Quality Control. Quality Assurance. Those are words you'll typically find on the credits of your new gen video games. But how much weight does that name truly hold?

I'm planning on playing Paper Mario, the original, today. My reasons are simple; I wanna play a GOOD game, one that has been around for a while. I play Paper Mario a few times a year on average, but this time it's been sitting on my shelves at home, and hasn't been played through in about two years. The reason I like to play Paper Mario is it's a masterful game, filled with many different scenarios, and holyfuck the musical score is AMAZING. I am of mind to record it myself, master it, and put it up for download so everyone can enjoy it, since there is not [at least to my knowledge] a Paper Mario 1 soundtrack floating around out there. More to the point, I am usually FLOODED with happiness when I play Paper Mario. I find myself enjoying life, sometimes grinning for no reason. This game has a special power over me. It enhances my life. I've never seen the words 'quality control' on the credits for that game, but if there were, they were true words, very true.

So, why play one of my favorite older games, when I could play one of my favorite newer games? Funny answer; I don't feel that joy from new games. Even though they are my favorite new games, they DO NOT enhance my life, they don't make me smile, and I don't wake up early every morning, excited and ready to play some more. Yet the words Quality Control seem to be plastered all over the credits, so that we can't miss them or something. "QUALITY CONTROL. We spent HOURS on this fucking game to make SURE it's up to par". Did you? I don't think I'm convinced. And if you DID spend hours to make sure your games were up to par, and the best they could be, you obviously did a shitty job.

Back then, game companies had nearly all the time in the world to make the games they were known for. The only constant pressure to release the game was from the roaring and cheering of the fans that enjoyed that companies games, which made them work even harder. Today, all developers have time schedules, sometimes only 12 months of a schedule, and when that time is up, they have to put the game out, as-is, even if it's not finished. Yet 'quality control' is still in the credits. Do you know what 'game developer' means? In English, I think it means LIAR.

There are small embers of hope out there. Rockstar is one of them. They spent four years developing and crafting GTA IV. Before you think I'm biased, let me remind you that I don't really play GTA games. I like to watch others play them, but when I pick up the controller I don't get through one single mission, as my animal instincts revert me back to running over pedestrians and whapping a baseball bat upside a gangster's head, starting a gang war. Yet I know a good game when I see one, and by that I mean a game that was carefully developed with plenty of REAL quality control. The intricate details! The attention to quality. GTA IV really is it's own world, in which you can immerse yourself into. I can't say this for most games. Not at all.

Quality control? There's a very small number of game developers out there that can even spell those words. After all, you don't have to go through composition classes anymore to make a game. Back then, they made sure you could spell, tie your shoes and count to ten before you were hired into making the games we loved. You know what though? We can spell 'quality control' and because of that, we damn sure know when others aren't spelling it correctly. Keep an eye out for those words next time you watch the credits of your PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii games, and watch for typos. Until next time everyone. -Astro-