Level Up : Things You May Have Missed

The Man Behind the Royal 'We' Says 'So Long'

N'Gai Croal — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

knockknock.biz luggage tags. Photo courtesy of justinph.

I guess it's finally time for me to level up.

It was the summer of '99 when I convinced my then editor to send me on a tour of the U.S. videogame industry. When I finally returned three weeks later, my head was still spinning. I felt as though I'd seen the future of entertainment. It was then that I made it my mission to put NEWSWEEK's coverage of this growing medium on the map. I did that in print, with cover stories on the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 and the spread of online gaming. I did it online, with the debut of the blog N'Gai Croal's Level Up. I did it on television, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. You all watched me push, prod, praise, scold, discuss and debate videogames across multiple media, both mainstream and enthusiast. That's because my editors were prescient enough to let me apply my talents and establish my reach beyond the magazine, from co-blogging with MTV News to writing a monthly column for Edge and more. For this, I say to them all, thank you.

Having achieved all of this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've accomplished what I set out to do ten years ago. And now it's time for me to take that decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge and do something else with it. After Friday March 6th, my passions will take me beyond the world of journalism. I’ll be wearing many hats on this new journey: videogame design consultant, media strategist, consumer technology reporter, columnist, blogger and, as always, provocateur. You’ll be able to keep track of my various adventures at ngaicroal.com, and feel free to reach out to me via email at ncroalbiz@gmail.com. It’s been a pleasure conversing with all of you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years to come.

Cheers,

N’Gai ...(read more)

Things You May Have Missed: Will Criterion Games' Alex Ward Ever Say Never Again? We Think Not.

N'Gai Croal — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:20:09 GMT

Promo image for the 1983 film "Never Say Never Again," courtesy The Nostalgia Factory

When we saw the news this morning that Criterion Games' much-debated-then-much-praised Burnout Paradise would be coming to PC, we were more than a little surprised. That's because in the past, the studio's creative director Alex Ward has made some playfully disparaging comments about gaming on PCs. So as we were Googling for one of his previous statements on the matter to throw into this morning's High Score post, we came across a statement that he had made previously to...us. Here's the exchange we had on the subject back in the fall of 2006:

What about PC gamers? You've been critical of the PC in the past. What would you say to someone who's finished F.E.A.R., they've finished Half-Life 2, they've finished Quake IV. They've seen their little brother rocking out with Black on the console, and they want to know, "When is Alex Ward going to show me some love?"
Never. I'm just being totally honest. I could lie, right, and say "Maybe you'll see a PC game from us in the future." No.

To see the rest of what Ward told us back in Fall 2006, along with some screenshots and the full text of the press release, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: What We Said About Rockstar Games Back In the Fall of 2005

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:02:35 GMT

A journalist writes for the moment--the first draft of history, our profession has been called--and if the journalist is fortunate, his or her work will hold up in the years to come. Back in the fall of 2005, with the Xbox 360 on the verge of release and the Playstation 3, Wii and ~~the event that would change the blogosphere forever~~ Level Up still a year away, Rockstar Games released both The Warriors (for PlayStation 2 and Xbox) and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (for PlayStation Portable). We used the one-two punch to convince our editors to part with some precious space in the pages of NEWSWEEK, but with space at a premium, we had to find a way to make each word count. We decided to try to distill what makes Rockstar different from many of its peers; here's how we kicked off our story:

Videogame creators firmly believe that their work will someday become the dominant form of entertainment in the 21st century. So why isn't their message as original as their medium? The vast majority of story-oriented games shamelessly rip off the same set of sources as though they were the Gospels: "Aliens," "Saving Private Ryan," "Band of Brothers," "Black Hawk Down," "The Lord of the Rings" and Dungeons & Dragons. It's as if every Western game designer were cloned from the same DNA; indeed, a recent survey of game creators in English-speaking countries found that the overwhelming majority are straight white males (average age: 31).

The one company that consistently avoids this trap is Rockstar Games. Best known for its controversial hit franchise Grand Theft Auto, the New York City-based publisher is headed by a trio of British expatriates who draw inspiration not from the heroic side of Americana, but from its outlaw side--mob movies, pulp novels, gangsta rap, '80s cop shows and spaghetti Westerns. For its latest trick, Rockstar recently released The Warriors, based on the 1979 urban gang movie, and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, which brings its sprawling epic to Sony's PlayStation Portable. "I remember when Rockstar was nothing," says Andrew McNamara, editor in chief of Game Informer magazine. "They came to us and said, 'We're going to build a company around pop culture and youth culture.' We were like, 'Yeah, right.' And they went out and executed on every front."

The story is somewhat reductive, as such pieces must necessarily be. But our critique was pretty accurate then. How much have things changed since?

To read the rest of this post, click on the link below.

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The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated: NPD Bows to Pressure, Agrees to Keep Releasing Console Hardware Numbers to Media

N'Gai Croal — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:09:49 GMT

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
The Level Up treason and plot
I know of no reason
Why Level Up treason
Should ever be forgot

Like Pheidippides at Marathon and Paul Revere at Lexington, the Level Up staff last week breathlessly revealed to the world the shocking news that beginning in November, the NPD group would halt its yearlong practice of releasing monthly hardware sales figures for the consoles and handhelds manufactured by Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Here at Monday Morning Quarterback HQ, we immediately went underground, making covert arrangements for alternate types of data that would help our rogue band of color commentators continue to shed light on the business of videogames. Meanwhile, as we correctly predicted, the intertubes quickly became clogged with the bitter tears of our fellow armchair analysts and partisan fanboys alike; ditto for the voice mailboxes at NPD group as furious forum dwellers stormed the ramparts took to their phones to rage against the machine. For with no justice, how can there be peace?

Having sown the wind, NPD representatives were nevertheless by their own admission wholly unprepared to reap the whirlwind. Even their reminder that the provision of hardware numbers to the general public was always intended to be temporary failed to quell the inflamed passions of the nascent fanboy revolution. To avoid going the way of the Tsars, the Shah or the Matrix, the NPD Group submitted to the will of the people and acknowledged the error of its ways. An NPD official confirmed to us in an email that because of the tremendous response from press and gamers, NPD had secured the unanimous consent of the three console manufacturers to continue giving media monthly hardware sales figures.

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The Monday Morning Quarterback Highlight Reel For September 2007

N'Gai Croal — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:57:04 GMT

Even as the fan base continues to grow for Monday Morning Quarterback, our monthly assessment of the videogame biz with Geoff Keighley, the Level Up staff can't afford to become complacent. Because on any given Sunday, one of those young, hungry QBs angling to take our spot could finally succeed. So when we heard complaints from some of our most trusted industry sources that each lengthy installment of MMQB, though highly informative, was simply too much for them to consume in a single morning cappuccino sitting, we took it as a glaring weakness in our game that had to be shored up. After consulting with our coaches, we've added a new weapon to our arsenal: the Highlight Reel, a condensed "SportsCenter"-like list of the Top Ten excerpts, taken both from MMQB and from things said or written in response to our monthly email banter. And to give the whole affair more of a multimedia feel, we're including a suggested playlist of songs, with each track carefully selected for its thematic or titular relevance to a particular excerpt. Enjoy.

To read the Monday Morning Quarterback Highlight Reel for September 2007, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: How to Make Halo 3 Multiplayer More Accessible to Newcomers

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:11:29 GMT

Halo 3 multiplayer in action

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

It's been a little bit over a month since Halo 3 shipped to generally overwhelming acclaim and record-breaking sales. So it's a good time to look back at what we said in the May 29th-31st edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo on the multiplayer beta for Halo 3. Back then, not having played much in the way of competitive or cooperative multiplayer shooters, we bemoaned the lack of a friendly introduction to the various online game modes in the Halo series. Today's excerpt focuses on some of the suggestions we made as to how Bungie could make Halo 3 multiplayer more accessible to newbs like ourselves.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: What Was Lost In the Transition From 2-D Games to 3-D Games?

N'Gai Croal — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:15:06 GMT

Q-Games and Sony Computer Entertainment America's PixelJunk Monsters

While reading the newest issue of Game Informer (the one with Double Fine's Brutal Legend on the cover), we came across a story on upcoming downloadable titles published by Sony for its Playstation Network service. One of the featured games was PixelJunk Monsters, a tower defense-style game from Q-Games, the studio behind the already-released slot-racing game PixelJunk Racers. What caught our eye, however, was the following sentence from the preview: "The game holds true to the studio's goal of making titles that fit on one screen; there is no scrolling around to different key points on the map, and all of the action is always visible." That's one of the pluses offered by certain 2-D perspective games, and reminded us of an exchange from the September 17th-20th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, wherein we talked about the games BioShock and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. During our email conversation, our back-and-forth over the merits of the 2-D Metroid titles vs. the 3-D Metroid Prime series led us to discuss the topic of what was lost in the transition from 2-D gaming to 3-D gaming. Read on, then share your thoughts these issues in the comments section below.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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All That You Can't Leave Behind: Electronic Arts Purchases BioWare and Pandemic From EA CEO John Riccitiello's Former Outfit

N'Gai Croal — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:50:01 GMT

A few hours ago, Electronic Arts announced that it had purchased VG Holdings, the holding company for two of the largest remaining independent developers, BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios. What's interesting is that VG Holdings had been the property of Elevation Partners, in which Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello had been a managing director until his return to EA earlier this year. Based on the enthusiasm that Riccitiello expressed for the work of BioWare and Pandemic during our three-part Q&A with him last year while he was still at Elevation--click on the following links for Part I, Part II and Part III--we suspected that he would seek to reacquire BioWare Pandemic upon his return to EA. Similarly, we believed that following the announcement of his departure in February, Elevation Partners would look to get out of the game business given that the chief architect of that strategy had fled the coop.

At the time, Riccitiello's replacement at VG Holdings, Greg Richardson, rebuffed our suggestion in the following exchanges:

Should people read anything into the fact that a deal was announced for EA Partners to publish Mercenaries 2 not long before Riccitiello's return to EA was made public?

[Laughs] No. We've been joking around a little bit about that, that part of the deal was that we were going to trade John for the relationship [with EA.] But no, not in the least. We think that EA is a great partner for us on Mercenaries 2, and we're excited about working with them on the launch. We have some other wonderful publishing partners: Microsoft on Mass Effect; Take-Two is working with us on Jade Empire--it launches on the PC later this month--and we've got several other relationships we haven't announced with other publishers not named Electronic Arts.

In the next couple of months, we're going to be looking for publishers for Dragon Age, a game that we've announced that's the absolute spiritual successor to what BioWare's built in the fantasy role-playing game space, just taken to a whole different level. And then another game we haven't announced yet from Pandemic, and we'll be looking for partners there as well. While EA will be one of them we'll consider, they're just going to be one of what we think is going to be a lot of parties interested in working with us....

Apart from the purchases of BioWare and Pandemic, I haven't seen much announced on the mergers and acquisitions front from Elevation Partners despite its initial $2 billion in capital. How much of an appetite is there for buying more companies now that Riccitiello has left?

So let's separate that question into two pieces. There's a question there in relationship to Elevation's investment strategy that would be a great thing for you to talk to one of the partners there. Although in addition to investing in us, they've also invested in Move.com, which is one of the leading real estate Web portals. If you're looking to buy or sell a house, that's where you usually end up. They also have an investment in Forbes, which is both an online content deliverer and a magazine that's obviously been around for a long time, a great brand. So they've made other investments, and they'll continue to make other investments. But again, that's a great question for you to follow up directly with those guys on.

In terms of BioWare/Pandemic and the videogame space, look, we're growing like gangbusters. We've added close to 150 people in the last 18 months. We've opened a new studio in Austin, Texas. We've expanded our studio presences in Edmonton, L.A. and Australia. We've got a lot of opportunities that we continue to look at, and maybe some exciting announcements to look forward to in the next coming months. So our ambition and our sense of the opportunity that we have with this unique approach that we're taking remains exactly the same, and I think people will be excited to see how it evolves.

Smoke, meet fire.

BioWare is best known for its work on franchises like Baldur's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Microsoft will be publishing BioWare's forthcoming Mass Effect in November, but EA has indicated that since the IP had belonged to VG Holdings/BioWare, EA know owns the property. Pandemic is recognized for its work on such titles as Mercenaries and Destroy All Humans, and EA had already struck a deal to publish Pandemic's Mercenaries 2. According to EA, ten properties are underway between BioWare and Pandemic, several of which have not been named or officially announced; among them, a massively multiplayer game being developed by BioWare in Austin, Texas.

Click on the link below for EA's press release announcing the deal.

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Things You May Have Missed: Our Thoughts on Jonathan Mak's Just-Released Everyday Shooter

N'Gai Croal — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:48:52 GMT

Queasy Games and Sony Computer Entertainment's Everyday Shooter

Since Jonathan Mak's excellent Everyday Shooter is finally being released on the Playstation Network for PS3, we thought it might be a good idea to recap our earlier coverage of the title. During the July E3 Media and Business Summit, we broke the news that Sony had snagged the game for PSN and shared details of our world exclusive hands-on experience with EDS on a Sixaxis controller, which you can read here. We promptly followed that up with an interview with Mak, in which he discussed how he and his business partner struck a deal with Sony, shared his inspiration for the game and explained why he was able to get EDS up and running on the PS3 (check out our Q&A here)

As for today's "Things You May Have Missed" extract, it comes from the August 13th-20th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, wherein we discussed a variety of short session games. During our email conversation, we started daydreaming about the possible directions that an Everyday Shooter sequel might take.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: Yes, We Played the First Six Levels of Rockstar's Manhunt 2. So What Did We Say About the Gameplay?

N'Gai Croal — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:47:25 GMT

Manhunt 2 Wii box art

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

As Rockstar Games continues its appeal of the British Board of Film Classification's refusal to approve Manhunt 2 for commercial release, we bring you another sampling from the June 25th-27th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo based on our exclusive six level playthrough of the game. In previous excerpts this week, we focused on issues surrounding the game, such as our prediction that the BBFC would be hard pressed to approve the game even after changes were made and whether it was censorious for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to bar Adults Only-rated games from their machines.

Since so few people have had the opportunity to play the game, today's excerpt focuses squarely on our thoughts about the gameplay in Manhunt 2 and its predecessor. As a result, it's significantly longer than our regular installments of "Things You May Have Missed." We apologize for that, but if you're interested in an in-depth examination of the Manhunt 2 experience before it lands in North American stores on October 29th, this is exactly what you're looking for.

To read the rest of our summary, click on the link below.
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The Problem (and the Danger) of the Continued Infantilization of Videogames, Part II

N'Gai Croal — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:44:38 GMT

Danny Ledonne's Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

Yesterday, we wrote about our appearance of last week on CNN's "American Morning" to discuss Rockstar Games' forthcoming Manhunt 2. In that post, we discussed the host's repeated invocation of the word "kids" as part of an inadvertent but nonetheless pernicious assumption that all videogames are toys aimed at children rather than entertainment for a wide range of different audiences, of which children are simply one of many. Today, we revisit our Q&A with Game Developers Conference executive director Jamil Moledina, in which we discussed the Slamdance Film Festival's decision to pull Super Columbine Massacre RPG! from its videogame competition, and more specifically, the idea held my many gamers and non-gamers alike, that videogames are ultimately toys for tots.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: What Makes A Great Boss? Part II

N'Gai Croal — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:46:44 GMT

An early Big Daddy sketch for BioShock by 2K Boston's Nate Wells

Since yesterday's entry on "What Makes A Great Boss?" got such a strong response, we've decided to double dip on that topic. As before, today's extract comes from the September 17th-20th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, wherein we discussed the games BioShock and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. During our email conversation, we raised the question of how both games handled boss battles, as well as the limits and possibilities of BioShock's morality system. This prompted us to suggest a new type of Big Daddy, the Redeemer, as a boss that would challenge the player not only tactically, but also morally. How?

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: Hashing Out the Thorny Issues Raised By Rockstar Games' Controversial Manhunt 2

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:29:25 GMT

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV News' Stephen Totilo at Rockstar Games' offices in New York City on June 22, 2007

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

In light of today's announcement that the British Board of Film Classification has once again refused to approve Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2 for commercial release, we bring you an excerpt from the June 25th-27th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo. In it, we discussed our exclusive six level playthrough of Manhunt 2, which came shortly after the Entertainment Software Ratings Board had given the game an Adults Only rating, and the British Board of Film Classification and the Irish Film Censor's banned the game from release. Our email conversation--which Level Up dubbed "The Satanic Versus"--was wide ranging, discussing everything from whether Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft's blanket bans on AO-rated games were censorious to whether the Wii controls made the Manhunt 2 more immersive. Here's a small sampling of what we discussed back in June.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: Like Nostradamus and Miss Cleo, Level Up Predicted That the BBFC Would Reject Even A Revised Manhunt 2

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:27:43 GMT

Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

In light of today's announcement that the British Board of Film Classification has once again refused to approve Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2 for commercial release, we bring you an excerpt from the June 25th-27th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo. In it, we discussed our exclusive six level playthrough of Manhunt 2, which came shortly after the Entertainment Software Ratings Board had given the game an Adults Only rating, and the British Board of Film Classification and the Irish Film Censor's banned the game from release. During our email conversation, Level Up made several predictions about the likely fate of Manhunt after Rockstar revised the game. And while not all of our predictions have come true, we were correct in our belief that given while the ESRB's simple, clinical, circumspect verdict gave it plenty of room to reverse itself after Rockstar made some changes, the BBFC and IFCO's outraged, moralistic statements had backed themselves into a corner such that a U.K. and Irish release would be highly unlikely, even after making changes.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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Things You May Have Missed: What Makes A Great Boss?

N'Gai Croal — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:20:14 GMT

The End from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

Today's entry comes from the September 17th-20th edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, wherein we discussed the games BioShock and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. During our email conversation, we raised the question of how both games handled boss battles, and why more developers need to study Metal Gear Solid 3 to learn how to reinvent boss fights for the modern era.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

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