I might aswell just update my blog with this guys stuff every time he updates, because he pretty much represents the gaming industry as i would like.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2005-Gamer
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Controversy
This is probably going to be a long one, so BUCKLE UP KIND SIRS!
Above picture isn’t really related, but i thought it was adorable.
Above picture isn’t really related, but i thought it was adorable.
Controversy is something that tends to catch up with any medium, whether it be art, literature, films, or in this case, video games. As it happens, it’s very much video games time in the limelight, such recent examples include mass effect being branded a “porn simulator”(Linkidy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU), the hot coffee mod for GTA and the slightly more obscure, but still excellent example, six days in Fallujah. Lets start with Mass Effect. If you haven’t played it, Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG/TPS from Bioware, and since it’s released it’s received pretty damn good reviews, with the sequel gaining even more prestige. The game prides itself on the players actions really making a difference in the world that they play in. For example, at the end of a mission you might have the option of saving the residential section of a space colony, but making that planet uninhabitable, or saving the industrial sector, leaving everyone in the residential section to die, but allowing for the planet to still be inhabited. Say we choose option A, and save everyone. You’re the good right? Wrong. Turns out that the planet you just made uninhabitable was going to be the centre of the universes first collective peace settlement, and since that planet just got assimilated, some of the races looking the sign the treaty aren’t so down with it now. Congratulation, you’ve just prevented galactic peace. Admittedly, your actions don’t always go that deep, but you get the general idea, what decisions you make in the game matter, and you have to play with them. That being said, it’s possible to develop relationships with the crew of your ship along your adventures, and if you play your cards right, you can find yourself a romantic interest. Now, near the end of the game, if you’ve been developing this interest, you and whoever you’ve decided to get your freak on with, will get intimate, prompting a brief, maybe 20-25 second sex scene, in which no nudity is shown. If you don’t mind, go up and watch that interview with fox news i linked somewhere back up there. Think anyone from Fox has actually played the game? If you said yes, slap yourself a little. The amount that the media just outright lies about our medium is a little more than disgraceful, and it’s a little more than infuriating. Geoff does a good job of defending the game, and does actually know what he’s talking about, which we rarely get when we get crucified to the press, but sadly some people still believe the critics on this kind of subject. Just look at the critics at the end of that video. Does it even look like any of them got past the first stage of Donkey Kong. Especially that guy in the glasses, i want to use my biotics on him IF YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN!? Right enough ranting on that, onto the next part. Surprisingly enough, i agree with the media about the hot coffee mod to an extent. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say GTA has never been a kids game, and never will be, and the hot coffee mod is complete proof of that. But then the media tried to blame the fact that kids were seeing this on the gaming industry…when GTA has an 18 label…and shouldn’t be sold to anyone younger than that….because that’s not retails fault at all, and it’s not like the original creators intended this, it’s a mod for Christs sake, the game was hacked and changed. I’ve heard a few people say “While why not just make games unhackable?”. If you’re one of these people, you’re stupid for a set of reasons. One, they can’t make the pentagon unhackable, yet you expect them to make a teeny tiny disk completely hack proof, two, this would add, literally, months to the development process, delaying games we really want to see even further, and stretching production costs even more. And finally, ever heard a little thing called Counter-Strike? How about Dota? You have? Super! Considering the fact that these two mods have created a massive community by themselves proves that we can’t just stop modding games. Both mods have literally millions and millions of followers, and are being constantly updated by the community. You can’t take that away from people, ever, especially not a community that spends half its times breaking games for that one great idea they had that could make it so much better. And finally onto my last topic. Now, if you don’t know about 6 days in Fallujah, I’m just going to ask you to follow this linky right huur ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFsQM6o4uoY ) and ask you to watch from 1:20 to 3:03 for what exactly the game is about and what happened surrounding it, since this guy explains it far better than i ever could. If you want to see Fox doing their douche bag thing again, keep watching till about 4:30. What always confused me about this game is how this is controversial, but every Call of Duty, Medal of Honour and clones of such isn’t. I mean Modern Warfare 2 is one of the most popular games pretty much ever at the moment, and yet the majority of it’s predecessors are based on real wars, with real fights, with far more people dying than in Fallujah. Alongside that, the actual soldier that were THERE, at the battle, seeing the fighting, seeing the killing, wanted this game to be made, because they wanted people to see what it was like out there. This game was never designed to be a “murder simulator” or to “dishonor the memories of the fallen” or whatever BS the media slapped on it at the time. This was supposed to be a collective documentary of what happened in those 6 day, an education from the men that fought there, and yet still the project was closed down due to the media. This is why i have no faith in our public anymore, because they look at something like this and say “That’s a porn simulator” when it’s not, or saying “the gaming companies are destroying our children’s lives” when really they just don’t know how to stop their kids buying 18 games when they’re 14. Or finally, when the public says a game is “dishonoring the dead” when it’s trying to do exactly the opposite.
Thank you and goodnight.
How to ruin a franchise
Square-Enix has done alot of seriously good work in their time, most famously the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, some amazing gems like Chrono Trigger and Kingdom Hearts, as well as the Star Ocean series. However, they seem to be slowly making a habit of ruining their longer running franchises. Take Star Ocean for example. While being one of their more unheard of series, the first three games (I’m not counting Blue Sphere) were exceptional. Solid RPGs with new ideas, new battle systems, a good plot, characters you cared about and a game that came together to make something that was truly, in my opinion, exceptional. However, then “The Last Hope” came out. Initially, the game looked solid, a 3-D updated version of the battle system looked good and functional and new. However, as i got into the game, i found several things to be desperatly amiss. The characters were annoying, the game demanded severe griding int eh later stages to get anywhere, the plot was ill-explained, and the voice acting ranged from average to painful. The final game didn’t really make much of a dent in the market over here, and i still see alot of copies that were taken back, probably because people didn’t feel like RUNNING AROUND A BEACH FOR AN HOUR. Which brings me roughly to my next point, Final Fantasy XIII. Having played about half the back catalogue, it’s safe to say that I’m a pretty decent fan of the series. Each one did something new in some form or another, and as far as I’m aware, each one has a significant fan base, for good reason. As i think every one else was, i was expecting a brand new RPG, doing all kinds of amazing things that had yet to be seen in the genre. What did we get? Running down a corridor for about the first 8 hours of the game. Yeah. When you finally do get to an open world section, it’s almost the end of the game, and by this point you just want it to be over. You can go back to the massive world of Pulse after the end boss, but that somewhat defies the point of having an open world to explore. Ultimately, i found the game to be a massive disappointment. Now, Deus Ex 3 happens to be coming out soon. Please Sqaure, don’t get a hat-trick for crushing my dreams.
A lack of imagination
I know I’m not the first one to say this, but you would think that massive gaming companies would take the time and trouble to recruit people with a decent imagination. Every other game that comes out is a mediocre FPS, almost always containing one inventive and good idea, and the rest being the usual FPS generic formula. A good example of this is every Call of Duty ever, and that’s not to say it’s a bad game. Call of Duty has pretty much single-handedly caused an entire generation to turn to video games, even if some of less mature taint the image of the community, and with all this new attention, investors are pouring insane amounts of money into game development, and even if it’s not into innovative idea, it is money going into the industry. Small time indie developers can start to get more funding for their ideas, which run off practically nothing compared to the larger game companies, and maybe one day, they can get commissioned for a big budget game with all the ideas they wanted to get out before, but couldn’t due to money issues. Incidentally, this is pretty much how Nintendo’s going to get their next god load of money. Thanks to the
And so it begins again...
Once again i begin down the path of blogging, but this time i’m actaully giving myself a topic that i can converse with, rather than just trying to think up random points to discuss with myself. So, with that said, let’s start at the begining, as you normally do.
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