Episode 81: Hey GamePro, Leave San Andreas Alone
Like our defense of Night Trap, I sometimes get the feeling that I have to defend Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. We've already done our part by defending Rockstar's best seller against Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton, but who knew we would also have to argue its merits to GamePro magazine? With its passive-aggressive comments directed at San Andreas, GamePro clearly doesn't appreciate the game. Hey, it's not for everybody. But if you're going to bitch about the game you might as well get it right. And that's what this article was written to do, to bring up all of those points that GamePro conveniently forgot to mention. The game improves nearly every aspect of the series; it has a bigger story, more things to interact with, a huge world, and a cool RPG-style character system that requires you to actually think about what you're doing. What more does GamePro want? I look back at this argument for San Andreas and realize that there are still things I wish I could have said, but it's nearly impossible to bring up every point worth making. I doubt I had any impact, but it's worth mentioning that GamePro did give the inferior Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories a higher score. This would not be the last time we brought up GamePro's passive-aggressive comments. In Retrospect: B-

Episode 82: The Incredible Shrinking Instruction Manual
This has to be my favorite name for an On Running Feud; it says everything you need to know right in the title. This article addresses my anger at Electronic Arts and how small their instruction manuals have become. Nine pages for a game with tons of menus (and techniques) is simply not enough room. This is one of those points I want to bring up to EA while at E3, but it's somewhat hard to get close to anybody at Electronic Arts who actually knows what they are talking about. Even if we don't get to address this to the company in person, this article is up on the net to scare everybody else straight. The last thing I want to see if Rockstar or Capcom following suit and shrinking their manual. These instruction booklets should be as long as they need to be, answering every question you might have about the game. There should never be a reason for you to go to the internet and look up how to do something in a game; it should all be in the instruction manual. This is something I feel very strongly about, if they are going to spend nine pages and not cover everything then they might as well not include an instruction manual at all. In Retrospect: A

Episode 83: The Commercialization of Neo
This was going to be the first of several Matrix-related articles, but so far the rest of those Feuds have been slow to show up. The Commercialization of Neo shows the greed of these video game companies, just looking for any way to insert advertising and make a few extra bucks. It's one thing to get that in a free game, but when you're paying a monthly fee to experience this alternate world you shouldn't have to put up with video game advertising. Since we ran this article more MMO's have decided to follow the example set by the Matrix, and I suspect this will only become a bigger issue over the next few years. At the end of the day this is just another reason for people not to play the Matrix Online. Why anybody would choose that over Worlds of WarCraft is beyond me, but there are people that feel that San Andreas was pornography so anything is possible. In Retrospect: B

Episode 84: Introducing Our Own Morgan Freeman
Okay, so this Feud seemed like a good idea at the time. I felt that we had done so many stories criticizing the news and video game companies that it would be nice to just have an oddball Feud. I'm sure I'm not the only person to notice that Morgan Freeman is the narrator of just about every movie every made. I love the sound of his voice, he just has this wholesome appeal that is hard to imitate. I knew we needed somebody like that, and then it just hit me: Leonard Nimoy. I had heard his voice narrating Age of Empires and remembered him in Seaman and felt that he would be perfect. This article, on the other hand, was far from perfect. The best part of this Feud was finding pictures to include with the write up; you'd be surprised how many cool pics of Leonard Nimoy you can find when you go digging. While I enjoyed it at the time, look back at it now I wonder why I even posted this. In Retrospect: C-

Episode 85: Porting Your Compatibility Problems
To this day Microsoft says that they are not in charge of deciding what original Xbox games work on the Xbox 360, yet this article argues that there is something fishy going on ... even if Microsoft is not at fault. The biggest problem with the Xbox 360's launch was how many current generation ports there were. Although there were a few original titles, a good chunk of what the third parties had to offer were nothing more than remakes of games on the original Xbox. To add insult to injury most of the original games didn't work on the Xbox 360, felt like a dirty trick to get you to buy the more expensive version. As a proud owner of Burnout Revenge for the Xbox I can tell you right now that I'm not going to pay $60 for a game with slightly better graphics, you're going to have to do better than port a six month old game to get me to buy it. But if I want Burnout Revenge to work on my Xbox 360 I will be forced to pay the big bucks, which flies in the face of what Criterion Studios has said. Eventually most Xbox games will play on the Xbox 360, but how long will I have to wait before my original Burnout Revenge is playable on my new system? I have a hunch we'll see it right after Microsoft and EA decide they have sold all of the Xbox 360 versions they are going to. For the record, the original Xbox version of Tony Hawk's American Wasteland does work on the X360. Microsoft uses that as their example to prove that my article was inaccurate ... but THAW was an exception to the rule. And seriously, who is going to buy THAW on the Xbox 360? In Retrospect: B-

Episode 86: Video Games Just Say "Yes" to Drugs
A lot of the ideas I have for these Feuds come from me reviewing video games, and Feud 86 is no exception. Video Games Just Say "Yes" To Drugs came to me while I was playing through Activision's western, Gun. It struck me as a little odd that you gained your health back from drinking alcohol, if anything it should be the other way around. But as I sat there pondering my main character's drug use I started to think about all those other substances people put into their bodies in games. I thought of Mario. I thought of Resident Evil. And then when I realized I saw a trend line I decided to write the story out. Had I waited half a year I probably would have also mentioned that The Godfather (the game I am currently reviewing) also gives you energy back when you get drunk. Over the last few months gamers from all across the world have emailed me to add other games to that list. So while some of you might not like my three examples, there are certainly other games that do exactly the same thing. It's worth mentioning that this article, unlike most of the other Feuds, is done as a complete satire. This seemed to confuse people more than anything, but I still find it funny and I think you will too if you realize that it's satirical. It's odd that only a few people noticed that. I wonder what that says about our society. In Retrospect: B

Episode 87: Game Critics Ignore their Call of Duty
This is easily one of my most controversial Feuds, it involves me getting to the bottom of all of these Call of Duty 2 reviews and trying to make sense out of the game critics that loved the online play. In case you didn't have a chance to check Call of Duty 2 out when it first launched, it featured some of the worst lag I've ever seen in an online video game. The type of lag you might expect from an old game on dial up, certainly not something on the Xbox 360 featuring broadband support. But nobody mentioned it in their reviews. Some people wrote to suggest that EGM, GamePro and all those other magazines had no problem because they were playing with only a limited amount of people, not the real world conditions most gamers experience these days. This may be true, but I still say that game journalists need to make special note that they did not test every mode in real world conditions, that would have solved a lot of problems. At one point GameSpot would purposely wait a few days on a review just to test the games against real people ... obviously those days are over. We live in a world where you constantly have to be first or you'll be left behind. But it's the game buying public that is left behind when journalists shirk their responsibilities. Thankfully Call of Duty 2 has been fixed, so everybody can go on and live happily ever after. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 88: Wait, Steve Carell Doesn't Really Play Games?
Now here's an article I wanted to do the moment I saw The 40 Year Old Virgin in the theater ... but I couldn't. I sat there in the theater wondering how I would get that great shot of the two people playing Mortal Kombat together. The story ideas were coming at me a mile a minute, I noticed the controller, the chair, the game, everything. I just didn't have the ability to do the article like I wanted. So I was forced to wait a few months for the DVD to show up, and boy was it worth the wait. By the time the movie came out on home video the critics had already called it one of the best movies of the year, which gave me even more to talk about. This is one of those light Feuds that doesn't attempt to change the world, but was a lot of fun to finally write up. By the way, am I the only one that wonders what will happen to that Ultimate Game Chair now that the Xbox 360 is out? I would hate to spend that much money on a chair only to find that it doesn't support the newest game systems. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 89: The Great Game [Movie] Crash of 2006
This article speaks for itself, it's really nothing more than me looking at the box office receipts from all of the recent video game movies and finding a trend. What makes me smile is how many other people ended up writing what was practically the same article I did weeks earlier. 1up.com, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and GamePro all focused their attention of the low sales of BloodRayne, but Defunct Games was the first site to do this story. Sometimes it's the most basic articles that get the most play, and this is a perfect example of that. This is just another reason you should pay attention to Defunct Games, we're constantly ahead of the curve. Oh, and I'm going to go on record and say that I think Uwe Boll's next film, that Dungeon Siege movie, will probably make more money than any of his other work. Mark my words on that. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 90: Buy This Game Again: Special Edition
It's bad enough that I have to buy games once, but I'm really starting to get sick of these companies forcing their fans to buy multiple copies of the same game. I don't care if you're Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry; it's just cool to make your fans buy multiple copies of the same game. Most of the mail I received about this article was positive, but there were a few people that didn't see a problem buying Metal Gear Solid 3 twice. For the most part these companies do a good job of adding new content, but there's something shady about this practice, something about it I really don't like. In Retrospect: B-

Episode 91: The Life & Times of an Adventurous EA
In past articles we hinted at how safe Electronic Arts plays their cards these days. If you look at their titles they fit into two categories: they are either sequels (long-running installments) or games based on licensed properties. These two categories could not be more safe, and I have a hunch Electronic Arts knows that. EA is not a company that likes to innovate and lead the way, they are happy just to do the same thing every year as long as they are making money. But that wasn't always the case, and I was hoping this article would point that out. There once was a time when EA actually tried new things, but all it took was a few failures to put them on the path they are on now. I was hoping that with this article we might see more interest in a 3D Mutant League Football game, after all EA is doing everything else with that NFL license. I still say it would be cool to bring back all of those dead athletes and turn them into zombies, what better way to show the NFL that you're willing to make a football game out of anything? But we're never going to see another Mutant League Football game because EA has been burned too many times. Here's hoping that at some point EA wakes up and decides to surprise gamers, but you and I both know that's not going to happen for many years. Somebody needs to get me in touch with Trip Hawkins; I would LOVE to know what he thinks about EA's current situation. In Retrospect: B

Episode 92: GamePro's Almost Perfect Game of the Year
"So what?" Apparently that was the sentiment after I posted this article. Nobody else seemed to care that GamePro decided to give their game of the year award to a game that failed to get a perfect score. I won't say this troubled me, but I thought it was a lot more interesting that most of the readers did. Maybe I have just spent too many Feuds talking about GamePro; I suspect at this point most people don't expect much from the longest running video game magazine in the U.S. Heck, I don't even expect more, but it is my job to bring it to your attention. For me it really comes down to their review of Resident Evil 4. This certainly is the game of the year, but to hear GamePro tell it you might think that the game is too long. Too long?? Considering how short most games are these days the fact that it will take you over 20 hours to beat Resident Evil 4 is actually a good thing! Maybe the game isn't perfect, but neither are half of the games GamePro has given a 5 out of 5 to. There's no way that XIII deserves a higher score than Resident Evil 4, Capcom's newest addition to the survival horror genre turns all of the clich?s on their head and creates an experience that is unlike anything you've played before. To this day I'm still miffed that GamePro didn't give the game more credit. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 93: Everybody Hates Maki
After posting this article I was inundated by emails telling me that there were still people who liked Maki. Most of these letters were appreciative of the article, suggesting that I was the only person trying to keep Capcom's classic games (and characters) straight. But there were a few who didn't see the benefit of this article; people that suggested that since they were using the Capcom vs. SNK 2 version of the character that the magazines were wrong. But they aren't. Just because they decide to use the same character model doesn't mean that EGM, GamePro, and GameSpot can't go back and tell its readers where Maki really came from. Final Fight 2 is not a good game (hence why you never see it in any of those Capcom collections), but it's not so bad that it has to be forgotten about completely. I don't love Maki, but I dislike how little respect she gets. This is far from the most pressing issue we've dealt with, but it's the type of article you only see on Defunct Games! In Retrospect: B+

Episode 94: What Ever Happened to Jumping Flash?
The dirty secret about this article was that it isn't about Jumping Flash. Although I do mention Jumping Flash, I really don't bother to spend more than a paragraph explaining it. This article is about Warhawk, the upcoming PlayStation 3 sequel to the popular PS1 action game. So why didn't I used Warhawk in the title? I originally meant to, but "Warhawk" is not the easiest name to make a title out of. So Jumping Flash it was, and plenty of people felt the title was a tad misleading. It was, but at least the article was worth reading. The one thing I love about Nintendo is how they refuse to forget their classic characters (except for Kid Icarus), if Sony is going to take anything out of Big N's playbook, I hope it's that sense of history. Warhawk is a great start, but what about Motor Toon Grand Prix and Jumping Flash? Or how about another Jet Moto game? These titles would fit perfectly on the PSP, and who knows, maybe if you had some of those games people might not complain about the lack of software as much. In Retrospect: B

Episode 95: The Final Battle over Issue 200
What you probably don't realize about this Feud is that it was posted on the day that Defunct Games was given its facelift. For weeks I tried to find an article that dealt with magazine redesigns, but ultimately I had to settle for this, an article about milestones. The site's face lift was intended to be one of the big features for Defunct Games' fifth birthday, so I felt this story was close enough and ran with it. This was far from a controversial article; most people wrote and agreed with my findings. But considering how big the 200th issue is for these two magazines I'm somewhat surprised I was the first to actually compare and the two. This article was also the first Feud to feature the new look, which included justified text and a better color design. Since then we have gone through and fixed just about every Feud, but this is where it all began ... again. I felt that everything came together on this article, I love the graphics I used and there's enough humor and information in there to keep you busy for at least 92 seconds. Some may argue that we should have used this Feud as our 100th episode, but I knew I was going to do this so recap so I had to get it out on the market early. Of all of the last few Feuds, this is one of my favorites. In Retrospect: A-

Episode 96: Game Companies Eye Their Paper Moon
Game Companies Eye Their Paper Moon returns us to the good old structure of talking about games, but also giving you suggestions on movies to watch. I'm sure there are more than a few people out there that fail to understand the Paper Moon reference in the title, but that's all the more reason for those people to go and rent it. This article didn't come together quite like I wanted it to, but it is a subject that I felt I needed to address. This is an article about how companies (such as Electronic Arts) trick you into buying their games. FIFA Street 2, for example, is a fine console game ... but the FIFA Street 2 on the PSP is actually a port of FIFA Street 1. I find this practice to be unacceptable, and judging from the emails you guys sent me you agree. This is one of the things we intend to talk about at E3, whether or not we get anything done about it is yet to be seen. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 97: GamePro's Letter Writing Campaign
Some people complained that this PSP-centric article was done too closely to another PSP article (the PSP Report Card: My So-Called Portable Console), but this was all done in the week leading up to the PSP's one year anniversary. If ever there was a time for Defunct Games to do PSP-related articles, the one year birthday was the best time. But the truth is that some people will find any reason to complain when you bring up the PSP. One thing I've noticed about all of the anti-PSP emails I get is that the people are almost always Nintendo DS owners who feel a little insecure about their place in the portable market. Look, DS owners (of which I am one), the PSP is not going to run Nintendo out of the handheld business. If anything this is going to improve the portable market. If there's enough room for three different consoles then there's more than enough room for both the PSP and the DS. Once thing that needs to be understood is that when people talk up the PSP it does not mean they are talking down the DS. This is not that kind of competition. If anything these two systems are playing completely different types of games, so worrying about the portable market is like worrying about what will happen when you die. It's out of your control. In Retrospect: B+

Episode 98: Crowning A New Low for Resident Evil
You have no idea how long I've had this article ready to do. I swear we were still working on Feuds 80 - 85 when I wrote this article. This was always intended to be a Feud we would run closer to the 100th episode, it was originally meant to be something of a joke. I don't feel the joke part of the article came through quite like I wanted it to, but the idea was to have a stupid gimmick and get it out of our system. In order to feature this 100th On Running Feud on time (the first Monday of April) I knew I had to throw out any Feud I could just to get us there. This is one of those Feuds that was nothing more than a time killer. It's still funny, but it certainly doesn't have the charm you get from all those other Feuds. A lot of people have asked me why we didn't go all the way with a real poll, but that was my idea from the get-go that I wanted to make a joke out of the gimmick. Whether or not that came through is still up for debate. In Retrospect: C-

Episode 99: In Defense of the Epic Adventure Game
Why am I recapping this article? I mean, didn't this thing just go up last week? I wish I had a better answer, but it was mostly to get us to this 100th Feud. I took a discussion I had been having with an email friend and fleshed it out into a feature length Feud, one that addressed most of the issues I wanted to bring up. Of course, now that I look back at it I see all of the points I wish I had made, but it is what it is ... a way to waste time and get us to this very special triple-digit On Running Feud. I stand by everything I said here In Defense of the Epic Adventure Game, but at the same time I do wish more companies would expand their narrative. I'm not sure I would go as far as to say we should have games about "nothing," but not every game needs to be about saving the world. That's perfectly fine for something like Final Fantasy, but maybe it's time for these smaller companies to make games that feature more emotion and less hyperbole. See how conflicted I am about this article? Believe it or not that happens more than you would know. In Retrospect: D+

Episode 100: 100 Feuds Later
So you sat through this entire article, eh? If you read all of these reviews then I don't think I need to tell you how lame this one was. It was long, confusing, and totally pointless. All I did was recap the 99 episodes before this one, what is the point of that? But don't worry Defunct Gamers; the next 100 Feuds will be much better. Heck, maybe the next group will actually have a point - that would be a major improvement over this history lesson. I'll admit that it was fun to go back and look at the first 50 or so Feuds, but do I really need to tell you what I was thinking about Feud 97? That article was posted only a week ago, not enough time has passed for me to really talk about it. But who cares, I had this idea for the 100th episode for months now and it's good to finally have it out of the way. But let me tell you, this has been one long adventure getting it on the site. We're talking tens of thousands of words, something I didn't think I had the time for. But chances are you didn't even read all of it. You probably just skimmed it and looked at the Feuds you remembered. Admit it, that's what you did. But I don't care, because after five years I feel like I have actually accomplished something. Too bad this 100th Feud was such an overwhelming failure. In Retrospect: F