No Name Games

When I go around telling people that you can indeed play games on a Zune about 80% of them say “What is the Zune?”… It tends to frustrate me a little bit simply because everyone is so “I *insert apple product here*” happy… Don’t get me wrong I applaud Steve Jobs for doing what he does best, make his products look sexy and be very appealing. But damn it the Zune is being left in the dust! Sure Microsoft created it in response to the Ipod, but they don’t seem to be really backing it at all. It’s really good media device, and better yet with the latest update to there XNA platform you can create games and applications for it!

At the 2008 GDC they made the announcement that you could make games for the Zune along with the much bigger XNA community games announcement, but still it does not seem to get any type of love or real support. I am not going to say it is the best tool out there, and the way you have to load games on it could be improved, but the fact is that it’s still a viable platform which is being ignored.

With the launch of the new xbox experience (Microsoft revamp of the xbox live interface) they allow you to download lots of community games (games built with Microsoft XNA game framework), which allows for just about anyone to make a quick buck and to get some exposure… Which is great. But why not do the same for Zune games? It would help boost the user base of everything Zune, and allow for Microsoft to expand the visibility of there growing gaming platform.

The Zune already has Wifi capabilities all Microsoft would have to do is simply allow for wireless syncing of the Zune to the Xbox 360 and allow users to transfer Zune games to there Zune. Why they have not done any of this or really pushed the Zune as a gaming platform is beyond me! Considering Apple is already semi-attempting this with the Iphone and Ipod.

Now as for the actual quality of the Zune games, well there is a community out there who likes to make Zune games but you have to do a bit of digging to find them.  The two hottest places to find Zune games would probably have to be http://www.zunerama.com/zune-games-directory.php and http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-completed-games-174/

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to say I want the Zune to dominate all, and take down the Ipod and all that madness, I am simply trying to express my feeling on why this gaming platform is being ignored, it’s almost like Microsoft have distanced themselves so far from this community  that it is now like an underground thing or something.  Not entirely sure why it bothers me so much, I mean everyone is going to keep using a Ipod or Iphone, because that is what they have been told to use by the mainstream media it’s just a shame that Microsoft would release a product that clearly has possiblities and just kind of put it on the back burner, there pulling a Google!

Being avid video gamers ourselves, Joe and I had a discussion the other day about good video games that we had played during the recent “next gen” era of console and PC games.  The topic of Bioshock was broached.  The game looked awesome, it had a unique upgrade system rooted in genetic biology, and it had a unique and super-immersive atmosphere.  By all accounts I should have loved the game, but I did not love it.  Like a gorgeous model with a cleft-hoof for a foot, I just could not get past one aspect of the game–”hacking.”

Hacking in the game was cute at first, if not nostalgic.  It brought back memories of my old school days of gaming in the early 1990s when the Sega Genesis and the 8-bit NES were competing for dominance.  I could not tell you the number of hours I spent at my neighbor’s house helping Sonic and his sassy red sneakers run through mysterious landforms shaped like 360 loops and slide down infinite water labyrinths in order to save some rabbits and penguins or some shit.  These were the formative years of a young gamer nerd’s life when glorious Windows 3.1 games and their MIDI sound effects were alive and strong.  SkiFree, JezzBall, Chip’s Challenge, and Pipe Dream…ahh yes, Pipe Dream.  Apparently someone at Boston2K also liked Pipe Dream.  Liked it enough to remake the game and cast it as THE mini-game that you played when you were trying to hack an electronic device. every. single. time.  I stuck with it for a while hoping for the best; hoping that they would eventually change the minigame after level 1.  I was wrong.  If I wanted to play freakin’ pipe dream, I would go fire up my Intel 486, hit the turbo button and go to town.  Not play it on my circa 2007-2008 dual core PC with an 8800GTS graphics card.

And that’s why I never got past level 2 of Bioshock.  What otherwise good games have you readers played that had something wrong about it that you could simply not get past but left you saying “what the hoof?”

-GD