Indigo Prophecy creator talks about his game
David Cage has more or less redeemed himself in my eyes since nearly all the faults I mentioned in Indigo Prophecy are addressed by him in this article.
Jon Stewart says funny things about games
Congress is complaining about video games again. At least the reputable news sources like the Daily Show are defending the industry.
3rd party PS1 controller contains tilt feature
This video is slightly painful to watch for me and I am not a PSM fan, but the content is very interesting. It seems Pelican put out a controller years ago that had tilt sensing technology. Even better, the controller works fine with the rumble feature. The guy in the video asks if Sony may be not telling the whole truth when they say that the rumble feature messes up the tilt sensing in the PS3 controller. I guess because they pretend they’re professional (and not whiny bitches like me) they are content just asking the question and not asserting that Sony is full of crap. Immersion took their asses to court and won, so now Sony removed the rumble feature. That’s all there is to it.
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Awesome, I just got a two handed Grand Piano +2. |
Chopin RPG
That’s the composer, not the word chopin’ (as in “chopin’ broccoli.”) Wait, the dead Polish composer is staring in an RPG? What?
Sony’s finances
First, here is a quote from Jack Tretton from a few links back:
“I think most companies, if they’d lost the billions that Microsoft has lost on the Xbox, would question whether or not they belong in the business. Obviously, they have a different standard of success.”
Now a quote from this Gamasutra article:
“Sony shares have lost nearly half their value over the last five years. On Thursday, the stock rose 3.6 percent to 4,940 yen. One shareholder, who identified herself only by her surname Kasahara, said she bought Sony shares at 14,000 yen. “I bought shares in mighty Sony,” she said, stressing her unhappiness about their plunge. “What are you going to do about this?” she asked, drawing laughs from the crowd.””
Interview with Chris Crawford
Chris Crawford bitching about innovation being completely dead. He was a designer so it seems like he could get a job designing games if he wanted. He really should so he can give us an example of what he means by innovation. I know I constantly complain about games being rehashes of old ideas, but I can see innovation in some things. Crawford denies any innovation has taken place in years.
His interactive story telling thing sounds interesting, but he seems to think stories are just social interaction. Plenty of great stories are all character driven, but probably more are event driven or an even combination of the two. Ultimately, his idea sounds like playing D&D but without the dungeons and loot to make the social interaction more fun. But maybe he’ll prove us all wrong.
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If Kirk Cameron is in this game, sign me up. |
Left Behind game scares even Christians
This game includes spyware that is supposedly un-removable. Oh, also the game has you murdering New Yorkers who refuse to convert. Most religious people like to gloss over the obscenely violent and cruel parts of their beliefs, so it’s good to see a company willing to stand up and say, “When the time comes, you deserve to die.”
Wii launch titles
At the very least, these titles will be available at launch:
Zelda Twilight Princess
Metroid Prime 3
Red Steel
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
Other possible launch titles:
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Elebits
Super Swing Golf Pangya
I’m interested in at least Zelda, Metroid, Wario Ware and Dragon Quest if it doesn’t suck. Not a bad lineup.
Interview with Sega’s Toshihiro Nagoshi
I’ll leave you off with this huge interview with the guy behind Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza. Enjoy.
I’ve always liked Chris Morris on CNN, and while I don’t like the D grade, I do understand his choice of writing style and most of his comments. His column, being on CNN Money, is not quite geared towards gamers as much as business types/yuppies/non gamers. In that sense I think he distilled the basics of each console down fairly well. The Xbox really did well for itself for a brand new entry, and had a lot of good ideas. With Nintendo, a D is a bit harsh, actually really harsh, but I can understand where he gets some of his points. I agreed with Nintendo’s wait and see approach on online gaming this gen, but it was the biggest fad in the industry, so you have to expect the pundits to chastise them for it. Furthermore, I do agree that their projects lacked some heart. Wind Waker was good, and Mario was good, but OOT and Mario 64 are legendary. When you bring such gaming classics to the world, it isn’t easy for anyone to satisfy the now astronomical expectations of the press and mainstream, so you have to expect some (arguably unecessary) criticism. That being said, I still think some of their 1st party efforts could have been a little stronger (outside of Prime, which is my favorite console game this generation).
The only thing I thought was flat out ridiculous was his claims of Nintendo being on the verge of pulling out of the console biz. They’ve made solid profits with the Cube, and the whole “expulsion” theory is nothing more than a doom and gloom scenario brought about by mindless fanboys. It took Sega millions in the hole to give up the ghost. Since when has Nintendo ever been close to that financial situation?
The EGM article, on the other hand, baffles me. Literally, the Xbox has no new games to look forward to. Its dead to pretty much everyone. The only thing I can possibly think of that justified that rating is a stream of multi platform releases, but that is a major stretch. Twilight Princess alone beats out anything on the original Xbox this year.
Then again, look how much more critical 1up.com is of Sony and positive towards Nintendo, compared to EGM’s complete opposite stance. I think it is easy to tell which one has the honest opinions of editors, and which one is made to appeal to a certain audience in hopes of attracting subscriptions.