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Weekend Confirmed Episode 57
by Garnett Lee, Apr 22, 2011 11:00am PDTLike millions of happy gamers, the Weekend Confirmed crew eagerly jumped back into the joys of testing in Portal 2. But there's a lot more to keep guests EGMi's Andrew Pfister and Billy Berghammer, and Jeff and Garnett busy. Mortal Kombat has them in fighting spirits and a full report from Bethesda's recent spring showcase includes a deep look at the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Prey 2. There's also news of the next Wii hardware, codenamed "Cafe," and the brouhaha over Portal 2's ARG in the news before closing things out with Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 57: 04/22/2011
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If you're viewing this in the GameCenter application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 57 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: 00:31:18
- Whatcha' Been Playin Part 2: Start: 00:33:04 End: 01:08:29
- The Warning: Start: 01:09:31 End: 01:42:42
- Featured Music "Ahead on Our Way (FF7 Cover)" by Haunted Shores: 01:42:42 End: 01:45:39
- Front Page news: Start: 01:45:39 End: 02:26:42
This week's featured music is the track "Ahead on Our Way (FF7 Cover)" by Haunted Shores. Haunted Shores is Mark Holcomb (guitar) and Misha Mansoor (guitar and programming) and they are an ethnically confused project based in Washington DC. Hear more from them on their Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.
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 delriomusic.
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
Shitty title aside, I don't see any problem with a Japanese developer tackling western mythology or genres.
I personally get the sense that there's a segment of the gaming population that just reveres the Japanese development community, more for the memories from their childhood then the products they're actually putting out these days.
Last Guardian looks great. But I also think Japanese games are usually hampered by bone-headed design decisions, and there are a lot of people seemingly willing to give these developers a pass on the grouns of 'cultural differences' or eccentricity.
Bad game design is bad game design.
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Storytelling that would rather bookend gameplay with 2-hour cutscenes than tell the story over the course of the gameplay.
Storylines than 9 times out of 10 make no sense. I mean, most videogame writing is uninspired or mediocre. But Sucker Punch is a more cohesive, engrossing narrative than the average Japanese videogame narrative.
Difficulty curves that look more like roller-coaster blue-prints.
Control schemes and camera systems that feel years behind their western counterparts. It took Konami how many years to borrow western controls for MGS? Before that point, aiming your gun in an MGS took something like FIVE BUTTONS. And Konami is one of the more western-leaning developers in Japan right now.
BAD online play. Just BAD. From games that lack real voice chat, to games that dump players back to the MAIN MENU after losing a match, to janky menus and worse net code, it feels like Japan discovered the internet a few weeks ago.
There are other problems, but those are the ones that immediately leap to mind.
Not all Japanese games are bad. Some of my favorite games are Japanese. But on the whole, the development community over their needs to update their development strategies, corporate strategies and start experimenting outside the 5 or 6 genres they've been insulating themselves in for the last 2 generations.
I for one, am happy to see Capcom try working with western companies (hopefully resulting in a transfer of knowledge and ideas) and exploring genres and subject matter outside their wheelhouse (Dragon's Dogma).
It may flop, but at least that game is guarenteed to be something new and different from Japan. Instead of the same gameplay wrapped in a slightly different form of Japanese 'wackiness'.
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