Killzone: Mercenary shoots onto Vita on September 10
Trion Worlds hit with more layoffs, Defiance team impacted
Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault defending Vita next week
Game & Wario was originally going to be pre-installed on Wii U
The Last of Us digital download lets you start playing sooner
Weekend Confirmed 103 - GDC 2012 special
by Garnett Lee, Mar 09, 2012 7:15pm PSTWeekend Confirmed goes on the road to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and finds some long-time friends of the show to make it a doubly excellent episode. John Davison of CBSi joins Jeff and Garnett for the show, with 8-4 Play's Mark MacDonald and videogame editorial ninja Billy Berghammer tag-teaming the fourth chair. Along with some of the topics of the day from the conference, the group catches up on a long list of games. Halo 4 and the newly announced Wreckateer highlight take top honors from Microsoft's recent Spring Showcase Event, the first look at Medal of Honor Warfighter also gets its due, SSX springs back to the forefront of the discussion again this week, and there's much more. Special thanks to CBSi and GameSpot for graciously opening the door and allowing Weekend Confirmed the space to record the show again this year.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 103: 03/09/2012
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Special thanks to GameSpot for providing the space for Weekend Confirmed to record in San Francisco again this year.
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!
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John Davison @jwhdavison
Mark MacDonald @markmacd
Billy Berghammer @louiethecat
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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.
Comments
While I agree this is a problem, ironically I think nothing promotes this culture as much as gaming websites and podcasts. Conversation is almost always about the latest and greatest so much so that people are often derided or discouraged from talking about older games (older in this case usually meaning anything more than a couple of months). Personally this is a trend I would like to see addressed. Podcasts don't always have to be glorified advertisements for the "new release" section of the electronics department to be interesting.
While I agree this is a problem, ironically I think nothing promotes this culture as much as gaming websites and podcasts. Conversation is almost always about the latest and greatest so much so that people are often derided or discouraged from talking about older games (older in this case usually meaning anything more than a couple of months). Personally this is a trend I would like to see addressed. Podcasts don't always have to be glorified advertisements for the "new release" section of the electronics department to be interesting.
Your discussion of Halo was ridiculous, by the way. I'm not breaking it all down here, but literally every talking point brought up was just silly. It sums it up at the end when Davidson says "We're all talking out of our asses." I'd sum it up with you guys pouting out all the great, creative amazing game-makers working on the title and then you promptly took a giant dump on every aspect of its potential despite the fact that we've seen nothing but tightly controlled drips and drabs of the product in pre-alpha condition. Funny how you're willing to throw your REAL friend David Ellis under the bus, but God forbid you say something bad about Peter Molyneux.
The ones with the cavalcade of stars are never very informative. It's not the point, I know. But dang. It was hard for me to listen to this week. Especially the first hour.
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For example, I'm actually quite fond of using the voice commands during conversations (I didn't think I would like this feature at all). The interesting thing is that I now use conversations as a 'break' from gameplay. I'll put my controller down on the table, and talk my way through the conversation while I get up and walk to the kitchen for a glass of water, or something like that. I'll just lean back and relax. I'm not sure why, but having no controller in my hands during these sequences removes the tempation for me to rush through them. I take my time, relax, and really dive deep into the character interactions.
The other silly little feature that I'm completely in love with is being able to save at any time by saying "quick save". I actually wish all games would add this feature. It sounds silly, and it shouldn't be a big deal, but I really love being able to save on the fly without needing to pause the game and go through the menu.
It's not very often you get to play a game in a place where you've actually been.
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The best way for me to sum up how I feel about that ending is this. For 100+ hours Bioware told a great story, introduced great characters and really made you think about some of your choices. For one of those choices if you'd told me that after playing the first game I'd be making the choice I'd be making I would think it laughable but there I am making that choice. Loved a lot of things about all 3 games but the last 10 minutes really soured me on the whole thing.
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Yes if you get those extras it makes your home better more functional in many, many ways. And yes it cost more, but it's not like you'd be oblivious to the fact that there were more supplies involved in the building of your home. You also know there where extra man hours which meant someone being paid. Just like we are aware that every piece of content in a game needs creators time, man hours energy. The same as it takes to build onto a home, it takes extra to build onto a game.
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".....Garrus scratch!...."
Ok, I can't keep it in any longer. There's something that needs to be addressed. I popped in Mass Effect 3 and, like any self respecting gamer would, I cranked the difficulty to max and then I noticed a problem. Everyone on my friends list, of which many are playing a character imported all the way from Mass Effect 1, were playing on normal difficulty.
What gives?
It's like the modern gamer is completely allergic to challenge. The modern gamer wouldn't know what challenge was if it walked up and kissed them on the cheek. Here's a reality check, when you play on normal, it's like you approach the enemies of the game and say "hey there, listen, I don't really want a challenge ok, I just want to walk through this game without having to try. When you see me coming could you please shoot around me and in my general direction? Feel free to even hit me a few times just to make me feel like I'm actually surviving. Just make sure you fall down and play dead and let me through after I've got my little illusion of being an actual badass. Oh, and hey, Mr Puzzle over there, I don't really want to figure you out, well I'd like to try for at least a minute but after that could you, y'know, make an arrow point to you or give me the answer on the screen? Thanks, much appreciated".
Gamers these days don't want enemies that are trying to stop them, in fact if that happens they'll accuse the game designer and blame them. Let's face it, modern gamers want enemies that just give the illusion that they're trying to stop us. Heck the modern gamer is so allergic to challenge that when Dark Souls came along (a game that presents little challenge if you simply pay attention) people who owned it felt like they had something naughty, like a snuff film or their dad's porno. It was a dare just to play the game.
Modern games should look at your gamerscore and just simply deny you the ability to play on normal cause let's face it, if you just manned up a tad you could do it without a problem. If you play on normal, you're absolutely robbing yourself of the feeling of accomplishment. When you get the feeling of being outgunned and outnumbered and you need to overcome your enemy to win, then the game is fun. When you finally beat that enemy that, that boss, you;ll actually feel like you've done survived more than hollow, simulated danger. Don't believe me? Challenge yourself, play on a difficulty one step higher than your comfortable with. What's the worst that could happen? You might actually, shock horror, get better at the game and, God forbid, become more skilled. Playing on normal is like getting a free pass to succeed. If you were playing tennis or chess against someone who was letting you win would you feel accomplished and challenged?
I can already hear your excuses. Oh but Shadow, I'm more interested in the story and the plot. If it's a story you want, go to the movies. The characters don't animate and move awkwardly like wooden puppets(unless you wind up seeing one of the Star Wars prequels), the lip syncing isn't out and there's no quick time events. Oh, but Shadow, I'm more interested in the atmosphere and the world and the journey. If that's what you want, go find a geocache, go climb a mountain, the real world doesn't have low res textures, there's no polygon limit and you won't get caught on scenery.
Of course not.
Let's face it, what you really want is to slay shit, blow stuff up, shoot people with sniper rifles, explore ancient tombs, solve mind numbing puzzles, shoot magical fire from your hands and shag blue aliens. Crank up the difficulty, feel the burn, feel the pain, experience the joy of overcoming a challenge that's actually trying to hold you back. Don't worry about not having fun or getting frustrated because can't beat things the very first time. You paid for this your games so stop robbing yourself.
I'm gonna help you out, here's what you're gonna do. First, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4 Now, go to your game now, bring up the menu, take a deep breath, let the music wash over you, you're not normal, you're a warrior, a soldier, a winner. Now just do it, turn the difficulty up. Stop being normal.
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Personally I abolutely hate it. I love Battlefield and hate CoD. They both do some things well and others poorly but the main reason Battlefield comes out on top is the community. I have NEVER met a friwendly person on any CoD, on the other hand half of my friends list is from Battlefield 3.
The average CoD gamer (with a mic) is a over confident, narsisistic, testosterone fuled asshole that thinks that the only "Objective" is kills. I don't want that in Battlefield, I want 12v12 intense strugles to hold the objectives, not some asshole running around with a UMP.45 (By the way, how does that manage to be so incredibly over powered in every game?) screaming "FUCK YOU".
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I remember the old days of EGM, in the late 90s and early '00s, where I would take a specific interest in the games that got 'Bronze' or 'Silver' awards (Averages of 7 or 8 respectively, I think).
These were usually the games that tried something a little different, and even if they didn't pull it off perfectly, they were still worth playing, especially for fans of the genre, or just the concept.
Those are the types of games that seem to be dying. You either get a big-name, super conservative blockbuster, or you have tiny little indie or mobile games with great ideas that aren't really explored as deeply as they could be with a bigger budget.
It seems the mid-range game is now only found at the beginning of console cycles and at the very end. This is whern publishers take chances on new ideas and IPs. This is where we see experimentation with a budget. Where it's ok to score 7s or 8s, because you have a full generation's worth of time to build and perfect the formulas, or because the user-base is so large at the end of a gen, that even underperforming still nets a decent amount of revenue.
Toward the beginning of this console cycle and the end of the last (2005, 2006, 2007), we saw:
Assassin's Creed
Bioshock
Black
Bully
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Darkwatch
Dead Rising
Destroy All Humans
Gears of War
God of War
Guitar Hero
Gun
Indigo Prophecy
Mass Effect
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
Odama
Okami
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
Portal
Psychonauts
Skate
Shadow of the Colossus
Stubbs The Zombie
Uncharted
Viva Pinata
Yakuza
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
This was also the period when companies like Atlus felt the market was large enough to chance bringing over the Shin Megami Tensei games (Persona, et all).
Basically a whole ton of new and creative IP. I guess we'll just have to wait until the end of this console generation and the beginning of the next one for the next batch of great ideas with a budget.
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Personally, I'm almost to the point that I'd be absolutely fine with even on-disc DLC if the publishers would just say "We're doing this just cause we can guys! Buy it or don't!".
But instead, we get some piss poor excuse like: "Oh, it's for compatibility reasons!".
Does anyone actually buy that? I can't help sounding like an entitled whiner, but there shouldn't BE any compatibility issues because the content is ALREADY ON EVERYONE'S DISC.
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The other thing to keep in mind is that multiplayer requires Live Gold, and anyone who doesn't pay for that stuff buys for the single player game and then moves on.
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I jumped in for the early access since I had Playstation Plus. I didn't get to play as much as I would have liked in the extra week I had, but I thankfully had the chance to put some good time in this weekend when I needed a break from Mass Effect 3.
Hearing about the game, I didn't know what to expect. The notion of only having one other player in multiplayer, having it be a stranger, and not being able to talk to them at all seemed kind of weird. But it works. Very well.
The best analogy I can make comes from personal experience, jamming with friends. I play the guitar, some of my friends do too, and two others play bass and drums. When we sit, and chill, and just start playing, there's very little actual chatting. We don't say 'I'm going to play in this time, or 'I'm gonna switch it up'. We just go... we do our thing, and then everybody follows suit.
We riff on each other. Hear what the other person is doing, and decide how to react and compliment them. It feels remarkably similar in Journey. If I see another player walking in certain direction, or trying to jump to a specific part of the environment, or whatever, then I try to follow suit, or help, or get their attention and pull them in the direction I want to go.
Just riffing.
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The trailer can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKdB-GoIka0
More on topic, I do think that the machinima community has a lot of questions about Halo 4. Bungie went to incredible lengths to build features that support machinima makers. We've been given:
1) A theatre mode with the ability to record 1st or 3rd person footage from any game we play.
2) The ability to lower our weapons in custom games, so that characters can talk to each other without pointing thier guns at each other.
3) The ability to shut off music and dialog in the campaign so that we can record footage for machinima.
4) The ability to create our own custom "sets" with the forge mode, and a the ability to customize the game rules in hundreds of different ways in order to create whatever scenarious we need for filming.
5) The ablility to upload our footage to bungie's website, render the clips into proper video files, and download the WMVs.
^^^ As of the end of March 2012, this last point is being taken away from the Halo community. Bungie is disconnecting their website from all Reach servers, meaning I will no longer be able to upload my saved films, render them, and download them to my computer.
I use this rendering feature for all my Halo videos (including the trailer I linked to above). As of right now, 343 has not made any announcements of a replacement video rendering service. So I might need to buy a capture card of my own.... fair enough. But it has lead to some concern from the machinima community.... some people are wondering "what other features are we going to lose?"
For anyone who wants to check it out, the trailer can be found here:
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SEXIST!
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Garnett was 100% right in his understanding of the comment made in the video about "not recycling single player maps in multiplayer".
One of the most common complaints about Reach's multiplayer is that all the maps are locations that also exist in the singleplayer campaign. 343 was directly addressing those complaints.
I also agree that 343s comments came out sounding a little troll-ish towards bungie. Bungie stated many times that the maps in Reach were designed 100% as competitive multiplayer spaces, then added into the campaign. Some members of the community are under the impression that bungie simply ripped sections of their campaign spaces out and used them as multiplayer maps.... 343s comments in the video sound like they are making the same claim :-/
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I just wanted to say what a great job I think Bioware did incorporating homosexual lifestyles in Mass Effect 3. I'm personally going to play the game as I always do, a straight male looking to nail anything resembling a female, but even with this playstyle, there are positive messages all over the game.
1) One of your crew-mates on the Normandy is part of a homosexual marriage. This isn't a spoiler, it's not a major character, and the character tells you such the first time you speak with them. The cool part is that a) homosexual marriage exists in the future and more importantly b) it's treated as nothing special. You don't get a dialog choice to ask about it, and Shepherd doesn't even react as though there's a reason to question it. It's a totally normal thing, no different than a heterosexual marriage.
2) From the moment Vega's character art was revealed, gamers groaned. 'He's a dudebro!' they cried. And while I've never really liked that phrase or the characterizations of it, Vega does seem to present the stereotype of a hyper-masculine, shallow character - the kind of people you imagine are playing against you in Call of Duty, essentially.
But Vega's place on the ship is right alongside this gay character, and his interactions with the gay character couldn't be farther from the ignorant, viscious, homophobic asshole 'dudebros' people want to associate him with. The two are very obviously close friends, they joke with each other, laugh, and interact in the way you would expect two close heterosexual male friends to act. The issue of sexuality never comes up, there's no insecure BS, and I often found myself going down to that room just to hear the friendly banter.
So kudos Bioware, you get it.
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If any of you guys are following the upcoming PSN/XBLA version of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Sega said the game will include something like 10,000 pieces of downloadable content - probably cosmetic items like costumes and such. At that point, why not just make the game F2P, and let people buy stages and costumes separately?
But tell me this:
How are you gonna sell a singleplayer game F2P?
I can maybe understand letting consumers play the first sections of a singleplayer game for free, as sort of a demo, before they pay in, but my mind draws a blank beyond that. Is the F2P model really that effective for ALL types of video games?
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I was really glad to hear Garnet's praise of ME3's multiplayer. As someone who doesn't like shooter mp, I'm loving it sheerly for how it carries over ME's character development system, and all the space magic, etc.
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But on a serious note its interesting how much do you think the indie download market can grow/continue/sustain. As garnett mention that success story is much rarer than advertised. This notion of we don't need marketing if we can get some buzz out there. What happens with the hundreds of thousands of games that don't get the word out. Whathappens when you end up in the middle of the phone book amongst a sea of names. You can't live on ramen forever sooner or later you do need a job, and the indie market is a risk for many so it's interesting to see either this year or next if it's all just a bubble.
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It's a shame that she didn't really say very much during the shows (would've loved to have some of her input on her experience with gaming) but I understand why, since it isn't easy working the sound engineering for the show.
However despite her barely saying stuff on the show, I always felt her presence on the show, and actually was part of some of my favorite moments on the show history. These include:
- Being able to deftly manage the sound levels when Jeff had his classic meltdown about Deadly Premonition
- On the first "tailgate", sided with everyone in picking the 49'ers to lose, much to Jeff's consternation ("Et tu Booth-eh?")
- Strictly not part of the show, but her efforts in the sponsored cycle ride for charity, which I was happy to donate to.
You will be missed Brooklyn, and all the best!
Just wanted to give you guys a heads up that there was a lot of great convos in last-weeks show thread that might be worth reading and bringing up on this show. Reactions to Halo 4, Assassin's Creed 3 and others. Check it out, it might make good food for discussion on the show.
Take care, and keep up the great work.
You know what? I don't care if Jonathan Blow doesn't want me to use a walkthrough or not. Sorry, if I get frustrated in a game I'm either going to quit or look for a walkthrough to make sure I'm trying the right thing. I don't want to keep trying something if it isn't the right thing.
It is all about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Beyond Boredom and Anxiety If I'm too bored or to frustrated I'm going to bail on a game.
http://empirenevadathenovel.squarespace.com/
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Syberia
Still Life
Mister Mosquito
Chulip
Crush
Shadow of Destiny
Afrika
Folklore
Odama
Baten Kaitos
Lost In Shadow
Fragile Dreams
Incredible Crisis
Future Cop LAPD
Earth Defense Force
Deadly Premonition
Trace Memory
Hotel Dusk
The middle tier is my bread and butter and I miss the hell out of it this gen.
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Some people have a problem with this in principle. I don't. I think it's perfectly fair, and possibly valuable.
But when you can't bear to eek out the words that Fable: Journey isn't very good, for fear of offending or hurting the feelings of Peter Molyneux, then I think that presents an issue.
If Fable: Journey is shitty, just say it. Mark and company shouldn't have to pull the answer out of you. Listening to that part of the conversation was like listening to somebody pulling teeth. If the game is shitty - say it's shitty. If you want to couch it a bit, say the DEMO you played was shitty.
Separate game from creator and say so. Nobody takes 'Fable: Journey is crap' to mean 'My friend, Peter Molyneux is crap, and everything he's ever done is invalidated because of this crap'.
Eventually you did, and I'm glad, because I don't doubt your objectivity even though I'm sure some would jump at the chance to attack the credibility of ANYBODY in the videogame media. It just really shouldn't be as hard as it seemed on this episode.
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SSX was an acronym for 'Super Snowboard Cross' when the ORIGINAL SSX came out in 2001.
Like motorcross with snowboards? Get it?
We can *never* have enough of it!
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