"Do you want us to hate you?!"

I originally wrote a blog post hating on EA and their $10 policy plan.  If you don't know, EA (and now Ubisoft and THQ) has started a plan where a code will be given to NEW versions of their popular games (for EA they are limiting it to their sports franchises) that will allow for online multiplayer gaming.  A feature that for years has been included in their games now costs $10 if you buy the game used.  



     I have been a basketball nut since around 3rd or 4th grade.  I remember a friend of mine drawing pictures of Shaq dunking a basketball.  He told me stories of this hulk of a man dominating the NBA.  At the time the only basketball player I knew of was Michael Jordan.  When I went home I asked my father who is the better basketball player, Shaq or Michael Jordan?  He actually managed to give it legitimate thought before finally choosing Jordan, something that seems crazy to me now.  I fell in love with the Orlando Magic, Shaq and Penny Hardaway.  I was a basketball fan.

     I'm writing this asLiv Tyler in Empire Records. Why don't they match?! a confession and then an explanation.  I have loved basketball for so long it seems odd for me to say or type the next sentence.  I think football is a better game to watch than basketball.  For some, that may have seemed obvious, but for me this is a new revelation.  Something akin to learning about Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny or that women don't always wear matching bras and panties (I would like to thank the movies for putting that in my head and Empire Records for shattering it).  Since I've come to that conclusion I've struggled with the reason why.  Basketball has that nostalgia feel for me, like Twisted Metal 2, where I have so many great memories about it I couldn't imagine a world where it isn't my favorite.  After a little history, I'll go into the reasons why I think football is a better game to watch.  You could skip right down to that if you don't care for the following.

    The good old days. I never lived in one place for very long.  I grew up knowing that any friend I make will be lost in a couple of years.  I never identified with a particular place, "America," is what I would say if someone asked me where I was from.  But if they asked me to be more specific, well I dreaded that question.  I was born in Hawaii, but then moved all around the US, Sweden, Malaysia, back to Hawaii and finally in California.  Because of this rapid change in location I never got to have a professional sports team.  Once I was old enough to really care about sports I was in Oklahoma, not really known for it's sports teams (at least not back then, GO THUNDER!).  Then it was Sweden and Malaysia, again not really known for NBA teams.  I had taken in the Orlando Magic as my surrogate team.  It was a good time, but once Shaq left I didn't have much to care about.  I liked Penny Hardaway and Nick Anderson, but I loved the team for Shaq.  Since I didn't have any affiliations with Orlando I decided to follow Shaq to the Lakers.  I had as much loyalty to him as I did to the team, since I couldn't really watch the games and the only time I heard about them was when I would return to the United States during the summer. 

The dynamic duo.The Shaq/Lakers days were ones filled with a lot of wins.  Once I was in high school Kobe had come on and they were a force to be feared.  Their rivalry with the Sacramento Kings was passed into me and I learned to hate them with a passion (and to be living spitting distance from my most hated team is pretty weird).  It got to the point where I wanted them to lose more than I wanted the Lakers to win.  After graduating high school I moved to Hawaii where I got Fox Sports West on cable and was able to watch every single game.  It was a long way from my high school days where I would leave the box score on a website during class so I could watch the score reload as my teachers tried to lecture about chemistry, math or english.

     It was after I had moved to California that things started to change.  It was gradual at first, but now I barely even watch games.  The Lakers are still a great team, but I miss them sort of being an underdog.  The one thing I hate the most in any sport is dynasties.  It was around this time that I started to play fantasy football.  Football to me was always a sport that was cool, but I never watched.  In high school the only game that would be televised would be the Super Bowl, but because of the time difference ended up being shown on a Monday morning.  Starting up fantasy football got me into the game because I never had a team to root for, but now I had players.  I had a purpose for spending a Sunday watching football.  As much as I love watching the NBA and watching the Lakers there is a sense of anxiety that comes with it.  Because I want them to win, I hate when they lose.  But in football I could care less who wins the game, only if the players do well.  A guy gets a touchdown and 40 yards, it's a success for me.  

     After about 6 years of playing fantasy football it finally dawned on me why it's such a great sport to watch.  And I mean watch, not play.  Because I would much rather play basketball.  

     Here they are, the reasons why football is a better sport to watch than basketball.  In order of how obvious the are, descending.

1. Sundays
NFL gets the majority of their games done on one day.  While they might have a Thursday, Saturday or Monday game, the majority fall on a Sunday.  A day off.  A day of rest.  A day that you can spend, uninterrupted watching games.  Most Sundays have three games to watch.  THREE.  During the season you KNOW when you can see a game and that is extremely important.  For basketball there is usually games happening every day.  How can I keep up with that?

2. Fantasy Football
This ties in with the first one, but because of this little meta game I care about football.  I not only care during the season, I care in the OFF SEASON.  I pay attention to drafts, mock drafts, expert analysis of players and schedules and anything else that might be important.  Now just playing fantasy football would do all this, but since I play with family there is even more.  Trash talking your Aunt or Uncle or young cousin is awesome.  Debating if trades between teams owned by a mother and her daughter should be allowed is awesome.  Discussing how a retired uncle might have an advantage toward Monday morning waiver wire picks is awesome.  A friendly and cheap fantasy football league can do wonders for interest in a sport, but that one was probably pretty obvious.  But what makes it better than fantasy basketball or baseball is that since all the games usually happen on the same day, you know when your lineup needs to be ready.  You can spend Tuesday and Wednesday (and usually Thursday, Friday and Saturday) because there aren't games on those days.  It doesn't need your constant attention.

3. 11 Minutes
Image from the Wall Street JournalThere was a Wall Street Journal article that dissected NFL games and found that on average the amount of actual football being played in a telecast was 11 minutes.  Everything else is split between, replays, players standing around, cheerleaders and more.  So how does that help?  When watching a game of basketball you can't take your eyes off the screen.  At any second something awesome might happen, a steal, a shot, an assist or a dunk.  And because of the frantic nature of the game there isn't always time for replays.  But in football there are pauses.  There is a break after every single play.  After every pass, there is a huddle.  That huddle gives you time to see the play again, dissect whats going on, discuss what should happen next and then prepare.  There is a freaking countdown clock telling you how soon the next play has to start.  You can read a book, talk to friends, or work on a podcast while watching an NFL game.  It is almost the perfect spectator sport because it doesn't demand that much of the viewer. 

Satu Lagi: Shots started years ago.  My cousin (Craig) had an apartment and I would go over practically every weekend to drink and hangout.  I was commuting to college (one hour each way) and had just finished taking a 2-D graphics class.  It was winter break.  We were watching television and had this concept which we transformed into a 2-D platforming game.  We create characters, back stories, gameplay and the entire plot to this game.  Without giving away much of the story of that game (which I still hope to make) one of the side characters was somebody named Satu Lagi (Malay for "one more").  We decided early one that Satu Lagi was a heavy drinker.  In the game, Satu Lagi had a mini-game associated with him where he could drink alcohol. 

While still in college I was very interested in getting into the gaming industry.  I started to program on my Motorola Razr.  The first game I created was called "Drinkmaster: A Satu Lagi Story".  It was a 2-D game with Satu Lagi sitting at a bar and mugs of beer being slid down to him and he had to grab them and drink them.  The more beers he would have the more he would start tilting on the stool to one side or another and you had to press buttons to sit him upright again. It was simple and there wasn't much game involved in it.

Last year I started fooling around with the idea of making an iPhone game.  My first idea was to take my previous game and port it to the iPhone.  However I knew that I wanted to make changes to make it more interesting and I wanted to make as little art as possible.  I changed the concept to a shot glass sliding on the bar top and having to catch falling drops of alcohol.  I did this because making circles and making a shot glass didn't seem like much of a challenge.  I also had the idea of using the tilt features of the iPhone to control the shotglass.  The game (like most of my ideas) started simple but quickly ballooned.  My original plan was to have a set number of drops and depending on how many the player caught there would be a different ending.  I also wanted each drop to represent a different percentage of alcohol.  That idea quickly changed to multiple characters.  I figured that if I wanted to charge any amount for it I needed a certain level of content.  I settled on 4 selectable characters all from the same original game that Satu Lagi was from. 

It was around the time where I needed the art for the endings that I started to realize my problem, I wasn't that great of an artist.  Sure I could draw an interesting picture or two, but when it came to consistent art I was in trouble.  I was also playing a lot of Drop7 at the time.  So my idea changed into a never ending high score type of game.  I thought I was making less work for myself.  I realized now I needed to make sure that my program could save states if the iPhone got a call or the player "HOME"d out.  I also need high scores, most likely global high scores, but I could settle on local ones.  My other issue is that when I'm thinking of a game I get a dozen other ideas and write those down.  Occasionally I'll get an idea that I start running with and lose focus on the other one.  I also was getting annoyed with updating my Mac programming environment every time my phone updated. 

It was right around this time that Unity3D Indie went free.  I was very excited because I had messed around with the 30 day trial, but couldn't afford the whole program.  After downloading it I wanted to use it.  But that also had it's own issues, mostly involving how can I possibly make any money?  I decided to shelve that until it was necessary.  To me "Satu Lagi: Shots" was not a game I wanted to charge for.  It was meant to be my first game, something to prove to myself that I could do it. 

Developing on Unity3D was a breeze.  The amount of tutorials and the community behind it are all amazing.  I got a version of "Satu Lagi: Shots" up and running in a day or two.  My first hurdle was what to do about the shot glass.  On the iPhone I had created a generic shot glass that filled with a brownish liquid regardless of the color of the drop.  On Unity I was using 3-D models for everything and the 2-D shot glass art looked out of place.  I downloaded Blender hoping to use that, but wasn't in the mood to learn another program.  I wanted results.  I went online and looked for free 3-D models and found a lot, but not what I was looking for.  One of the issues I had on the iPhone was that I wanted to create bonuses for drinking shots of a specific color combination, but since you couldn't see what was in the shot it was difficult.  I thought about putting  a stylized shot glass on the screen, but it would take up too much space.  However because I had to start over I could create from the ground up a shot glass that shows the contents correctly.  The shot glass in the game is a tall cube with a gradient texture that you can see through and a cylinder for a base.  The drops in the glass are all cylinders who's materials change depending on what is in the glass. 

One of the largest hurdles I had was what to put in the background of the game.  My original idea was to draw the background of a bar.  However with all the 3-D objects that now populated my game it didn't fit.  I tried downloading some free bottles and mugs from a forum online but didn't end up using them because they all looked out of place.  I added the Single Malt VS poster and decided to just populate the back with posters.  Instead of doing an "Instructions" section I posted them on the back.  The "Cheng is a bitch" part is an old inside joke from high school.  I would explain it, but it turns out the origin of that phrase isn't nearly as funny as it should be.  Just know that it isn't a malicious statement, it's a statement of love. 

I went back and forth on the name of the game, it was either "The Single Malt: Shots" or "Satu Lagi: Shots".  I went with "Satu Lagi" because it sounds better. 


The Good
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Shooting: The different classes of guns make for a nice selection and then add to that elemental effects and you have a pretty diverse lineup.  Shooting enemies is fun and rewarding. 

RPG Elements: The leveling up isn't super in depth, you level up your skills with individual weapon classes and your special ability.  But being able to decide that I want to be able to stun enemies rather than getting health back is very rewarding.  It really is these small and simple things that make the character feel "mine". 

Bosses: While I don't think you can actually "lose" a boss fight and start over again, I did die a lot during them.  I have to say there was a good variety of bosses and they were all pretty interesting and fun to fight.  But I do feel like the final boss came out of nowhere.

The Bad
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Story:  Anytime I managed to get invested, they pulled me right out of it by telling the majority of the story through text.  A semi interesting character dies and one point and I don't know how or why he ended up dying.  The voice that talks to you is so cliche and uninteresting I wish they would have taken her out completely. 

The Great
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Little Things: Some games have it and some games don't.  Borderlands has tons of personality. It really makes the best out of what it has.  There isn't a lot of variety in the enemies, but they make them interesting.



Quick Shots:
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• I really want a life size Claptrap to follow me around.
• I bought both the opening song and the closing song.
• Ninja Assassins are awesome.
• I played as the Siren and got to level 35 on my first play through.
• Can't imagine why someone would choose a shield that doesn't replenish health.
• There was only one case where I chose a weapon because I liked it better even though it didn't do as much damage
• Once the Phase Walk (Siren's special ability) actually is strong enough to damage people I loved it.
• I wish there were less areas and less loading screens.
• I might actually play through it a second time, not sure.
• I played it co-op the entire time.

Having finished Uncharted 2 recently I decided to write a review for it. Worry not, it's spoiler free.

The Good:
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Combat: I have to say, like many people, I was a little disappointed with the shooting mechanic in the first Uncharted.  It wasn't bad, it just felt like every enemy was a bullet sponge.  In the sequel there are bullet sponge enemies, but they take a lot of a hits for a reason.  You can quickly pick out who will take one head shot and who would take a shotgun to the face to take down.  There are time when I felt a little underpowered (mostly towards the end of the game and fighting a particular bad guy) but the experience made it more fun.  The hand to hand combat does feel a little over powered.  I don't think I ever lost a fist fight, the only times I died was when someone shot me while I was trying to take someone down with my fists.

Stealth: Upon hearing there was going to be stealth in Uncharted 2 I was probably one of the few that were excited.  They executed it exactly they way the should have.  It is almost never 100% necessary (only that first mission), but is a lot more satisfying to do so.  I know several times where I opted to use platforming and use the "pull the guy over the ledge and watch him fall to his death" mechanic over running in guns blazing.  The majority of my gun battles started with me sneaking around, killing as many people as I could and then finally busting some caps. 

Story: The story in Uncharted 2 is serviceable.  It gives way more than just a reason to move from place to place.  The constant flashback mechanic isn't as lame as I thought it might be.  I feel like the first game's story was a little more compelling because the main characters it introduces (Sully and Elena) seem way more memorable than this ones (Chloe and Flynn).  The mysteries in the story never felt like true mysteries to me.  As much as I feel like the story was "meh", I can remember every plot point and every character and every awesome moment told in the cutscenes.  I can't say the same for a lot of my favorite stories in games. 

Puzzles: The puzzle quality is much better this time around.  The journal still feels a little bit like a "win" button, but at least there is a bit more thinking that has to go into them.  I'm not sure how many of these style puzzles were in the first game, but I can only remember 3 of them in Uncharted 2. 

The Bad:
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Treasure Hunting:  I remember caring way more about looking for treasure in the first Uncharted.  I think I found about 14 pieces in the second game and I really couldn't care less.  I love the amount of time I think they may have put into adding the treasures, but I never read the summaries or really pay attention to what they look like.  I managed to earn enough money just playing the game to get all the extra movies and that's all I really cared about.  They could just give you access to the movies and extra content based on game progress and trophies.  Adding these really awkwardly placed glowing stars that signal a treasure just seems out of place in the game.

The Overhyped:
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Uncanny Valley: The graphics are great.  But they aren't THAT great.  There is no moment in any of the cut scenes where I doubted whether or not I was playing a game.  The character models still are a little off for me.  Elena still looks slightly mentally handicapped and Chloe just looks off.  For some reason the females' eyes in this game all look overly sparkly.  Up close it looks alright, but from a far they look like little stars. 

The Slightly Annoying:
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Climbing: Naughty Dog meet Sucker Punch.  Steal their tech for climbing.  Thanks k bye.  Somehow the majority of the time I got stuck was because I couldn't find the particular brick or door that I could climb up.  I understand that this would probably force the way they create levels to change completely, but I'd rather not have to spent 10 minutes looking for where I need to climb.

The Great:
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Writing: There are very few game characters that I care about.  I don't really care about Nathan Drake, but he does seem like someone I'd like to hang out with. 

I still haven't touched the multiplayer and I probably won't for the time being.

Overall it's a great game that should be played.