Arkham City Out November 15th For PCs!

Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of my favorite games of all time. Early reviews of Arkham City say it's even better than the first. It's out November 15th. In the immortal words of noted thespian and wordsmith Bart Scott:

Vita Price And Release Date Announced... Too Much?

The Sony PS Vita finally has a price and release date: The Wi-Fi model is $249, the 3G model is $299, and it's coming out on February 22nd. The hardware looks great, the launch library seems good, everything about it looks nice. The touchscreen on the back of it means that your hand is off of the screen when you're trying to control the system with it.


We need to back up a bit, though. Let's talk about the perception of this news among commenters and the perception of the 3DS' launch price. Some comments from the comment thread at ArsTechnica:

"I got a chance to play around with it at E3, and it is a REALLY solid piece of hardware. The games were quality too, and the $250 price point is impressive. Keep in mind though, that there is no onboard memory unless you buy some (a big mistake imo). I had one pre-ordered for X-mas, but I cancelled it after the delay. Might pick one up as a birthday present to myself in March, but so much depends on the economy and if I can find stable employment haha. Seriously though, it's a portable worth checking out."

"It's going to cost more than $300 when you factor in the (proprietary) memory stick that it uses. The higher capacity ones can run up to an extra $100. On the plus side, this machine is such a little beast, that it has backwards compatibility with PSP games purely through software emulation."

Compare this to some initial comments from the 3DS launch:

"Isn't that a lot of dough for a handheld? What was the MSRP at release for the other DS versions? Didn't the Wii retail for $250 when it came out?"

"$250?! Ouch. I doubt enough games will take good advantage of 3D to justify buying another DS (and I think just about anyone who would possibly want one has one already)"

"Seems to me this will end up even worse then the Play Station 3. Too much money for what it does. 3D is hardly going to spur much interests especially on such a small form. How many games will actually take advantage of 3D? Wait a few months for discounts! I think they will come."

So let's recap. The PS Vita could cost you $249 for the Wi-Fi version, plus $50 (at a conservative estimate) for internal memory, plus $40 for one game. That means that in order to get started with the PS Vita, you have to shell out $339 at launch for a system that has beautiful graphics and intriguing ideas but sharply limited battery life.

The 3DS ran $249 plus $40 for a game at launch. That means you needed to shell out $289 to get up and playing for a system that has decent graphics and intriguing ideas, but mediocre battery life.

Yet, the 3DS is viewed as overpriced but the Vita isn't? Why is that?

We're dealing with two different markets here. The Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and DS were always marketed to families and children. The Vita is sold as an upmarket solution, aimed at teenagers and young males with disposable income.

Since the Vita is aimed at that group, they have games and features that will specifically appeal to that group. Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, and Call of Duty et al don't appeal to families. 3G connectivity doesn't appeal to families, nor do all the other amazing things the Vita can do.

Nintendo, on the other hand, knows where their bread is buttered. They know that families care about family things, so they focus on Mario, Zelda, systems with pretty colors and the like. That's why an online presence for them is on the back burner, for better or worse. Families, especially mothers and fathers, are typically viewed as being afraid of what their children could get in to online.

So when Nintendo sold the 3DS at $249, they overreached their audience. When Sony prices the Vita at $249, they nailed their audience on the head.

Now, which one is going to be more successful? That's a trickier question to ask.

Why Will Handheld Gaming Devices Succeed?

The other day, I complained about Infinity Blade. It's a fine game and it looks beautiful. Many are holding up games of its ilk as demonstrating that the days of standalone handheld gaming devices are over. We also see lots of articles like this one, which show that the DS and PSP are losing ground to iPhones and Android devices. Combined with the lackluster launch of the 3DS, all signs would seem to point to a downturn in the fortunes of handheld gaming devices.

Or do they?

To be sure, Android and iOS devices have a few advantages off the bat. We're going to go through a few of those, but then we'll also explain why handheld gaming isn't going to migrate away from Nintendo or Sony anytime soon.

First of all, what advantages do iOS and Android devices have?

1) Convenience. You have to have your phone with you anyway and we're used to seeing games on them. Cell phone makers have been indoctrinating us with games on cell phones by giving us Tetris and Pac-Man clones since the very beginning, so having games on our phones isn't out of the ordinary.

Everyone liked having games on their phone, but the old system was annoying. You were usually using a crappy, low-res screen to play on, which meant that action games were right out. Games wouldn't transfer to new phones, and most phones weren't powerful enough to run anything more than basic apps. Since every phone was slightly different, developers had to choose carefully which phone they would make a game for or risk being frozen out down the line.

Now, though, if you have a smartphone, you either have iOS or Android (although some poor suckers ended up with a Palm phone) (I'm a poor sucker) with a decent, high-res screen. Since your phone is in your pocket already, it's not horribly difficult to whip out your phone and fire up a game. It's a far cry from taking out your DS, PSP or 3DS, turning it on, then selecting which game you want to play.

2) Cost. Most apps are less than five dollars. That's less than people spend at McDonalds. Buying a game isn't that big of a commitment, so people are willing to spend 99 cents just to try something out.

This works doubly well with digital distribution. Since there's no overhead, a large chunk of how much you charge goes in your pocket. That means it's easier to make money on a mobile device, which means that more developers come running to iOS and Android devices, which means that there's more variety.

3) The stigma of portable gaming devices. If I take out my phone in a crowded airport, I look like a businessman. If I take out my DS, I look like a five-year-old. It doesn't matter what exactly I'm doing on either device; one looks "grown-up" and the other looks childish.

It also doesn't matter if it's a DS, GBA, PSP, or WonderSwan Color. If I pull out a PSP, then instead of looking like a five-year-old, I look like a fourteen-year-old. No big difference.

The stigma started when the Game Boy came out. With the "Boy" name and the focus on a younger market, portable gaming quickly became synonymous with youth and kids. Now, if an adult whips out a portable gaming system, they end up just looking silly more than anything else.

Geez, it looks hopeless for handheld gaming devices. With those kind of advantages, there's nothing holding back mobile devices from taking over handheld gaming, right?

Not so fast. Standalone handheld gaming devices have some advantages. We'll get to those on Friday.

So The Brewers Lost

It's taken me a day or two to digest the Brewers' loss in the NLCS, but here's what it comes down to: The problems are fixable.

First of all, if you would have told me at the beginning of the year that the Crew would win 96 games and the division and end up in the NLCS, I would have been happy with that.


That being said, there are a few gaping holes that the Cardinals exposed in the Brewers: 1) A weak bottom half of the lineup and 2) Poor defense. Things won't get any easier next year. They'll more than likely be without Prince Fielder, leaving a 300-pound hole in the top half of the lineup. They'll probably lose LaTroy Hawkins and K-Rod in free agency, which means they'll have to rebuild their bullpen.

That's a lot of holes to fill, but there is some good news in all of this. Scanning over the list of the free agent class of 2012, there are a few options. Here are some hypotheticals:

1) Keep everything in-house. Move McGeehee over to 1st base to minimize the impact of his defense. Re-sign Hairston for another year, then run Taylor Green out there starting in about May. Pick up Yuniesky Betancourt's option.

Advantage: Cheap and easy.

Disadvantage: You're not upgrading your defense up the middle. Rickie Weeks isn't a defensive mastermind, and Yuni's troubles are well-known. They were close to benching him before he started getting hits. Taylor Green, while a hot prospect, is an unknown commodity defensively.

2) Replace Yuni with someone else. ANYONE else will do. His UZR rating is third from the bottom of every day shortstops on Fangraphs. His bat goes hot and cold, and since it was mostly hot this year it'll probably run cold next year. All told, he takes more runs off the board than he adds.

You can still shuffle the infield if you do this. Casey goes to first, Taylor Green to third, but then your unknown commodity goes to short. He wouldn't be relied upon to hit home runs, but rather just provide a solid defensive front up the middle.

I like this plan a lot. Consider your new batting lineup if you do this:

Hart
Morgan/Gomez
Braun
McGeehee
Weeks
Hairston/Green
Unknown Shortstop
Lucroy
Pitcher

"So why are you batting McGeehee fourth? He sucks!" Well, he won't have to concentrate so much on his defense, and his general slowness will fit in perfectly over at first. He'll also see more pitches with Braun in front of him and Weeks behind him, and a guy with a .250 batting average and big bat is about prototypical for a cleanup man. Plus, with this, I'm keeping Rickie in a position where he's comfortable and leaving the lineup mostly untouched.

Advantage: An instant bump to defense.

Disadvantage: Who exactly do the Brewers get? Nick Punto? The best defensive players are pretty well locked up, and they usually come with good bats to boot. One option might be Marco Scutaro of the Red Sox, but he was the one bright spot in their season and has a 2012 option. I doubt they'll want to let him go. Rafael Furcal is also on the table, but his defense isn't what it used to, and his bat was limp almost all year.

Plus, there are two players that are near the top of Fangraph's 2011 UZR rankings: J.J. Hardy and Alcides Escobar. That may show you the Brewers' commitment to defense right there.

----

So what will probably happen? Option Number One is more likely. From recent history, we can see that when Doug Melvin doesn't see a player he covets, he doesn't run out and get a random guy but instead stands pat with what he has. Unless he can get a substantial upgrade at a position that includes a bat and a glove, he's not likely to make the deal.

At this point I trust Doug Melvin, but if we're losing such a major part of the offense like Prince it's imperative that they make up for it. Since hitters who bat .300 and hit 35 HRs don't fall out of the sky every day, defense is the way to do it.

Big h/t to Cot's Baseball Contracts.

Infinity Blade & The Death Of Handhelds

I hear people gushing about games on iOS systems, and I've heard good things specifically about Infinity Blade. Screenshots of this game have to be seen to believed, and the gameplay is being heralded as incredible.

Mainstream reviewers even herald the game, saying things like:

"The result is a beautiful, addictive, and surprisingly deep game easily among the best available on iOS4 devices." - IGN

"It's the kind of deep, well-thought-out combat system that puts most console sword fighting to shame."  - Joystiq

With mainstream success, beautiful graphics, solid gameplay and tons of depth, Infinity Blade seems to hit every bullet point on what makes a solid handheld game. Put it all together, and it spells doom for dedicated gaming handhelds like the 3DS and the PS Vita, right? I mean, seriously, compare the screenshots from Infinity Blade:

With the screenshots from the upcoming Super Mario 3D Land:

Jesus, handhelds are done for.

I picked up Infinity Blade the other day for my wife's iPod, wanting to see what the handheld market's death rattle looked like. Here's a retroactive running diary of my play experience:

Beginning: Holy crap! This HAS to be a cutscene! No, it's not! It's for real! This screen is so crisp and clear, and movement of the characters is so impressive! How are they pulling this off?

Handhelds are done.

Five minutes in: The battles in this game are AMAZING! I mean, fighting enemies with swipes and then leaping up and jabbing your sword into your opponent's head as a finisher? This is awesome!

Twenty minutes in: SO INGENIOUS! The game's story keeps on running after you've been defeated by the God King. It's such a great way to deal with the whole "extra lives" question while at the same time making sense in the game world.

Forty minutes in: So, this is it? These are the battles then? This is what the game is about? Don't get me wrong, I like these battles, but where have I played them before?

OH CRAP. I'm playing a prettied up version of Punch-Out, aren't I? Except with experience points and bonuses. Well that's pretty cool.

WAIT. So this is an Unreal-engine Rage of the Gladiator for the iPhone? Well, honestly, that's still pretty cool. I mean, how many of those are there?

An hour in: There is not a single thing that Infinity Blade does that couldn't be done with a less-robust engine. I mean, don't get me wrong, the great graphics are what got me in the door to begin with, but geez. All I'm doing is swiping the screen at appropriate moments, dodging attacks and returning with attacks of my own.

You could make this game on a DS with 2-D graphics and wouldn't lose any of the gameplay.

An hour and ten minutes in: I'm quitting to play something else. And, oh look, my battery has been almost drained. It started at 100% and now is down to 35%. I'll have to remember that for future reference.

________

So what did we learn? Infinity Blade is very, very cool. The developers have come up with something great: A gritty Punch-Out clone with a story of sorts and role-playing elements. That's not a combination you see very often.

Even still, this is not the death knell of dedicated gaming handhelds. Why will dedicated gaming handhelds keep on surviving even with so many challengers? We'll examine that in a different article.

Gregg Easterbrook and "Glory Boys"

I've been reading Tuesday Morning Quarterback for years now, Gregg Easterbrook's weekly analysis of football and whatever else catches his fancy. Some people don't like him.

Drew Magary of Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin can't stand him and eviscerates him to hilarious effect every week. Others are of the opinion that when he talks about science he doesn't always have all the facts or misrepresents them.
I'm not here to defend his science acumen. He's not a scientist, just a passive observer who sounds like he knows what he's talking about, even if he doesn't. I'm also not going to defend his reuse of certain cliches, because they can get annoying. When he sticks to football strategy, though, he's usually pretty solid, except for one major thing that bothers me.

One of Drew Magary's main complaints (aside from Easterbrook having far too many "g"s in his first name) is Easterbrook's glorification of "hard-working" players as opposed to "glory boys" who are generally drafted high. Easterbrook believes that if a team has lots of undrafted players, those teams generally play harder. Teams that have lots of highly-paid high draft picks don't. When a team bows to one player, whether that player is Michael Crabtree, T.O. or Chad Ochocinco, the whole team suffers.

For example, here's a quote from today's column:

In other football news, TMQ loves all-unwanted players -- those who were undrafted, or waived, or both. Sunday, the cost-no-object Philadelphia Heat, with their profusion of high draft choices and big bonuses, faced off against the low-rent Buffalo Bills. The host team started 12 players who were undrafted, or waived, or both. Undrafted George Wilson had 11 tackles and an interception: the Bills' defense appeared to be fielding several players wearing Wilson's number. When undrafted wide receiver Donald Jones left injured, undrafted wide receiver Naaman Roosevelt came in to relieve him and had five catches. The Bills start two offensive linemen who were undrafted or waived or both, and have allowed the fewest sacks in the league. The best player on the field for either team was undrafted Fred Jackson out of Division III Coe College, who gained 196 yards rushing and receiving.

The undrafted Jackson is just shy of a pace to break Chris Johnson's NFL record for yards from scrimmage. The undrafted Wes Welker of the New England Patriots is on a pace to break Jerry Rice's single-season receiving yards record. The undrafted Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys is on a pace to break Dan Marino's record for passing yards in a season. The defending champion Green Bay Packers start four undrafted players. On Sunday night, Julio Jones of the Atlanta Falcons -- one of the most expensive players in NFL annals, obtained by the Falcons for two first-round choices, a second-rounder and two fourth-round selections -- went deep and saw the pass broken up by the undrafted Sam Shields.

Across the league, undrafted players are outperforming megabucks high draft choices. Perhaps the undrafted players excel because they are undrafted -- spending their time and energy on performing, rather than on me-first whining.

In this case, Easterbrook is right and wrong. Yes, it certainly appears that teams with lots of highly-paid high draft picks don't play as hard, while undrafted and low-round players do. However, he's looking at the symptom and ignoring the cause.

If you have a lot of top-ten draft picks on your team, what is that a sign of? How do you get top-ten draft picks? By having a bad year. It's one thing for a team to have one bad season and get a high draft pick. It's another entirely for a team to have several bad seasons in a row, and that's when you see several top-ten draft picks on the roster.

Alex Smith: What might have been?

If a team has several bad seasons in a row, what does that mean? They're poorly run teams. Either ownership isn't very good, they have a bad general manager or poor coaching. Take a look at the Bengals, Dolphins, 49ers, Raiders, the Millen-run Lions, and others and you'll usually see some sort of chaotic situation. Either they're swapping out coaches like some players change their spikes or they're making bad personnel decisions.

Now, let's go another step. If you're a badly run team, you're more likely to make a poor choice with a high draft pick than a good choice, correct? You're more likely to spend a top-ten choice on a guy like JaMarcus Russell, and once you have that bad player you can't cover up his badness with good coaching, being as how there's too much organizational chaos for a coach to make his mark.

Plus, even if you select a good player, organizational dysfunction may stunt the player's growth. Worse yet, the player may be surrounded with 52 tackling dummies every game, making the good player look much worse and destroying his psyche.

Consider the case of Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers. It's easy to say that Aaron Rodgers is the better quarterback now. He's a Super Bowl MVP, and a surefire MVP candidate this year. But what if the two players' situations were switched? What if Rodgers would have went 1st overall to the 49ers and Smith would have plummeted to 25th?

This could have actually happened. Rodgers was almost the first overall pick before the Niners talked themselves out of it. Remember, there was a major knock on Rodgers before the draft. He was a Jeff Tedford-coached quarterback from Cal. Tedford QBs (such as Trent Dilfer, Akili Smith, David Carr, Joey Harrington, and Kyle Boller) don't have a very high success rate in the NFL. Alex Smith had a major knock on him too: He came from a shotgun spread offense, so he wasn't used to taking snaps under center and reading defenses pre-snap.

So what if we switch places? Let's send Rodgers to San Francisco, where he has two different head coaches in his first three years and three different offensive coordinators, including Mike Martz. Then, let's put Alex Smith in Green Bay, where he sits on the bench, learns for three years behind Brett Favre in one of the most stable franchises in the NFL, and then finally gets his chance with a great supporting cast and a supportive fan environment.

Geez, they even kind of LOOK similar.

Now let's see who's more successful. Could Rodgers still have flourished in San Fran? Maybe. Would Alex Smith have flopped in Green Bay? Maybe. But you can't deny that the organizational stability and unique situations helped push it one way or the other.

Therefore, a team full of "highly paid glory boys" might not be a bad team because of said glory boys. They may be a bad team because they're poorly coached and trained on how to do their jobs. If you take a low draft pick or undrafted player and put them on the good team, they won't magically be any better than the high draft picks.

However, you could also make the argument that players change teams. A team with several first-round draft pick players and high bonuses may not necessarily be a team that earned those players through bad play, but rather paid for them through free agency.

That may be true, but let's look at that reasoning. Do players who were high draft picks generally change teams if they're really good players? No. Peyton Manning hasn't changed teams. Andre Johnson hasn't changed teams. Larry Fitzgerald hasn't changed teams. Mario Williams hasn't changed teams. Calvin Johnson hasn't changed teams. Joe Thomas hasn't changed teams.

What type of players switch teams? Players who were either drafted too high, like Ted Ginn Jr., or who weren't as good as advertised, like Reggie Bush. So essentially, a team that's stacked with first-round players is a team that's paying for players that aren't as good as that "first-round" designation would imply, and quite possibly overpaying to get them. Of course, overpaying for a bad player means that you have less money and resources to get a good player, and the cycle continues.

Now, in some cases, game-changing players like Nnamdi Asomugha do indeed change teams. But generally, these cases are the exception rather than the norm. They get so much ink precisely because it's very rare for an impact player to be on the market in general, and they usually don't end up on the market unless their skills are declining (Donovan McNabb) or there's some major personality issue (Randy Moss circa 2005).

Going back to the above examples of Ted Ginn and Reggie Bush, you'll notice something: Ginn was drafted by Miami and left. Bush was drafted by New Orleans and went to... Miami. Miami had a 1-15 season a few years ago and has hovered around incompetence for years, ever since Don Shula retired. Since then, the organization as a whole has been in flux.

That's what we're talking about: Teams that have lots of "glory boys" aren't losers on the basis of those players, but are losers because they're bad teams, which allows them to pick up the "glory boy" type of player. Since the team is bad, they'll either overreach to get a player that isn't that good, or they'll ruin that player's career through mismanagement.

What about undrafted players? Is it just that they work harder to earn their place on the team, as opposed to players who don't have to try?

Look, undrafted players are usually undrafted for a reason. There's usually a fundamental flaw in their game. Maybe they're too small. Maybe they didn't stack up against good competition so it's hard to say how good they actually are. Maybe they're not that strong, or have had injuries that raise major question marks.

So what kind of teams end up with really good undrafted players? This may come as a bit of a shock, but they're usually teams with good coaches. Take New England. They have Danny Woodhead, who's was undrafted because he's very undersized. He's not used very much (in fact, this year barely at all) but he plays hard. Since the Patriots have good coaching, they're able to hide this notable deficiency or minimize it, using him only situationally.

Take the Packers of last year. They ended up trotting out undrafted player after undrafted player and continued to win. Yet the players were picked by Ted Thompson, one of the most even-keeled (some would say comatose) GMs around. They were coached on offense by Mike McCarthy, who has proved his worth in that department, and on defense by Dom Capers, one of the best defensive coordinators ever.

Remember: There are a lot of players throughout the league who are low draft picks or undrafted players. Almost every player in the NFL is a professional who wants to play hard and realizes that working hard is the only way to stay on a roster. There are very few players who just decide to coast on "natural ability," and if they do, they're out of the league in a few short years. Everyone in the NFL has natural ability. If they didn't, they wouldn't have gotten this far.

A good team, however, will identify players that will be able to fill a role inside their system whether or not they were drafted. A team that succeeds with lots of undrafted players doesn't succeed because of them, but rather in spite of them. They succeed because they're a well-run organization with good coaching that knows how to hide their players' weaknesses and play to their strengths. They know how to balance the "highly paid glory boys" and the low-round-draft-pick players.

So "glory boys" aren't the death of teams. Undrafted or "unwanted" players aren't their salvation. A lot of high draft picks are the sign of a poorly-run team, not the other way around. A lot of "unwanted" players who succeed are the sign of a well-run team and nothing more.

Let's Make A Game Episode 23: Falling Away

So here's what we've decided to do. First, we're going to take control of the player away after they've died. That's easy enough to do:

player.Update(gameTime);

// Player only has control if he's still alive

if (player.Active == true)
{
// All our stuff

Next, though, is the tricky section. What happens to a ship if it gets hit in mid-air? It slows down and falls to the ground, correct? Ergo, we should decelerate the ship and drop it by lowering its X and Y values like so:

player.Position.X -= playerMoveSpeed;
player.Position.Y += playerMoveSpeed;

It's not working quite right, though.  I've placed it a place that doesn't checked often, the UpdateCollision area. It actually only updates this once, which means that after the ship gets hit, it twitches on in that direction instead of continually falling.

It's better to put this in the UpdatePlayer area, where this will run along with the rest of the loop. We'll do two things in this area:

1. We'll only have MathHelper.Clamp run when the player is active, first of all. Otherwise, it looks silly to have the ship hit the bottom of the viewable area and then stop moving, right?
2. We'll create this:

    if (player.Active == false)
            {
                player.Position.X -= playerMoveSpeed;
                player.Position.Y += playerMoveSpeed;
            }

So now we're actually making the ship fall off the screen when it blows up. We still have to work out some kind of counter to start the game over, though, or else the ship will continually falling in perpetuity.