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Weekend Confirmed Episode 43
by Garnett Lee, Jan 14, 2011 12:00pm PSTWhatcha' Been Playin? gets off to a big start this week with a lively discussion on the windup to the end and boss fight in Uncharted 2, first impressions of LittleBIGPlanet 2 and Ghost Trick, and, of course, an update from Cataclysm. Garnett, Jeff, and Billy then move on to your continuing comments on the topic of reviews before considering whether you can be addicted to buying games and what happens when a pay-to-play MMO goes free-to-play. Top stories like the brewing storm over Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel calling out Capcom mobile for ripping off their game, anticipation of the Battlefield 3 unveiling due to come at GDC, and rumors of a Final Fantasy XIII sequel finish the show on a strong note in the Front Page.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 43 - 01/14/2011
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Listen to Weekend Confirmed Episode 43 (player window will pop-up)
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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: 00:34:10
Whatcha' Been Playin? and Cannata-ford: 00:35:15 End: 01:08:00
The Warning: 01:09:00 End: 01:41:40
Featured Music "Chemistry" by Tyrannosaurus Grace: 01:41:40 End: 01:44:56
The Front Page: Start: 01:44:56 End: 02:15:04
Tailgate Playoffs Wild Card Special: Start: 02:16:05 End: 02:28:37
The Featured Music segment presents Tyrannosaurus Grace, a 5 piece Pop Rock band from Ellensburg, WA. founded in late 2009 by childhood friends Tim Held and Justin Foss. They released their first self titled album in October of 2010 and currently play shows all over the Pacific Northwest as they continue to write and record new material all the time. The members are: Tim Held-Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, Justin Foss-Guitar, keyboard, audio production, Jeff Gerrer- Bass, David Hoffman- Drums, Lakyn Bury-Vocals, guitar, keyboard. Their album is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and CDBaby.com. Their website is tgraceband.
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
Granted, there are instances where a game should most certainly be faulted if it doesn't deviate from the formula, but in the end, I think it's best for the majority of games to approach them individually, sequel or not.
Also, this is reaching a few weeks back, but Child of Eden can be done on Move in the exact same manner as Kinect, using your whole body, etc. I think you should take some time to go to Jeff's place and try the Beat Sketcher demo (only so you can see how it would work with Child of Eden). It would no doubt be the superior of the two, you still get the motion and movement, while retaining 100% accuracy and responsiveness.
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However I feel your notion of 'standalone first, comparison later' falls into the argument for 'objective reviews'. The only way I can see that separation done properly is if the reviewer had never played the first/previous entry and basically goes into the series fresh. But even then it would be difficult to get a point fully accentuated without a comparison to something else within context. For instance, in terms of graphics, if the particular game has subpar graphics akin to a previous generation graphics engine, that itself is a comparison. In a general case I don't see why its a problem if one points out that the current game's graphic flaw is essentially the same one from the previous entry.
Again there's no such thing as an objective review unless it is done by a robot (in which it falls back to the checkbox method of reviews).
I do like how EGM did/does their reviews though where there will be one by the main writer, but they'll also have one or more people providing their brief insight to the game, thus you can get someone that's never played a sequel and thus get their take, and so multiple angles.
As for innovation in videogames. Innovation is something that has been happening with each generation. To me, the "first type" of a particular genre, trend, or something entirely different, is considered an innovator. For instance with the Half-Life series. The first which was basically run by the unreal engine, but had good story and AI, making it one of the more standouts then. Some expected the next game to be similar but with better graphics. Valve took their time, and I felt that they not only improved on the AI, but the inclusion of their physics engine really added to it. How many games after started trying to incorporate some sort of physics and companion AI after Half-Life 2? I would say a fair amount.
I don't know how you are relating the term innovation with someone who doesn't have the "know how" to put their thoughts in a cohesive sentence. I partially agree with your point about the need for games to innovate. I don't think ALL games need to innovate, but if one feels that some sort of innovation will add to a game experience, then by all means, go for it. Otherwise if its not going to add to the game, then don't bother. Again, compare Half-Life with Half-Life 2. Then on the other side you have something like Too Human, where the game was solid, but the amount of times Silicon Knights (or Denis Dyack specifically) kept going on about how innovative it was and how much tech was put in, the game could've done with better level design: something that is outside of innovation considerations.
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