PixlBit

Excellent editorial J-Bone. I'm on the fence about this game and for now I'm going to sit back and see how it releases, and what people think of it. Hopefully you guys get the chance to review it and get your thoughts out.

Back when we started talking about Tomb Raider and how unsettling it was that they said they "needed" an M rating to tell a mature story, I had doubts about the game. As time goes on everytime I see something cool about the game, there's always something offputting to balance it out. Back when they showed that trailer where Croft was evading enemies and environmental dangers on that boat, I thought that was cool, that felt like some interesting survival gameplay. I'd like to see more evasion, stealth, and exploration in my adventure games.

But then it gets balanced out by the devs making statements about me needing to protect her. I don't want to take care of her and coddle her, I want to be her and embrace her character as my own avatar in this world of survival.

Other things that balanced out my excitement and made me "meh" on this game is that when I saw the E3 gameplay from last week it just looked like every game I've ever played. It looked like Uncharted with boobs, Splinter Cell, Last of Us, Assassin's Creed, everything just put together with a "different" skin. During one of the podcasts Esteban said that, "People who say that Tomb Raider is just Uncharted, need to remember that Uncharted is just Tomb Raider." I don't buy into that at all. The Tomb Raider series fell out of favor with people I would assume, otherwise why would they be rebooting it like this? The Uncharted series came out and basically became everything TR should've been in the first place, and now TR is trying to play "catch up" with the younger whipper snapper series that it influenced.

This game just looks like everything I've played before, but with tits and a pretty face. I've seen characters suffer before, I've seen blood in games, broken limbs, crying, etc. I've seen characters go through trilas of fire, I don't see why it's going to matter in TR. They have a lot to prove, and I'm on the fence about it so I'm not going to be playing. I hope they change my mind.

Thanks for checking out the blog Nick, I'm glad you liked the Sylosis song I put up! I'd be really proud if I was able to turn you onto Sylosis, they're my favorite modern metal group. They have two albums out and you can virtually find all their songs on youtube if you want to give them a try. On iTunes they should have both albums as well. The first is called Conclusion of An Age, and the second is called Edge of the Earth. Both are stellar, can't go wrong.

What album(s) or songs from Coheed & Cambria have you been listening to? I haven't listened to them for a few years but I always loved their sound. If you can recommend some songs are albums I'll definitely go check them out.

I have a lot of music I could recommend to you Nick, is there anything specific you like or are looking to try out? Are there any particular types of singing you want to hear (conventional, operatic, screaming/growling, etc)? Do you like a good melody? Any particular genres?

I'm glad you guys brought up the fact that E3 started out as a sales event of sorts, because I never knew that, and it makes sense when you see what it serves as today. If your prediction about E3 is correct and the company specific events become more important, I won't have a problem with that at all as long as those smaller company specific events get the coverage they deserve.

E3 might not always have the tone I look for, but the thing I've always loved about E3 is how accessible and well covered it is. The entire expo week I could just turn on the TV and find hours of coverage on both Spike and G4, and if that wasn't enough I could go online to Pixlbit and get a bunch of info here too. It's very well covered and very convenient. Making it so accessible and convenient to watch allows it to get to a mass audience and for a plugged in gamer like me it makes my duty of following it much easier.

If the company specific events become the new hotness, I just want them to be very easy for me to get to. I don't want to have to sign up for any mailing lists, forums, memberships, or jump through a dozen links online just to get to some coverage. Now assuming your prediction is true J-Bone, if the company specific events are the new hotness, are you guys going to cover them closely and report on them like you would E3?

The Nintendo press conference was a big downer at E3, but I still want to like the Wii U, they just haven't given me reasons. If the Wii U event you mentioned is going to be the thing to watch, I'm really excited about it and optimistic still. I want to see price point, release date, I want to see more games.

I just want the type of information a consumer needs to have. E3 didn't give us the type of info a consumer needs, it just gave you fluff and attempted to woo you with shiny junk and expected you to be excited for the sake of it. We need a real event that explains the real important info: price, release, what you get for your money, bundles, launch games, post launch games in the works. All of this isn't much to ask, those are all necessary things that have to exist if you want to make a successful product, and people didn't get any of that info at E3.

You should give Crysis 2 a chance some day if you have the time and it's at a nice price. Crysis 2 is mechanically my favorite shooter I've ever played. It's not my favorite franchise, or my favorite anything else, but when it comes to mechanics and level design it's one of the best in the business. The action-combat and stealth-combat works perfectly in their level designs and the mechanics are built for it. The game knows what it wants to offer and it executes it well. I was able to spend at least 50% of the game in Cloak mode sneaking around and executing people from behind. I was able to play this FPS game like an old Splinter Cell game and I loved that. Crysis has influence and DNA from Halo, Call of Duty, and Half Life strewn all throughout it. Even with all those influences, it manages to create it's own identity, look, and feel.

Last of Us should be really fun JD, it looks like a blast, but it's not like we haven't played this game before. It's like every game you've ever played. It's like the new Tomb Raider, it's like Splinter Cell Conviction, it's like Uncharted with an M rating, we could go on. It has that now "classic" over the shoulder perspective that started becoming standard after Gears of War, it has the mechanics you'd expect it to have, it has some interactions I'd expect it to have in contemporary game design. The little daughter AI is cool but it's not an innovation.

It'll be a ton of fun from what I've seen, but it doesn't earn Game of Show for me because I've already played that game before. The hypocrisy in that statement is that my choice was Halo 4 and I've been playing Halo since 2001 lol, but that's just because I'm a huge fan. I pick Halo 4 because I'm genuinely excited for the new story and gameworld. The gameplay itself should be pretty familiar.

Angelo is the man for picking Halo 4. Runner up for me is Watch Dogs.

Jules and J-Bone team up under one roof, under one podcast? The Hellblock Heroes and the Triforce worlds collide? Mr. 117 approves. I just started listening, I'll come up with a real comment eventually.

Growing up I missed out on many physical gaming magazines. I had a subscription to Nintendo Power and I still remember the Gamecube launch, and I remember reading about Luigi's Mansion and everything. I missed out on everything else though, so I never got the chance to read a bunch of publications while I was on the toilet. My toilet time has never been as eventful as that. I would just drop the hammer of dawn and bug out.

I was ranting a bit about E3 to Mike in his video series and I asked him, "What is E3 even for anymore? Is it for us?" I didn't feel like this expo was really for me, it was more for investors, people who majored in business, and PR. The Nintendo conference ended so flaccid and was so pathetic with that lame-ass Nintendoland fireworks display. After the fact, Reggie had the nerve to go talk to the Spike guys and say, "I think we did amazing, people are super excited!"

I like Reggie, but this Expo is just full of business talk and fluff. When I watch people do interviews and see reps showing off a game it's as if they are all being watched over by some malevolent monster that's going to suck them into the abyss if they say one thing out of turn, show any human behavior, or free will. Everybody is required to save face, talk their product up, promise you the moon, and say whatever it takes to satisfy shareholders or executives. Can you even act like a gamer, or a skeptic at E3 anymore? Can you be treated like an intelligent consumer? From what I see you have to just keep your mouth shut unless the words coming out of your mouth are, "We're all super excited! This game looks like it'll revolutionize gaming and entertainment, it's the biggest gameworld ever, you've never seen a shooter like this before, there's unlimited possibilities in this game, it'll harken the rapture and take all of you into nirvana where you can watch unicorns poop popsicles."

I love Crysis 3 and I'm going to buy it the day it comes out, but one of their guys was giving an interview on G4 and he was asked an honest question by Morgan Webb. She said, "So when you come into this encounter, what options will players have regarding ways to engage it?" So the fucking guy says, "Well theoretically there's unlimited possibilities." I'm not a fucking idiot buddy, and we're not talking game theory.

Crysis 2 is one of my favorite games and I spend more than enough time studying how Crytek designs levels and does what they do. There will be 2 general options, stealth combat or action combat. The point is to kill, you will eventually kill something, and you will kill the enemies in two general ways, either being noticed or not. You have a silent bow, a knife for executions, two guns, a heavy weapon, possibly some explosive accessories, and there should be some environmental explosives clustered near enemy spawn zones or hubs. The AI will be programmed to run tasks and patrols while you have time to watch from afar and figure out if you want to sneak into a certain area or if you want to start shooting.

When people ask honest questions you shouldn't insult their intelligence or try and take them for a ride. Just answer the question. This is why I like GDC better, people seem more honest and laid back there. I don't want you to sell me Willy Wonka's fucking golden ticket. I want honest insight, technical information, and reflection on how the game is coming along, and what you're striving for.

I'm so glad you dug the blog and some of the music I put up Joaquim! I wasn't sure if anybody on the site would be able to get into it or take the time to hear the music :)

It's so cool you like Metallica's S&M live album they did, I love that album too! Do you have any particular songs you listen to the most?

I'm happy you enjoyed the musicianship in the Sylosis song I put up. I honestly could've put better Sylosis songs up there, but Teras (the song I put up) is the 1st Sylosis song I learned to play so I put it up for the sake of nostalgia I guess. Don't worry, if you aren't privy to the vocal style I know what you mean. I listen to a lot of music with screaming vocals like that but I honestly tune most of it out mentally. It's just the way my brain hears music. When I listen to music I hardly ever hear vocals and I never learn lyrics. Instead I always hear guitars and drums and I focus on those without really noticing that I'm tuning out vocals in my head. That vocalist you were hearing in the Sylosis song was actually fired after that album. The lead guitarist Josh Middleton does the vocals himself now and he still growls, but it's a bit lower pitched and dirtier. They sound even heavier now and their song writing is better now in the newer songs.

I really enjoy the show Metalocalypse lol. The first couple times I watched it I didn't know what to make of it, but after a while it grew on me. Their voice acting is ridiculous and it's funny hearing people do impressions of those characters. My friend Justin does a really good Murderface (the bass player) impression and he tries to teach me how to do it all the time, and I can't do it at all lol.

Do you like instrumental songs? If so, I'm going to leave you two good ones to check out if you would like to.

Sylosis - Where the Sky Ends: http://youtu.be/PlBfc0BvU5g This is a heavy progressive instrumental that they did and you won't have to hear any of the growling vocals. It has a more uplifting vibe to it than most of the other songs they write.

Nightwish - Last of the Wilds: http://youtu.be/0oLqP6AsI7o This is a great instrumental because it's very much full of hard rock guitar and drums but it's mixed with folksy sounds and various extra instruments outside of the normal band setup. Nightwish always does at least one great instrumental epic on their albums, and this is one of the standouts.

There's a picture of huge boobs in this preview. That is neat. There's also two ducks in a cup. I'm intrigued.

Speak of the Devil Julian, I was playing more of Dante's Inferno last night. You know what's stupid? I never realised until last night that the game was made by the Dead Space guys. The Visceral logo shows up every time you boot the game but I never correlated it with the Dead Space team because the game is so different than what they do in Dead Space. Last night it finally clicked when I looked at the box and saw their logo. I guess all the talk of DS3 at E3 made it more fresh in my mind and it clicked for me.

Dante's Inferno is a pain in the ass but it's playable and has some interesting elements to it. I really like the "relic" system, which is just a perk system. I spent a couple minutes upgrading Dante last night, buying more relic slots, and putting perks together. And they all really helped me and did what I wanted. There are some cool moments to be had, but I'd rather be playing God of War.

I love the Big Bang Theory and you are all terrible human beings. You've all been blacklisted lol. Be prepared for a good hrumph.

*Hrumph*