Weekend Confirmed Episode 44

SPEAKING OF WOW

Do any Shackers play on the Kalecgos server?

PAX East

Are you guys coming out to the show? Doing a panel? I hope so since the East Coast listeners deserve some love since we can't make it to your live appearances.

My girlfriend doesn't like it when I call her baby. What does she expect? She's four!

People are going to hate me for saying this, but Shadow of the Colossus is just Zelda with everything that makes that experience fun removed.

Gone is the story, characterizations, and sense of learning about a place and in its place is a pretentiously slight "story" which is driven by an annoying fake-language-speaking entity that seems to revel in saying nothing in the most awkward way possible. Gone is the sense of exploration, which is instead replaced by a big, beautiful, linear, nothing. Gone is the silky smooth control and in its place is a wonky, awkward mess. THEN you have the technical issues like frame rate and aliasing problems...

There are many things about the game that make it worth respecting, but I think there is a cult-type thinking behind that game's popular acceptance as a good game which is mostly driven by people who think that being obtuse makes a game more artful, when it actually just makes it obtuse, and also is driven by those who are too afraid to admit that they never finished the game, yet still act like it was amazing because they don't want to be the only person in the room brave enough to say "I just didn't get it and never got the will to finish it do to a myriad of issues beyond the technical problems."

Rant. Done.

Obvious question for this week: with NGP unveiled, are as eager to get your hands on a 3DS?

I've been thinking about Ryan's question regarding the possibility of any game without combat achieving success on the level of COD. While my gut reaction is to say "Yes, there will be a story driven game that hits a similar level of popularity", I'm starting to have doubts the more I think about it.

When I think about the reason for the widespread success of games like COD, Halo, or Gears of War, I think the gamechanger is the competitive multiplayer. Yes, these franchises also feature extremely well made and popular single-player campaigns, but that is not as a rule what keeps players coming back to those games for literally YEARS. There is a massive demographic of players who might only buy a couple shooters per year, and spend every day after school online with their friends.

I think there is also a big difference in the play-styles of people who play games for action, vs people who play games for story. Namely, people who play games for story are far less likely to re-play games.

Jeff's statements a couple weeks back perfectly illustrate my point: he says he constantly wants new experiences. He would rather play a new game than replay one he loved. What this means is that Jeff, and a lot of gamers like him, will purchase and play dozens of games over the course of a year. The action/shooter market doesn't work that way. Because so many shooter fans get hooked on one or two games at a time, it creates a wider gulf in sales between the top level shooters and everything else. The top level shooters hit a point where so many kids are spending all their free time playing online, that they suck their friends into buying the game as well. It's like a perpetual motion machine for game sales.

I think that it will be very difficult for any single story-driven game to create such a gulf between themselves and the rest of the story driven games out there.

Another thought: In my experience, the games that get me the most invested in their stories ALSO feature excellent action and gameplay. I think Videogame's main advantage as a story telling medium is their potential to make the player feel immersed to a greater level than film or novels, and a big part of that is by sucking the player into the game world through direct, visceral, and tactile connections. The final mission of Mass Effect 2 or the last level of Halo Reach strike me as 2 incredible examples of story and gameplay combining in ways that made me feel completely consumed by what I was playing. I don't think a pure action or a pure story game could ever strike such a strong emotional chord.

The Dead Space 2 ad campaign discussion was interesting to me but not because I care how EA chooses to advertise. It got people talking about the game, they won, end of story.

What was interesting to me is I remember when you'd NEVER see an advertisement for a game on TV, especially not during a major sporting event where the ad-time is so expensive.

My question to the audience, do you remember the first TV video game ad you ever saw?

I remember the first one I saw and remember thinking to myself "Wow, a videogame ad on TV!". That game, World of Warcraft.

Now I can't go 5 minutes without seeing some type of game ad. How far we've come in 6 years!

Hey Garnett,

Now that the Nintendo 3DS is out, what has come of that bet you made around E3?

Hey Garnett I saw your tweet stating, "Crysis 2 multiplayer demo leaves me with new doubts about the game--framerate, control response, melee/weapon balance, directional sound". Now I have no doubt that this might be ironed out at release I couldn't help but think of Unreal Tournament 3.

At a glance, there are about 317 people playing UT3 per day according to Xfire. It has less users playing then UT2004, American Army 3, Freecell, Battlefield 1942, and SWAT 4. In contrast, Crysis and Crysis Warhead has barely 1,000 users per day. To be noted, Xfire has a user base of 17 million.

In my personal opinion, any time a game engine developer branches out to console development, the flagship title (typically named after that engine) tanks. Valve seems to have built a solid foundation buy building on its engine and keeping the priorities "PC first, then console". Much like Epic, I feel Crytek is rushing there "flagship" title to cash in on a console market thereby potentially weakening the strength of the franchise should sales be anything but stellar.

As an example, play a round of "word association" . For instance I feel that:

iD is "Doomed" (should Rage fail and not produce any interest in product or engine)
Dice is "Indestructible" (as of late by putting out two hit titles back to back and working on MoH making Frostbite an attractive product and saving BFBC as a testing ground for the flagship title BF3)
NaturalMotion is "Bordering" (on greatness if it wasn't for Backbreaker and Star Wars the FU huh... poetic)
Source is "wily" (because every time people say its dated, it gets a nice polished updated look.)

If Crysis 2 delivers and has legs, it would be nice to see Crytek progress and other adopt there product. An Alan Wake sequel with Crytek behind the engine would be a nice treat. Sadly I can't really think of Epic since the games using UE3 far outshine the engine itself.

I have to say I really dislike the idea of a weekly segment dedicated to spoiling classic games. If you do decide to keep it, would it be possible to move it into the tailgate section once you're done with all that NFL talk? I'm also not a fan that as a result the comments here have become spoiler city as well.

On the subject of whether first person shooters can break into any new territory, I think we just got our answer: The Bulletstorm Demo.

Playing that reminded me more of Devil May Cry than any other FPS. In a way it's added an oldschool arcade sensibility to the singleplayer FPS.

Let us know if you live in the LA area and would be interested in coming out to an event that could include: Bands, Dj's, Weekend Confirmed Show, Gaming, etc. It would probably be on a Tuesday or Wednesday and would probably be from 9pm - 1pm or so.

I want to take the great endings back to the old school. My favourite of all endings is from Zelda, Link to the Past (Game Boy), I got so attached to the world and characters just to see it all fade away a square at a time as Link wakes up (or does he, err yes he does) after the final boss encounter, such a feeling a triumph for finally completing it and that's with all items and all the quests but also sadness that the world was ending.

Tnis is just a random question, but I thought it might make for a good conversation in this forum and maybe on the show.

I just finished up Kirby's Epic Yarn and Final Fantasy XIII. I didn't hate FFXIII anywhere near as much as I was led to believe I would by some reviews (just another case for making up your own mind), but it DID give me the itch to replay my favorite FF of all time. FF 12.

So I dug through my basement for the box of PS2 games and pulled it out...but while I was rifling through I also found Okami.

Like Kirby, I remembered that playing Okami just made me smile from ear to ear. I can't draw a line from a specific gameplay mechanic, or design decision, or even the visual look. I just know that both those games, and FFXII to a point, just made me happy. Simple as that.

They may not be at the top of my list for best games ever, but as pure happiness generators, they're at the top of the list.

So what games just make you HAPPY to play? What games never fail to put a smile on your face?

I totally agree with the "Your Mom Hates This" campaign and how it's a way to lure in younger players on a title clearly not old enough to play the game. I believe Epic/People Can Fly are doing the same thing, only in-game, with Bulletstorm. A constant barrage of foul language isn't necessary for a quality gaming experience, but when you have detestable characters yelling out phrases like "Dick Tits" and "You almost scared the cock off of me" of course you're angling for a group that is still young enough to be attracted to juvenile language. My 10 year old marvels whenever I let a 'damn' or 'shit' slip in his presence, and of course he would love to get his hands on a game that has no problem constantly throwing that and worse out there, but I'm pushing 40, and I've just about heard it all, so while your game might be the greatest thing since Serious Sam, I can't condone or even bring a game in my house that wallows in filth for the sake of it being filth. If you really want to sell your game to adults, maybe you should consider that a lot adults these days have kids, and will pass up your game just based on that fact.

As a vocal Nintendo fanboy, what "mediocre" first party property do I want to given a glorious comeback?

- Balloon Fight! -

I don't know how they'd do it, but it's high time Balloon Fight got the recognition it deserves. If a piece of crap like Kid Icarus can have a contingent of apologists clamouring for a new game (admittedly, the new game looks pretty hot) then why not Balloon Fight? I'd say keep it in 2D, but make it play more like a side scroller, like in Balloon Kid, and then just add all kinds of new gameplay ideas.

Other potentially worthy candidates:
Clu Clu Land, Ice Climber, Mole Mania, Wrecking Crew, and Joy Mecha Fight.
Not classics, by any stretch, but they've got the foundation for potentially cool reboots.

Also, I pre-ordered the Aqua Blue. :P
Sure, it's a lot of money, but should this thing end up with a decent library, but we all know that the next generation of consoles are gonna make it look like chump change by comparison. If the 3DS ends up with a decent enough software library, then I wouldn't feel too bad about skipping out on the consoles altogether and just being an exclusively handheld gamer. Even Nintendo themselves are gonna have to prove it to me if they want me to buy their next home system.

I love the podcast, but recently the show has been uploading to iTunes one week late, forcing me to listen to the show on my crappy laptop speakers rather than in my car or on my nice speaker system. Right now, episode 43 is the most current episode on iTunes, and I expect the current episode 44 to be uploaded to iTunes when episode 45 is created next week. Please upload the podcast to iTunes sooner!

So about when it's OK to talk about spoilers...there is not set time when it's OK, it has more to do with cultural knowledge. For example everyone knows the answer for Citizen Cane even if they haven't seen the move, it's just cultural knowledge.

Moving onto something a bit more recent I would feel better talking about the ending of Inglourious Basterds instead of The Salton Sea. Despite Basterds being more recent it's ending in particular was very quickly part of the cultural discussion because of it's revisionist take on history.

One other thing to consider, especially with games is how important the ending is to the rest of the experience. Talking about the ending of Heavy Rain is a bigger deal than Uncharted 2. I think people understand (or at least should) when an ending is worth not talking about with people who don't already know it. It's why nobody I know has talked about the end of Shadow of the Colossus without giving fair warning to people to get out if they haven't played it and why Rosie O'Donnell was a bitch for talking about Fight Club's ending on TV.

Still listening to the show...

I am really not excited for the 3DS. I'm not a Nintendo hater, I grew up with them as my gaming company of choice. However $249 for the 3DS? I don't think so. It sounds like the glasses 3D tech just isn't there do to its restrictive viewing angle. Sorry, kids like to get into playing games (I know I did/do) and kids MOVE. If the 3D breaks every time you move out of the very narrow viewing angle....GIMMICK.

If the mantra is going to be "I prefer to play my 3DS games in 2D".....I just feel like Nintendo is getting into the 3D game with a technology that just isn't there yet. Glasses 3D doesn't even work well enough for a stationary screen, let alone one you hold in your hands and interact with.

If all this is is a DS with better graphics, low resolution cameras, and wonky 3D implementation....pretty much sounds like an iPod touch 4th gen with a parallax 3D screen.....Seems like a purchase for Fan-boys only right now. Wonder if the new PSP with be $249....

Garnett, please pick Greenbay for the Superbowl. Every time you pick against the Steelers, they've won, so don't screw it up for us!

Love the show guys!

Besides the 8 year old niece demographic, when we visited my sister, my wife played Just Dance with my Sister and they loved it. Now my wife really wants it....

Part of it is the old songs that they remember from when they were younger ('80s, '90s) and the fact that they both love dancing but don't anymore now that they have husbands, kids, etc.

Hi love the show took me awhile to realize Garnett had another podcast after he left 1up glad I found it really like the discussions. One quick thought before I go into my long comment, some of the 3ds skepticism really reminds me of the ipads initial negative feedabck. It's just a ds with 3d beterr graphics/ just a big iphone, expensive, doesn't doe this or that etc,etc. I still haven't found a reason to buy an ipad between my iphone and macbook but a lot of the discussion feels similar to me. To me I love portability and it makes sense that portables will start rival home console prices, it seems comparible to laptop prices vs desktops, for me personally I'll never go back to a big desktop setup and I hope future game consoles are more akin to portable labtops.

Anyhow listening to Ryan's comment about shooter fatigue, and maybe combat fatigue got me thinking about a lot that bugs me with games now. I'm a professional storyboard artist for tv animation, I do some personal comic work when I can and my perspective on games is really shaped by my tastes as an artist. I love animation, comics and film but for most of those mediums I'm primarily into classics and older stuff not what's happening now. So games have become in a way my replacement for a lot of those loves. Ok on to the point.
I completely agree with shooter fatigue, and I think it's really ties into my problem, Realistic visual fatigue. It bugs me that these machines are so powerful, can create fully realized worlds but every major story driven AAA title only wants to look as realistic as possible and also usually includes the same kind of shooting combat. For lack of better examples it seems strange that we don't have an awesome game that does something along the line of a Nightmare Before Christmas, or maybe even a slightly more realistic Incredibles or something like the world and characters of AKIRA, fully realized and brought to life in a gameworld. I'm tired of the creepy mannequins and simply running down corridors and shooting. I'm finally playing Mass Effect since it's come to ps3 and there's some awesome stuff but I REALLY hope there's another type action to do besides the nonstop monotonous shooting. That's what really kept me from getting into Bioshock, the redundant combat/shooting was too much. I think that's one of the great strengths of SHadow of the Colussus, the combats and encounters feel detailed and complex enough so you truly get a better sense of immersion. I know a lot of people hate "boss" fights but I think they are there because games haven't quite found the way to get in really close and let your character struggle with another character and actually give you control and have your character interact with environments or whatever the case maybe. The boss fight seems to try and give you that. I think I've gotten off subject but it would be great if enemy encounters could get to a point where they are almost as complex as a Street Fighter match, but still seemlessly fits into the games environment. I know most of what I'm talking about is still combat related but I think it's the characters interactive shortcomings that really help turn everything into a shooter. How awesome would a new Ducktales game be if your character could go anywhere in Duckburg, travel the world and really interact with characters and environments and in a complex and sophisticated way. sorry that was way too long

Also Casltevania: Lords of Shadow had a damn good ending. I'm a little worried that it might get ruined for people once they see anything of the second DLC (if it takes place where I think it does). Then again, the trailers for Castlevania managed to show allot, yet reveal nothing about where that story ends up going so who knows!

Okay so first off, I want to make this clear, that I am being sincere, and not trying to hater bait. I Also know it won't make it on the air cause the hosts are super biased but this episode made me want to share this story.

I, and my friends, loved the end of Bioshock 2. Not, just the final cut scene either, from the moment you lay dying as Dr. Lamb smothers the life out of Elanor, MY Elanor. The scene taking place from the point of view of the little sister was beautiful, touching and surreal. The reunion with your surrogate daughter brought me real joy. Side by side, with my daughter slaughtering all those who dare to stand in our way, and culminating with her acting out lessons she learned from me.

I was moved to tears, f the haters.

Now it could have had something to do that I played almost all the game holding my 4 month old infant daughter in my arms, cooing and pressing buttons and giggling at the pretty lights. The game just captured my the feelings I have for my own daughter so perfectly. I would destroy everyone, and any thing to save her.

i have been growing tired of the big multyplayer shooters, Call of duty and halo, its not that there hard (actually i find them quite easy i regularly get 12.00 ratios) it's that there the same thing over and over again, shoot kill shoot kill get killed by a camper reapeat, its the same thing (for halo its jump assassinate jump nade kill jump headshot crap three people im dead) i have found a shooter thats actually fun! rainbow six vegas 2 this game makes sense a shot to the head with anything is an insta kill theres no jumping (so no glitches for all you noobs) no grenade launchers and to top it all of DOORS YOU CAN OPEN i got this game for 15$ caanadian (which i belive at the moment is $15.15 american) so this would make a great kennata'ford and its a great game to play if your sick of noob tubes (cod 4 is good if ur sick of campers) but be warned you can go into third person while taking cover so its pretty easy to spawn camp but the shotguns have range! (spas 12 with rifle scope pwns)

On the topic of playing games for combat, it might just be my personal taste but I found that the Grandia games (specifically Grandia 2 and Grandia 3), I found the battle system obscenely fun and satisfying while the stories were "meh".

That was an RPG series where I would actually seek out encounters in previously completed areas, not just to level up but to try to get a string a flawless victories.

I definitely agree with Ryan Payton - the problem is that the current generation has been taken over by action games and shooters. Recently I've played at least several great games where combat was probably the least interesting part of the entire experience.

If someone made a game that was like Mass Effect, or was Mass Effect, where all you did was explore the galaxy, negotiate with people, and make friends, I'd probably play that game (a space drama?). Dragon Age and Persona are also games that I mainly play in order to interact with the characters who are really well-written, and I actually enjoy doing that more than the combat. I think games like Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, and maybe even Uncharted would be better off with a lot less combat - the most interesting enemies in all of them for me were the traps and hazards.

You wanna know what I think of this Podcast!? Its a great big pile...of happiness. It is "my" podcast for the week, my favourite, my go to for whimsy, alternate ideas, and intelligent conversation about the medium I love. Thanks guys!

My Cannataford for this week: Parsec47

Another free PC shooter from my favourite one-man-dev-team, Kenta Cho.

This was a game that I'd sort of overlooked until recently because, on the surface, it's the most generic looking shooter in Cho's catalogue (or should I say, the closest thing to a generic shooter). It looks rather chunky in contrast to his usually clean aesthetic, and your ship seems a little hard to control, at first glance anyway.

Gameplay wise, it's pretty standard, dodge the bullets, shoot the geometric bad guys, collect the little points widgets. Arrow Keys move, Z shoots primary guns, holding X charges your secondary weapon, letting go of X shoots it. Your ship zips around the screen really, really fast, almost uncontrollably so, but charging your secondary weapon slows you down to a more manageable pace, so the trick is to hold down both action buttons and then quickly release and re-press the X key whenever you need to take out a bigger target or quickly move out of the way of something, there's an easy rhythm to it when you hit your stride.

You have a choice of two different secondary weapons.

The difficulty starts off pretty friendly but ramps up, but it plays more like a Treasure game than, say, a Cave or Touhou one. That's to say, it's not bullet hell territory, per se, so much as it's just really, really fast and frantic.

It's Open GL (I think), so it should run smoothly on just about any PC (a mac version is out there, google it) and can be downloaded here:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/p47_e.html

Interesting to hear the DS numbers. Pretty surprising considering it's beginnings. I recall the great skepticism from the gaming press (and hardcore gamers) about the system when it was first unveiled.

So I take the criticism of the 3DS is a block of salt.

Regarding Payton's question as to whether or not a mainly story-driven narrative game with little or no combat could succeed on the level of Call of Duty, I think it's possible. You'd just have to sell it to a totally different audience.

COD and most action games like it really appeal to the "Bro" demographic which much of the time is still the main target audience for video games in North America. It's the same demographic that makes action movies and action TV shows successful.

If you were making a game that shared more in common with drama, soap opera, comedy, etc., you would have to sell it to people who are more into that thing. You would have to convince those people that a videogame can do those things well. For starters you'd probably have to have at least a professional TV-level writer deeply involved (if not one of the main designers). You'd also probably have to advertise the game outside of the normal gaming channels.

For a while now I've been wondering if adventure games and other narrative-driven games could prove to be a gateway to casual gamers who maybe don't like action and space marines.

About the future of Steam and the PS3, I don't think it will have that much of an impact unless another company other than Valve release a game that will use Steamworks on the PS3. Still don't knoq how cross platform play is going to work because of the differences between controllers and keyboard mouse controls.

Also I just don't see a future where Microsoft will use Steamworks and that is probably due to the Mac (cross-platform)

The Dead Space 2 marketing campaign seems very 90's to me. Remember game ads in the 90's? I remember constantly seeing an ad in gaming magazines that featured some creepy guy chained up while a dominatrix held some random game in his face. Let's not forget the infamous "You will shit with fear and puke with pleasure" Illbleed trailer. That's how many games were marketed back then. Game ads played into the whole "People who play video games are creepy, perverted, morally depraved, loner, sociopaths."

When I flip through my old issues of EGM from the 90's, and see some of the ads, I feel proud over how far we've grown as an industry. Mature no longer means gratuitous.

Something to consider is that there will always be parental groups who blame video games for tragedies, looking for any reason to slap a government controlled rating system on them. We've taken many steps forward and have gotten to a place where we can respectably say, "No. Games are an art form. They are a legitimate forum for intelligent story telling." But things like this Dead Space 2 commercial just put us several steps back. The next time a columbine happens, it is this commercial they will show on the 24-hour news networks. EA has just given them ammo to fire at us, at the ESRB, and at the industry as a whole.

I wish they wouldn't get so tied down in minutiae because it causes them to lose the forest for the trees.

Case in point: LBP2's jumping is what it is. It's been like that since the first game and it will continue in that spirit to ensure backwards compatibility with all LBP games. OK, you may or may not like it. But judging from review scores and sales it can obviously stand on its own merit. It's tedious to hear Jeff, Billy, and Garnett continue this back and forth about the jump mechanic. The time taken up by this bickering can be better spent hashing out more important information. For instance:

Literally every time LBP has been brought up in the presence of Garnett since the initial game's release, he has reiterated one point, which is a valid one. The initial LBP struggled with parsing out the great user-created levels and bringing them to the forefront. This was the game's biggest weakness. The user-created levels were brilliant, but they were hard to find. Now that LBP2 has initiated LBP.me, which is the broadest and most efficient inter-connective web portal for any video game in existence, he has not mentioned it once in the last two weeks.

Here, a developer has head-on addressed his biggest complaint with the first game and done it with masterful strokes. And in lieu of mentioning it once, the last two episodes he has spent the entire discussion having to describe, defend, or clarify arguments about the jumping mechanic. It gets tiresome.

God of Wars combat really got old for me, this may have been that I played all three games for the first time over the course of a few months.

I didn't mind the shootingt in Uncharted 2 because the game was great at presenting new environments that would affect the gunplay, the firefight on-top of the signs is a great example of this. Once that variation dissipated (pretty much the majority of Shambala) then the shoot really started to bother me.

Castlevania is a game that really tried to make the gameplay have that sense of variety and for the most part it succeeded; it broke up the combat with long climbing segment alala Uncharted or Enslaved, it had a few of the Shadow of Colossus boss battles, it made you feel significantly more powerful yet you could get your ass kicked if you didn't pay attention (damn large wargs)

Speaking on the recurring 'Best Game Ending' topic, I have to throw Persona 3 into the ring. No game before or since has given me an ending that resonated quite as well. They use the fact that it's an 80 JRPG to attach you deeply to the characters and when your main character gives his life to protect them, it's such a beautiful moment. I also like that it's one of the few games to add an epilogue that didn't devalue the emotional impact. Just amazing storytelling all around.

When you guys wonder why people buy boxes of Cataclysm, you're forgetting the most obvious answer of sales and promotions and store credits for retail partners. Bought Cata from Amazon and it was essentially free with all their discounts and constant game credits they offer.

My favorite game ending is one of the most polarizing endings in the history of video games, Metal Gear Solid 2. (sorry, this may be long)

The game's message about the flow and control of information in the age of the Internet was way ahead of it's time. In 2001, it may have just seemed like an exaggerated commentary on message boards and blogs, but since then, we've seen media blackouts in many countries where twitter is the only way to get information out, the FCC Net Neutrality ruling, partisan 24-hour news networks manipulating facts and using editing tricks to express a political view point which is then presented as"news," and events like the Wikileaks scandal. When one considers the current state of the media and information control, MGS2's ending becomes very relevant.

As far as the actual story goes, you are just waiting to fight Ocelot the entire game, which never happens, and it leaves you waiting in anticipation for a confrontation in the next game. It was a beautiful build-up to the final fight in MGS4 (regardless of how you felt about the pay-off, the build-up was nice, at least).

Jack is struggling with ideas of choice, which seems to be a major aspect of Japanese story-telling, "Why am I fighting?" and it leaves the player questioning his or her own actions. By the end, you realize that Solodus is kind of the good guy, so, when you are forced to kill him, you feel bad about it.

The lighting, blocking, and music in the final cut-scenes, are all executed perfectly.

When Emma's GW virus starts to kick in, the game breaks the fourth wall and starts messing with the player in a very "Eternal Darkness" kind of way. The "Fission Mailed" screen is very meta. It presents an interesting message. Like Jack, you think you are in control of your actions while playing the game, but actually, the game's system is, not the player. You have the illusion of control through most of the game. It all feels standard and routine, until the GW virus goes into effect. The last few hours of MGS2 are about what happens when the illusion of control starts to break down, for Jack and for the player. "Fission Mailed" plays in because part of the message is that if the game's system is designed to kill you at a certain point, it will, regardless of what you do. You think you are in control, but to what extent? In an admittedly insane conspiracy theory kind of way, it's designed to make the player consider how much control they really have over their own life. I think it's similar to the message presented in The Matrix.

It's a challenging ending, but one you can take something different away from every time you play it. It's definitely post-modern and is designed to make the payer reflect on many hidden themes. It's an ending you either get or you don't. It wasn't made for everyone, and that's ok. This is why I wouldn't call it the "best" game ending, but it certainly is my favorite. To quote Wayne's World, "Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes everybody liked. They left that to the Bee Gees." That's how I think of Hideo Kojima. In that sense, he's the Led Zeppelin of game development.

I don't really care who makes Call of Duty, but there is an old saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth. I'm a little concerned about having 3 or more different developers working to pull together a game, simply because Daddy Warbucks demands a new entry in the CoD series for winter.

Infinity Ward has their own culture and creative vision for the series. We saw that in the Modern Warfare games.

Treyarch, when they were actually given the time and leeway to put their own creative culture to work, came up with a CoD game that captured a slightly different spirit in Black Ops.

Call of Duty 3 suffered because Treyarch was basically told to copy IW as best they could, and they were only given a year to do it.

MW2 felt off too, almost as though IW or Activision got so obsessed with being bigger and better than CoD4, that they lost sight of the refined, intelligent design and gritty personality that seperated CoD, CoD2 and CoD4 to begin with.

I think MW3 could turn out to be an incredibly competent game technically, with more than enough explosions and features to keep the people that buy the franchise happy. But I think it stands a good chance of losing it's identity in the process.