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Indie Film Revolution In Tampa Bay

Off The Wagon

Videogame Industry Special

Off The Wagon: Videogame Industry Special: Current Issue, Issue 49, Volume 3, for January, 2013. New Issue published every month, and updated throughout the month. Next issue due online February 2013.

Related Issues on Frontier Pop: Issue 39: Game Over? and Issue 33: Video Game Emulation.

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INITIALIZING

ISSUE INTRODUCTION BY EDITOR AND PUBLISHER C. A. PASSINAULT

Welcome to the January 2013 issue of Frontier Pop, which is technically issue 49, and should get Frontier Pop back on track and publishing regularly. I know that Frontier Pop literally only had two issues published in 2012 (I found one for February which had a completed cover, but which had not even been started as far as writing), and Frontier Pop was supposed to have a solid publication schedule for 2012, but something happened with over 50 of my web sites in May which sidetracked me for many months, and Frontier Pop was put on ice. When I tried to resume publication in September, I inherited two top talent resource sites, Florida Models and Florida Actors, which sidetracked me again, as the sites needed a lot of work. So, now it is January 2013, and now I’m getting back on track. Although this is, again, technically issue 49, it’s not, yet, literally issue 49, so we will not be celebrating our 50th issue next month. This will not always be the case, as it is my goal that the issues will be literal by 2014.
I’ve decided to do at least three issues a month to catch up, although the actual monthly issue will be the one promoted, and there will be links from the current issue to the other issues as they are added. I will start by completing half-finished or previously started issues already online, as there are a few incomplete issues. Once those are online (and upgraded to current site standards), I will bring past issues to current Frontier Pop specifications. Once that is done, which will be months from now, I will write and publish the missing issues to bring integrity to the issue continuity of the site. Since all issues remain in play, new old issues which are created from scratch will be more subject-orientated, as all issues usually focus on a specific subject, and not necessarily current events tied to a date. Because there are (and I am estimating here, as I did not have the chance to actually do a count) that there are well over a dozen missing issues, future readers of Frontier Pop reading back-issues or accessing previous issues from our subject menus or referenced links will get the impression that the site is out of touch with current events, which is hardly the case.
All back issues, and newly-created “back” issues, will be brought to current format specifications of Frontier Pop for navigation and aesthetic continuity.
Frontier Pop is important, and I would say that it is, perhaps, my most important web site. Once I begin producing events, this site will be all over the place (I'm talking about marketing and promotion, and not the hodgepodge, inconsistent updates and publishing schedule which has plagued the site since it launched. Past issues will be fixed/ completed/ written, again, and issues will be completed and published regularly from now on), and aggressively marketed, so I need to get it to where it needs to be in the next year. By 2014, Frontier Pop will be whole, and it would have been published regularly for a long time; the impression being that this fiasco never happened (but the history can be easily referenced for readers whom are reading back-issues).
I plan on overhauling Frontier Pop throughout 2013, too, and making major adjustments and format upgrades, as well as adding more support content. With the launch of sister site Tampa Film Revolution early in 2012, several innovations were achieved which made TFR more advanced than Frontier Pop. Some of those improvements will be worked back into Frontier Pop in 2013.
Which brings us to the current issue.
This issue was originally supposed to be written and published in the summer of 2012, in the wake of the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. It is one of many video game issues on Frontier Pop, and now that it has been pushed from issue 43-ish to issue 45, and now, officially, issue 49, many months late, it will be the first video game issue of 2013, to be followed up by another major video game issue to be published after E3 2013; due in July 2013, the first issue of Volume 4, and issue 55. This is our video game industry issue covering E3 2012, among other things, although I’ve de emphasized the E3 2012 coverage due to the late publication date, as it will seem odd to cover an event from the middle of 2012 at the start of the following year.

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?

Galaga: 85,710, Stage 12, on 01/15/13. Are you good enough to top my score?

- C. A. Passinault, regarding Galaga on Namco Museum DS for the Nintendo DS

It All Began In The Arcades

Without revealing my age, I was there. I was there when video games began. I was there when Pong and Tank were the only games available to play. I was there when Lunar Lander and Asteroids debuted with their revolutionary vector graphics. I was there when the arcades had their golden age in the early 1980's. That, of course, is where I became passionate about games, and became a gamer. It was literally in my blood from the onset.
Dig Dug. Joust. Gyruss. Galaga. Galaxians. Phoenix. Battlezone. Centipede. Kung Fu Master. Donkey Kong. Kangaroo. Space Panic. Star Castle. Tron. Omega Race. Asteroids. Gravitar. Elevator Action. Tempest. Space Invaders. Pac Man. Ms. Pac Man. Missile Command. Pole Position. Jungle Hunt. Scramble. Spy Hunter. Yie Ar Kung Fu. Frogger. Kung Fu Master. Moon Patrol. Rolling Thunder. Donkey Kong Junior. Donkey Kong 3. Robotron 2084. Tapper. This was only the beginning, and it was the beginning of it all. I put quarter after quarter into coin ops. I wasn’t the best, I wasn’t even that good, but I loved playing arcade games. I even loved the faddish laser disk games such as Dragon’s Lair, Cliffhanger, M.A.C.H. 3, and Cobra Command. There were many more, too; much more than I can list here. I played them all. I learned them all. I dreamed of them all.
The dream back then was to be able to play arcade games in the home, and many tried. Other than that spoiled rich kid in the television show “Silver Spoons”, and some kids whom I went to school with who’s father had an arcade business, none of us had arcade machines in our home. It did not stop us from trying to get arcade quality gaming in the home, however.
We could not afford an Atari 2600. My neighbors could, though, and they had one. We spent hour at their house playing games. We failed to notice that some of them sucked. The 2600 version of Pac Man seriously blew, but it did not stop us from playing it and passing around a greasy, rubbery joystick. Space Invaders was passable, but was not arcade-perfect, either. Defender had issues, but we played that, too. Then, we played original games that were not crippled translations (notice that I did not describe these games as “ports”, because they were definitely not, and that would be inaccurate). We played a game called “Combat”, which most people today that were not alive in the 80's would not know about. Combat was fun, however, with its two player death matches with dozens of variations of tanks, biplanes, and jet fighters dueling. We played Pitfall and H.E.R.O. One of my friends had Frostbite, which was a little like Frogger in all directions where each jump added a brick to an igloo. We even played a cool Raiders Of The Lost Ark game.
One game that we spent a lot of time with, and which did not suck after we learned it and about what all of the icons meant, was E.T., the game which supposedly caused the video game crash of 1982. We had a lot of fun with E.T. It took skill to navigate the pits, and the game was actually quite a lot of fun to play. We played it so much that we could even crash it by calling Elliot and timing it so that our ship came down when Elliot entered the forest screen; the ship came down and crashed onto Elliot.

Video Gaming at Home

In 1981, I obtained a black and white computer with no sound. It was a Timex Sinclair 1000, and had 2K of RAM. I later got the 16K memory pack for it. I taught myself basic, but the was unable to load games from the tape cassette deck that you had to use for storage because the load jack was defective. So, I’d have to type in these long programs, only to run out of memory, or not be able to save them. That computer sucked, but it was educational. It had games for it, too, but they were weak pixely clones of superior arcade games, with no sound, which I could not play because I could not load the games off of tape.
When the home video game market crashed in 1982, we did not know anything about it. All that we knew is that video games were cheap, and you could score a new Atari 2600 for $50.00, and the games could be had for a dollar. So, we finally got one, and I had quite the collection that I always wanted. Looking back, however, I have no idea what happened to my 2600 and my carts, as they were put away somewhere by 1985, and I fear that they were in the shed where my parents also put my Transformers, Zoids, G.I. Joes, and other cool toys. That shed was later destroyed by a tornado, and everything in it was taken to the dump. What really sucks was that I took really good care of my things, and storage in the shed was a death sentence for my collection. I am going to get all of that back, too, by the way. Even my Capsella’s, Zoids, and TSR role playing games and gamebooks.
One thing that we bought as a family in 1983, which survived in perfect condition, and which I still have today, was a Commodore 64 with a 1541 disk drive. My brother, sister, and I each received a 5 inch floppy disk of our very own to use with it. I made games with that system in BASIC, but without the proper books on it, I could never figure out how to move memory around to store more than three sprites, or how to overwrite the ACCII characters for simple graphics (looking back, I could have taught myself machine language and coded the programs that way for fast refresh speeds, and simply had it reset values for Sprite frames; three Sprites would have been all that I needed. I could have even superimposed parts of Sprites in different colors for multi-colored Sprites). I did master making sprite graphics on the system, however, and even figured out how to PEEK registers to make joysticks work with my games. The game play was primitive, however, and my games were never really that great. I made a version of Space Invaders which worked well, however, although my version did not have sound, as programming sound was something that I never got around to tinkering with. One program that I did make which I am particularly proud of was an easy way to draw Sprite graphics using an Atari 2600 joystick. Originally, I would have to take graph paper with numbers and draw them in pixel by pixel with a pencil, and then use a calculator to add up values for register blocks and then manually type them into my programs. This took a long time. With my drawing program, it made things fast. Moving the joystick would adjust the values directly by poking them into the Sprite registers on the Commodore, thus moving the pixel. When the pixel was where you wanted, you would hit the fire button and lock the value into memory. Sprite graphics could be drawn this way in minutes. I even programmed the software to save the designs, and later reload them back to the computer, using the 1541 Disk Drive, by peeking the values from memory and writing them directly to the floppy, and then, when needed, poking those same values back into memory from the floppy. It worked quite well, and I could have sold that program. I should have also made a gameplay editor for setting up gameplay and environmental stages, which could have programmed in gameplay enhancements such as inertia. I still have the computer, and may just do that still, if I ever get the things that I need to transfer programs from the 1541 to PC so that they can be played on a Commodore 64 emulator.

Street Fighter II Sparks A Second Golden Age In The Arcades

The 16 Bit Wars Of The Early 1990's

32 Bit Takes Hold

Playstation Changes The Game, And The Golden Age Of Home Video Gaming

N-Gage Tries To Add Video Games To Cell Phones

Steve Jobs The Tool And The iPhone Sets The Wrong Standard

Nintendo And Blue Ocean Expands, Then Fragments, The Market

Motion Controls And Touch Screens Dull Gameplay. Games Become Gimmicks.

Apps Cheapen Video Games. Video Games Become Disposable Entertainment To The Average Person.

Forced Firmware Updates, Patches, and DLC Makes Games Buggy And Sloppy

Cookie Cutter Franchises From Big Studios Limit Creativity

Out Of Control: Gameplay Emphasis Reduced As Developers Lose Touch About What Makes A Game A Game

Nintendo and Sony React To Smart Phones And Tablets, Falling Off The Wagon.

The Video Game Industry Is Almost Unrecognizable Today

I Would Not Mind If The Video Game Industry Crashed Again

Smart Phones The “Standard” In Portable Gaming? I Don’t Think So!

Hope?

Emulators

Classic Gaming

Premise Gaming

The Second Coming Of Virtual Reality

Wearable Technology

Games Stay True

Customizable Games

Artificial Life Revolutionizes Artificial Intelligence

Games Which Play Out Differently Every Play

Notes:

Chris Passinault
LOL........ The video game industry is pretty much unrecognizable today. Some of this stuff is more gimmick than game, and the game companies play it too safe. We need to stop catering to non-gamers. They need to stop selling out! Games are about gameplay, not gimmicks like inaccurate motion control and attractive graphics which make your 3D game look like all of the others! I've already stopped buying games at-launch, and play my vintage games far more than anything recent. Take the upcoming Wii U from Nintendo. Not only does the name suck, and sound like a nerdy siren, but we get to play the same games that we have been playing for the past decade! Awesome! I am not at all thrilled about this, seriously. Nintendo needs to grow their testicles back and make a console for gamers, which emphasis game play, real innovation, and fun. Make it a hard core, fire-breathing gaming console! Style it like a sports car, so you look at it and want to turn it on! Make new types of games with solid gameplay, make the games customizable, make the A.I. based upon Artiifical Life so that each game experience is different and unique, and make it so that the players can play the game in more than one way. Nintendo has more problems than communicating the joys of the Wii U to the masses (and Sony and Microsoft have serious issues, as well). http://www.gamespot.com/features/what-wii-us-got-here-is-failure-to-communicate-6383555/
What Wii U's Got Here Is Failure To Communicate
www.gamespot.com
When people who should know better are still confusing the Wii U GamePad as an add-on rather than a new console, how will Nintendo get the word out to the casual masses?
Like ? ? Share ? June 21 at 9:20pm ?

Chris Passinault I will be writing a lot more about this in the July 2012 issue of Frontier Pop.
June 21 at 9:21pm ? Like
Gloryvee Cordero Still own a 3DO and Atari 1200. Old skool but true game.
June 21 at 9:41pm ? Unlike ? 1
Chris Passinault Cool. I literally own everything ever made, except for the Vita, PS3, Colecovision, Gamegear, TG16, Turbo Express, and Intellivision. I"m looking at a shelf full of video game consoles right now, which includes an original Panasonic FZ-1 3DO Multiplayer. If the video game industry crashed right now (which I am fast getting to a point where I could care less), I would be fine, as I could never play all of the games that I own in my lifetime.
June 21 at 9:50pm ? Like
Gloryvee Cordero I was conducting research a few years ago on gaming and I bought the Panasonic 3DO and tested that bad boy on my HDTV 1080 56in. I tried Street Fighter and then a few other games. I was very impressed that it looked pretty good. It amazed me to see the quality of product that existed ahead of its time with the 3DO. It will always be one of my favorites.
June 21 at 9:54pm ? Unlike ? 1
Chris Passinault Both Super Street Fighter II and Samurai Shodown are coin-op perfect on the 3DO, but that does not mean much when the controllers don't do diagonals well (I have both of those games). Plus, I had a friend who tried to put together a Way Of The Warrior tournament just before it came out, and that game was horrible (one of my girlfriends and I had a bad video game night one night back in 2003, where we played horrible games, which I also collect, and made fun of them. We had fun with Way Of The Warrior, Night Trap, Corpse Killer, and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. The 3DO had more bad games than any other console, although Checkered Flag for the Jaguar is probably the worst game that I have, as the frame rate is chuggy, and the car literally tumbles uncontrollably around every corner. I do have some awesome games for the 3DO, though, such as Start Control II and Return Fire. At any rate, I do love my 3DO, but I would have to say that the most revolutionary console, and one which was way ahead of its time, would be the Sega Dreamcast. Soul Caliber for the Dreamcast can hang with any fighting game out today, almost 14 years later, and is perhaps the best 3D fighting game ever made (even considering Virtua Fighter 3, which is a different kind of 3D fighting game). Glad to see that you know your stuff when it comes to the 3DO, though, as it was a very innovative console. Did you know that the same two guys who made the Handy for Epix, which became the Atari Lynx, were the team behind the 3DO before Trip Hawkins came into the picture?
June 22 at 8:42am ? Like

Chris Passinault
Really? Another Zune, Microsoft? I really hope not, as this looks cool. If this "Surface" tablet has an inerface anything like Microsoft's "Surface" tabletop demonstrator (now called PixelSense, which is a far worse name, IMO... They should have kept the Surface name for both, and used it for effective cross-branding), where you could scale, rotate, and place images within a virtual space, it WILL give Apple's iPad a run for its money. I need to download some research data before powering down for the night...... http://www.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-unveils-surface-tablets-6383221
Microsoft unveils Surface tablets - GameSpot.com
www.gamespot.com
10.7-inch portables rolling out with keyboard-sporting screen covers, integrated kickstands, 10.6-inch HD displays; no pricing announced.
Like ? ? Share ? June 21 at 9:34pm ?

Chris Passinault http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense
Microsoft PixelSense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
Microsoft PixelSense (formally called Microsoft Surface) is a commercial computi...See More
June 21 at 9:36pm ? Like ?
Jose Gomez It WILL give Apple some heartburn for sure....
June 21 at 10:59pm ? Unlike ? 1
Chris Passinault Hey, I think that it will be serious competition for the iPad IF they get the price point right, and IF they can replicate the original Surface table desktop interface on the pad, as that interface is superior to the iOS interface. I just hope that they do not pull another Zune (and I am still waiting for Microsoft to come out with a portable video game console of their own to challenge the Sony Vita and the Nintendo 3DS).
June 22 at 8:48am ? Like
Write a comment...

Chris Passinault
I will be writing a series of short stories, and will make them available free of charge online. Some of these stories, such as "The Adventures Of DJ Wiz Kid" (based on true adventures of 1988-1991; names will be changed to protect teh guilty), will be series all in themselves. Like my blogs and other online publications will become bonus parts of my published books, which will not be free of charge, I will include original and enhanced versions of my short stories in my published books, as a service to my fans. Oh, and besides my Advanced Model non-fiction modeling book, and my Frontier 4 time travel novel, I am working on a new novel series based upon the 21st century parallel-reality high tech world of Frontier 4, as it took me years to develop that world, and the first novel leaves it behind rather quickly. I don't want all of that background material to go to waste.
Like ? ? June 13 at 7:32pm ?
Chris Passinault
Hmmmmm... How about a super-powerful, single-screen, candy-bar form successor to the Gameboy; a new Gameboy which outguns the PS Vita? I'd dig that! Also, dropping a screen would allow them to make a very powerful portable console without as much of a hit on battery life. My 3DS doesn't last long on a charge, and it is annoying. That said, the Streetpass and stat features on my 3DS are very addictive, and I play mine every day, more than any other system or game. http://www.gamespot.com/news/new-3ds-unlikely-nintendo-planning-next-gen-portable-miyamoto-6382311?tag=Topslot%3BToday039sGamingNews%3BNew3dsUnlikelyPlannin
New 3DS unlikely, Nintendo planning next-gen portable - Miyamoto
www.gamespot.com
Like ? ? Share ? June 13 at 7:18pm ?

Chris Passinault
Again, no Animal Crossing 3DS. There WAS a confirmation from Nintendo in late April that it would launch this fall in Japan. With all of the text-heavy content in that game, the localization needed for a U.S. release, and no news of it at E3, this means a summer or fall 2013 release, which sucks. I am so disappointed with this E3, that I am making the entire June issue of Frontier Pop about E3 and Animal Crossing. I've checked forums around the net (nothing on it on the gaming web sites), and a lot of people are pissed off... As I saw streaming on the chat live feed when watching the press conference last night. Nintendo are bastards.
Like ? ? June 7 at 9:52am ?

Nyta Melisa likes this.
Chris Passinault This one game is the reason why I bought a 3DS. While I am having fun with the system, I want this game badly.

Chris Passinault
No Animal Crossing. Not even a mention of it. It's the main reason why I bought a 3DS. Judging from the torrent of angry rants in chat at the conclusion of the keynote, I'm not alone with my disappointment. The director of Animal Crossing 3DS was also in charge of Nintendoland, so I'm not happy about Nintendo taking him off one project to do another. Grrrrrrr......
Like ? ? June 6 at 10:06pm ?

Chris Passinault
Waiting on the Nintendo 3DS keynote presentation streaming video online @ 9PM. Hopefully, I will find out more about Animal Crossing for the 3DS, or maybe even a 3DS with a larger screen and a second analog nub added. I'm pretty pissed at Nintendo for splitting up their keynotes to begin with (reference http://www.facebook.com/chrispassinault/posts/394811597236690 ), so they need to do something to redeem themselves. Not happy with E3 at all, so far!
Chris Passinault
Remember when I wrote that E3 was like Christmas to me, and one of my favorite times of the year? Well, I feel like I woke up to a tree with trash bags underneath it, and coal in my stockings. Even without Cammy, which losing her was too little, too late, IMO, this was one of the worst E3's in years. Nintendo especially disgusted me. They have fallen off of the wagon! Too many gimmicks and other clutter take away from the focus on the games. Deferring what should have been a part of their main presentation to other presentations and social media (with no incentive to check those out, and no teasers), was also a mistake. I've learned a lot about keynote presentations from watching E3 pressers, and in this case, I learned what not to do. Nintendo needs to take the co-op gaming that they are pushing, with some of the gamers being stuck on the side lines as red-headed stepchildren, much farther. It should be all about different ways to play the games, with equally fulfilling experiences based upon your preferences and talents, and not just comparing scores and helping other players in a main quest. Also, Nintendo needs to stop ripping off other game ideas. I saw the stickers in Paper Mario in Little Big Planet. Also, Nintendoland looks a lot like LBP. Additionally, why do all of the Mii's in Nintendoland look fat? Shouldn't the fat Mii theme been used when casting the impossibly trendy and good-looking people that they cast in their demo videos (we need truth-in-advertising, and something that the core audience can relate to)? I mean, I'm a gamer, and none of that looked fun! Nintendo also seems to be hung up on Ghostbusters. Oh, and where is my 3DS Animal Crossing!
Like ? ? June 5 at 3:44pm ?

Chris Passinault I'm going to quit buying new games. I have my older game consoles, my games, my emulators, and everything that I like. These #$@#$ sell-out companies can all go out of business for all that I care.
June 5 at 3:47pm ? Lik

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Indie Film Revolution In Tampa Bay

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