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
New Zone of the Enders project underway
Carmageddon ploughing into GOG
Weekend Confirmed 94 - Vita Japanese launch slows, SWTOR, 2012 predictions
by Garnett Lee, Jan 06, 2012 11:00am PSTRecovered from the holidays, Xav and Jeff join Garnett for the first Weekend Confirmed of 2012. The year kicks off with a special guest in the fourth chair, prolific videogame voice actor Zach Hanks. If you've played a game in the past few months, you've almost certainly heard his work. He gives a unique look inside the voice acting that breathes life into videogame characters. He's also a gamer, and holds nothing back as the conversation go on to consider the rapidly dwindling sales of the PlayStation Vita only weeks after its launch in Japan, games we've been playing like Star Wars the Old Republic, the announcement of new action strategy XCOM game, and a few more thoughts on what 2012 may hold. The group gets so involved they talk right past Finishing Moves, but there's a little time left for Jeff to savor his season win in the football tailgate and get in to the playoff spirit.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 94: 01/06/2012
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If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 93 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 00:24:44
Whatcha Been Playing Part 1 00:25:20 to 00:52:40
Whatcha Been Playing Part 2 00:53:41 to 01:20:16
Listener Feedback/Front Page News 01:21:10 to 01:54:45
Football Tailgate 1:55:30 to 02:01:21
Thanks to our special guest, voice actor and director, Zach Hanks (Zach Hanks on IMDB).
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
On SWTOR, the funny thing is Jeff and Xav both picked Jedi Knight, which in my experience so far has the WORST opening storyline and dialog choices, and yet they both love the story! That really shows you how impressive this game is. Note my jedi knight is only level 12 so I can't comment on the story later. So far I find the Sith storylines much better than the republic ones, but that is mostly because I enjoy doing evil stuff. I find the Jedi stories especially a bit too saturday morning cartoon.
On the SWTOR combat, I think Xav is on to something and Jeff is not giving the game enough credit for how different it is from WoW. Once again, the problem is you guys are playing Jedi Knights. The Jedi starting zone is very WoWish, I was immediately turned off by it. Hutta and Ord Mantell feel very different.
There actually are a lot of differences between SWTOR and WoW combat. Here is a list of differences.
1. Enemies in SWTOR almost always come in packs rather than singles, I find this makes things much more interesting
2. Like Xav said, there is no auto-attack. I agree with Jeff here, this isn't a big deal to me, in fact its a little annoying.
3. Each enemy at a given level is weaker than in WoW, so you feel much more like a badass hero rather than a chump who takes 20 swings to kill a random bandit.
4. Many enemies stay in place and shoot rather than running up to you, which I find to be way more fun since I prefer ranged classes.
5. There are a good deal more AoE and knockback, knockdown abilities
6. CC is more important than in WoW.
7. The one area where the game is behind WoW is in the fluidity of the combat, abilities don't feel like they are firing as smoothly, especially in pvp.
On "gamer shame", I never feel that. How can you guys be in the games industry if you feel guilty for playing games!?
With the obvious exception of those really important things like taking care of one's family, accomplishments in a game are no less meaningful than most accomplishments in "real life". Almost everything you "accomplish" in real life will have no more effect on the world 100 years from now than what you accomplish in SWTOR.
I enjoy my real life work because it is fun, not because it is "real". I enjoy games for the same reason. In my book the only thing that trumps games in importance is family and friends.
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I feel Sony is the question next gen in NA the playstation brand doesn't have the power of the Wii, xbox, or Kinect brand right now. Playstation is residing in the back aisle of all major retailers (walmart, gamestop, target, best buy). They have less motion audience aka casual demand. As for exclusive, they matter but let's face it everybody has some great exclusive titles.
So what can Sony do, what do they need to do for NA? Remember the WiiU less expensive, the xbox does almost everything the same but has the Kinect and live. So where does Sony regain a foothold in NA?
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I have noticed alot lately people whineing about online passes. I don't use gamefly, I don't rent games and I rarely borrow them. I like to have the massive collection so online passes don't affect me.
So say a game at gamefly is rented out 10 times (I believe Xav said 100 but I want to scale it down) so that 60 dollar games single purchase is replacing 600 dollars in sales. That's taking 90% of what the Devs would make and you people are so self-centered and ignorant that you are actually angry with the Devs? How is it wrong for them to want to be paid for what they work so hard to make?
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This has always been an issue with system launches, but the economy and recent history has made consumers more savvy in my opinion.
I think we will see this same trend continue with the launch of Vita in the US, and it will continue to affect the next system launches.
I would suggest a number of ways system holders could combat this trend. One way is that they could release new systems bundled with new games. This added value helps greater justify the purchase of a system to the consumer by adding to its perceived value. They could also extend and expand the period where a system has been created, thus giving developers more time to create a richer library upon release. The third option is to release systems at lower prices, thus incentivising more consumers to buy early. The problem with the last option, going back to my point about savvy consumers, is that there are always going to be a base of people now that see the value of a console as less than the initial price.
Lastly, I think they should time some major game announcements until a few months after launch. This boost in visibility and perceived strengthening of a system's library would give consumers more confidence that the system is there to stay. Just look at 3DS. They waited too long between the release window and the major launch of additional titles. It killed them for a while. Kinect also suffered from an overextended period where there were no significant announcements on new software. Hell, I still think major Kinect software is coming out at way too slow a gait.
The Vita is not at all in dire straights- the industry has just not at all learned the lessons they should have from recent history. I think Vita will be fine.
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This is what I've been saying about the prequels and the KOTOR franchise for what feels like a decade now. Continuity in Star Wars has been horribly broken since the sequels and the time difference in the KOTOR games only exists to prevent the games from touching or changing "Lucas' perfect vision". I wish I could put it aside, but it's impossible for me. If it were up to me, the Star Wars films would have ended at Return of the Jedi and the prequels would have been the CG cartoons, which did a far better job of telling a story than Lucas ever could have. And the KOTOR games would have only taken place 150 YEARS AGO!!!
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The game I'd use to best illustrate this is Street fighter 4. On the IOS it runs which is pretty amazing:) would you ever really play it. No not really, but you feel good saying you kind of can. Now on the 3DS it's the exact same as it's console cousin minus some background and particule effects. It has some added features on the 3DS, and the added 3D. On the console it's the best overall expierence of course but you need to add a arcade stick or it is no better than the 3DS version.
IOS gaming cannot approach what dedicated gaming console can provide. The reverse cannot be said, other than it's just easier to get a game in the app store than approved for a dedicated platform.
Then there the desert island scenario. If you could only have one console with you on a desert island no gamer is going to pick a IOS platform, unless it's to make a PHONE call and get the HELL off that island to go do some real gaming;)
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iOS = For people who want to kill time with games.
Dedicated Handhelds = For people who MAKE TIME for games.
Now the problem with dedicated handhelds is that they're approaching the experiences of home consoles, so for people like me, I would rather MAKE TIME to play games on a big screen and have the full experience.
If I need to KILL TIME, I'm up to $5 and a 2 minute download away from something that will suffice.
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Garnett, I know towards the end of last year you mentioned a few times trying to figure out what to do with the music breaks but I honestly have been loving Del Rio's little mixes of show quotes and game music/sound effects. Not sure if the dude wants to keep doing those all the time, and I wouldn't be disappointed if you go in a different direction, but I think you've stumbled on the best fit for the show.
Take care all; you'll be missed, Jeff.
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I think you guys accidentally touched on the 2nd most important factor in the success or demise of a portable gaming system: How "sexy" is it?
There is no doubt in my mind that a substantial part of Apple's success has been the slick, sexy design and interface of the iPhone and iPad. How many of us wrote off the iPad until we actually held one in our hands?
Of course a portable game machine has to have great games, but it also needs to be fun to hold.
I purchased a PSP a few years back. For almost 2 years I carried it with me everywhere despite the fact that there were only 2 games on the damn thing that i liked just because I LOVED using it.... It was a slick, sexy machine. I loaded it full of pictures and music, I used it as a web browser.... Any excuse to hold it in my hands.
Cut to 2011
I got myself a new 3DS this past boxing day. I bought Mario Kart 7, Ocarina of Time, and Star Fox; 3 fantastic games that I love. Now, only 2 weeks later, I've already shelved my 3DS. I just don't enjoy the experience of using it. I don't like the feel of the chassis, the circle pad, or the buttons. I don't like the screens, and the sound quality is terrible. The games don't look particularly good, and the entire system menu/UI is frustratingly obtuse.
It simply isn't fun to hold in my hands.
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When you play Skyrim seriously, you learn to distinguish between the radiant (random) quests, the scripted side quests, and the main story quest, and to balance between them to create the narrative flow that is right for you as an individual gamer. I focused on the main quest for a while, then completed a guild quest progression, bought a house, leveled up certain skills, and then returned to finish the main quest before returning to guilds and more side stories. Along the way I stopped wandering from place to place when I realized that most of the barrows, caves, and remote fortresses would in fact appear in the course of all of these quests, which didn't give me less choices but rather more of a sense of direction. Likewise, in the first 40 hours of the game I usually walked from place to place, but then I began to use fast travel more and more since I already had a great sense of the topography of the land and the range of random encounters. All of these have been natural progressions that occurred when they were right for me rather than when some game designer decided they should occur.
Playing a game that allows this kind of learning, growth, and adjustment is a rare and unmistakeable pleasure. I feel very sorry for the gamer (lookin' at you, Garnett) who is so impatient that this pleasure is not attainable. IT IS WORTH IT! TAKE YOUR TIME.
Lastly, and also for Garnett: I eagerly await your educated comments on iOS games, which I expect will occur after you have owned the device for more than a week. I've had three iPhones going back to the 3G and have played 100s of games on all of them, ranging from 10-hour RPGs to simple physics puzzlers. Anyone who says these aren't real games needs more time with the device.
Keep up the good work kids,
Caspar
Add real-time consequence for your decisions.
Take one of the first missions in the game, where you're asked to go tell the Jarl about the Dragon and ask him to send troops to an undefended city.
Now, say you on your way you get side-tracked with some side-missions or whatever. Ok, your choice. But what if while you were doing that instead of the important, plot-integral task at hand, a timer was running in the background?
Take too long, and the troops arrive at that town to find it in fiery ruins, along with all the people you met, and all the side-quests you could have found gone.
It wouldn't affect the freedom or Jeff's ability to create a unique character experience. If his character is the unreliable, ADD hero that constantly gets distracted and leaves important tasks too long, then let him deal with the consequences of being that character.
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There were far too many breakdowns of the 360 and far too many updates from Sony which bricked PS3s.
Consoles need to be functional, not overly technical.
Also, stop forcing me to install every damn game I buy. It's a royal pain to insert a new game and have to wait ten minutes to play it.
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Oh and All Ghillied Up is one of my favorite missons of all time, good job Zach.
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Basically what I proposed, which I think Garnett could get behind, is that next Elder Scrolls instead of me as the player having to stop whatever I was doing in order to do the core story missions. The core story missions adapt to whatever I'm doing in the game.
So say this happened in Skyrim, and I was really focused on just doing the Mage College quests, then maybe I start encountering Alduin or information about returning dragons while doing missions for the college. And so you still end up having to fight him eventually, but now you get to that point by playing the way you are playing the game, and you aren't forced to alter your play style of the game while still getting the core story.
I think what appeals to me about this idea the most is that the way the core story missions are in Skyrim they all feel time constrained, like "you need to do this now or the dragons will destroy us all." But that isn't the case, and I can get right up to a really important moment, staring Alduin right in the face and then just walk away and do something else, and there in no repercussion for you doing that in the game world. Nothing happens or changes if you choose not to do something, and this causes a bit of a problem with immersion due to a suspension of agency (which is when the player gives up some control or choice to get a more immersion in the experience,) however here it is that I am given almost too much choice and it allows me to break the immersion if I choose to exercise it to it's fullest.
To get back onto the point I was making, having the core story missions adapt to how the player is playing the game does remove that choice of how you are perhaps going to experience those missions, but I think that it would provide a more immersive to the player since it will make the world feel more real and more alive since these main story missions would be progressing with you rather then being frozen in time until you decide to do something about them.
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Speaking of selling to the consumer, I wanted to point out something else that was very telling, which is that Zack, who works in this industry, didn't really know ANYTHING about the Vita. I've heard this discussed, and really think its worth noting, that Sony's marketing for the Vita, at least in North America, has been extremely weak. Unless you're already looking for it or looking at similar gaming products on certain websites, you might not even know it exists, let alone is coming out next month. Sony needs smart and compelling marketing placement if they expect to penetrate a market saturated with 3/DS', PSPs, tablets, and iDevices.
While it is of course impossible to know for sure how it'll initially sell in other territories, I think these are things that will need to be addressed, sooner rather than later. And both are directly in Sony's control.
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But I also think in the end both the 3DS and Vita will do OK. Kids will still flock to Nintendo and Hardcore Gamers and those technophiles that always must have the bleeding edge will snap up the Vita. They've both are going to get a much smaller slice of the pie thanks to iOS and Android.
When thinking about Sony's future I am more concerned about where the Playstation home console is going. I fully expect MS to announce a new Xbox this year. I think that Sony may not announce PS4. Instead I could see them doing what Sony does and trotting out the line, "The PS3 is just getting AWESOMER! We've got cell technology that's so advanced that ... " at which point we all fall asleep or turn off the T.V.
I really think that Sony could be a man without a boat this coming Next Generation of home consoles.
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The funny thing about PC gaming is that I think a lot of times the audiences are way more casual, but the games themselves are often way more complex than anything a console can do. So like if you're playing an MMO you have to manage dozens of different skills, but its a lot more natural to do so because you can just impose virtual buttons onto the screen thanks to the mouse, and then players can naturally learn to hot key and so forth.
So that said, with the Vita, I think it would really behoove Sony to perhaps release a touchscreen only version of Vita down the line that docks into a really nice fully articulated game pad. This way you could have a handheld with that ios/tablet appeal, but for hardcore gamers offers a very flexible device that doesn't try to replace their phone. They could use the game pad to enhance console gaming, and extend the Vita's battery life while playing on the go.
For gamers interested in a more portable console experience the size wouldn't really be a draw back because the Vita is already way beyond pocket size, and they're probably going to use a back pack or whatever. But for casual users the sort of edgeless touchscreen form factor would make it much more travel friendly, and much more amenably to existing apps and so forth.
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keeping this in mind, if the Vita truly wanted to succeed then it has to be something that the casual consumer didn't know it needed, but want. Basically what I'm saying is Sony needs to drop the "game machine" aspect of it and focus on marketing it as some slick device that can give you anything from HD streaming to making you a ham sandwich. Sad conclusion? Yes, but if Sony wants to see sales then it cannot ignore the powerhouse that is the Iphone/Ipad (one of the best selling items of the holidays for children) and what its done to grab the audience.
Make Vita a technical marvel that would wow audiences, then BLAM! Show that it also has some nice looking/high quality games.