Metro: Last Light DLC and season pass detailed
Microsoft considering 1 vs. 100-style game for Xbox One
Hands up, down, and around with Kinect for Xbox One
EA Sports Ignite engine trailer was pre-rendered
Hands-on with Xbox One's new controller
Weekend Confirmed Episode 32
by Garnett Lee, Oct 29, 2010 12:00pm PDTVideogame consultant and columnist N'Gai Croal joins Garnett, Brian, and Jeff on the show this week. Heavy-hitters like Star Wars Force Unleashed 2 and Fable 3 step to the plate in Whatcha' Been Playin? along with hands-on reports from Blizzcon on Diablo 3 and the upcoming custom StarCraft 2 maps. A quick consideration of whether game design stagnates at times by falling in to habits leads off the Warning which moves on to topics including whether derivative design is inherently bad and why we care so much about achievements. And wrapping it up in the Front Page are details on the relaunch of the Games for Windows Marketplace, Zenimax beefing up its development resources with the addition of Shinji Mikami's new Tango Gameworks studio, and more.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 32 - 10/29/2010
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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: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:31:12
Whatcha' Been Playin and Cannata-ford a New Game: Start: 00:32:16 End: 01:06:30
The Warning: Start: 01:07:40 End: 01:44:34
Music Break featuring "El Cuerno": 01:44:34 End: 01:47:48
The Front Page: Start: 01:47:48 End: 02:16:09
NFL Pick Three: Start: 02:18:09 End: 02:26:30
Music Break this week features "El Cuerno" by 44th & Filth co-founder Andy Reid. Latin percussion lays a strong foundation for the track but it's the wicked horn line that really makes it possible to not get moving to. This brand new track is available now in the iTunes Music Store and on Beatport. On Facebook you can connect with both 44th & Filth and Andy Reid.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest single, Small Town Hero on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page.
Jeff can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Our Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page is coming along now so add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
i hope you can address this in the next podcast.
by and large the gaming community (gamers, press, developers) have been vocal about striking down the lawsuit to restrict selling games to minors. i am generally in favor of personal responsibility and keeping the government away from acting as parents. however, i find it disconcerting that gamers can't even concede certain points regarding the lawsuit.
for one, the law would not ban anyone from making violent games, and would not ban adults from buying them. the law would simply make it punishable to sell them to minors. in that sense, it is not true censorship.
the concession i think most gamers refuse to acknowledge is the idea that very violent video games may be harmful to minors. i think the jury is still out on this regarding researching, but what if we do find conclusive evidence that long exposure to these games causes harm to a developing mind? most clear thinking adults should be able to admit that minors should not be able to buy porn, cigarettes, or alcohol. sales of those items are currently punishable by law. my concern is that gamers are too quick to defend their hobby as opposed to first considering protection of children as primary.
thanks.
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It it also politics to mention John Stewart (positively) multiple times, mention Fox News (negatively) several times, and even mention NPR (positively) has political implications.
Thanks Garnett for saying, "let's not do politics" It has taken a lot of self-control for me not to react to Jeff dragging this stuff into this fine show. If we really want to get into this stuff, we can, but it's not really fair to have a host dredging this stuff up without expecting a real fight-fight from the posters.... one that would be extremely off topic.
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Even a few statements about The Arnold were clearly framed as personal preference. These girls have class and do a great podcast that conveys plenty of information without being insulting, off-putting, negative, or arrogant.
Maybe something about them not having dicks makes it easier for them to not be dicks ;)
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-Consultant saying that 6 hours of game play is the new 10 hours, and this being based on it being "so expensive to do a game in HD".... thumbs WAY down on this bullshit.
First off, all of the games I've enjoyed in 2010 have been between 20 and 60 hours AND in HD.
Secondly, this is nearly a 50% decrease in value... if movie theatres started saying "hey, movies will be 45 minutes now rather than 1.2 hours, but cost the same" they'd NEVER get away with this... I don't understand if N'Gai thinks that game consumers are total idiots, made of money, or so something else.
In any case, if I was consulting on a 6 hours game, my first feedback would be "you're probalby going to get knocked on this for being a too short." There are rare exceptions, but they are quite rare.
-On Halloween board games, thumbs-up (way up) on Betrayal at House on the Hill, but thumbs-down on Last Night on Earth. Another great scary board game is Fury of Dracula.
-That someone spends $60 on a game already is *ample* proof that the player cares: so, sorry Jeff, your foot is further in your month than every on this. And you did say people are stupid. Brian and Garnett are open-hearted guys... I just see them getting elitist like that.
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http://www.qwiki.com/q/#Jeff_Cannata
I think this can help in some cases where the achievement awards a strategy or technique that the player may not have even thought of... like if Left for Dead awarded an achievement for killing a zombie while crouching ;p
Jokes aside, I just found an achievement in Force Unleashed 2 for using particular lightning towers to kill enemies... I haden't even realized you could do that, so in this case the achievement was used as a sort of a learning tool, and a helpful one at that.
We're looking for folks that play FPSs to help us game tune (initially the weapon stats and level design). We'll have the "let's have fun killing each other" part of game online sometime in December.
If you'd be interested in giving us feedback - please email mrindiedev@gmail.com .
thanks.
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I'd like to see an FPS with a defined linear progression, but not locked on-rails, and not hogtied with RPG stats and weapon deterioration that makes you afraid to even fire the weapon, out of fear that it will go "poof" into a pile of rust after 12 shots. The original Far Cry was a good example of this style, and the Safehouse level of CoD4 is a good example, as you can clear out buildings in the order you desire (though the buildings are populated with enemies via invisible triggers). I used to spend a lot of time exploring around the areas in the Doom and Quake games, and in Unreal 1, as it encouraged "off the beaten path" exploration.
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Do you think former PC developers are doing a good or bad job of bringing their ideas and genres into the console space?
There's this class of PC gamers worried about all their games being "consolified" or dumbed down. They say that BioShock is a dumbed down version of System Shock 2, that Mass Effect and Fallout 3 aren't as deep/challenging as Baldur's Gate and Fallout 2 respectively. The biggest example is what's happening to Dragon Age - the differenes between the PC and console versions as well as the new directino of Dragon Age II. They are also worried about Crysis 2.
Do you think that trying to port games from mouse and keyboard to controller (and weaker hardware) is inevitably constricting them, or the developers just having trouble adapting to their newfound console homes? (The comparison would be to Japanese devs who've always been good at designing games around limitations).
As far as the expression system, I don't find it to be any better or worse than Fable or Fable 2 since none of the systems have accurately expressed how humans interact with each other beyond farting, belching, dancing, posing, etc. Still, Molyneux's series has had more serious human interactions (flirting, engagement, marriage, childbearing, child-raising, adultery) than any other rpg title I can think of.
Perhaps people wouldn't think you are down on the game, Garnett, if you listed all the positive attributes of the title. Molyneux's reach typically exceeds his grasp, but God, I love the man for continuing to reach in what is a rather stale rpg environment since the death of epics like Baldur's Gate.
It seems his major complaint is that the story doesn't have enough ambiguity, but this is exactly the opposite of what the word "Fable" is supposed to entail. A "fable" is a story that teaches a moral lesson and Fable 3 stands firmly behind the idea that "right is right" even when your convictions are challenged by impending doom. Even if you need to develop resources to build an army, exploitation, it argues, is wrong. It argues that healthcare, education, environmental protection (and even bank bailout) are important things for a leader to promote even in the face of impending doom. It stands firm as presenting these things as absolute good causes that need to be championed.
Frankly, I find it refreshing that such a big budget game like this can demonstrate real political and cultural convictions. It is a lot more brave than a game that is wishy washy, one that ultimately has nothing to really say to the player and merely strives to be a moral cipher.
This past year on the Daily Show, Jon Stuart said that if you only stand behind your convictions when they aren't tested, they aren't convictions, they are hobbies. Fable III is making a similar argument. You may think all of this is "grade school civics," but given how willingly many back off from pursuing the exact principles presented in the game during times of proclaimed economic or military crisis, I think Fable III message is one that needs to be heard. Our world could use more heroes of Albion.
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I'd like to know everyone's thoughts on single player DLC. I am yet finish Mass Effect 2 and Alan Wake, but from what I understand the DLC being offered is interesting and overall adds to the experience and the story without feeling as though it was left out of the game in the first place.
The Question: In shooters particularly, with such a focus on multiplayer, is there demand for expanding upon the single player experience with similar types of downloadable content? If so, what does it look like? Dead Rising: Case Zero? Episodes from Liberty City? How would you as a consumer like to see something of this ilk take shape?
I for one would love to see Bungie release single player DLC in the form Noble Team missions predating those in Halo: Reach. Origin missions per se, including the original Noble 6, engaging the Covenant across environments spanning the Halo universe.
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How on Earth would you know the quality of a cutscene if you'd already skipped it?
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If a game is six hours long and I don't even plan to return to it after I beat it I probably won't buy it in the first place. If it's a really good six hours, I'll probably want to experience it more than once which will make it worth keeping.
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I think the problem with the way most companies are set up, in that... like... I can't count the number of times that a developer would be like, "Oh, we've got plans for DLC for 8 months, we've got, y'know, 12 months of DLC to get goin' on," and then either their sequel gets canceled, and they no longer have any need to link the two together, or they need to start working on the sequel and all that DLC drops away. If Treyarch were to do something where, "we're gonna kick out a bunch of content based on this subscription and... oh shit, we're NOT anymore, 'cause we need to make the next Call of Duty!" What are you paying for at that point?
We already saw what happened with Bioshock 2: the necessary development of the PC patch, Protector Trials, and Minerva's Den was allegedly running to the point where developing it to the quality level that it could be sent to MS for GFWL certification was past the point of them moving on to their next project. Pow, end of post-release support, until two weeks later they said, "Okay, we made our PC fanbase very angry; maybe we CAN finish those."
FPS games need to have a hard stop for post-release support because of the need to update the engine, whether it's more graphics features, a better AI system, rearchitected netcode, and so on. The average AAA title seems to need at least 18 months of development. Bioshock 2 was a game that seemed to be on a codebase that was mostly the same as Bioshock 1; I never played Bioshock 2, but that game had to have its own "widescreen fix" ( http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62364 ), and I've seen forum posts about mouse lag in Bioshock 2 (similar to the mouselag in Bioshock 1).
I personally wouldn't go for a subscription FPS, and I haven't even bought a DLC pack yet (though I've played plenty of Valve's free add-on content for L4D2, TF2, and Half-Life 2). I'm a bit strange, though, as I won't buy a game until I've researched that I'll really like it, and then I'll squeeze as much playtime out of that initial purchase price as possible.
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Well-designed achievements can break you of static gaming habits, as in "I always use Ranged attacks, but there's an achievement for getting so many Melee hits, oh what the hell, hey Melee is fun, too!"
They can be a great way to give your open world game some extra-playability and focus, as in "Shit, I can't decide which mission I want to do. Fuck it, let's go for that 'Flip the Car Five Times' achievement."
And, they're great for boasting against friends/checking their progress, as in "Hey, it looks like we both got past the Ice Queen! But he's stupid cause I can see he didn't upgrade his fire spell all the way first! Man, I'm smart."
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Weekend Confirmed 30, 1 hour 25 minutes, reading back this post from DevSword: http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=24213345#itemanchor_24213345
"I don't think gamers skipping story content has anything to do with the quality of what developers are making (although there is bad stuff out there obviously). It says more about how stupid most gamers are, and how short their attention spans are."
Garnett, to the group: "Do you agree with that?!"
Jeff Cannata: [disgusted deadpan] "Yes."
Garnett: "I... I totally don't fuckin' agree with that! I... That is such a cop out! Do you really agree with that, that 'gamers are stupid and they have short attention spans'?"
Jeff Cannata: "No... I think PEOPLE are stupid and they have a short attention span!"
I like the way that Jeff Mattas qualified his argument, though I also agreed with Garnett's outburst of "It's that the content isn't worth a shit!" Yeah, that's the point where people skip cutscenes, either because the storyline is inconsequential to the actual gameplay, or that they've memorized that cutscene so well, that they could run through it in their brain faster than it would take to "press X to not die from boredom watching cutscene".
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I couldn't decide if I wanted to talk about achievements, or The Force Unleashed 2, but I realized I could talk about both at the same time.
First of all, I completely agree with Jeff's opinion of the game. I would actually take things even further. I played through the game on normal difficulty in 4 hours. That is a joke. Limbo took me longer to complete the first time through. When I finished the game, I was so completely shocked at the games legnth that it actually made me angry. I just spent $70 (Canadian) on this, and the best they could give me is a 4 hour game, with only 3 environments (I refuse to count the Degobah level)?
One thing Jeff didn't mention was the bugs. Several times during the game, my character would get stuck in animation loops that would lead to my death. There are also many cutscenes throughout the game, where the camera moves away from your character to give a better view of a new enemy entering the room, during which the rest of the enemies nearby continue to shoot at you, and you continue to take damage. REALLY!!?? My character is off camera, I have no control over them, and I can still take damage? AND I CAN'T SKIP THESE CUTSCENES!!!! Oh, and my favorite bug was during the entire final level (that's 1/4 of the game), no fire effects would appear on screen. Try fighting those giant robots with flamethrowers when you can't see the fire!
Ok... I feel a little better. Now on to the achievements.
As I said, I felt pissed when I got to the end of TFU2. However, despite my anger, I looked at the achievements I unlocked and saw I had over 500 gamerpoints already. I am now replaying the game on the hardest difficulty, the thought process being "well, I may as well put in another 4 hours and get as many achievements out of this as I can."
How fucked up is that?
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Apathy is not a banner I'd really want to wave around, but I guess if we limit the purview to just games, then yeah, I suppose I am advocating that people care less.
Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I'm advocating that if you don't want to care, that in itself does not mean in any way that you're having a lesser experience than someone who does, nor are you a lesser gamer, nor do you love games less than someone who does care.
It's a game, after all, and you are the player, and short of hacking the game, you're pretty much limited to the rules imposed upon you by the game's creators... but within those rules, it's entirely up to you how you choose to play your game. Not just whether or not you watch the cutscenes, but whether or not you even remotely take the experience seriously, or even attempt to see the game through to the end, or just flick on the cheat codes and go on a crazy power trip.
You work hard for your money, you chose to put it towards this piece of entertainment, and if you enjoy it, you'll tell your friends, and maybe they'll buy it too. Once the game's yours, you don't owe the creators anything anymore than you owe the clerk who sold it to you. I might not agree with how you play your game, I might think you're missing out, but it doesn't really matter. As long as you're NOT actively ruining the experience for other people, how you choose to play your game is nobody's business but your own.
Care as much as you want... see if I care.
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