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38 Studios, Harry Potter Kinect - Shacknews Daily: May 25, 2012
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Demon's Souls servers extended again
Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection coming in June
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Weekend Confirmed 114 - Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Lost Planet 3
Weekend Confirmed Episode 14
by Garnett Lee, Jun 25, 2010 12:00pm PDTPart two of our massive E3 2010 wrap up picks up where last week left off with a plethora of games that would satisfy even El Guapo. So naturally it begins with guns, and lots of them in what we're dubbing E3 shooterpalooza. Headliners for the segment include Rage, Halo: Reach, Bulletstorm, Brink, Deus Ex, Gears of War 3, FEAR 3, and more. But it's not all bullet-time either; once the clip is empty it's on to Epic Mickey, Mortal Kombat, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, True Crime, Dead Space 2, and more. Plus we've got your response to our love for Rock Band and what to do with motion controls. We're getting back to the regular flow next week so be sure to come by Shacknews and get in the show thread.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 14 - 06/25/2010
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Listen to Weekend Confirmed Episode 14 (player window will pop-up)
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Download Weekend Confirmed Episode 14
Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Whatcha' Been Playin at E3: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:34:26
Whatcha' Been Playin at E3 Part 2: Start: 00:35:54 End: 01:04:35
Whatcha' Been Playin at E3 Part 3: Start: 01:05:41 End: 01:29:34
Music Break featuring Elspeth with "24 Hour Paramedics": Start: 01:29:34 End: 01:32:21
Whatcha' Been Playin at E3 Part 4: Start: 01:32:21 End: 02:11:15
Music Break features Elspeth, a five piece indie rock band from Belfast, Ireland. Formed in March 2009, they have a number of their songs avaiable for free download on soundcloud. They are due to release a double A Side single on the 16th of August 2010. Keep up with Elspeth on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.
ShackNews has teamed up with Razer to give away a Naga, the ultimate MMO gaming mouse, to one lucky Weekend Confirmed listener this week. Simply post a comment (Shacknews.com account required) in the comments section of this news story. A winner will be selected at random from the comments. Only your first comment will count as an entry. Multiple comments do nothing to increase your chances of winning.
Entries will be accepted until 6/29/2010 at 11:59 pm CST. The winner will be selected and notified on 6/30/2010 by Shackmessage.
This giveaway is open only to residents of the United States (not including Puerto Rico).
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest single, Small Town Hero on iTunes and check out more at his Facebook page.
Watch Jeff on The Totally Rad Show. New episodes come out weekly on Tuesday.
We've also started an Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page. It's a work in progress but go ahead and hop in. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
Big money, Big money, No whammy, Stop!
I would like to tap the brakes a bit on the "Digital Distribution = cheaper games" train. While we all love the good Steam sales they're the exception rather than the rule in digital distribution. The price of games through digital means (Steam, PSN, XBL, Impulse, etc.) tend to remain static FAR longer than their retail counterparts. Additionally the primary downward pressure on the price of newer games via digital distribution is the retail SKU. Retailers have to discount stock in order to get it off the shelves and THAT in turn forces the DD channels to match or at least come close.
Obviously this isn't applicable to something like iTunes because the pricing model there is broken (or rather requires a different approach to monetize your product) and most of those products don't actually have a retail SKU.
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For starters about the 2D transition levels in Epic Mickey and Jeff wishing it was a full game based on that concept. You do know that It exists right? It was made back in 1994 ('95 in Europe) and was called Mickey Mania, a platformer that took a trip down Mickey's major cartoons starting from Steamboat Willie all the way to the Prince and the Pauper. It was not regraded as one of the best Mickey Mouse platformers of the 16-bit era, those belong to the Capcom Mickey Mouse games. So Jeff, if you want to play that, you have Mickey Mania to fall back on.
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Now, having also completed Red Dead Redemption, a game which I believe has a fantastic (albeit a bit meandering) story that dealt with the nature of change and (who would have thought?) redemption. Now, both games obviously had a lot of care put into their stories, but at the end of the day, Red Dead comes off as vastly superior because it actually had something to say.
So my question to everyone is this: Why does it seem like most video games are afraid to take a stance on a real world issue, or facet of human behavior? Even with games like Heavy Rain, games still (for the most part) seem to be stuck in the action and thriller mentalities of shocking the audience (Alan Wake even has a line of dialog about this) with little depth to give weight to any of it. Even when they try to do something interesting, it ends up just being a one-off metaphor like the immulsion in Gears of War or something glossed over like the No Russian level in Modern Warfare 2. I understand that as the industry gets better writers, this will improve naturally, but why is it the games that enthusiasts tend to promote the most for their stories are still so damn shallow? And for all its hype, why wasn't there more of a backlash to Alan Wake's story?
(Yes, my question is long and pretty vague but I just wanted to make my point and try to get a discussion of game narrative going. I feel like there aren't enough of those that are serious, even on Weekend Confirmed.)
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The game that I think they were trying to remember was World of Illusion. (See the link below).
I grew up with Disney being a part time baby-sitter in my house and loved all the old Disney games on the Sega Genesis. To this day I still remember jumping from rooftop to rooftop as Aladdin throwing apples or the epic magic carpet sequence. I'm not a huge WIi fan but i'll probably end up renting Epic Mickey, i'm sure it will be a good ol'e cruise down Disney memory lane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Illusion_Starring_Mickey_Mouse_and_Donald_Duck
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I love how Garnett steered away from talk of "journalism" and "bias". You guys have absolutely nothing to get defensive about or to prove, and discussing it only gives power to back seat drivers who couldn't tell a 'podcast for an ipod. The product speaks for itself, and might I say that the price is quite reasonable ;) Thank you!
Keep up the good work!
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Maybe a quick 2-4 minute iPhone/iPad game of the week?
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I actually have a question for Warning next week: In mid 2009 both InFamous and Prototype were released, and while are two different games, they had similar mechanics. However, there seemed to develop a rift between gamers (akin to that of the casual vs. hardcore debate). From my own experiences, many people were quick to play one (say InFamous), and then bash the other (Prototype) in true fanboy fashion without ever playing it.
Do you think this kind of blatant fanboyism is good or bad for the gaming community, and should developers be wary of this when building new IPs?
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I see what Jeff was talking about with R.A.G.E. where it all looks and feels too familiar. I think if they made an updated Hexen or Heretic it would have been better received.
As good as the R.A.G.E. engine looks, I can’t help but feel id lost a step or two. At one point or another, almost every game ran on the Quake engine. Now, it seems that devs. are using either Unreal or something home grown and with so many other engines making heads turn like the CryEngine3 it was probably fortuitous for Valve to step away from that pissing match by diversifying their business. It has to be said though, that although Valve has stepped away (presumably) from the engine tech side of gaming, time and time again they take a critically “outdated†engine and “WOWâ€s everybody with what they do with it.
I’m sure the question of “What engine are you using?†and “why are/aren’t you using engine X?â€...but has it seemed better for devs. to develop their own?
Looking at some of the critically acclaimed games of this generation, most have used engines developed in-house or Unreal. Come to think of it, Ureal seems to be the only ones to find success… or did they?
Is id Tech 5 just a throwback to a bygone era or does id think it will actually make an impact [sarcasm] just as it did with Tech 4 [/sarcasm]? Mark Rein pitching Unreal the other year to be used in Golf games seemed ironically unreal.
http://kotaku.com/260467/gears-of-golf
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Also, I was curious as to why the developers won't have a game on Knect, Move, or possibly the Wii, that is like you are describing when you describe the Harry Potter/Scourer Game. Where you have to move your hands to cast spells, and then say the magic words. The Knect has a built in microphone, so you would just have to hold a stick (or a 'back massager"), the EyeToy has a built in microphone and you already are holding your wand, and the Wii has Wii speak (and if you need it motion+). Mind you the Wii has processing issues, but the others should be able to be used.
P.s. I am new listener, but am going though the back log since I love your commentary Garnett and ability to play devil's advocate. i never really went to the shacknews.com before, but I found out you had a new podcast and had to come for a visit at the very least.
Also, do want Naga.
When Brian was talking about force feedback, all I could think about was the Power Glove. I wonder if current technology would allow something like that to built that would give the type of feeling that it seems like he wants. Like pressure on the top of your fingers when hitting something, or a squeezing feeling if you were gripping a hand. I'd be willing to put on some gloves when playing Kinect or Move if it gave me that type of force feedback.
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DUDE I JUST GOT TECH ROMANCER FOR DREAMCAST SATURDAY!!!!!! oh man it soooooooo much fun, if kinda hard at times. i havent played as all the mechs yet (i think the only one i havent tried is Dixen the Gundam-like), but i can already tell you my fave, at least in terms of comic value is Diana 17.
Everytime she opens her mouth talking about defending Peace and Love with her beauty like shes some kind of Power Ranger (which i guess she is) i cant help but laugh. I know you had lots of fun with this game back in the day (most of the time you talk of fun and fighting games you at least name drop it), so yeah its STILL damn good like you remember it. also gotta love them VMU games!
I think about this podcast as rock paper scissors. Brian is the rock (stable) jeff is the paper (he smothers a topic with lover since he's a lover not a fighter) and Garnett is the scissors (he cuts through hyperbole and gets down to the nitty gritty)
All three combine for a epic game that comes around once a week.
Keep it up guys!
Also while the game might play great I think it might suffer from something I'll call the King Kong phenomena. Despite that Peter Jackson's version looked absolutely stunning it still couldn't top the 1933 black and white original because when you get right down to it Jackson didn't bring anything new to the table.
So when I look at Rage am I'm supposed to think it'll play better than Fall Out 3 and Borderlands because the rocks are "hand painted"? I had no idea there was a high demand for hand painted rocks in video games!
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First off, thanks for a great cast. I listen to this while I spending hours behind a microscope looking at pollen.
Considering this was the cast about new shooters I have a question I'd like to hear you address if possible re. shooters.
It seems that particularly with shooters, but not necessarily only shooters, there is a tendency toward adding more and more features, ratcheting up the complexity of gameplay. For example, In COD4: Modern Warfare, for Killstreaks you could just call in an air strike, helicopter, and a few others during a match. However, now with Modern Warfare 2 there is much much more Killstreak rewards, Predator Missles, EMPs, Tactical Nukes, and the customizations and complexity of play is much higher.
Initially There is a this "wow" effect, but I feel that eventually wears off as it becomes more normalized creating a vacuum of "newness"--stimulation needing to be filled. I think this also leaves other developers thinking "Oh Shit, now we gotta do something new with our next shooter". Do you see this as a continuing trend in shooters (increasing complexity) and do you think we will part from it, and if so how?
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After seeing what Activision did to ETQW when it was launching beside COD4, I'm glad to see Splash Damage get the coverage and hype they deserve
loved the discussion about team ico and possible move implementation in the last guardian. i'm going to play through ico and shadow of the colossus again to feel the love *hugs backwards compatible PS3*
Now please replace my ancient generic Microsoft mouse.