I’m very cerebral.  When someone makes a mistake, I like to understand the psychology of the decision.  I accept that human beings aren’t good at everything, but the irrational decisions are the ones that drive me nuts.  What makes a human being believe that cutting across three lanes of traffic to hit their turn is a good idea?  I don’t know, it hurts my brain trying to figure it out, but it intrigues me.

Last week, Southpeak Interactive continued their inevitable road to death by releasing X-Blades, a port of the Russian game Oniblade.  The goal of most businesses is to create a profit.  Since X-Blades is a beat ‘em up, it will be compared to God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and/or Devil May Cry.  You’re an unknown property.  Even though IGN gave your game a six-of-ten, the review was a bloodbath.

Everything about X-Blades is mediocre. It works for what it is, and there’s some charm to the action and the characters, but the gameplay design is lacking in ingenuity; a notion that is perpetuated the longer you play. Some will be able to find more enjoyment with X-Blades than I, but most will likely wind up walking away before the adventure is over.

Whether or not people will play the game start-to-finish is questionable.  It features no replay value.  It features no multiplayer.  And it’s rated M, so it’s not even being targeted at kids.  So here’s my question: At a time when the game industry is ripping their hair out over software piracy, why have you just published the kind of game that will get shredded by it?

Once every four years, Feburary’s lineup for video games becomes serious fuckin’ business™.

TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SEGA® Corporation today announced a worldwide agreement with International Sports Multimedia (ISM), exclusive licensee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to once again become the sole approved video game publisher of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. After an extremely successful series of video games from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, this exclusive license will allow SEGA to once more publish the only official interactive entertainment software titles of the world’s most famous sporting event.

Pretend you develop games.  You’ve played them your entire life.  You got a job at a reputable software company.  Your creativity can now flourish.  Now, your boss wants you to create a game based on the Olympics.  This game will be a collection of minigames.  Since the Olympics is serious fuckin’ business™, you have no room to compete other party games.  No matter how sloppy the finished product is, you will sell at least a million copies.  On the off-chance you create an average video game (and therefore the best Olympic game ever), your bosses will take credit for securing the license that fostered your creative talents.

Of course, maybe you’ll get lucky.  Your boss will green-light a platform game based on an Olympic mascot.

How depressing.