Co-Op Critics | Uncategorized

February 2, 2013 In Uncategorized

ZombiU Survivor Stories #3–The Safehouse Massacre

Oh, the humanity.

It all started out so well–After waking up in the safehouse, I got Eli to market and we managed to get our gear back from Toby’s corpse and escape the market (I made sure to figure out where I needed to go beforehand).

As soon as we got back to the safehouse, however, Prepper’s voice came over the intercom stating there was a horde of undead on their way, and we needed to defend the area.

My first thought was just to hole up in the main room of the safehouse, hoping there was some sort of “no man’s land” where the zombies wouldn’t come into so that I could pick them off. No such luck, as I had to venture out into the main hallway to trigger the horde, and then chaos ensued.

Poor Eli got stuck in hallway and couldn’t even make it back into the main safehouse room. Very disappointing.

My next survivor, Mason, got stuck inside the small area between the main hallway and the safehouse door (I was trying to create a choke point so that I only had to watch one direction). There were too many zombies, and I couldn’t swing the cricket bat fast enough.

The same thing happened to Sebastian, as I thought maybe the first time was just poor execution. His death told me I needed to run out of the doorway and find somewhere else to fend off the horse.

Up next was Ethan. We got swarmed in a room with three doors as I tried to barricade one of them with wooden planks. No time for that, I found out.

Poor Rose made it to a good kill spot but got surprised. We found a small area behind one of the rooms in the subway, and there was only two ways in. One was a crawlspace that allowed us to hit zombies as they tried to crawl through, and the other was the broken window they had to climb through to get us. Turns out, some zombies can crawl pretty quietly, as we got surprised from behind when we were focused on a crawling zombie.

Amelia got turned around in the hallways and couldn’t make it back to the safe room. Well, actually, I got turned around trying to find the spot that Rose had made her stand in, but I took a wrong turn–a dead wrong turn (yeah, I know).

Finally, Emma Phillips, a 33 year old bobby, took control of the situation. We lured the remaining zombies into the main safehouse room, using the main door to keep at least one out at a time as we battled the ones that got through. Every time they kicked the door open, we slam it shut, and take care of the one or two that got through. Rinse and repeat a few times, and we finished off the horde.

I’ll recount Emma’s fate next time.

January 30, 2013 In Uncategorized

Worth Reading: 1UP’s Marty Sliva on Atari Box Art

We recently recorded an episode of Co-Op Critics about gaming culture (that will air the week of 2/14), and one of the topics of discussion was games journalism and how games are covered right now. We bemoaned a lot of what we currently see on mainstream gaming sites, and talked about the types of coverage we’d like to see.

We also talked a bit about the fact that there is some great stuff out there, but it’s often lost in the shuffle of the PR-driven “game of the moment” coverage that defines most gaming outlets.

One of the things I need to do more of here, on twitter and on the podcasts is give shout outs to interesting articles and games discussion that I’d like to see more of.

Today, I was reading through some of 1UP’s Cover Stories from the past several weeks, and stumbled across a fun article from Marty Sliva called “The Deceptive Beauty of Atari Box Art.” The article pointed out some examples of creative marketing with 2600 games and the box art, and there are some pretty insightful comments on the article from members of the 1UP community as well.

I grew up on the Atari 2600, I always approached the box art the same way I approached the cover art for all my Dungeons & Dragons books–as a starting point for my imagination. Things are different now, as the games we get to play can visually represent the ideas of the creators in a much more accurate way. Back then, you were getting a glimpse of the creators’ vision through the box art, and your imagination had to map that to what you were actually seeing. In that way, I think a lot of the early games were more participatory, as they required you to imagine as you played. Maybe that’s why I gravitate much more toward RPGs now, as it’s one of the last bastions of required imagination in gaming.

Anyway, props to Marty Sliva for a fun post that inspired some great discussion and a bit of nostalgia.

January 28, 2013 In Uncategorized

ZombiU Survivor Stories #2–Toby

As I wrote about in my last post, my previous character Sarah met an untimely end as we tried to get into the supermarket, but were trapped in a small space with a couple of zombies. Toby, my new survivor, woke up in the safehouse, and our first mission together was to recover our gear from Sarah’s corpse, as the bag she was carrying was full of flares, planks for fortifying the safehouse, and precious bullets.

We made our way back to the market square, and much to my chagrin, the zombies I had alerted when we tried to get into the supermarket were now roaming the square. There were five in all, and I knew that Toby wouldn’t stand a chance if we didn’t take them on one at a time. After climbing up some scaffolding to get a better view, I used a flare to lure a couple of zombies over to an exploding barrel, which I set off with a shot from our pistol. Two down, four to go

The remaining three zombies were stuck behind a fence and some debris, and I was able to find an opening to whack them with the cricket bat without having to fully engage them. I cleared them out, and then hopped over the debris to make my way back to the supermarket.

As I neared the door, I saw Sarah, and I couldn’t help but be a little sad, as I was responsible for her current zombified condition. She wildly attacked Toby as soon as we got close, and we have to cave in her skull (again, sad). Searching through her bag, we got our flares, bullets and planks back, and headed inside the supermarket, where our goal was to get the closed-circuit camera systems up and running again.

Man, the supermarket was creepy. There weren’t a ton of zombies lurking about, but the ambient noises made for a very slow trek through the building, especially when I had to head into the basement. After getting the cameras turned back on, we headed back upstairs, only to be surprised by a zombie as we were coming up. Luckily, the cricket bat did not fail Toby and I, and we made our way to the exit.

Which is where things went bad.

After a loading screen, we were back out in the market square, and face to face with at least four zombies, one of which was crackling with electrical current. I panicked (surprise), and immediately went back into the supermarket. After a few deeps breaths, we went back out again, but the zombies were still right there waiting for us. Knowing there was no way we could take this group of zombies, we sprinted around the corner–and right over the fence/debris pile that you can’t get back over. So, I had to go through the back door of the supermarket again, which, surprisingly, set off the alarm again. Which alerted the horde. As I tired to get poor Toby into the supermarket, he suffered a fate almost exactly like Sarah had before him–swarmed in the small doorway area at the back of the supermarket. I had failed Toby the same way I had failed Sarah.

A loading screen later, Eli woke up in the safehouse, and it was his turn to visit the supermarket.

January 25, 2013 In Uncategorized

Gaming Stories: Video Game Championship Wrestling III

WWE’s Royal Rumble 2013 will take place this weekend, so it’s as good a time as any to check on one of my favorite online video gaming streams, Bazza87’s Video Game Championship Wrestling.

Several developments have taken place since when we last checked in with Video Game Championship Wrestling. The most significant development has been Bazza87’s agreement to a partnership deal with Twitch, which caused a number of fans to raise their concerns about how the stream would theoretically need to change in order to maintain the partnership. In many ways, Bazza87’s partnership with Twitch, which would generate revenue for Bazza87 for the work he puts into making the stream one of the most interesting views on the Web, reminded me of when independent wrestling companies sign deals with television stations and must change.

When Extreme Championship Wrestling, at the time the third largest wrestling promotion in the United States, signed a national television distribution deal in 1999 with TNN, which was then known as The Nashville Network and transformed into The National Network and is today known as Spike, Extreme Championship Wrestling fans balanced their hope for the company’s survival because of the revenue that this deal brought and the concerns that the company would have to tone down its content in order to satisfy TNN’s advertisers. In many ways, Extreme Championship Wrestling fans’ fears were ultimately confirmed. Recently, when Ring of Honor, the largest independent wrestling company currently in operation and in many ways Extreme Championship Wrestling’s successor, signed a national television distribution deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group, the same concerns about how Ring of Honor would have to change its content in order to satisfy Sinclair Broadcast Group and its advertisers arose among Ring of Honor fans. The fear boils down to the effect money has on art.

Extreme Championship Wrestling, the cautionary example for all independent wrestling companies that followed.

Modern professional wrestling tradition dictates that a wrestler who is perceived to prioritize money over the fans must be taunted with chants of “You sold out!” I can’t say that the chant originated in Extreme Championship Wrestling when its wrestlers would leave the company for more lucrative contracts with World Championship Wrestling or World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment), but its use in Extreme Championship Wrestling certainly popularized it. So, when Bazza87, through “Baz McMahon,” his avatar in Video Game Championship Wrestling show, announced his deal with Twitch during the January 22, 2013 Video Game Championship Wrestling show, he piped in the “You sold out” chant into his show to tie his show to professional wrestling tropes once again. He then addressed his fans’ concerns that the partnership would cause Bazza87 to stop using certain songs during the show by stating unequivocally, “If I play certain music that I don’t have permission to use…this channel could get shut down. Well, what stops me from making a new channel if that happens? I’d lose my partnership sure, but VGCW will live on. So let’s answer the question. Will I stop using certain music? No chance in hell.” And of course the scene ended with “No Chance in Hell,” the theme song for both Baz McMahon in Video Game Championship Wrestling and Mr. McMahon in World Wrestling Entertainment.

Bazza87’s broadcasting pace has not slowed; since our last post, Bazza87 has held shows on December 23, January 1, January 5, January 13, January 16, January 17, and January 22. The regular scheduling has also continued, but it does not seem to have negatively affected Video Game Championship Wrestling’s popularity. Each show continues to be viewed live by 2000-3000 viewers, and the Twitch chat and the NeoGAF thread remain active during shows.

The Video Game Championship Wrestling championship churn that I discussed last time seems to have stabilized a little. The VGCW Championship bounced from Proto Man to Donkey Kong on the December 19 show and to Solid Snake on the December 23 show, but it has since remained with Raphael, who defeated Solid Snake on the January 1 show. Raphael has defended against Dr. Eggman’s master plan twice and Dan Hibiki. Meanwhile, the team of Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily, collectively known as The Practice, defeated GameCenter FU, the team of the Angry Video Game Nerd and GameCenter CX’s host Shinya Arino, for the Co-Op Championship on the December 19 show. The Practice defended their titles against Ganondorf and Zangief’s Gerudo Skies before losing them to Mr. Satan and Dan Hibiki’s Raw Power, who have so far successfully defended their titles against Mega Man and Proto Man’s Team Light.

F.K. In the coffee!

Bazza87 has also tried to refresh the roster by introducing new characters, such as Capcom’s Mike Haggar, Gary Oak, Locke Cole and Sabin Rene Figaro from Final Fantasy VI, and Ron Burgundy while also removing characters like Wreck-It Ralph. Every viewer probably has characters whom he or she thinks should be eliminated or added, and the Video Game Championship Wrestling Wikia now has a character suggestion page to accommodate the fans’ desires. As always, Bazza87’s ability to meet fan requests for characters depends on the availability of the Create-a-Wrestler model in the PS3’s WWE ’13 online community, the need to balance introducing too many new characters and eliminating old favorites, consideration of whether the character would appeal to enough viewers, and whether the character was imbued with enough personality in his or her home game to make him or her worthwhile in a freeform meme melting pot like Video Game Championship Wrestling. For example, Francis York Morgan from Deadly Premonition might be a great character to introduce because of Deadly Premonition‘s cult status, the notoriety of “Life Is Beautiful” from the Deadly Premonition soundtrack, the sheer number of remixes available for “Life Is Beautiful,” and the memes that originated from Deadly Premonition, but he wouldn’t be a good character to add because he’s visually similar to Phoenix Wright, who’s already in the game.

The intersection between the information that viewers bring with them and what happens in the game’s simulation continues to be a primary source of Video Game Championship Wrestling’s entertainment. In the Pokemon cartoon, Ash Ketchum toiled in Gary Oak’s shadow. On the January 6, 2013 show, Gary Oak debuted in Video Game Championship Wrestling to challenge Ash Ketchum and remind him that Gary Oak is better than Ash Ketchum. To the viewers’ surprise, Ash Ketchum beat Gary Oak, as the game’s AI decided that Ash Ketchum was better than Gary Oak on that day.

Ash was no loser on the January 6, 2013 show.

Furthermore, Bazza87 has addressed the difficulty of creating compelling professional wrestling storylines caused by his inability to directly control the matches’ outcomes by relying more heavily on WWE ’13‘s story creation tools. The current storyline concerns Phoenix Wright’s quest to uncover who ran down Little Mac with a sedan. Nappa joined Phoenix Wright in this investigation, while Baz McMahon continued to hinder their attempts to uncover the culprit by pitting them against his stooges, Ezio, Raphael, and Gary Oak. On the January 22, 2013 show, Phoenix Wright, Nappa, and Solid Snake were able to defeat Ezio, Raphael, and Gary Oak in a tag team match, which then allowed Phoenix Wright to arrest Baz McMahon. However, Bazza87 was able to use another tool available to him, direct text insertion into the Twitch video player, to create a cutscene to show that Baz McMahon was only a red herring and that there is someone else responsible for Little Mac’s accident.

If Baz McMahon wasn’t the real culprit, who is?

While Phoenix Wright’s investigation continues to be the central storyline running through Video Game Championship Wrestling, my favorite has been the rise and fall of Vegeta, jobber extraordinaire. Vegeta had earned his reputation for futility by losing almost every singles match in which he’s participated until he faced fan favorite Charles Barkley. While Charles Barkley has one of the best theme songs in Video Game Championship Wrestling, he’s had middling success in matches. He reached his lowest point when he lost to Vegeta on the January 16, 2013 show; this loss started a small feud between Vegeta and Charles Barkley and between Vegeta’s fans and Charles Barkley’s supporters. While Charles Barkley was able to win a Best Out of 3 Falls match against Vegeta, Vegeta has actually won 2 matches against Charles Barkley, to Barkley’s eternal shame. Everyone enjoys stories of redemption, and Vegeta’s little redemption at Barkley’s expense was particularly entertaining.

Finally, the community’s involvement with Video Game Championship Wrestling expanded when the Video Game Championship Wikia opened. Fans sprang to action to create entries detailing each wrestler, the stream’s history, and documenting the universe that Bazza87 and the fans have created, such as the sordid history of Table-san. This type of community involvement is key to Video Game Championship Wrestling’s sustainability.

Time passes and things change, but Video Game Championship Wrestling continues to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the gaming community that I’ve experienced. There was a rumor that the organizers of the Evo Championship Series were willing to exhibit Video Game Championship Wrestling at Evo 2013, but nothing seems to have come out of that rumor so far. Bazza87 has addressed some of the major concerns about the stream’s sustainability that I outlined in my previous posts about Video Game Championship Wrestling, and I look forward to how Video Game Championship Wrestling will continue to evolve in the future.

January 25, 2013 In Uncategorized

ZombiU Survivor Stories #1–John and Sarah

If I had to describe my first couple hours with ZombiU in one word, that word would be “intense.” My first character (John) died within two minutes of beginning the game, as you open ZombiU by running for your life through a London subway station to get to the safehouse that serves as the main hub. I wasn’t quick enough, as I was fumbling with the controls (“Which one is the climb button–AAGHHH!”), and a mob of zombies pulled me down from a ladder as I was trying to scramble into an air vent.

Not since Demon’s Souls has an opening gut-punched me like that. ZombiU puts you on notice immediately about several things:

1. You will die in this game, but you will learn something from each death;
2. Pay attention to everything around you;
3. Every single enemy is deadly (one bite kills you);
4. Only run when you have to–otherwise, take it very slow;
5. Use every tool at your disposal.

The comparisons to the Souls series are apt, as ZombiU is a challenging game whose systems you must master to be successful. And like the Souls series, the game is very atmospheric, and you are in a constant state of near-panic, wondering what is around every corner. There is also a messaging system that is not unlike what you’d find in a Souls game, and retrieving items from your corpse works in a similar way (except that your corpse becomes a zombie in ZombiU). But while the Souls series revolves around combat, ZombiU revolves around survival, which means avoiding combat in many cases, since one bite equals death.

Despite the game making a great first impression however, it wasn’t until my second character died that ZombiU really got its hooks into me. Maybe it was the way that character died, or the fact that I had spent some time with her inching my way through the first hour of the game, but Sarah’s death (that was her name) was the one that got me. We (Sarah and I) had made our way to the marketplace, carefully engaging the few zombies we had to, avoiding the ones we didn’t and scouring the area for supplies. I made it to the back door of the supermarket, and the door was alarmed. As soon as I opened it, a zombie lurched out at me, and a few others came shambling from the parking lot. Panic took over as I tried to fight up the steps toward the door, knowing death was all around me. I was so tantalizingly close to surviving, as I managed to get the door closed behind me, but I trapped two zombies in the small room with me, and I wasn’t quick enough with my cricket bat to take them both down. I felt like I failed Sarah–I could have taken out one more zombie outside, and probably secured the door, if I just hadn’t panicked. But that’s what ZombiU is really good at–making you panic.

My next survivor Toby woke up in the safehouse, and my first priority was to track down Sarah’s zombified corpse and get my gear back.

Tune in next time for Toby’s tale of survival (or horrible death).

January 21, 2013 In Uncategorized

Video Games New York–Love at First Sight

When I was in NY for New York Comic Con this past October, I visited an amazing game store that I’ve been meaning to post about for some time now. Video Games New York is a store in the East Village that is exactly the type of place that every gamer wishes they had in their own neighborhood.

From the Mario statue out front, to the shelves full of cartridges, to the console-filled display cabinets, Video Games New York feels like a shop and a museum at the same time. Not only do they have every console known to man, but they have tons of imports, rare collectibles, old store displays, standups and everything else you could imagine.

Check out the pics below, and if you’re ever in the East Village, you have to stop by Video Games New York.

January 18, 2013 In Uncategorized

Gaming Stories: Cook, Serve, Delicious! Week 1

When I first opened my restaurant, I set my definition of “success” to mean survival. After more than a week in the restaurant game, I think that I can redefine “success” to mean more than just mere survival.

Day	Customers Served	Perfect Orders	Average Orders	Poor Orders	$ Earned	$ Tips Earned	Positive Buzz % Earned	Most Popular Item
1	55	53	1	1	361	0	26.5	Salad
2	64	62	1	1	432	18	27.0	Grilled Chicken Breast
3	68	63	2	3	477	2	31.5	Beer
4	58	57	1	0	456	12	28.5	Wine
5	63	63	0	0	482	8	31.5	Chicken
6	60	60	0	0	494	14	30	Wine and beer
7	58	57	1	0	504	18	28.5	Wine
8	54	53	1	0	438	8	26.5	Wine
9	54	54	0	0	472	18	27	Chicken
10	65	65	0	0	538	12	32.5	Salad
11	58	58	0	0	470	6	29	Soda

I started with a menu of beer, wine, salad, and grilled chicken breast, but I’ve expanded my menu in the past week. The menu expansion took place a little faster than I would like, but I hadn’t expected that my clients in SherriSoda Tower would grow tired of the chicken so quickly. I have to cycle it out of my menu every couple of days. At first, I introduced a soda fountain, which I eventually upgraded to include flavor blasts. That has been a big hit, and it remains a staple of my little restaurant. I then added lasagna to my menu, and it too was fairly successful. But it was a time intensive plate, and more importantly, it’s a labor intensive dish, since it requires creating three layers and adds more dishes to be cleaned. Even worse, it suffers menu rot just like my grilled chicken breast. I’ve since cycled in ice cream, a staple menu item, as my occasional replacement for chicken.

Since my business has been steady, I’ve begun to invest in the quality of my menu offerings. I first upgraded the quality of my beer from the cheapest beer my distributor would sell me to a more pleasant and expensive microbrew. Incidentally, I was able to increase the price of my beer from $5 to $8. As I mentioned, I’ve also introduced flavor blasts to my soda fountain, and I’ve also added thousand island salad dressing as an alternative to ranch dressing for my salads. Ranch dressing remains the more popular choice though.

I am beginning to have concerns about my clients. I love them because they pay me for my goods, but I am beginning to wonder if I am feeding their alcohol addictions. Frequently, I have customers who come in at 9 a.m. for a beer or a bottle of wine. I understand that SherriSoda Tower has workers in the night shift who may come in at 9 a.m. at the end of their shifts for a drink, but I don’t vet my customers. I am becoming very uneasy about this. The law of unintended consequences is hitting my conscience.

I’m also uneasy about how simply unhappy many of my customers look when they enter my restaurant. They are all satisfied by my food and my service; the positive buzz I’m accruing and the occasional praising e-mail from customers I receive can attest to this. However, there are no smiling customers, no customers dining in groups. My only customers are lonely, possibly depressed.

A typical customer. Note the stained clothing. He dines alone, like all my other customers.

That said, one of my customers won the lottery and gave me a $250 tip, so not all of my customers are in dire straits.

I’ve also increased my restaurant’s efficiency by investing in table foods and a better air conditioner to increase my customers’ patience, a dishwasher to cut down on the amount of time I spend washing dishes, and a garbage disposal to decrease the amount of time I dedicate to hauling trash to the dumpster. In a different time, I probably would have just more staff. Instead, I invested in technology. So much for the idea that a small business owner is the country’s job creation engine.

I’ve also passed two safety inspections. I’m grateful, but I’m not exactly sure what the inspectors are using for criteria. Thankfully, I don’t have a rodent infestation, unlike some other parts of SherriSoda Tower, and I have yet to fail to clean my toilets, take out my garbage, or wash the dishes in a timely manner.

Finally, I’ve discovered some alternate revenue streams. When all my orders are executed perfectly, my mentor rewards me with $200, which seems to me right now like a sizable amount of money. I’ve also taken bets from an eccentric fellow named Crazy Dave about my performance. I’m not sure if he’s rooting for me to fail or to succeed; he’s certainly gambling that I won’t succeed. This is why I gladly took his money on his bets that I would not be able to serve 15 consecutive customers perfectly or that I would be able to serve 20 consecutive customers perfectly while I had salads and ice cream on my menu.

I still lack a grill, a stove, or a deep fryer, so my hot food options are limited to grilled chicken and lasagna. My strategy for now is to concentrate on raising funds so I can upgrade the quality of my wine and ice cream. They’ll generate revenue so I can begin to buy meat that I can then add to my lasagna or buy toilets that flush automatically.

January 12, 2013 In Uncategorized

Postcards From the Abyss–Part 4: Here There Be Dragons (Well, Just One, Actually)

I cannot tell you how much I love the new Artorias of the Abyss DLC. All of the areas and bosses have been interesting, no more so than the final two bosses. I’m going to talk about them in order, but I actually fought them in reverse order.

Black Dragon Kalameet is a giant undead dragon that inhabits the valley between Royal Wood and Oolacile. In order to even fight him, I had to go interact with an NPC named Hawkeye Gough, one of the four Knights of Gywn, and a Greatarcher, a group who used to fight Dragons. When you interact with him, he helps you by wounding Kalameet with a great arrow so that he can’t fly. You then proceed down into the valley to fight him.

Having scoped out Kalameet, I knew I would need help with this battle. I actually let myself be summoned into others’ games a few times so I could face off against the dragon and hone my strategy. I’m a melee-based character with heavy armor, so evading isn’t my strong suit. I needed someone to keep the focus off of me so I could get close and do some real damage. So, I enlisted a couple of summoned characters to assist, and into battle we went. My preparation had paid off, as I knew Kalameet’s patterns when I faced him in my world. He has breath weapons that uses both in an arc, and in a concentrated blast by jumping up and firing directly below himself. He also uses head and tail swipes as his primary melee attacks. He also has a vicious telekinetic attack that results in you being susceptible to double damage for a time. I knew enough to avoid that one due to previous deaths at the hands of it.

The strategy was fairly simple–I needed the other players to distract Kalameet with ranged attacks so I could get in and use by Black Knight Greataxe. The great thing is, the other players knew this. Because there’s no voice chat in Dark Souls, you need to pay attention to what you can see from other characters. I chose to summon one character who was a spellcaster, and one who looked fast but used melee weapons. Since I’m slow but pack a lot of punch, they complimented my character well.

The battle played out according to plan. The spellcaster fired Soul Arrows and Soul Spears (magic missiles for you D&D fans), the other character dodged and struck, keeping the attention focused on him (or her), and I was able to land enough big shots to take the dragon down on the first attempt. We also managed to cut off its tail, and I was rewarded with an obsidian greatsword, a cool looking weapon that served as an alternative to my greataxe for awhile.

Kalameet is a really fun boss to fight, and I went back at least a dozen times to fight him with others before finishing my playthrough.

Next time I’ll recount my battle with the big bad of Artorias of the Abyss–Manus.

January 8, 2013 In Uncategorized

The Wii U Makes a Fun First Impression

So, I bought a WiiU this past weekend. I held out for awhile, but my desire to play ZombiU, as well as the idea of playing Nintendo Land with my kids proved to be too much to resist. And while I haven’t spent a ton of time with the system yet, it’s made a very good first impression on me. Much like the original Wii, Nintendo once again made a console the whole family can enjoy, where fun and accessibility are what drive the design of everything.

This past Sunday morning, I fired up the WiiU and sat down to play Nintendo Land with my six-year old son. I had downloaded all the updates the night before (and they are some PS3-style mammoth updates), so we first jumped into the Mii Maker app. I had my son go get his his 3DS, and we imported his Mii from the handheld onto the new WiiU. The process was simple, and my son loved watching the his Mii jump out of the screen on his 3DS and land in our TV on the WiiU. That’s a great example of Nintendo’s approach–even something little thing like importing your Mii needs to be cute and fun.

The it was on to Nintendo Land There is definitely a Wii Sports vibe to the collection of minigames, as they serve the purpose of familiarizing you with the console’s features while creating a group gaming experience that’s easy to pick up and play. Nintendo Land is more than what Wii Sports was, though. The games are more substantial, the nostalgia of Nintendo franchises is woven throughout the game, and the WiiU GamePad creates a whole different dynamic, as the player with it often has a completely different role than the Wiimote-using players.

The tour guide of Nintendo Land is a robotic monitor named Monita, who explains the basics of the game. By playing the Nintendo franchise-themed games, you earn play coins that are used to unlock items that you can decorate your Nintendo Land theme park with. Of the multiplayer minigames we played (there are single player ones as well), Takamaru’s Ninja Castle was my son’s favorite. In the game, you swipe the GamePad touch screen to throw ninja stars at waves of ninjas as you try to save a princess version of Monita, who’s been kidnapped.

My favorite was Luigi’s Ghost Mansion. The game makes great use of the GamePad, as the player using it is the ghost, who chases the Wiimote-using players around different floors of the mansion. The ghost is invisible, only appearing on the TV when a player shines their flashlight on it. But the GamePad user who is controlling the ghost can see his character as well as all the players on the GamePad screen. Each round is a maximum of five minutes long, and up to five people can play together. It’s a blast.

My first couple of hours with the WiiU have been great, and served as a reminder that I don’t want the WiiU to be like the Xbox 720 or the PlayStation 4. Nintendo has always been comfortable creating their own space in the gaming hobby, and they seem to be the only one of the big three really interested in being accessible to younger and casual gamers. Those of us with kids appreciate that, and for the gaming experiences that the WiiU can’t provide, there are other options out there.

P.S. I’ll talk about ZombiU after I spend some more time with it, but I will say that the similarities to Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls jumped right out at me, as my first character did not even survive the game’s introduction.

January 7, 2013 In Uncategorized

Gaming Stories: Cook, Serve, Delicious! Days 1 & 2

It’s hard to open a business in the current economic climate, and it’s common wisdom that it’s especially hard to open a restaurant. While the commonly cited statistic of 90% of all new restaurants fail is a myth, even if we accept that 60% or even just 30% of all restaurants fail in the first year, a new restaurateur still faces an intimidating set of challenges. Naturally, my new year’s resolution for 2013 was to open a restaurant and manage it until it is a success. Unfortunately, I haven’t defined what “success” in this case means in the long term, so for now, survival will equal success.

I had spent the past few months studying the biggest pitfalls a new restaurant faces. As I understand them, they are:
-lack of a unique selling point that is unrelated to food and service (for example, Sonic offers “nostalgia” as its selling point)
-the menu is too large, which lacks focus, requires large inventory, more equipment and personnel, longer ticket lines and keeps customers inactive for too long;
-inability to manage logistics;
-poor pricing strategy;
-no marketing skill;
-poor negotiation skills with suppliers.

I’m not sure what my restaurant’s unique selling point is; I can’t come up with anything that matches the attractive location I secured in SherriSoda Tower, where the local economy is beginning to pick up after some tough times. I hope that my previous work experience have provided me with management, marketing, and negotiation skills. I suppose I’ll find out whether I’ve priced my goods properly.

I was able to secure the crucial liquor license, so I will be able to sell beer and wine at my new restaurant. I plan to use my beer and wine sales to form the backbone of my menu while I find actual food items that will work in this location. After all, the actual mechanics of serving beer and wine are relatively easy, and both provide opportunities for tips later down the line. I am concerned about the clientele and reputation that my restaurant will attract because we sell beer and wine from opening until closing.

For now, I’ve decided to also offer salads and grilled chicken breasts, which are both simple to make and should be in fairly high demand during lunchtime. Also, neither salads nor grilled chicken breasts require additional equipment, which should help me keep my opening costs down for a while.

I settled on simple, staple items for my opening menu.

Day 1: Soft Opening
Because we didn’t have the budget to advertise widely, I employed a soft launch strategy for my new joint. I’ll have to rely on my skill to build the buzz for my restaurant.

We opened at 9 a.m. Sunday morning, and I’m already distressed by my customers’ dietary choices. Who has a salad with just ranch dressing and cheese at 9:15 in the morning?

One of many salads I served today.

I think that I had a pretty good day; at this point, the first few days will serve as the baseline for future days. I served 55 customers today, and I only screwed up 2 of them, and only 1 of them badly at that. At one point, I completed 35 orders perfectly in a row. I earned $361 by the time we closed at 10 p.m., which seems like a pittance, but at least I can feel like I earned every cent with my labor. My service and food have begun to earn my little restaurant some praise; my messed up order created some negative buzz, but my restaurant earned 26.5% positive buzz overall today. Thankfully, there wasn’t a huge run on beer and wine in the morning; I’d think that would reflect poorly on my business and on SherriSoda Tower. I was glad when the last order of grilled chicken breast was served though. I’m beat.

I hadn’t anticipated how often I would need to clean the dishes, take out the garbage, or flush the toilets. Who are these people who don’t know how to operate a toilet? Washing dishes has quickly become my least favorite part of owning and operating a restaurant.

Taking trash out is simple compared to washing dishes. Oh, those dishes.

Day 2
The soft launch continues, and I’m pleased that we picked up some new customers today. In total, we served 64 people, and I completed 40 orders perfectly in a row and 62 orders in total. I’m beginning to feel like I’m getting a handle on the cooking side of this business.

I was able to install a tip jar for today, which added to my daily earnings. Today, I earned $414 and $18 in tips. It’s a little disappointing considering how much beer and wine I served today, but I hope that my customers will become more forthcoming with their tips in the future.

My grilled chicken breast has been the hit item on the menu so far; there was definitely a run on chicken from morning until the afternoon.

I wonder if I’m ready to explore more difficult items. People love burgers. Maybe I should consider adding burgers to my menu? I’ll admit that the idea of adding foods to my menu that will generate more dish-washing intimidates me because I hate washing dishes.