Chatty: Diablo III, Dragon's Dogma
FileShack: Unity of Command, Skyjacker
Daily Filter: Planetside 2, Deadlight
Weekend PC digital deals: strategy-o-rama
38 Studios, Harry Potter Kinect - Shacknews Daily: May 25, 2012
Minecraft for Xbox 360 dev working on 'Adventure' update
Demon's Souls servers extended again
Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection coming in June
Sony patent would interrupt gameplay to display ad
Weekend Confirmed 114 - Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Lost Planet 3
Weekend Confirmed 91 - Metal Gear Rising, Last of Us, Syndicate
by Garnett Lee, Dec 16, 2011 11:00am PSTThe flurry of new game trailers unleashed during the VGAs last week leads the conversation on Weekend Confirmed this week. Shacknews' own New York-based editor Andrew Yoon joins Xav, Jeff, and Garnett to wade through them, starting with Metal Gear Rising, and moving on through Last of Us, Fortnite, and Mass Effect 3. Andrew recently attended a Sony event back in New York and shares impressions from playing Syndicate, Journey, and Lumines. Listener Shadow13th called out Jeff for using saves to control his fate in role playing games and the group picks up the subject of the min/max approach to gaming and how it exposes the mechanics potentially to the detriment of immersion. There's still more too, with a quick look at November's NPD sales numbers, Trine 2, and Finishing Moves.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 91: 12/16/2011
Subscription Links:
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
- Weekend Confirmed is also available in the Zune Marketplace
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed via RSS
If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 91 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:
Show Breakdown:
Round 1 00:00:00 to 00:23:50
Whatcha Been Playing Part 1 00:24:25 to 00:49:54
Whatcha Been Playing Part 2 00:51:00 to 01:16:18
Listener Feedback/Front Page News 01:17:23 to 01:48:25
NFL Tailgate 01:49:09 to 01:56:36
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 Cannata 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!
Follow the Weekend Confirmed hosts on Twitter, too! Garnett Lee @GarnettLee, Jeff Cannata @jeffcannata, and Xav de Matos @xav.
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
(also, heard the pixel junk monsters argument again and after playing a few hours of this game I have to say it still feels like just another poorly performing flash game)
RE - all the trailer discussions: a lot of assumptions being made based on a 2 minute clip that is only created to try and get people excited while keeping them guessing, might want to reserve a bit of judgement until we know more about some of those games.
Horde mode 2.0, Capture the Leader and King of the Hill are my playlists of choice. Had somebody told me before GoW3 came out that it would be the [new] shooter that absorbed most my time this season, I would have laughed.
Anybody else have similarly surprising revelations as far as games you didn't expect to win you over or blow you away?
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Off work for Xmas, and I'm up late after partying with friends. Didn't feel like sleeping yet, so I figured 'maybe I'll try MW3 multiplayer again, see if I was wrong about it'.
10 minutes later:
"I've made a terrible mistake."
And this is with the leniency that an inebriated state brings to any entertainment source.
Yuck.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Choices no longer have repercussions beyond who likes you, how much they like you, will they bang you, yada yada yada.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 24 replies.
To the Moon
Ive tried out alot of games off the back of podcast recommendations. They are normally games I don't naturally gravitate towards, but if they get a lot of praise I give them a try. Titles like Bayonetta and Vanquish for example. I end up playing them for a couple of hours and then often just give up. I now realise that games that require me to learn patterns, become adept with restrictive systems, be extremely dexterous etc are not for me. Its just too frustrating unless I knock down the difficulty. Gamey games bascially. Demon souls is the poster boy of this, I guess.
On the other hand, with modern graphical capabilities, developers can provide us with incredibly interesting and compelling worlds, Skyrim is an obvious example, which provide a different sort of challenge but is more leaning towards immersing the player in the world rather than removing immersion through frustrating repetition, pattern recognition and shooting the glowey bit.
This gameyness obviously goes back to the roots of video gaming and a lot of people would say its the most important thing about this medium. Ive never been attracted to it myself though.......
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
The fact is that we buy, and continue to buy, buggy software. While this is the case there isn't any incentive for them to lift their game.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 14 replies.
Just a few more days to share your holiday videogaming stories with us. We're recording our holiday show on Tuesday. Post here over the weekend with any you'd like.
(If you posted in last week's thread we've got them so you don't need to repost)
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 10 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
There were an awful lot of exclusives - if Skyrim is possibly broken on one platform is that any worse than the fact that huge number of exclusives were on this list. In fact everything except Red Dead and Mass Effect 2 were exclusives (I think) ... if you start tossing out games because single platform problems maybe exclusives should automatically not be be considered. I am not yet playing Skyrim, but I will so I cannot speak to its GOTYness. Oh am sorry for the guy whose having trouble with Skyrim; I feel your pain since I play most of my games on the PC and its always a crapshoot but you just never know.
When I called you about about using save games I was talking about decisions that affect the world and the people and the story.
When it comes to things like leaping off giant waterfalls, going on killing rampages in the Jarl's court, force pushing your companion over a bridge and goofy stuff like that I say knock yourself out. Save and reload all you want. Just like in GTA the fun of that sandbox world is having moments when you explore it's extreme side.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
That said, the original of video games going back to pin ball machines, is really mastering game mechanics. Its not about virtual reality or simulating your favorite fantasy novel. That's why when you say video games are about "choice" and not crafted experiences you sound incredibly glib and ignorant, and you're clearly creating a false dichotomy. Nothing about Super Mario Land entails video game choice. And games at their origin have never really been about choice, the same way books and films aren't---except outside of some oblique novelties like choose your own adventure paper backs.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 17 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Fortnite = Minecraft + Left 4 Dead
But I think it's more like
Fortnite = Minecraft + graphics
I don't want to be one of those shallow gamers but as someone who survived the Atari era all the way to the current generation I really appreciate graphics. Whenever I see Minecraft I am so uninspired at the art style, or complete lack of art style. Thousands and thousands of rigid, plain cubes make me yawn. I crave curves, I crave graphics.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
(note: some NWS audio; same guidelines as the podcasts)
8/3/2010: Jeff goes around various character voice types: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajj2WVhetL0
8/17/2010: Guest reader Jeff Green reads off "myNotebook Carbon" and "Just SING! National Anthems": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBGupEFsbuM
9/7/2010: Jeff reads off the description from "My Exotic Farm", discovers that it's a reskin of "My Farm": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMBQrbtjPWI
Eventually, even this started to get old, so in early 2011, they cut the Nintendo Downloads from the main podcast; Jeff ran a small podcast called the "NintenDownload Express", but that eventually got old as well. The Bombcast never did announce eShop game releases for the 3DS.
From an outside perspective, the WiiWare / DSiWare / eShop looks like a microcosm of the boxed goods games market, where there are a small amount of outstanding games among the population of mediocre or flawed games, but it seems more skewed toward repeated reskins (IIRC there's been over 6 versions of "myNotebook" and over 5 versions of "My Farm").
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
It must be hard to be a Leafs fan.
Go Sens.
Which brings me to how awesome companion's are to have. And being able to send companions to sell items and quest needs to permeate through all games. Take it even further no more need for any shops just allow me to buy and sell stuff from a pause menu or my companion.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
The gaming landscape would be worse for wear if not for the efforts of Japanese Developers like Mizuguchi, Suda, Ueda, and Kamiya who reach a global appeal without having to pander to a specific nationality or gamer demographic.
Just another reason why no fans of multiplayer shooters take their comments on the genre particularly seriously.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 16 replies.
The best statistics available place the Xbox 360 at approximately 57 million units sold worldwide, while the PS3 is at approximately 55 million units sold worldwide. Given that the PS3 was released a full year later than the Xbox 360, the PS3 actually maintains a higher annual sales average over the lifetime of the system. That said, the critical point to focus on is that both Microsoft and Sony have relatively similar worldwide sales figures for number of console units sold this generation.
So again, why do you think Sony is often characterized as having relatively failed on the hardware front this generation - as Jeff and the rest of the podcast crew seemed to intimate this week - when Sony is just as successful on the worldwide hardware sales front as Microsoft this generation?
(And one could argue about Microsoft and Sony's successes and failures on a North America vs. worldwide front to support different conclusions, but wouldn't Sony as a worldwide hardware developer be most concerned with the broader picture of their current worldwide hardware performance when developing future hardware strategies? Also, I'm sure many would validly point to the poor initial launch of the PS3, including the overpricing issue, as an explanation for the notion of Sony failing on hardware this generation. However, in terms of Sony "rethinking" their hardware for the next generation, wouldn't their future business plans take cues from the successes or failures of the hardware in its most current state and/or the lifetime scope of the hardware, rather than from the successes or failures at launch time?)
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
RE: Mass Effect's "De-RPGing".
I have to say, it really frustrates me when I hear any of you say that Mass Effect is no longer an RPG; that it's "Just a shooter". I feel like I've said this a million times, but if you play Mass Effect 2 on any difficulty above "normal", the combat retains all the same strategic RPG elements that ME 1 or KOTOR used... it's just that you have execute your attacks manually.
For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0i3BpxlTc
Watch what this guys does. He is constantly pausing the action, changing weapons and ammo types, coordinating and layering his crew's power usage to bring down targets in a specific and deliberate order. He is doing EVERYTHING you need to do in classic RPG combat, except that he has to aim and pull the trigger manually.
Please guys, I think you really need to take another look at your perception of Mass Effect 2's combat. It's totally cool if you enjoy playing on an easier difficulty level that allows you to steamroll over enemies without using RPG combat elements that the game offers.... But those RPG elements ARE there.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
Now for something completely different..
I'd like to hear the guys thoughts on this very well done piece of work on "Unethical Game Design" that was recently written by "Junglist" a well known and highly regarded games journo/reviewer in Australia.
http://www.gamearena.com.au/videos/latest.php/5-inch-floppy-60--unethical-game-design
I personally got a lot out of of this piece and would love to hear a bunch more discussion around how the games journo's & reviewers can tackle this issue. I for one feel like I've been very naive about this new aspect of modern games and wonder if we're going to be doomed to the point where we are essentially regarded as an extension of the gambling industry....?
Not entirely I'm sure but with so much coming out now how can we all protect the people that really need awareness of these Compulsion type mechanics without ruining our beloved past time?
Hardcore Gaming 101 is going to be doing a 12 hour gaming marathon to raise money for Child's Play this Saturday (the 17th, tomorrow as of posting this). We wish we could have announced this a lot sooner, but this is something of a first time for everyone involved, and we had to learn a lot in a pretty short span of time, and by "we" I mean "mostly CJ," who grabbed the ball and ran with it.
Expect to see in action, the kinds of games you might read about on the site. CJ is even open to requests.
There's gonna be a lot of CPlay events this weekend, and if you've committed your wallet to one of the others, that's cool, it all goes to the same good cause, but do drop by and check out the stream if you have the chance, and if you have a twitch account, joint the chat and cheer CJ on, maybe show your appreciation for all the great content that HG101 provides.
http://childsplaycharity.org/events/post/hardcore-gaming-101-marathon
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 8 replies.
Unreal Engine 3, though... plenty of gray and brown in the Gears series. In that respect, Fortnite is a little refreshing, though I was immediately dismayed at what seemed like a "Minecraft meets DOTA meets Team Fortress 2 meets horde mode" trailer. I think back to playing the first Unreal, and the vast majority of my enjoyment of that game was not in the shooting mechanics (those felt inferior to Quake 2 and Quake 1, with the mouselag and the ultra-balanced MP-esque weapon damage in single-player), but in the exploration of the world, in one of the first FPS games to not have a 256-color-locked texture palette (you could play Quake 2 in OpenGL, but its native textures were still restricted to a palette; Unreal used 256-color textures for each individual texture image, but over a full 24-bit renderer). It was also one of the first FPS game that explored large environments, and had a soundtrack that wasn't MIDI or short CD tracks looping forever. I'm disappointed that instead of reaching for that kind of experience again, Epic's building a Minecraft / DOTA clone.
"I am disappointed by the lack of original ideas in gaming."
"My two front-runners for game of the year are a game that recycles every fantasy trope in existence, and a game that has been reusing the same basic formula for over two decades."
The Last of Us looks awesome because of how it approaches the experience of playing through a zombie apocalypse. It looks to focus on the survival aspect, and the interdependency of these two characters.
I was more gripped by the interaction and interdependent relationship of these two characters in one trailer than I ever have been by any piece of media from The Last Guardian, for example.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 11 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 8 replies.
I'd like to place the blame on the gaming media's overall lack of enthusiasm for all things Nintendo, but that's only part of it. NOA has done absolutely nothing to hype up these games. It'd be nice if they had sales once and awhile (or at all, in fact) but somehow I think these games would still get ignored. Do any of you plan to cash in Club Nintendo coins to get Fluidity, 3D Classics Xevious or Mario vs Donkey Kong Minis March Again?
I'm guessing you don't even bother with Club Nintendo.
On another note, I didn't fast forward past the music break for once. Good job!
I respect Jeff a lot, and perhaps I'm exaggerating, but here lately it seems he's a repeat offender of making "I don't get why people don't share MY opinion!" statements. See "I don't get why people like multiplayer" a few weeks back. We're all different, sir.
On a lighter note, totally with Jeff on The Last of Us trailer. Couldn't care a morsel less about yet another zombie game. Some people are saying "It's Naughty Dog, so it will be great, and elevate the genre!", but I'm of the group saying "Why would Naughty Dog lower themselves to this?". I really hope to be proven wrong.
The same goes for questions about the Vita, and what will become of portable gaming. The portable market in general has become so disruptive that for gaming journalists to make "dedicated gaming handheld" into some kind of albatross is ridiculously arbitrary. The iphone is finding success BY introducing video games to new audiences, so why would you look at something like the Vita and say "psh, that plays games. No way is it going to sell!"
That's not to say Vita will be a run away success, but the point is that we don't know what will distinguish the ultimate portable device yet. I firmly believe that smart phones are as they are now are not that end game, and that's why we're seeing Amazon sell 1 million Kindle Fires PER WEEK.
of course I'm probably the only person who wasn't very impressed by The Road.
random thought: did that game Inversion come out yet? because if it hasn't they should add a grappling hook to the game thus the Inception/Bionic Commando lovechild of my dreams could come to fruition