Rag Doll Kung Fu now playing

A nice one surely. A welcome addition. A great experiment. A funny-as-hell little no-nonsense game. That is Rag Doll Kung Fu which was created by Lionhead's Mark Healey in his spare time. Available to Valve's Steam distribution service, for the ridiculous price of $14.95 (excluding taxes), it should be a game which we should all have in our collection. Not only because it is fun playing - it is.

More so, because the industry desperately needs experiments like this to run well. You see, about 15 years ago up until 5 years ago I was a video game journo. I had dedicated more or less my whole life to games, starting with the arcade halls in the 70'ies, going through the home computer revolution in the 80'ies only to end up being unimpressed about what the future is holding as the 90'ies progressed. Games became stale in the 90'ies. Innovation was a word which did not sell and every other publisher ended up shelving out the next tried-and-tested take on all the popular genres. Creativity was gone. Games started to cost too much to take risks and - we - the consumers were and still are digging into our pockets sustaining that void.

An experiment like Rag Doll Kung Fu needs to run well. It needs to sell. It would give publishers the eye-opening insight that totally new approaches can make money at a reduced investment and at a reduced retail price. It would allow a lot of canned games to be relooked at. It would inject new life into the games industry.

So for the sake of the industry we all so love, invest in this game. Even if you are not planning to play it for extended periods of time. Give publishers the signal that experiments are appreciated. We will all be better off eventually.

I'll make it easy: Click here

X360 Pre-Launch Notes

It will be interesting to see which console ends up leading in the quite-not-so-next-gen-anymore console wars. Microsoft's offering is very near shelf life, with only about a month remaining in the US before the graphical powerhouse and worldwide connected hits the market. Sony's offering on the other hand is all paper. Sure, some so-called demo's have been shown but so far nothing playable has come up. Killzone and MGS4 look absolutely fantastic - they are about the only ones up to now. Hmmm... it makes me wonder how far into development the machine is and if it will really be able to go on-sale during the first quarter of 2006.

However Sony may proceed, I am digressing. X360 is where the attention is now and Microsoft's game division personnel is probably doing overtime now. According to a recent story on BBC News "there is a reason why nobody attempted a world-wide launch before". Microsoft's marketing honcho is quoted as saying that Microsoft is "going to rent every 747 we can find." ... which will turn out to be quite expensive. Previous reports off Sony's decision to include a $100 dollar optical drive where greeted by scepticism as it would be making the machine too expensive - or Sony's losses on each unit sold unbearable. I do not believe these reports. I do not believe $100 dollar will make a difference; neither do I that air-lifting initial stock to their destinations will. Becoming a leader in a console race easily recovers the money you loose by doing these things.

Gamewise, Microsoft does seem quite prepared as well; even with the article mentioning that "these (tripple-A launch, ed) games are not far from being done, and if they're three weeks after the launch or they're on launch day I don't think it makes a significant difference." And I suppose he is correct. Must-have launch games might make a difference for new systems, as in "unknown" ones, but Microsoft has established its name. Consumers know that Microsoft will eventually deliver these games, so IMHO they will accept to wait.

I got to go again. All in all, I think Microsoft has got it prepared quite well. If they are able to ship large enouh quantities to all territories, the console's launch will be smoking. If they are able to keep off bad press, counter Sony's marketing campaigns and deliver great quality games during the the first year-or-so, the machine will rule - first or second. With these two options available, I just typed down an undiscussable Truth.

Nice to meet you

Since this is the first blog post I have ever made in my life, here comes the introduction. I am a Belgian dude with an avid interest in the video game industry. I used to play these games quite a lot, back in the days of Commodore's home computer offerings and more or less up to the very first PlayStation. I have still followed the industry ever since - damn is it already 10y ago that PlayStation - but have increasingly worried about how games are evolving.

I'll tell you: games have become boring. Every game is like the other. Innovation and creativity are hard to find and that is why I started this blog. To address that fact. To make sure it gets read... As if anyone will ever have an interest into what this Belgian dood says. Hahaha.

Now anyway, since the little girl is crying now, I will have to refrain from posting more. We do not have time anyway, so big posts are generally not looked at.

Signing off...