I'm looking forward to a movie later this month, called Triple 9. It's one of those edgy cops and crooks stories in the vein of The Shield, Trainding Day, and The Wire, directed by the director of The Propopostion, The Road, and Lawless. Going by his other films, it's going to be hard hittingly violent, visceral, and raw, with a morbid sense of humor. Check out this trailer.
Sakimoto is a beast. His music is visionary, it transports me like some kind of psychedelic drug (or I assume it's like this, never actually done any). I wish I knew music terms to describe his sound, but there is nothing else quite like it. It's almost alien compared to other game and film composers.
If games were an IQ test of their creators, Matsuno would be the smartest developer Square had. His grasp of role-playing mechanics are the best in Japan next to the people at From Software. These are people who I believe actually are deeply familiar with tabletop role-playing and CRPGs. Crimson Shroud is proof of this as it's the most literal recreation of dice RPGs that I can remember coming out of Japan. For me, the Ivalice universe of games is the best thing in Final Fantasy.
Oh, and I liked this game.
I don't think 4 and 5 suck. Actually, I played the hell out of 5 and it was my first platinum trophy on PS3. 6 is very sloppily put together but still offered some fun. But here will always be this impasse between the old and the new because we are looking at what are two different genres represented in this series. RE began with at least one foot firnly planted in the adventure genre, not unlike Alone in the Dark. Over time, and this is even beginning in RE2, it morphed in the direction of arcade/action. It's obvious then why this series is divisive. It's not about what is "better" (although I think REmake has a more thoughtful, interesting design than any of the "shooter" entries), but about two different audiences and what they are being served, if served at all.
On a side note, it's funny how "moving forward" is always in the direction of being an action game. Or almost always, as some developers push their games towards pseudo role-play or action-rpg. But it's always towards the lizard brain pleasures of violence and spectacle and never towards more cerebral, contemplative standards. And it also is a bit of bullshit because real time action was the beginning of video games, so how can you move forward toward it?
And it's these HD remasters that are keeping Resident Evil relevant. I don't think Umbrella Corps is going to do shit for them in the market or in the eyes of customers. It could be a good little MP shooter on its own but do nothing for the RE name. And can I just say that that view point is horrible? Why the fuck do developers see fit to cut off your left side peripheral vision. It's just wierd to have your guy in the lower left corner of the screen like that. It's like RE4 and Gears got it right and it's been getting worse over time.
Actually, their Kickstarter campaign explicity states "8bit and 16bit classics" and name drops Zelda and Diablo. These influences are apparent in the video previews, as it should be in 2016. Makes me wonder why the industry keeps engaging in "sound bite" descriptions when video footage does a better job of describing what the game is like.
These were on my list for last year. Maybe they will make it out this year. Am I a hipster because I'm more excited about these indie and mid market games than any of the AAA games coming out?
Yeah, the Dark Souls comparisons are getting lazy, on both the part of developers and the audience. Souls didn't invent the use of stamina bars in combat, or parrying, or dark fantasy, or difficulty. Did these people play any other From Software games, any other ARPGs, or any of the PC sword simulators that came out in the early 2000s (like Severance: Blade of Darkness, Die by the Sword)? So, unless these "dark souls inspired" games have online invasions...
has been hard to maintain enthusiasm for Guardian after all this time. They need to show a killer demo to respark the flame. The boy and his dog theme is sure to wreck me though if this game is up to the standards of their other games.
Is ME4 going to be Sirius Shepard again? I want to play as the swaggering Cpt. Flint Chestrock, dicking down alien babes by the dozen with my prodigious member, shooting first like Han Solo on angel dust, and saving the muh'fukkin day in style. Original? No. Fun as hell? Absolutely.
Hate Uncharted, love DOOM. Don't like the glowing blue items popping out of monsters though, looks tacky. Yeah games are soooo much more immersvie nowadays with that shit (sarcasm). Still it's DOOM and not Military FPS: Swag Ops 23, so I'm interested in seeing if the rest of their design is as pants on head stupid as blue candy shooting out of demon buttholes.
I was thinking of Saints Row 4. I haven't played it, but I know about the super powers. They made travel fun, which is another area most open world games fail in. Insipred by this podcast, I am thinking of doing a fairly detailed blog on how I would make GTA and similar games fun in each of their core areas, traversal/locomotion being one of them.
Horror tone of Bloodborne and "depressing" tone of Dark Souls. So Demons' Souls, in other words?, There were some really fruity areas in Dark Souls. Sparkling crystal caves? A forest of bow-legged tree men and mushroom people? A fucking brightly lit library? If DkS was depressing, then what the hell was Demon's Souls atmosphere, suicidal? I hope DkS 3 is a cohesive dark vision like DeS and not the fantasy mix-tape that the DkS games were.
Entertaining show, guys. Reminded me of 1up podcasts/Retronauts. A couple of things:
About lack of actual characters in open world games: In Ultima 7, every NPC had unique dialogue and a daily schedule where they rose, went to work/church/traveled, did leisure activities after work (like eating at a pub), slept in their own bed. As far as I know, it's the only open world game to have done this, although I heard Gothic had similar attention paid to characters. No one has done it since though.
What open world games do wrong - lack of fun or interesting core mechanics: I beat Dragon's Dogma twice and may do it again soon. Why did it keep my interest while I drop most other open world games? Because it was built around very good combat and monster design. It's fun just to run around and fight. You look forward to the next quest or dungeon, wondering what cool monster you'll come across and how fun it will be fight it. You're also going into very immersive dungeons, where light and darkness matter. There is no parallel in GTA or Far Cry to fighting some of the beasts you fight in DD, nothing as fierce, challenging, or grand of scale. Nothing as atmospheric or full of tension. Another example is The Phantom Pain. Now there is a lot of tedium and bloat in the game, and a lot of throaway level design, but controlling Snake is fun in itself. You get a lot of cool toys to play with, both technological and organic. I can only imagine if the boss fights were up to the standard of other MGS games that this would easily be the best game so far this generation. Still, I will finish this game on PS3 and then probably get one of the current gen releases and do it all again. This while so many other open world games I've played recently have fallen by the wayside.
