I would read this Esteban but I just started the game a few days ago, I'm about 10 hours in. I've been telling everybody for months that I would get around to it and I finally did lol. I'll probably have to come back to read this once I'm finished.
Very good episode. I'm not sure if people will see this as a good or bad thing, but I can't remember the last time I referred to myself as a gamer. I don't want to be associated with the kind of gaming that pop culture cares about and knows about. Even though I think the movie is really funny, in Grandma's Boy the lead designer is a prodigious genius, trench coat wearing, Matrix wannabe, loser that nobody likes. All of the other people on the team are just bums who play games all day, get high, and then go home to party without ever getting real work done. That's what many people think gaming is. Nobody ever sees the sober person, the kid getting a degree, the engineer putting in code that nobody understands, the artist doing concept work, the level designers making top down drawings and trying to figure out what they want to do, the testers looking a giant bug list, and all the education, collaboration, creativity, and crunching that is involved. If I mention video games and all that comes to mind for a person is sociopathic kids in matchmaking lists, or a sack of weed, than fuck me I just give up. Honestly I can't hope to get somebody up to speed on the current state of gaming, there's just way too much to cover.
The vocal minority makes us all look so bad, and people don't realize it's the minority. Plus people in the media only want to focus on the negative side of anything. If I go to my room to play an amazing session of Portal 2, I love it, and nothing bad happens, nobody will notice. However if I go on a shooting rampage at school, and people see I own violent video games, suddenly the whole world wants to talk about gaming and gamers as if anybody knows a damn thing about either. Nobody wants to talk about the whole story, they just want to see stoners, violence, sex, and controversy. I agree with Mike in saying I hate the gaming communities I see and hear. I hate the vocal minority, online communities, and the VGAs. It's one of the reasons I don't call myself a gamer and I don't associate with gaming as people know it. In pop culture right now if I wanted to tell people I'm a gamer or that I'm going to make games people would probably say, "So you'll be able to go to the Spike VGAs and hang out with Kanye West? You'll be able to get stoned all day? You'll own noobs?" Lol, pathetic. I'd rather hang out with John Carmack, be sober, and play co-operative as opposed to competitive.
I relish the fact I can sign in here everyday and be in contact with the people here. This is a real community and it's one I'm happy to be a part of. I feel safe here as if I'm tucked away in a oasis where nobody is telling me they're going to rape me, tell me to make a sandwhich for them, or call me racial slurs. When it comes to offensive people online, I just avoid online play. I think online play is really fun, but it's not worth it in any sense. In my case personally, trolls have won and I've decided to just not play. Trash talking people, cursing, being psycho, and even winning don't make me feel better when I'm online. People say things online that you can't unhear. The experience of trash talking and winning doesn't balance out, let alone negate, the horrible things people say. For example way back in 08' when I played Gears of War 2 online there was a guy terrorizing everybody in the playlist before the match. Guess what, I don't remember anything about the match or who won, but I remember everything that guy said.
I don't have children but if I did I don't even think I'd let them play anything online. They'd be playing Portal 2 co-op with me and plenty of other single player and co-op games. I just can't imagine bringing a child into this world, loving her so much, getting her some games, seeing her go online to play something, and have her be told she needs to get raped or make a sandwhich. Literally in under a minute of being online you could potentially be emotionally torn apart and see your child get ripped to shreds for no reason, and no amount of console family filters or mute buttons will be able to fix that. I'd just avoid it, I'd be too afraid and paranoid. Online services sell you with this idea that everything is family friendly and you'll be able to connect with your friends and everything will be swell. Truth is, it's the damn wild west and there's no accountability. The culture is broken, littered with trolls, and the best explanation anybody can give is, "This is just the way things are, develop tough skin!" Some people might be willing to settle for that, get use to it, and just adapt. I choose not to.
I've definitely approached it as a shooter since shooting is such a huge part of the design, but I agree with you completely. The level design doesn't really service the type of shooting and power using they have in mind. I also feel ME2 was like the first Gears in the sense of all the obvious cover and predictable encounters. Gears was really predictable, but it was fine because the gameplay was the best on the market for 3rd person shooters. Even with a terrible cast of characters and a narrative as hard to make sense of as Halo, Gears still managed to transcend in the areas that mattered the most to it. In ME I feel like the areas it transcends are in the characters, story, and cinematics. It has a lot of ambition in the combat side but it doens't work out very well, not unlike an Elder Scrolls title, at least in a broad sense.
Even though I ripped up the gameplay in my blog quite a bit, I do think that what I played was better than both previous games. I think the biggest problem with the demo (and the beginning of the game, if the demo is representative of it) is all in the level design. The guns sound pretty good, if you successfully pop into cover and sprout up to take shots, it works really well. The level design was pretty poor though. There was a lot of downtime spent running around, plenty of wasted space, and the encounter spaces were just walkways with chest high cover littered around. I've heard from some people over at 1UP that the games gets better as you go on. I heard a friend say that he was highly disappointed by the beginning, but the game gets increasingly better as you keep playing, and I don't doubt that one bit. In the second half of the SP ME3 demo they let you play out a section on the Salarian homeworld where you're with Wrex rescuing a Krogan princess. I thought that was much more interesting. Julian if they let us go to the Turian homeworld in ME3 and do some missions I'm gonna freak out. That might be even better than going to Tuchanka in ME2 (my favorite mission).
I thought it was really cool they gave you back some powers (emphasis on some) that you had in the previous games. You remember how you were saying you liked how the guns started off very weak and innacurate in ME1, but as you upgraded (as you should in any RPG) the guns became more and more badass? Is that the same case with ME3? I like seeing the guns get stronger and more accurate because it keeps me thinking, "Just around the corner I'm going to get some kind of upgrade and be able to make this thing X% more stable, etc". I like the heat sinks still, I like the upgrading guns and loot, and I think if those elements come together in the game it'll be the best weapon system in the series.
Another upside to ME3 and the demo was that I honestly chose to use the powers at times and they truly helped me in battle. In Dragon Age II I constantly manage my party and make them use powers because the powers are really cool and usefull. In ME1 and ME2 I never got that same feeling of usefulness. I honestly just played it like a shooter, upgraded my incendiary ammo till I was a god, and burned down entire rooms of enemies. In the ME3 demo I actually thought more about how I would upgrade Garrus and Liara. I upgraded my own fire ammo so I could provide the whole group with it when I activate it. Then I upgraded Garrus' overload so he could take down shields, and I focused on making Liara's warp strong. At the end of the demo in the final space you have a boss battle with a Cerberus mech, and I died a few times. I had to roll around, find cover, use overload to bring its shields down, use Garrus' armor piercing ammo to weaken the armor, I had use med kits to save my ass a few times, and I had to go revive both squadmates at different times. That was basically a long winded way of saying that I finally started using the power wheel.
Finally about the frame rate and animations, I was actually surprised by how janky things would get. Last year during some press thing, one of the people on the team (not sure if it was Casey Hudson or not) was talking about animation and said that ME3 would be the first game in the series to show a legitimate handshake. In the ME games during dialogue sequences or cinematics the tricky animations are always implied and they never show anything. In the ME3 demo right at the beginning when Shepard sees Captain Anderson they quickly have a handshake in the hallway. It looked okay I guess but it was just really fast and wasn't really what I was expecting lol. One of the things I didn't like about the animation was the way Shepard moved around in the cutscenes. Her arms were way out to her sides as if she was pretending to be inflated, hyper masculine, and ridiculous. The way it was done was really janky and the framerate studders didn't help much either.
Great review Jesse. I've been really hyped for this game ever since I simply saw gameplay footage. I've read other reviews and spoken with reviewers and they've all had about the same experience you did. Single player = okay, but forgettable, and the Co-op shines. I was asking one reviewer if there was any stealth options in the gameplay or level design and he was telling me it was completely linear and the gameplay was of the run-and-gun variety. I don't have a problem with run-and-gun (I play CoD all the time) but I would really prefer to have stealth options in my games like Crysis 2 and Deus Ex: HR both have.
Whenever I think of Syndicate and Deus Ex: HR I always lump them together in the same breath, likely because of the cyber-punk theme. I really want to get them both, but I definitely want to get Deus Ex first because I would rather have the stealth gameplay available to me. After Deus Ex if I get around to buying Synidicate I'll probably enjoy it (I'm just interested in the gameplay, not the story) on single player, but I'd love to see the co-op as well. I love a good co-op experience.
I agree Joaquim, I thought the scripted performance was amazing, and I think that's what the demo was all about. I agree it didn't look that real but I'm not sure it was meant to. It was beautiful and artistic like a mash between a Pixar production and Portal 2. The presentation is realistic in approach, but it enhances real life, dramatizes it just enough, and provides you with something beautiful you'd never see in real life. Honestly I don't care much about resolution and photo-real visuals. I think were getting closer to them and I can't wait for us to just reach them, have the opportunity to have them as opposed to search for them, and branch out to improve all the other areas of design that have slacked off over the years.
This demo to me was all about animation and it was incredible. To me animation is more important than photo real visuals. It's not as good as an animated movie, but as a video game equivalent it's not that far off. It won't be too long before we are able to play our video games and have it be as smooth and sophisticated as an animated film. Except you'll be able to interact with it like a game. Video game animation won't always just be a quick couple of rigid frames seeing something put their fist out real quick for a punch and then go back to a generic idle pose. When you go to pick something up or shake somebodies hand it won't always have to just skew it from your view or bring up a text box to tell you that you did something. Eventually you'll be able to see it happen. That's a ton of work on the animation side and making a whole game like that would take a while, but it would be worth it.
I've watched real life footage of ultra real Japanese robots at expos, and it makes me really scared and apprehensive. When I saw footage of the robots I felt like I was in the room with them and it engaged my animal instincts. All I wanted to do was back into the corner of the room, crouch down low, not take my eyes off the anomally (possibly a percieved threat), and I didn't feel comfortable at all.
When I watched this tech demo I didn't feel uncomfortable at all, there was no uncanny valley negative reaction. I thought this was beautiful visually and especially animation-wise. Most importantly of all it moved me and made me feel, a great deal. A 7 minute clip of characters I know nothing about in a context I know nothing about, made me feel intensely emotional. I honestly probably would've cried if he "killed" Kara, disassembled her completely, and ended her consciousness. I felt like I was watching a Pixar animation, and I just wanted it to keep going and learn more.
Thank you Esteban. Yea I actually got my copy new on Amazon for $6, and with shipping it came to around $10 lol. I really wanted it so I was glad I got it so cheap, but you're right I'm stuck with it. I'll get around to playing it sometime soon. I trust you completely when you say it's highly disappointing but still enjoyable. That's what I've been hearing from most people. That's the same sentiment I had with Fable 2 actually. I get addicted to Fable games, I regress back to habits I had when I was a teen, and I turn into a vampire (never see daylight) whenever I get a new Fable title. I adore them and have long periods of time where I'm genuinely in love with the game, but there's always a list of things that make the games incredibly disappointing and make me rant. I talked a bit about Fable 2 among other things in a blog I did called Let's Talk Loot. I had some game-breaking problems with the economy system and leveling system. Somehow even with all the huge negatives I can't forget about how engrossed in the game I got and how much fun it was.
Fable is a really unique series. I've honestly never seen a series of games that has such a giant contrast between highs and lows. I've never seen a series of games that can be so beautiful, engaging and addicting, while also being broken, and disappointing. The idea I've always had is that Peter always had these amazing ideas (like holding hands, falling in love, having a companion, etc) but they weren't sure how to implement them. Now once Peter and the team had implemented those ideas into the games, they didn't know how to fill in the rest of the blanks. I see each Fable game as a piece of swiss cheese. There are amazing ideas in them, but there are also holes everywhere, and in the end the games always seem incomplete or patched together. Seems like, during the conceptual phase and then the development phase, they were never sure how to build around these complex and intellectual ideas Peter had, didn't know how to make them fun, make them work in the game as a whole, or get the point across that Peter was going for, if that makes any sense. Maybe Fable just wasn't the best conduit for Peter's intellectual and emotional engagement design goals.
The kind of ideas he has might be better suited for more focused, shorter titles. He might have been trying to kill all the birds with one stone in regards to Fable. I really want to design levels and maybe take a crack at designing mechanics someday, but if I worked with Peter it would be so difficult to try and make his concepts into reality. If he comes up to you and says, "I want to make a game where the player will experience true love, take their lover by the hand, and walk the beach at sunset." I'd say to him, "Well, we can make that happen. It's technically possible from an animation, level design, programming, and artistic point of view. But, how is that going to fit in the context of a game? Why do those small moments matter Peter? How do we get to that point? If you want to build a game around concepts like this, what is the game itself going to be?" You can mechanically make beautiful things like that happen, but you have to have a full game in mind to start with that will suit it. You have to make the script and characters great, flesh everything out before you just start crunching, taking stabs in the dark, and hoping you come out with an amazing piece of interactive art.
I can't comment on all the games you mentioned, but I'd definitely recommend Far Cry 2, Mass Effect, and Tales of Vesperia. The Far Cry series is pretty sweet and I'm super excited for Far Cry 3 coming later this year. Mass Effect is amazing, I wouldn't know where to start talking. Vesperia is a gorgeous game with great battle music and a really fun combat system. That bumps the list down to well under $100, especially since those 3 games are all fairly old and can be found fairly cheap both new and used on Amazon for example.
Now that I think about it, I agree with Esteban on this one. I still need to get around to Fable 3 since I have it, but I think I'll love it more than hate it based on what I've heard about it. I'm not interested in these Kinect Fables or offshoots in general. The series will definitely continue I assume, but I can completely understand Peter leaving. Fable has always been a passion project for him, but he's never been able to really achieve what he's looking for. Maybe the series just got away from him too much, he realized he wanted to start fresh? He's a brilliant guy and he has a very emotional and intellectual approach to his designs and brainstorms. During development of Fable 2 he loved talking about making a player feel emotion and love for their dog and developing a very relatable and human-animal bond. During Fable 3 among many things, he wanted to get players to experience the intimacy of holding somebody's hand and developing a relationship. Maybe Fable couldn't keep up with him, or maybe it's just not working well as his artistic outlet anymore?
I'm gonna keep checking out new mainline Fable titles, but I really want to see what Peter does next in his new company. Fable games have never been the greatest thing, but they have always been different and nobody can take that away from them. They have complex ideas behind them, and usually the mechanics just don't serve the purpose or achieve the goal. Nobody else in the industry strives for the things Peter strives for, and I respect that about him. He's a breed apart, his design goals are abstract, and as a result games like Fable end up being difficult to label or compare to other games. If you look at Fable and just think of it as an RPG you can easily start comparing it to others like Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc. But when you look at the really important and subtle nuances to Peter's games you will see that there's nothing else like them in gaming.
There's nobody else in the industry competing with Peter on the "make players feel love, hold hands, have a dog companion, cry, laugh, etc" front. You can't look at the industry and say, "Molyneux is okay but he sure doesn't do all that as well as this other guy." You can only compare his work to his previous work because there's not really any precedent for what he tries to do. Peter is a breed apart and you can't predict what he'll do next or what abstract goals will be behind his next project. You honestly just have to wait around and see what he comes up with next.
I'm with you Nick, I really love Sim City and this is looking like the best one yet. I was telling Joaquim a couple days ago about how much I've played flight sims in the past. That was childs play compared to how much I've played Sim City. I put hundreds of hours into Sim City 3000 lol and built so many cities I couldn't keep track. Back in 7th grade I had a tech class and we spent a couple weeks in an older Sim City (pre-SC3K) as a school project, so I was I even playing Sim City in school! When I was at home I'd put on headphones, listen to music, and get lost in Sim City 3000 for hours in that game. I loved dealing with issues brought up by activists, combating pollution, managing ordinances, the budget, etc. I really loved managing the water and power supplies, as well as the traffic. I'd enjoy looking at the underground layer so I could plan out the pipe system and water tower placement, as well as set up power lines to conduct power to areas. It was a lot of fun analyzing the traffic chart, seeing where traffic is heaviest, planning expansions to areas, and finding solutions to problems that pop up. One day when I build a gaming PC some of the first games I'll get will be this new Sim City, Starcraft 2, and whatever Sid Meier has out at the time.
This vid was awesome. The Glass Box Engine looks really nice and I bet the game will be beautiful. I like how the neighboring cities are visible and can affect each other to such an extent. In SC3K neighboring cities were literally just a name on the map at the borders of your territory, and you hardly interacted with them (every once in a while to discuss a water or power deal of some kind). If you pay close attention around 1:30 to the lady typing at her workstation you'll notice she isn't typing at all. She's just pattering on the keyboard and playing up for the camera lol. It doesn't matter, but I thought it was really funny. I also thought it was funny their creative director's name is Ocean Quigley lol. I wonder how long he's been at Maxis, I should've heard about that guy! A guy named Ocean Quigley shouldn't ever slip through the cracks or go unnoticed. I need to do my research.
