Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag for PC to come after consoles
DTS Headphone:X brings 11.1 channel surround sound to headsets
Xbox One policy change means loss of family sharing, disc-free gaming
Steam beta code implies game-sharing plans
Crytek working on The Collectibles for iOS
Weekend Confirmed Episode 53
by Garnett Lee, Mar 25, 2011 11:00am PDTThe Nintendo 3DS arrives in Europe and North America over the weekend but Jeff and Garnett have already been playing with the new handheld for a week. Their impressions of the hardware and some of the launch games fill most of the opening Whatcha Been Playin? section but there's much more to come includine Crysis 2, Shogun 2, Mortal Kombat, and Patapon 3. Shacknews's own Jeff Mattas and good friend of the show Christian Spicer round out the cast this week and brought their A game for the Warning where the group covers game criticism, behaviorism as applied to discovery in games, and more. All that, plus this week's videogame news in the Front Page and Finishing Moves make this a can't miss show.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 53: 03/25/2011
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- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
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If you're viewing this in the GameCenter application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 52 directly.
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 Part 1: Start: 00:00:00 End: 00:29:52
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 2: Start: 00:30:40 End: 01:01:34
- The Warning: Start: 01:02:40 End: 01:34:46
- Featured Music "All My Life" by David RuffinJr.: 01:34:36 End: 01:38:02
- Front Page news: Start: 01:38:02 End: 02:13:11
This week's Featured Music comes from the supremely talented David Ruffin Jr. In the past years, highly touted music publications such as Rolling Stone, The Source, and Rap Pages have labeled David Jr. as "talented and is up-and-coming". However, perhaps his most thrilling moment in music came when he heard a world wide, multi-platinum song, called...Gin & Juice. A Hip-Hop Classic now! A song that Dr. Dre, T-Green, Snoop, and he collaborated on and recorded together. David Jr. recently relocated to Los Angeles in an attempt to get some recognition for his latest creations. David credits his father, along with current soloist, Joe and 80s crooners, Alexander ONeal, James D-Train Williams, and the great Marvin Gaye as the major influences on his style of singing.
Pick up a copy of his new CD "All My Life" at CD Baby. You will not be disappointed. And keep up with the latest and greatest from David Ruffin Jr. on ReverbNation, facebook, and twitter.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter
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!
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
I appreciated that you guys picked up my topic, but I was kinda bummed that my main point was never really addressed. I guess that is what I get for writing a five paragraph essay rather than a quick hit response, so let me try again in shorter form:
The big difference I see between games criticism and other media's criticism is that game's criticism is focused almost exclusively on how "fun" or instantly gratifying the experience is whereas other mediums try to cultivate tastes above and beyond this.
Let me be clear that I have no problem with enjoyment for its own sake, but I just don't see that as something worthy of truly high praise. Instant gratification is something that tends to find its audience automatically whether we are talking about getting hammered and going to to eat greasy hamburgers or an inane music video about how awesome "Friday" is. Instant gratifciation is not something critics generally need to champion, it finds its audience on its own. Critics in other mediums--at least the pre-blog-o-sphere traditional ones--seem to be generally aware of this.
And the ultimate problem is that when you start throwing out the 9/10 and Five star reviews behind the big blockbusters because they are "fun" and they instantly feel good to play, that is putting the stuff that truly is something special that goes above and beyond this at a distadvantage.
Goddamn it. I still ended up with five paragraphs. I hate the confines of the Twitter era.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 22 replies.
Why can't a reviewer give a great score to a game for being fun, and an even better score to game that not only gets that right, but also attempts something more.
In 2007, we saw the release of Halo 3, COD4, Mario Galaxy and a ton of other FANTASTIC games that were all a ton of fun. They all received great scores in the 9s.
Bioshock was also released that year and received even better scores from most places and game of the year awards, because it not only told a story full of interesting themes, but a story that ONLY had full impact through the use of this medium.
In 2008, Grand Theft Auto 4 became one of the highest rated games of all time, not only because it was an incredibly well crafted game, but because it told a mature story full of robust characters, interesting themes and powerful messages. That doesn't make any of the other FUN games in 2008 less deserving of the high scores they received.
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