they actually represent. And as we've seen it can sometimes be the wrong choice. Hard can be too hard, but it can sometimes be easy enough. And easy can similarly be too much of a walk in the park. Throw in something like expert mode or advance, beginner, nightmare, what have you, and it gets confusing. It can sometimes be a whole different experience on another difficulty level, so you have to choose wisely.

Whatever the case, most games only ever give you the option at the beginning. That's almost fine if you get stuck on the very first level, but when you get a good few hours in, you might not realise you made a mistake until it's too late. And like I said, it's often frustrating, boring, or time-consuming to go right back to the start and try again if you get it wrong.

Ninja Gaiden: Doesn't matter what you choose, you will weep.

Of course, some games do take into consideration that you might want to change your mind at some point. God of War, for one, lets you downgrade to an easier challenge if you die too much at a higher difficulty (though not vice versa), as does Ninja Gaiden which offers you a pretty ribbon to wear as some kind of humiliation. Sin: Episodes tried to offer enemies that modified their difficultydepending on how well you did, but it didn't really work, since making them too powerful ruined the balance. And finally, Bioware's RPG games have a slider, accessed from the options menu, which lets you change the difficulty at any time. Clearly the latter option is what every game needs. Either that or, say, a very short mode with a few things to fight that essentially says if you play on medium the enemies will be this strong, and so on, because there's really no way to tell otherwise.

Taking the challenge can be a little bit of potluck. Until there's a universal standard of difficulty levels (inevitably an impossibility), or the above happens, you're just going to have to decide for yourself how well you'll be able to cope. Me? If there's three options, go for the hardest, four or more, second from top. Then dig in and never look back.

I'll be the first to admit I have a bad memory. Put me down in front of a movie, even one I actually enjoy, and I'll be hard-pushed to remember most of the scenes after a couple of weeks. Same with books: I regularly find myself flipping back to previous chapters to refresh my memory of what someone said, or to go back over that foreshadowing event that I'd completely blotted out of my mind.

I'll be the first to admit I have a bad memory. Put me down... oh ha ha. I'm sure someone's glad they're not paying me to write this.

I get the same thing with games. Ask me to outline a plot or a premise and I could probably manage it, but ask me go into a more in-depth account of the narrative and often I can't. With all the good intentions in the world, it's sometimes impossible to keep it all up there. You could say it's partially to do with the length of games and the piecemeal time it's played in; sessions split between days, sometimes months. It's no wonder I forget and that's why I need a reminder. It just remains a shame that there isn't an obligatory method around to do so.

Take the Final Fantasy series, for instance: a convoluted plot, shifting from one city to the next, characters coming and going, and emo protagonists moping over their large swords. I'd often find myself staring at the map towards the end of the game wondering why I'd spent so much time in the desert. I mean, it's there; I went to prison and escape for some reason, yet it escapes me. FF inexorably moves forward, and without playing again or busting out Gamefaqs, I might never know.

Sacre bleu! Eet ees a literal Flashback game!

Sometimes it's about plot, and sometimes it's something as simple as finding out the motivation or reasoning. Learning why I'm on a mission would help explain what I'm doing in the middle of a dungeon or military base after coming back to the game after a month away. A lot of games seem to think you don't care about what happened before. And maybe the story may be derivative or badly-written, but I'd still like to know why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Some titles keep journals for your character, writing short summaries every time something significant happened. I guess that goes some way towards my benefit. As does the ability to access cutscenes. However, showing cutscenes is usually misinterpreted as showing the five-second CGI animation they spent their budget on, and not the in-engine briefing that happened afterwards. One of the better ones I've seen is for Pokemon Fire Red / Leaf Green (could possibly be in the new Diamond / Pearl as well), which goes for a 'previously on your adventures' approach, showing the last few things you did the next time you turn on your handheld for the game. Actually, I'm all for that last one: the option for this information to appear when you boot up, a list of objectives, character bios, whatever. Maybe a compiled highlight movie for the next section. Games are big. The last thing any game maker wants is for his game to be cast aside because it's too hard to follow. Don't make us forget. Anything that'll get me back into the swing of things more quickly gets my approval.

I was convinced, in those late night / early morning scenarios when something absolutely had to be done in a couple of hours from now, that Solitaire contained a masterful feat of programming. This, in its entirety, was an algorithm designed to draw you in and leave you helplessly clicking away until nothing mattered but the cards. There were two ways: the first would get you closer to winning than you'd think in your first few games, missing out a clean run late on with a missing jack of hearts; enough to convince you that it was possible. The second was more fiendish: you'd win first or second time. Disappointed that it was so easy to beat, you'd get tricked into playing again, only to find that the game's super-AI knew your intentions and ramped up the difficulity for the next hour.

That's Solitaire for you: the ultimate procrastination tool. Forget your Minesweeper with its logic approach, Solitaire was what really ate away the hours. Yes, it was random, but somehow it never felt that way. Sometimes a victory felt special, as if the computer had conceded defeat against a better opponent. Celebrations occurred declaring your genuis skills: the whole suit of cards bouncing into oblivion at different speeds, leaving trails behind that filled the screen. It was a game that rewarded your patience with a prize as hypnotic and enduring as fireworks. It made you want to play again.

Of course, it's only a challenge if you're playing in Draw Three mode. Draw One? You might as well stop now. Being able to deal out one card from the pile at a time is the kind of concept propagated by the type of person who wants to ban Sports Day for being too competitive. After that, it's a matter of tactics. Do you build your suit piles straight away when the appropriate cards come in or do you fill your lines first and leave it until you can't move anymore? Does it matter? I'm not sure. Same thing with choosing which card to turn over when you've uncovered several from the pile. Do you go for clearing the larger pile or the smaller one? Decisions, decisions.

Vista? I preferred 3.1.

In any case, one of the most satisfying parts is the beginning where you try and clear as much of the current cards as possible before the reserve are dealt. One fabled day, I will clear them all in one go. The odds are high, but I'm convinced it will happen. Until then, I'm content with a quick game as ubiquitous as it is. It was inevitable: it's even managed to make its way into Vista. A stalwart of Windows, Solitaire defines Microsoft (which is why it's a bit of a worry they haven't got this on Live Arcade - Soltrio Solitaire, a knock-off, has been announced in its stead. For shame.). I mourn the loss of office workers everywhere who have had this staple of computing life cruelly extracted from their work PCs. What better way to quickly, silently, surreptitiously fill a few hours. It's no Quake, it's a pot-luck game. Solitaire is a bland snack food you eat for the sake of eating. It's biting the end of your pencil. It's reading the Metro on the bus. It's mindless, challenging, random, cruel, boring, brilliant and you can never get that three of diamonds when you really want it, can you?

(B3ta posted a rather amusing interview with the creator of Solitaire, Wes Cherry. Go here to read.)

Hard to remember that the world was once run amok with Full Motion Video. Those days are gone. Recently however, Command and Conquer 3 gave us a taste of what that was like in more ways than one: it wasn't just that it featured humans in the cutscenes, but that their acting was over the top and the sets of TV quality. Only this time, wrapped around a multi-million dollar game with EA's slick production values. That's a blend of the old and the new right there.

It was more of a treat to fans than a statement of intent, though. I don't see FMV making a comeback anytime soon, not when we can render and animate feasible humans so easily now, even Vin Diesel (insert joke about what the difference is). Digitising human characters into a game would probably rely on strong suspension of disbelief for the universe they could sustain whereas for a small time back then it was the other way around.

Still, FMV had its moments: Privateer 2: The Darkening with Clive Owen, the noirish sci-fi comedy of the Tex Murphy adventure series, the mythic detective sequel Gabriel Knight 2, the cultish FPS Realms of the Haunting. They may not be true classics yet they held their own. They had to beside such clunkers as Phantasmagoria, 7th Guest, Police Quest: SWAT and many, many others.

Spycraft: They don't make 'em like this anymore. Or do they?

But one of the games I liked the most from this particular era was Spycraft: The Great Game*. This was an FMV game in which you played a secret agent of the CIA type uncovering conspiracies and espionage on behalf of the United States. Part adventure game, part mini-game narrative, it did what the CD-ROM era was adept doing at that time and producing an eclectic mix of different elements to form a game, a little like today's action adventure titles and their constant veering off the main event into mini-games to distract formalities. Multimedia they called it back the. So you'd spend your time seeking out clues in photos with your high-tech devices, controlling a squad as they infiltrate a suspect's house, or shooting criminals yourself and so on. Each would have a totally separate interface, the game moving from one to the other, bringing something new up every time.

C&C3 aside, probably not.

And while it was linear and slightly easy, its variety made it intriguing. That blend of simple puzzle solving and FMV action pushed you along at a fast pace, enough to appreciate the narrative with its twists and turns. Perhaps what it'll be most well-known for, though, is its notorious torture scene. At one point you're given the choice of interrogating a female suspect by strapping them into an electric chair and turning on the power. You need to juice her just enough and no more so that she talks. However, the more sadistic players can turn things all the way up until she expires. Being an actual human, watching her scream in agony as the volts course through her body is way more disturbing than an animation. Once you've turned that dial one time, you can't help but feel guilty in a way you wouldn't for a polygonal character. At that point, it doesn't feel like entertainment; it makes you wish you'd chosen the alternative method and skipped those scenes. Not many of today's game can provoke that kind of reaction.

It's hard to track down but do so if you will. There's usually one on eBay every so often. I, for one, am seeking that elusive DVD version. One day.

* The other being Zork: Grand Inquisitor

It's day seventy-five, we're heading into the final quarter, and normally on landmark like this I'd take a tiny break and post something I'd written in the past. Nothing stands out, however - it's either irrelevant or needs a damn good edit before it sees the light of day - so instead I shall be flippant. Here then, I wonder what the first hit would be if I type in various game related words into Google. Would the results show how the current generation has shifted videogames into the mainstream? Or would it just be a silly waste of time? We shall see.

Videogames: "Did you mean video games?" asks Google wondering if I meant to put a space in between each word. No I didn't. The word itself brings up Gamespot as its first hit. Perhaps unsurprising given its ubiquitous web presence. I would agree, but I never really frequent its pages. As a matter of curiosity, I do put a space between "video" and "games" and get Wikipedia's communal definition of such. Ironically, ex-mag Computer and Videogames comes second in both attempts.

Mario: Wikipedia again, followed by a site for New Super Mario Bros, the back to basics 2D platformer that turned out to be slightly disappointing after a fashion. The 'Super' peters off at the third entry where R&B singer Mario makes an appearance. Mamma mia!

Sonic: Oh dear. Poor hedgehog. First link is to a fast food company which describes itself as America's Drive-In. I happen never to have heard of it. I hope it involves pony-tailed waitresses in rollerskates carrying milkshakes and burgers to your car window as people make out in the backseat. The front page is currently advertising a Tropical Mango Tea and BLT combo for $2.99 plus tax. Er, yum?

Donkey Kong: Eschewing the official site, the first hit links to 'Fetchfido's Free Online Games', and a Flash-based game of what appears to be the first level of Donkey Kong. Not a very good version. Much better as a bonus in Donkey Kong 64.

Donkey Kong: The bongos came much later.

Amiga: Gets you to Amiga.com which appears to be a corporate site advertising products and technologies for PDAs, mobile phones, and computers. Acknowledges the classic gaming machine as its legacy but has little to do with the past. I can't muster the interest to read further.

3DO: Wikipedia. Nuff said.

Jaguar: Oh, a little unfair given its more famous association with automobiles. How fickle the public are, letting Atari's console fall to 15th place.

Dreamcast: Score another for the console's Wikipedia entry.

Console: "Console is a Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles." Evidently better than videogaming.

Peter Moore: Not 360's marketing dad-dancer, but the author Peter Moore who wrote 'Same Same But Different' a short travel journal detailing ten days in the Mekong Delta on a '64 Vespa. Yours for only $0.49.

Phil Harrison: Wikipedia. How you spoil our fun.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Guess what famous encyclopedia he's appearing on.

Well, a ten minute idea done well. We have learned that Wikipedia rules the web, Mario is better than Sonic and PlayStation 3 is better than a tour of South-East Asia on a scooter. That'll do. See you tomorrow!

Oh dear, another one of those slow days when there isn't much to say and I've been going round the Internet houses trying to find something interesting.

Anyway, in the duties of filling this blog with a worthwhile post, here's a recommendation that you check out the Angry Video Game Nerd (if you haven't already). As you may have guessed, he's a pissed-off gamer who reviews cruddy 8-bit console games with invective. It's well shot, it's funny, and the swearing's bilious which is always a bonus. If you're going to start anywhere, start with Spider-Man or the Ghostbuster multi-part retrospective.

In other news, Starcraft 2 has just been announced. What? Hadn't you heard? Fancy that! Actually, the first Starcraft is yet another one of those games that I should really get round to playing. Come to think of it, I don't think I've had anything more than a quick dabble in Blizzard's universe. My loss, and perhaps the reason (that and not being Korean) why I'm not blisteringly excited at the prospect of a sequel. We shall see, though. I'd gather a game doesn't become a national obsession if it isn't tactically rich, frenetically paced and finely balanced.

Of course, judging by what I've seen, it doesn't get me salivating. It looks a little plain, really, rather like the original without the blockiness. And I suppose that's Blizzard's strategy: to not scare off those hardcore players who don't have super-computers, being content to lump with the archaic first game while technology grew around them; their low-entry concept worked a treat with World of Warcraft so power to them.

Starcraft 2: If it doesn't have FMV, I ain't interested.

I sometimes get that feeling, though, that we should be expecting more from Blizzard. Not just a new Starcraft, but a brand new game altogether. It feels as though they've been milking the same three concepts forever, and that's probably because they have. For now we have improvements on a theme and I can't help feeling that may lead to some ennui from gamers in the near future. Not nearly enough to wreck their juggernaut, but enough to deplete their kudos reserves a little. Gamers have a longstanding tradition of clamouring for sequels and it's natural that developers may be in a quandary on when or how to deliver yet that doesn't mean they have to otherwise we'd be on Doom 8 by now. Besides, I'd imagine the pressure was on all those years to deliver something amazing, especially with those years in the wilderness. Contrast that with EA who just coast along with yearly iterations of a franchise that increment the quality only enough to jade most of us, and you can see why it must be difficult.

Still, if they're going to renovate instead of innovate, I'm sure they're confident. Starcraft 2 was always something we wanted and expected, like Diablo 3, Fallout 3, and the next five Final Fantasy games. And if any of those sequels turn out to be bad, we've got plenty more to take their place.