Gamernode: Eddie Inzauto's Columns

Wii Paint?

What else can the Wii do? That is one question that the brains behind Operation: Nintendo Wii seem to constantly be asking one another.

We've already seen things like the Wii Wheel to mimic real-world driving, gun-shaped peripherals and realistic shooting mechanics for first-person shooters, tennis racquets, golf clubs, and baseball bats to snap our Wii remotes into, and all manner of other interesting gameplay mechanics and peripherals. With the advent of the Wii Balance board and Wii Fit, however, the software for the Wii seems to be drifting from the company's gaming roots into the realm of non-gaming user applications.

Last week, I was speaking to our superhero creative director Jesse about graphics editing, and at the same time applauding the recent re-release of the paintbrush-wi...

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Pimp my ride: videogame edition

I recently made a move from my native land on the east coast of the United States to the Golden State of California - sunny San Diego, to be exact. While making the three-day, 3000-mile journey across the country in my trusty Toyota, I couldn't help but ponder just what makes an awesome 'ride' in the videogame world.

Being that next week marks the release of two very high-profile vehicle-based games in Grand Theft Auto 4 and Mario Kart Wii, I don't think I could choose a better time to talk about this subject...so I will.

Here are some of my favorite rides from the virtual realm:

Yoshi (Super Mario World/Sunshine)

Yoshi may not be a "vehicle" per se, but as a means of transportation, he is totally badass. Not only does he move fast and jump high, but he has a deadly stomp and will c...

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Genre fusion

It's not uncommon for gamers to hear the question, "what is your favorite genre?" Throughout my videogame-playing career, I have been hit with this very query on more occasions than I can count. Each time I feel slightly uncomfortable about giving a straight answer, and am compelled to not only say that I don't have a favorite genre, but also to explain why, and detail what I hope to see out of the videogame industry as it relates to the question of genre preferences.

It usually goes something like this:

I don't have a favorite genre. I prefer to take each game as an individual piece of work rather than lumping it into a category along with a myriad of other titles. Sure, I compare games to one another based on their similarities, but to prefer one type over another and to harbor pre...

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What's that game again?

Remember my "That game is what?" column, where I listed some of the most humorous Urban Dictionary definitions of various videogames to illustrate just how passionate, clever, and juvenile the internet community can be? Well I said I'd be back with more, so here's round two. Again, I just tried to find the most radical opinions of some of the more popular games and game characters in recent memory, and then brought them here, unedited, for your amusement.*

Here's what I found on my second quest into the dark abyss known as the internetz (entries left unedited for extra entertainment value - beware of profanity):

Super Smash Bros: 1 - The act of gangbanging a woman.

God of War:1 - A game where Kratos seems to be the only real god since the other Gods die more often than mortals themselves...

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Violence prevents violence?

Emotionally affective games are becoming an increasingly popular topic of discussion as of late. From the more mainstream titles like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus to lesser-known (and decidedly less high tech) indie games like Passage and Gravitation, developers and players alike are seeing past the buzzphrase "games as art," and really noticing games' potential as tools to evoke emotion.

Which emotions, though? Are games limited to the tried-and-true feelings of happiness, sadness, love, sympathy, anger, fear...? Can they also make their players feel...disgusted? Shameful? Regretful? Guilty? I think they can, and I think that may be a very good thing.

As I mentioned last week, I felt a bit uneasy while playing Manhunt 2 on the Wii, as if I was doing something wrong, or was someh...

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Where I stand

In recent years, the issue of censorship and regulation of videogames has been one of great concern. It affects not only to the members of the videogame industry and the gaming community, but any defenders of liberty and freedom across the country. Now that may sound a bit dramatic, but it is essentially the case.

I was playing Manhunt 2 earlier this week - the Wii version. (On a side note, I thought the gesture-based controls were masterfully...uh...executed, but I have to admit that I felt a bit criminal, or at least mildly sadistic, while performing the actions) What bothered me more than the icky feelings i had while performing kills, though, was the fact that the game has been so heavily modified (CENSORED) from its original form. You've probably already read/heard/seen, but t...

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Gamers anonymous

How is it that certain games can become addictive, while others seem to simply run their course before tapering off into that void of content that we feel has been satisfactorily exhausted? There has to be some key factor(s) in the distinction between addictive and non-addictive videogames (but still fun ones, because who really wants to play a game that isn't? Well, actually...hmmm...I'll come back to that later.)

I got to thinking about this while playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which I feel is a solid game with nothing revolutionary or "must-have" about it - but that is still enjoyable...and addictive. Now why does a simple game full of brain-exercises compel us to keep playing fervently for hours?

Achievement.

The game gives us a brand new sense of achievemen...

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Save me!

I came into this week thinking that by today (or maybe Saturday), I would have written a column about love in videogames. It's a topic I've been meaning to address for some time now, and this seemed as good a time as any to finally get the show on the road.

Then I realized that yesterday was Valentine's Day, and although I'm all for love and romance, I am not into being told when to publish articles pertaining to a particular topic. Holidays tend to do that to people, as one can quickly surmise after noting the multiple "videogame romance" features that have undoubtedly found their way onto the internet this week.

No, I actually HATE being told what to do, and I hate being told WHEN to do it. That's why after sitting down to play Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles this afternoon, th...

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An adolescent industry

The videogame industry is in it's adolescence, struggling to form an identity, to fit in, and to be accepted. I'm sure you've read something along those lines before, but it seems that the number of people who preach in favor of, and really work towards its growth are in the minority.

This is a difficult environment for us, the writers to operate in. We are always at risk of becoming disjointed and out of touch with our audience, because as we grow, our tastes mature. We become more mature, and in some cases, "jaded." Our experience shows itself, sometimes manipulating our words to cater only to those who are in the same late-stage fan-dom as ourselves. Are our tastes 'cultured'? Do we want more from our industry? Are we more ready for the next stage of development than others?

Yo...

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Top 10 most anticipated games (non-sequels) of 200...

The year 2007 was an incredible year for the videogame industry. I'd even be willing to go out on a limb and say that it was one of the best ever. Our year-end awards here at GamerNode weren't decided over tea and crumb cakes - it was more like acid-edged blades and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire. There were even horses, and a man on fire. Kyle killed a guy (but let's just keep that between us).

Needless to say, 2007 had many great games, but 2008 may very well be set to top it. As a matter of fact, this article started as a list of just about 30 titles. I can't begin to tell you how much difficulty I faced trying to narrow it down to only a third of that, but I probably would never have completed the task without setting some requirements.

1) Unless the game has been distinctly...

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Tell me how...

This is an open letter to all videogame publishers. You see, I need your help. I've been having trouble lately formulating opinions and analyses of your products, and my reviews are suffering from a terrible case of truth and original thought.

Unfortunately, the other videogame websites I used to "borrow" my review scores and ideas from are apparently being frequented and subsequntly regurgitated by a plethora of other online publications. Rather than following the trend, and becoming a needle in a stack of needles, I have decided to seek an alternative method of producing my reviews.

I'm going straight to the source.

Publishers, please tell me how to review your games. Tell me not only what features, gameplay modes, options and the like are included (because I have trouble locating all ...

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That game is what?

I was having a bit of fun the other day looking up terms on Urbandictionary.com, and I decided it would make for an interesting column if I started looking up videogame terms to pass on to you, the GN faithful. Eventually, it just turned into "name a game and pick the most disparaging/humorous definition of said game" - which isn't really so bad.*

Here's what I found during my quest (entries left unedited for extra entertainment value - beware of extreme profanity):

Video games: 1 - The only thing that's fun to do anymore.

PS3:1 - sony playstation 3, it was released @ E3 2005, looks like a fridge door with dildos as controllers2 - An over priced George Foreman grill, enough heat and space to cook food for a 3rd world country plus it costs as much as a 3rd world country...

Wii:1 - Wii (pron...

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Helping games

You hear a lot about the horrors that our beloved interactive virtual experiences visit upon society – school shootings, curbside beatings, subway assaults, theft, breaking-and-entering, drug use, child abuse, domestic violence, teenage promiscuity, truancy...homosexuality (“god” says that's a no-no)...suicide...

Yup, videogames cause all of those, just in case you haven't noticed.

If you really haven't noticed, then you haven't been paying attention, because that's just about all the mainstream, american dream press the videogame industry gets nowadays. Games are described as “violent shooters” instead of “sci-fi action” or “violent gore-fests” rather than “survival horror.” The negativity seems nearly insuperable, but ...

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Semi-virtual relationships

I've been doing a bit of thinking lately, and one thing my mind has come to dwell on is the comparison between interpersonal relationships and the relationships that people develop with their videogames. Of course there are very very obvious differences between the two, but let's suppress our urges to discard the thought for just a moment.

Gamers love their games, and they love them for a variety of reasons. I won't go around making blanket statements about that, claiming one motivation over another, but what I will say is that some gamers find some degree of companionship with select synergistic experiences.

One way this can happen is through the characters in the story. Just like in any good book, the audience is meant to form a type of bond with the personalities they are presented...

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The Portal concept

Although the present gaming era is one of huge budgets and epic productions, there has been a sizeable insurgency of simple, yet fun, gameplay-oriented titles.

These games are most readiily available via digital distribution avenues such as Xbox Live Arcade or the good old internet, and are most often created by small, independent developers.

Games such as these, which are rarely technical marvels, usually thrive on the strength of one or two key gameplay concepts, which are either completely fresh ideas or are purposefully pushed to their limits, squeezing as much raw gaming utopia out of them as possible.

A recently released retail "box" included a gaming experience much like these simple flash titles or thumbdrive-sized downloads, but also happened to be created by a big-name development...

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Renaming the industry

"Videogames" are a form of art/entertainment that are still only in the equivalent of their toddler years. As such, the gaming industry has been met with varying degrees of neophobic reactionism not at all dissimilar to the earlier responses to television, rock n' roll, comics, heavy metal, certain genres of books, etc.

This, of course, is old news. I imagine that if you have been at all interested in "videogames" and have had access to the internet over the past decade, you've probably read this very sentiment hundreds of times before. Why? Why after so much attention has the issue not gone away?

I feel the mainstream perception of "videogames" has very much to do with the industry's origins as a child-focused endeaver, and even though the scope of the business has broadened widely since th...

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Is silence golden?

Throughout the years, I've become familiar with all manner of games, presented in a myriad of ways and told from many different perspectives. One particular method of delivering a gaming experience to the audience has always captured my attention, and that is through the use of the silent protagonist. At times, I feel this technique works perfectly, but on other occasions, it just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

The silent protagonist was not always an intentional device. Back when gaming was young, and technology was...low, putting voices in videogames was barely an option to be considered. It wasn't until CD-based software that speech could be included on a grand scale. Now, the capacity of game media has grown so much that character voice-overs are a somewhat ubiquitous featu...

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If they were Halo

The massive anticipation is over. Halo 3 launch day has come and gone with great fanfare - big events, long lines, eager fans, master chief, etc. In the first 24-hour period alone, the game grossed over $170 million. To put that in terms of copies sold, it's roughly equivalent to more than 2.8 million. Of those, 1.7 million copies were pre-sold.

With Halo 3 riding high on the extreme marketing push made by Microsoft and Bungie, one has to wonder if it would have experienced such success without it. Moreso, it is interesting to ponder what games might have done just as well as Halo 3 had they received the same tender loving care from their respective marketing departments.

I have gone through a slew of recent releases, and come up with a pair of games that may very well have been this year's...

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Halo hype

It's funny when you think an alarm is set...but it's really not (really not set...and really not funny). Whatever, here's what I have to say this week...

I think this column will be the first of a two-part series (can I call it a "series" if there are only two parts?), but I won't be certain until I reach the midpoint, so read on...

Anyway, Halo 3 is almost upon us ("us" meaning those not named Brendon), and the anticipation for the title is at fever pitch. This game's fan following is built not only on the merits and successes of past Halo games, but also upon marketing and the highly influential, ever-present "hype engine."

The internet is actually an instrumental tool used to keep this machine well-oiled. In the past 10 days alone, GamerNode has run about seven or eight stories abou...

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Where Wii goin'?

I believe in the Wii. I have faith in the console, its technology, and the styles of play that are possible with the tools available to the gamer. There is so much potential in that little white box that has yet to be tapped into.

Just prior to launch, my vision for what the Wii had to offer the gaming world was as follows:

Total immersion. It's sort of a vague idea, but when I think of the Wii and it's input method, I am always seduced by the idea of the player's hands existing as permanent fixtures within the game world. One might think, "but doesn't that happen already in FPS on Wii?" Well, yes and no. The hands are always there, but their function is strictly limited. My idea is that the actions of the gamer are represented in a one-to-one fashion on-screen. Consider the following as an...

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