Countless blogs on this, but just wow. I know all the Gamespot Editors remaining have to think about winning the bread and feeding their families, so this must be super hard on them. Props to Tim T for sure.
Viva la Jeff; end of an era. Gamespot have lost their star, Gamespot have lost their integrity, Gamespot have lost my subscription money.
All over a C-list game. It's a shame.
Cevat Yeru, incase you don't know is the CEO of Crytek. He is also a God.
Okay, okay... mabye not a God, God... but... he really is a [overlooked] great developer. I mean, he's the CEO...usually CEOs walk around in ill-fitting suits talking about market share and penetration, okay... so he overuses the phrase I.P. (interlctual property, not internet protocal :P ) but English isn't even his first language...so we'll let that slide.
Obviously, he didn't make FarCry and the Crytek / Crytek2 engines himself. But as a company leader, and visionary, I think this guy holds a strong future wherever he goes.
Peronsally, I can listen to him talk for hours, there's no wonder he was chosen to speak at the GDC in London, the guy knows his stuff, and loves his work, and rightly so.
There's not really a point to this blog post, as with most of my blog posts. I just thought I'd throw some kudos toward Cevat.
Comment if you agree. :)
It's 4.30am GMT, and I'm currently tuned into the live launch event. Charlie Murphy + Ludacris... hmmm... yeah. Mabye this is "Street" or "Gangster" gaming. Now, not to sound judgemental, but the general audience being interviewed aren't that clued up on games. I mean, one dude is after Gears of War for the PS3....erm...yeah. Let alone Charlie Murphy who confused Gamestop and Gamespot.
It just seems 'wrong' that Sony rewards the "non-hardcore" with this launch event. Granted; some of the people in attendance are fairly hardcore, traveling from London, Russia, etc, but this event is yet another example of the blurring of the line between gamestream and mainstream.
I think there's gaming popculture...as in; whats popular amongst game culture,
and then there's pop culture gaming... as in; whats gamings' image in the mainstream.
I think the contrast would be between Gamespot's After Hours event, and Sony's PS3 launch event.
In conclusion to this 4.30 delirious rant... foul-mouthed CHARRRRRRLIE MURPHY plus suit-dress Kaz Hirai = bad mix.
Woah.
You'd hope somewhere between the first and second demo, the developers may have strayed onto a few forums, and actually read the opinions of their customers.
Apparently not.
This game has an awesome premise, that's just about enough to make any car enthusiast moist. However, if the demo is any indication, the game is just broken.
Where to begin? Handling. Arcadey? Nope. Simulation? Nope. Sega Genesis? Nope. Shopping trolley with peanut butter wheels? Yes! It's hard to describe the handling of a car game, so thats what the demo is for. Try it. Cars are broken, bikes are broken... its all just broken. Even with all driving aids set to "off" you cant even drift without the computer trying to [badly] counter-steer for you.
What else. Oh yes, this game must have been made by the environmental party, because whoever made this game has no love for cars. The [lack of] attention to detail is shocking. A fine example as pointed out on the GS forums is that the Nissan Skyline is magically left hand drive! Mmm... Purist.
Sound. Yup... they even managed to mess that up. Engines sound dull and boring, even on the most glorious of speaker setups. Nothing else to say about the sound...although I finally understand why my TV has a "Mute" feature.
Graphics. Bhahahahhahahaha. Okay, I get it; it's a huuuuge map, so it's pretty CPU / GPU intensive, so it can't look as nice as PGR. But again, its just bad modelling / texturing. Everything is so bland and utilitarian. Gran Turismo 4 is easily a better looking game. So much for next gen.
Game Balance. This one has me cheesed of the most. As with every game...all sins can be forgiven as long as the end result is fun. This game is far from fun.
So, I booted up the demo, jumped in a Ferrari F430, and thought I'd challenge another player who was on a bike. I knew he'd have me in a straight line, but the twisties should be my territory. So, the first race is pretty much a straight line, and he wins hands down. The second race I get to choose a corse! So I pick a miandering, twisty canyon/tougue route, followed by a long straight, to even things up a bit. I start off down the road, ready to attack the corners....the bike simply dives off the road, drives down the side of the hill, easily dodging the occassional tree and onto the long straight.
What the hell.
Yeah. Broken.
Company reps are in a very influential possition regarding the success of their product. Working in retail, we have company reps come to our store, and show us video footage of games, and generally talk about what's going on. When the reps first start coming, they simply show you videos, and try to get you hyped about their stuff, but as you get to know them, and as they get to know your genuine interest for the industry, the conversations certainly get more interesting.
Take gears of war for example. In late June a Microsoft rep "guaranteed" me that Gears of War would launch on the same day as the PS3. Futhermore, he explained the reasons for this. P.O.S. That is to say "Point of Sale" and it's all the cardboard cut-outs, all the posters, and all the shelf-space in a given store. Ordinarily; it would all be given to the PS3... at £425 a pop, retailers would be stupid not to give it space right..? Well... wrong. You see, there's only going to be X amount of PS3s... and they'll sell no matter what, so there's no point in promoting them at all. However, when the average Joe comes into the store, with £450 burning a hole in his pocket for a PS3, only to find out he cant get one. Well, that cardboard cutout of Gears of War, and those bundles with a X360, HD-DVD player and Gears of War for £400 will look awfully tempting!
Then there's the other side of reps. Such as the Ubisoft rep, who the week after E3, was trying to convince me that Assasin's Creed was an EA title. With reps like this; it's easy to see where the crazy rumours come from.
Either way, it leaves me pondering. Should I bother posting this stuff? "Everyone" claims to know someone who knows someone who met a guy who told a guy who then told the other guy that J Allard was totally working on that X360 handheld, and I dunno... I think posting this stuff would just make me a part of the problem.
HD-DVD player...hmmm £100 methinks.
Ah!
I don't like being wrong god dammit!
By the time San Andreas made it into my console, I was pretty much done with the whole "crime sim" genre, so a bootleg of GTA just seemed like it didn't need a second look. (Although, a bootleg of GTA is just so much more gangsta!)
However, I upgraded my connection with my ISP, and needed some large files to download to test it out, so... 1 gig saint's row demo? I'll hit that.
So it sits on my hard drive, and sits, and sits. Then a bunch of customer's at work keep trash talking it as a GTA copy, and none of them had played it, so I kinda had some sympathy for the game, so booted it up.
Woah. I was wrong. My impressions are based soley on the demo, but the game has CHARACTERS. The story-telling mechanics in the demo were awesome. I finished the demo WANTING to know how it played out, and I guess thats what a demo should do.
Seriously, if you hate the crime-sim genre....well...this game probably wont change your mind... once your on the streets...yeah... it pretty much becomes GTA, but the story line is compelling, and the characters seem deep. Voice acting is also top notch. I'll defo play through this.
Can you say POINTS?
I'm very much an achievement point fan. I get a kick when I see the pop-up saying "Achievement unlocked" and I like the feeling of extra reward for performing a particular duty in a game.
So far, some games are using it successfuly, other games...well...not so successful. Some games have too few achievements, like Fifa- Road to world cup. Others have too many, such as Table Tennis. Completing that game on all-star setting requires a feat of gaming Godness. Yet the reward is like a measly 40 points or somthing. Booo! I like the balance of points in Project Gotham. A large chunk for completeing the game at different difficulties, and then some other well thought ones, a particular favourite being the one for completeing a race, on hardest difficulty, using manual gears. This achievement forces you to learn manual gears, which in turn makes you a better driver...using achievement points to change how gamers play.
Then there's the effect of changing what gamers play. I like that I play sports games for achievement points. I hate sports games, or at least... I thought I did. NBA 2k6 turns out is a great game, one I thoroughly enjoy, and probably wouldn't have played if it wasn't for the points.
However, I've realised there's a flip side to this. When I have my free set of gaming time... Guitar Hero sits neglected, while I instead choose to grind Table Tennis for measly point after measly point.
Guitar hero is a game I really enjoy playing, it's rewarding on its own without giving out achievement points...yet... I choose to invest my time in making a little number on my gamercard tick up.
So... what games have you been neglecting lately? Is it just me who is struck by this disease?
I like how achievement points make me play new genres of games, previously untouched. But I'm starting to realise, it's making me avoid other good games.
Ah...screw it... back to grinding TabTen!
( My X360's blog )
Ok, So...Everyone is sounding off about the press conference, so I'll join right in!
First off... that was just so dry. They had all the hype in the world in that room, and they just didn't capitalise on it at all.
The figures of PS2 and PSP sales was predicted, it's their annual press conference afterall, and they're not just there to show off the PS3. But then they started with the PS3 stuff...and...err.... eh?! Gran Turismo HD. I'm _the_ biggest GT fan in zee world...and, I was really disappointed. I think they could have delivered it a lot better.
Having 1080p IS a big deal. X360 has 720p. Thats 1280x720 pixels. Totalling 0.9 mega pixels. 1080p is 1920x1080 pixels. Totalling 2.0 mega pixels. Thats over double the number of pixels being rendered!
Any PC gamer will know that cranking up the resolution is a sure-fire way to kill your frame-rate. It was a source of much debate whether the PS3 would actually feature 1080p, so for them to finally confirm it really is big. But they should have just ran a reel of GT4 running in SD and then cut to the 1080p version, and be done with it! In the stream especially, it just looked like GT4... in the screenshots afterwards, yes; it actually looks REALLY nice, the GUI especially. (The screenshots aren't even 1/4 of the actual HD resolution either)
So yeah... that went on way too long. They shouldn't have bound themself by this "playable" rule. They should have done the resolution comparison, and then done a car model comparison. Showing a GT1 car, GT2 car, GT4 car, and then a GT5 car, quoting the increase in polygons. GT4 cars were around 6,000 polygons each, Project gotham is 100,000+ so we can assume the PS3 can handle even more... and with Polyphony Digital's reputation for pushing the boundries... 150,000 polies would be a conservative guess. THAT would have been impressive, not showing me a replace of the grand canyon with 2D sprite people...
Moving on, I really liked the Formula One using the PSP as a mirror. Ok, not uber useful in that sense, but if you wanna take the HUD away from the screen in "next-gen" games like Fight Night 3 on the X360, then I think the PSP is a perfect place to display ammo counts, maps, and the like. This is a neat feature, and when taht killer app comes for it, it will totally make sense.
The next cool thing was Heavenly Sword. The HDRI lighting was absaloutely phonomenal. Running that at 1080p and 60fps is just "wow." But again.... totally crap delivery.
One of my favourite bits was from EA Sports. The tech demos totally rocked. Both the Tiger Woods and the NBA were just awesome. It may not seem that much to the casual gamer, but anyone who does animation or game design will just be "wow."
Then they reeled a montage of "What's a little further down the road..." What a waste that was. Aside from a little grin at the Tekken 6 section, I was bored to tears.
Then... Metal Gear! It could have been presented, SO MUCH better... why wasn't Hideo on stage? Every other moomin got on stage, but the one guy who could have really got the crowd going was nowhere to be seen. However, the video delivered, and the thing looks awesome, can't wait to play it, yadda yadda, etc etc.
At this point in the conference I was totally just disappointed. Then "One last secret", I was certainly intreagued. Controller was revealed.
This is where I could totally go on about the "technology theft" idea, but... so many others have done that, I'll save you the trouble. As a future PS3 owner, I'd rather it have it, than not have it. As for lack of vibration, I couldn't even tell you right now if my 360 has vibration or not...I can't remember; so it's obviously something I don't pay much attention to.
One potentially disppointing thing about the controller was the maximum number of players. The controller appears to sport 4 indicator lights on the back, which show which player that pad belongs to.... so much for 7 controllers? Even the PS1 could have 8 players with a multi-tap, so this seems a little backwards at the moment, I could be wrong...and I hope I am.
Price point: Well...yes, its expensive. Especially for UK residents. We're paying £90 ($168 ) more than USA residents and getting nothing extra. $168!!!!!!!!! What?! Why?! How?! Is this legal?! At £410 ($763!!!!!!) it's still cheaper than a gaming-PC of anywhere near equivilent performance, and added to that the fact it's a 1080p blu-ray player, then it starts to make sense, this is how I'm justifying it to myself (and possibly my bank manager: )
In summary, I think the conference was one of Sony's worst in recent years. I think if you dig for the pure facts of the conference, the PS3 is looking really good, but having to dig for facts in a conference is just wrong.
It was as if Peter Moore had kidnapped Phil Harrison's family and said "Make this conference pathetic, else I'll kill your family." The guy had a house loud of ammunition to deliver, but was just so unenthusiastic and reluctant to do so. Microsoft and Nintendo are going to punish Sony in their conferences, expect lots of abuse. Either way... roll on November 17th!
It's ranting time!
"Why?"
Thats what I say. But in relation to what? Well... its to do with this "world" we live in of microtransactions and monthly subscriptions.... only... it isn't.
Far be it beyond me to understand the world's economy (I dont think anyone does...else we wouldn't have third world debt) however, why do we in the UK pay through the eyes for our games?
A few figures;
Your average PS2 game...lets say Resident Evil 4...
US: $39.99
UK: $62.08 (£34.99)
Lets try hardware... PSP Value Pak
US: $249.99
UK: $319.38 (£179.99)
and my favourite... "next-gen" ... the 360... Kameo!
US: $49.99
UK: $88.70 177% of the price...for the same game!
Now, Last time I checked, the UK hadn't fallen into the 3rd world... last time I checked, we didnt have any special tax on video games.
It's hardly like we don't contribute to the video game industry either. Many of the top X360 launch titles were made in the UK... including the top 2 selling; PGR3 and PDZ.
So, the next time you feel hard-pressed parting with your $60 for your sweet slice of the next-gen pie... remember; you could (and I do) pay almost $90 for that game!!!
( This is where I'm supposed to rant about european release dates... but it's a lost caused.... we never recieved Katamari Damarcy, We're still waiting for pshyconauts.... BUT... we ARE getting We Love Katamari.... yup... and the RRP? $58!!! (£32.99) Yup... it's fun to live in europe :) ... did I mention we're also good at whining, ranting and complaining?
Again... no real point to this blog... but... its a blog... ya know?
( Prices from ebgames.com and game.net )
HYPE HYPE HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111
What am I talking about? Next-gen baby! Next-gen? Eh? Why does everything have to be in generations? Is it next gen because its new?? or next gen because its better? Hmmm... My generation is newer than that of my parents... but does that make me better? Well... lets not get side-tracked.
Back to the hype!
I hooked myself up with an Xbox360, and the thing is a pure hype machine. From the moment you think of getting one, its hype hype hype. You can't get one, because of the hype. When you do get one; you get a PREMIUM system, its not just a system, whats that? MORE HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then when you get it, oh ma gawd; so much hype. If one of your friends sign into Xbox LIVE, its like the commeth of the lord... even browsing through the "Blades" of the XBOX dashboard is like an event, with the wooshing of sound coming through your speakers. 'tis crazy!
Anyhoo, I like hype. So this is goooooood!
HYPE HYPE HYPE!!!!!!!
Like most blog posts, there's no real meaning to this one, no story to take away, and no life-changing material. But. HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111
Hype rocks. It makes a small event HUUUUUGE, and thats...well.... good!
Hype!
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