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Urban-Themed Video Games 'Basically Dead'?
simoniker writes "Midway CMO Steve Allison has been talking about why he thinks the urban game genre isn't worth entering, suggesting of the cancelled Snoop Dogg/John Singleton collaboration Fear & Respect, which was in development at Midway: 'We killed Fear and Respect... because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe.' Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?"
I think it's more a matter of every game genre can be cloned to death and the GTA-clone genre has reached that point.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Gee, are they saying that they're actually going to try a new game genre? Here's an idea for a new one, WWII shooters!
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Thank fucking god! "Urban Culture" is pathetic bullshit to begin with. Games based on it are just sad beyond belief. They're blatant attempts to cash in on "hip." Let's get back to the proper business of killing orcs and zombies.
It's a BS marketing term that dances around race.
also, FTFA
Quartile maybe?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
How about the notion that they're just out of touch with their demographic? Every time I see an "urban" game (Need for Speed: Most Wanted, I'm looking at yoooooou~) it's always come off as being poser and totally fake. What can you expect? You're getting a bunch of 35 year-old, predominantly-white, middle-class geeks to develop your "hip" urban game!
And NFS:MW wasn't even the worst offender... I can think of many worse...
I'm sure 'Urban' as a sell-any-old-crap gimmick may be nearing its demise, but there is no such thing as a dead genre. A well-made innovative game can be in any genre at all and will sell well. Who'd have thought 'puppies' was a genre that would effectively carry a market launch of a handheld?
The next big theme should be westerns, Red Dead Revolver was a great title, but it needed more horse riding. Gun (playing now) has plenty of horse riding but not enough moseying.
Just look at the 360's array of crappy GTA ripoffs. It's like when your parents start using some word or phrase it quickly loses its cool. When the lamest console of the lot in the Xbox starts flooding the market with a genre it is clear the party's over.
I remember way back when, thinking that when the technology arrived to make games look "real" it would be pretty cool. WRONG. When games look "real" and are modeling real physics, they are limited in what they can do. All we get in the way of innovation is new environments for running around shooting stuff.
Sprite based 2D games could violate physical laws and we didn't care. Better yet, games didn't have to exist in an analog of the known universe at all.
We got what we asked for, and damn it, it's boring.
I just want a sequel to Manhunt (and, of course, more in the Thief series)
Trolling is a art,
GTA - no - lame knock-offs? Yes stick a fork in them.
GTA was never exclusively about hip-hop culture and was about various gangland activities. It wasn't until the same jokers who brought you material of the same level of sillyness in True Crime that the increasingly out of date hip-hop culture tied it's marketing wagon to the scene. I can't even fathom why people find such dated 90's material entertaining myself, and wonder when the next culture trend will finally emerge away from the overstaurated MTV-bling-pimp-my-boredom scene.
Even as far as San Andreas topographically, there's far more open spaces outside the cities than the cities themselves. So are rural games obsolete as well? There's only one to date (well perhaps 2, Destory All Humans had plenty of farmland).
As far as generes being overdone - um - WW2 games anyone? How many Nazis are there to kill? I think we depopulated Germany about 10 times over at the current rate.
Also, sorry Snoop, but gamers are savvy these days. Not since "Cool Spot" or "Yo, Noid!" for NES has a catchy license ever been enough to sell a game. In fact, it tends to raise a red flag for most gamers nowadays. "Why do they need to CGI-scan Joe Blow Rapper into the game, or have Billy Bob Actor do a voiceover? What crappy gameplay are they trying to distract us from? Is this another "Bruce Willis in Apocalypse?"
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You're getting a bunch of 35 year-old, predominantly-white, middle-class geeks to develop your "hip" urban game!
:)
I am a 35 year-old, predominantly-white, middle-class geek, and I like my urban combat set to the preconceived sounds and images pumped out by Hollywood.
Werd.
How about because these types of games are just money-grabs. They're typically absolutely awful games other than the amazingly high-profile superstar gracing the cover.
However, the "urban" genre isn't dead. The problem with a lot of these games is that "urban" is considered a marketing tool, and the games released with the "urban" theme haven't been very good.
I'd argue that there has to be a certain amount of enthusiasm when making any game. I get the impression that the people at Rockstar enjoy what they do and didn't pick GTA just as a marketing tool. I think they might've been down at the pub and said, "Hey mates, I think a game where the player could just grab any car on the street and drive it around would be fun." "Crikey, that's brilliant." "Stone the crows, let's get back to headquarters and start programming this, well after a few more pints."
In fact, another "urban" game, the freeware "drug dealer" game I've played a few times, was probably made under a similar level of enthusiasm though a lower budget.
However, I think a lot of recent games with this theme have been more like, "We need to hit on a new paradigm for video games." "Well, that GTA game is popular and Gangsta Rap is popular, perhaps we can cash in on this trend." "Yes, it hits our key demographic group, lets have a concept meeting about it, after I finish my latte."
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Fear not, D-O-double-G fans, for Snoop has found an even better videogame to crash.
....sorry.
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"Urban theme" doesn't tell me anything meaningful about a game's mechanics or strategy.
So, what we're talking about is superficial stuff -- decoration. And if it's decoration, it's subjection to fashion. And if it's fashion, it's subject to going-out-of-fashion.
It's like cars. In the immediate post WW2 years, there was a melted, "jelly bean" look to car body styles. Shortly thereafter, in the era of the nuclear strategic bomber, cars started to get taller and taller tail fins, culminating in a Caddie my father in law had which I swear must have had tail fins 18 inches (45cm) high. Since this was well beyond the ridiculous, the styles swiftly changed so that the tail fins were cut off, leaving a vestigal ridge about an inch high and several inches wide. The result was angular and gave cars a massive and muscular look. My father in law had one of these too (do a google image search on 1972 Plymouth Fury. Then the energy crisis came, and cars got smaller, and aerodynamics started to chip away a the broad shouldered look, and finally we had the original Ford Taurus, which was back to the "jelly bean" look.
So, maybe "gangsta" is out until we've churned over a couple generations of gamers.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Old and busted: "urban" games
New hotness: ping pong games
-- OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.com
I'd like to introduce you to my good friends: disco, adventure games, and traditional cell animation.
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Sure, part of the appeal of GTA is being an urban sociopath. The real draw of the GTA series though is its open world. GTA 3 was one of the most open 3D games that had come out in a while. You can get fares in a taxi-cab, drive sick people to the hospital in an ambulance, or totally ignore the missions and just cause mayhem.
Instead of publishers trying to copy GTA by focusing on its gameplay, they instead focused on the hip hop vibe. What they don't seem to realize is that GTA was popular despite its urban flavor, not becaues of it. GTA is more similar to Oblivion than it is to Def Jam: Fight for NY. You want to have a GTA or Oblivion style hit? Create an unquie world and make it open and give the player a lot of different stuff to do. It's a little puzzling that the open world genre is really lacking in quantity right now despite the huge success of the few games that have done it right.
Remember all the side scrollers that came out after Super Mario Bros? What if instead of side scrollers, publishers figured Mario was popular because it featured a fat plumber and all games of the NES era all featured plumbers or fat blue collar workers, but totally ignored the side-scrolling action that made Mario fun. That's exactly what's happening with the companies that tried to ape GTA by putting focusing on MTV style hip hop rather than on open gameplay.
'We killed Fear and Respect... because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe.' Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?"
Data-Points. Ugh, that carries a bit of weight in telling me the writer/speaker is too much into a suit. But to the point, yeah, I've never thought urban was that cool to begin with. Heck, I live there and always thought it was a blah setting. Gimme open meadows, forests deep, caves and crypts, forboding empty space stations where you know there should be living people, but they've all suddently gone missing...
There's also the rural setting, which I don't think has been adequately explored...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Honestly, when I sit down to play video games, I want to escape reality. However, that does not mean I want to slash up dragons or shoot down space ships with lasers. Sometimes I want to play a game in a GTA or "urban" setting just because it's the closest thing to doing something you couldn't in the real world and getting away with it.
Ignoring the intended meaning of 'urban' as in 'all cities are violent and rap plays in the background 24/7 and people shoot each other', I'd quite like a MMORPG in an urban setting.
By that I mean modern to futuristic, since technically Ironforge in WoW counts as an urban setting. Basically, I'm sick to death of witches and wizards and magic spells. I'm also discounting the Anarchy Online style of city: a bunch of simple blocks of texture rationalising a collection of shops.
What I want is a proper interactive city environment. A properly scaled big city would be easily big enough for a MMORPG, and wouldn't require the player to consciously suspend their disbelief because of the distorted geography like all MMORPGs so far. Graphically, you could have more detail up close where it counts, because you wouldn't need to render miles and miles of landscape.
Example: Midgar would make a good environment for a MMORPG
And no, this doesn't count
The only reason Urban is dying is because lately all you see is games not even worth looking at like that 50 Cent game and other similar fare. If they tried a little harder and put out something with decent gameplay, or continued older games with newer, improved releases like State of Emergency (State of Emergency 2 blew...hard), then it might not be such as bad genre to make games for and people (as in buyers...rather than higher ups who wouldnt know a good game from...finish on your own...) might actually want to see whats up.
With games like
50 cent: Bulletproof
True Crime: Streets of New York (or as it SHOULD of been called, True Crime: Glitches of new york)
True Crime: Streets of LA
Driv3r
Shadow the hedgehog (come on, you can't deny that's what they were going for with this one)
the only ones that were even remotly worth playing in the "urban genre" were Def Jam: Fight for New York, GTA San Andreas that's all I can think of actually.
Maybe if they had gotten people who wanted to make a GOOD game instead of making a Cash grab game the genre wouldn't be a sinking ship with endless clones of two games.
I think the Urban part is a red herring. John Singlton, has anyone seen Four Brothers, I couldn't even sit though 20 minutes of that on an airplane, the movie was such a bore. I really wanted to like this movie. And Snoop I don't think he ever had much crossover appeal and now he's more of joke of himself.
Urban themes will "revive" when they base the concept on people who aren't worn out and irrelevent.
Just my $0.02.
With the recent release of Einstein's private letters indicating that he was a Mack Daddy http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/07/11/weins11.xml suggests a new series of gritty urban videogame: the GTR series.
You start as a small time patent clerk named Al working your way up the ladder of Organized Physics. Busting up dice games run by God, setting up a convention for tense-hos, projects that are the Bomb, and so forth.
The urban genre is dead, but yet we're still getting Mario this, Yoshi that, Zelda whatever over and over again from Nintendo, and only a small portion of the gamers actually want this crap constantly rehashed. Maybe it's just safe to say the gaming companies don't know what gamers want because gamers themselves don't even know or are unable to express it clearly.
I think for most, playing video games is a brief escape from everyday life. Why both escaping into an environment that's identical to real life? I'd rather be slaying epic dragons or bugs, etc. (Is there such a thing as an epic hoodie?)
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
... when everyone is into it... well it just isn't cool anymore!
Spoiled white kids don't want to be into "Hip Hop / Gangsta Hood" or even "Goth". It has been way too overdone.
Unfortunately many of them are geting into "Emo/Screamo" bullshit.
Here let me make an analogy for geeks and nerds: Having a Linux desktop today is not as cool as having one say 10 years ago. Too many people have one, hell almost anyone can burn a knoppix cd and boot one. If you want to be cool in the geekdom now you have to run exosteric shit like Hurd on an UltraSparc under an emulated virtual environment or some crazy shit like that. Oh, is that GNU/Hurd, *wink* my bad.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
It's not the genre that's dead, if it can even be classified as a genre, it's the lame knock-offs that are very dead dead dead. Thus far, frankly, every time I've heard a game industry insider declare a genre "dead" it's because they can't figure out how to release a game that isn't completely ripped off from a more popular version. True Crime: New York City was a great example of this. A wonderfully rendered New York, like, stellar. But... bad cars, a fake CJ is the protagonist, "big star" voice acting that is uninspired, and some of the degrading hoops you have to jump through to get through the story give me a headache just thinking about them. Contrast this with San Andreas, which is BIG, but by no means an amazing rendering of any city (although it's still very cool). The storyline is all over the place, but that adds to the charm. The voice acting is really fun, even CJ is a blast to listen to, the missions are batass crazy and the replay value is endless. By all technical merits, True Crime New York City is the better game, but it's really not at all, because the "play" part of the game isn't all there.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
After "San Andreas" is there a purpose of building a competing title? That game is a be-all-end-all for the genre solely for the fact that it is one of the greatest user experiences ever created.
Don't predict the decline of a genre because somebody got it all exactly right and nobody has caught up just yet.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
OF COURSE it is a bad idea. This is the result when marketing is the only decision maker. GTA sold well because its FUN to play. Is it fun to play a game that feels like a marketing product and is filled to the top with cliche gansta-hiphop crap? No.
Maybe by putting someone in charge with a REAL game development background (most likely game design) the CEOs/CMOs/ would give games that are actually fun a chance. Til then, expect cold, heartless products designed for making money ONLY. (Kinda like Eisner's Disney).
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
As long as we're wishing, I want Morrowind re-released under the Oblivion engine (with a blend of gameplay mechanics for a best-of-both-worlds melange). And a non-shitty sequel to Deus Ex. For that matter, a Deus Ex re-make that's exactly the same but with better graphics/physics would be GREAT.
:(
How about another Fallout game? Maybe some company could revive the System Shock series. That would be TRULY kick-ass. Or, as with Deus Ex, just release the same game as SS2 but with new graphics/physics. Hell, it'd be the best game on the shelf at Best Buy. I'd shell out 40-50 bucks for it. For that matter, a Starcraft sequel would almost certainly be the best RTS on the shelves, barring any serious fuck-ups on Blizzard's part.
And someone should really do something good with the FarCry engine.
And Lucasarts should start making adventure games again. Or maybe they could come up with another original-trilogy-based storyline for a game series, in the tradition of Dark Forces.
And I'd like a pony.
Imagine yours
You could have four totally different play experiences. Set up the quests so that some that are trivial for one group are impossible for others since the tactics simply don't transfer between them. Forget the fake "Alliance v. Horde" setup where you make the races fight: ninjas and robots simply can't team up since a stealthy assassin isn't going to be any more effective teamed with something out of an anime nightmare. It would be hell to balance, but could be done.
Frankly, after looking over a bunch of MMORPGs (WoW, CoV, Planetside, AO, EVE, Auto Assault) I'm not impressed. The only truly different one is EVE and I don't have the time to have a second career which seems to be about the only way to really get into that game.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This development has got to be bad news for the Duke Nukem team: Back to square one yet again.
I don't think that "urban" games are dead. When any genre comes out and is successful there will be good and bad clones. Its all about the easy dollar. Find an idea that works and exploit it till you have to innovate. That what stopped Midway's "urban game", out of that million dollar concept testing they couldn't think of a single idea to make their game different.
If urban games are dead so is every other genre. how many shooters are there with bullet time. Look at all the games coming out based on unreal 3 or doom 3 engines. They all look the same, granted they look good. But the style is the same. Dark corridors, mutated monsters, monsters with metal implants, and etc. Even the stories are similar; Monster,demon,alien, or underground civilization wants to take over,enslave, or eat humanity. The only thing different is your choice of gimmick. This goes for fighters, RPGs, racing games, and all other genres as well.
It takes place in an urban enviro.
I read the paragraph to simply mean "gansta". I can't imagine getting ready of GTA style, open-ended game play. I loved games like GTA III and Vice City. Pandemic is coming out with Mercenaries 2 and I bet that will be a huge seller if its as good as the first one. I'm happy with any game that allows me to run around blowing things up for miles with an RPG. Sniper rifles are fun too. :>
I just can't stomach the "gansta" games like "GTA San Andreas. I can shoot bad guys and crooked cops in a game. I don't have fun stomping on the heads of old ladies as my character yells "You're just a b*tch!" (San Andreas).
I like first person shooters, but I never got into the Urban theme. Seems the Space theme is dead too. And WWII/Vietnam style has been soo over done. Is there nothing new?
-CF
I work in games and he is absolutely correct. The "ghetto hood" thing is up. Its done, its over.
Thats not to say that rap isnt done, but the old NWA gansta shit we grew up with... is.
Its become a farce. Its now a cartoon of what was always stupid and ridiculous no matter how cool we thought it was to rebel along side with it.
GTA games are exhausting. Thats not to say that a new GTA wont be a big hit because GTA is far more than just "ghetto hood style" Its only recently they've taken it deeper into that bullshit genre and have cartooned it in many respects.
GTA San Andreas, was of no interest to me, and as my friends play it... we mock it. "We got Respect!" Yeah... great... now what.
GTA San Andreas has some great environment modelling and the idea of a virtual city and free reign will never get old as long as your ability to "live" in that city becomes more real. In other words, the goal is a virtual city without much scripted behavior. More of a do as you please, close to life experience as possible... Thats the goal of the GTA virtual city phenomenon.
The ghetto aspects of it is a farce. Its a marketing tool. The run around and kill things wont get old... well it does, but it has to be changed and given new life through new game play ideas within the virtual city.
The ghetto games are pathetic. Infact i was working on a game concept for a major hip hop persona. The game to this date has not gone through. They were just interested in the marketing aspects... not the game. They didnt care much about the game as long as they could use their hip hop image to sell it.... as if thats all it took to make a game popular.
The ghetto hood thing is dead. We're adults now and the kids are different. Sure theres still good hip hop music, and the teens enjoy it, but its not the same as it was. The whole gangsta thing is a joke now and i'm thankful for that. There are much better things in life to promote... even if i was a fan of much of a lot of the music.... It's nice to see people growing up, including myself.
There are better things out there.
That does not mean for a second that the genre wont still be around in some small form. Did mafia films die out completely? No. But the mass marketing appeal, the sure hit, the bullshit used by marketers... can no longer work using the ghetto slant... Because its become a joke.
And on a side note.. Hayao Miyazaki rules.
Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?
You know, I've asked myself the same question, many times... about war games, space strategy games, adventure games, just about anything single-player. The market has changed so much. Even Star Wars Galaxies, itself an MMORPG, was reinvented so that Sony could attract a more casual (or, if you like, dumber) fan base. The last time I set foot in a game store, it was all MMORPG, MMORPG, World War II sim, MMORPG... oh, and Sims 2.
A decade or so ago, a lot of games were still crap, but there was at least more variety of crap. It does seem like the games market now is becoming ever more monolithic -- especially since most PC games seem to be console ports anymore. It's kind of depressing. I'm barely out of my 20s, and already I feel like some wheezy old man when it comes to video games -- "Whatever happened to Descent, Wing Commander, Sim City? Get the hell out of my bushes..." etc.
All we get in the way of innovation is new environments for running around shooting stuff.
Running around shooting stuff indeed. It's the video game equivalent of Tom Cruise movies. The formula works! Stick with the formula! Long live the formula!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"Urban theme" doesn't tell me anything meaningful about a game's mechanics or strategy.
Exactly. GTA's cool was not about the "Urban theme" (does Italian Mafia even qualify as "Urban"?? Maybe literaly, but thats not what that they mean when they say that.) It was about introducing a new style of game play - a level of interactivity and freedom that was not widely available before. It is widely available now, so if you want to catch interest of people you need to introduce something new. Be that "new" in "urban theme" or "redneck theme" or for that matter "ping-pong theme" window dressing is mostly irrelevant.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Cause if you use unpatched Win95 you must be suicidal.... xlaugh or more protected than anyone else since *fallacy* People only attack the market leaders *end fallacy*
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
because I just read that old games' graphics will never age!
If you think "urban culture" is different from trolls and zombies then you clearly have never ridden the T (train) in Boston.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Umm, http://www.cthulhunation.co.uk/index.php?regcode=1 0662 Cthulhu Nation would have to disagree. It's like Urban Dead except its more like a key-lock style exploration with neat effects and AJAX supplimenting the load. It's becoming a very cool scene lately. And it's got LOVECRAFTIAN CRAP going on with it! Cthulhu Ftagn!
I thought you meant Urban Dead style browser games were dead. Argh, that's what I get with a kneejerk response without fully reading. Mea culpa. You can offtopic or delete my posts now.
Somebody better tell the guys who are developing APB (Webzen?) that they're barking up the wrong tree..... Not.
More like the loading screen would be a ninja head held high on the pirate hook-hand, and then there'd be no game to play. Except perhaps to wave the head around a bit.
Actually that could be a lot better than a lot of console games I've played...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What all the wannabes apparently failed to spot was that the GTA series mocked first the mobster, and then the gangsta genres. Anyone who listened to the radio stations (never mind playing some of the missions) in Vice City and thought the game was in any way taking itself seriously needed their head examining. The same applied to San Andreas once CJ escaped from the oddly humourless Los Santos missions in the first part of the game. As soon as he met up with The Truth, all bets were off.
Part of the fun of the GTA series is seeing how a bunch of weirdoes in Scotland will take the piss out of American pop-trash culture in the next mission - but the (US-developed) imitators all missed the point and played the whole thing straight. No wonder people got bored very quickly - if you're not taking the piss, there's literally nothing to hold your attention.
You must think in Russian.
GTA never had celeb endorsement, it was just a good game. Fun, with lots of humor, and a not-so-subtle parody of the world we live in. Fear and Respect, for all apperences, has endorsement from two people the average person could care less about. Snoop Dog (aka P. Diddy) is a laughingstock when he's not making halfway decent music. GTA was never about the "hood vibe" and it likely never will be. You don't go around as a black youth by default, you don't go around tagging, you don't sit on a stretcorner singing in monotone. You don't even threaten to "bust a cap". Besides, what has Midway been behind in the past 10 years that was a thundering success?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
...but he keeps freezing up :-P
I am sadly selling my old copy of System Shock 2 as I don't really have a PC to play it on anymore, but I would love to play through the same SS2 again with just updated graphics and perhaps a little new content...
I'm surprized we don't see more re-skinning of older games like that. There have to be a lot of gamers now that have never seen System Shock (one or two) and would love it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now if we can just get rid of "K-Fed", we can put this puppy to bed FOR GOOD! Then we can concentrate on the WWII shooter. ;)
... any more?
You want to play a game to escape your every day hum drum. To forget about being stuck in traffic for hours on your way home. Who want's to go to a world of alley ways and city streets. You want to go any place else but an Urban world. Dungeons and Dragons, Outer Space, the Wild West, Knights in Armor evan World War II. Who needs SUVs and street punks you see them every day.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
You are on a beach, there are palm trees and a bottle of rum.
Drink Rum
You are on a beach in the shade of palm trees, slightly tipsy. A steel band is playing Soca. You are hoding a bottle of rum
Shoot students.
ok
Assault college
ok
Shout badass things
return to base
Game over
Hell you could play it on a phone with Java capability!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I think the urban/hip-hop theme is dead and has been so for many years. GTA: SA was the last nail in that coffin. But sandbox-type games are doing just fine, and are in fact just getting started -- technology has finally gotten to the point where you can squirt out nearly photorealistic graphics coupled with good audio.
However a tool is only good as the craftsman or artist who wields it, and most of the games we call lame and stale are in fact failures of content, meaning that a bunch of soulless drones decided to cash in on this cool new tech because "stupid kids don't know shit from shinola, so let's market this crap as an urban hip-hop simulator and slap Bigga Selloutz's face on it".
I for one look forward to upcoming games such as Mercenaries 2 and Crackdown, because their respective developers have published quality work in the past, and are actively trying to add something new to their respective sandboxes. Both technically, with much improved multiplayer capabilities and graphics, and artistically with fresh styles and themes.
Even if Saint's Row turns out to be just a product-improved GTA 3.5, multiplayer illin' and chillin' could be just the shot in the arm the gangster sim needs to be fun again.
I'm optimistic about the future of sandbox games. I don't give a rip if they're urban-themed or not. To me at least, the theme is less important than the excecution.
I'm less a game player, but this is in fact why I prefer either modern fantasy or science fiction. Unless there's a fantastic new twist, I am indeed completely tired of "14th Century Europe". I recently purchased about four sets of the major founding works, "because they created the genre", but I refuse to read any clone works of these. --TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If you are making your games based on "data points" and not what is a fun, well designed game then maybe you are in the wrong industry. So many "well researched" products have flopped and "doomed failures" have made it that this kind of research is almost useless. Hell, EA sheepishly admits they tried to kill The Sims 7 times because their research said it wouldn't sell.
You and your friends might not like SA, but there were millions of folks that disagreed wholeheartedly. If a game is fun, well designed and polished it has a good chance of selling regardless what the setting is. You make some REALLY broad statements that you present as fact, that are in reality just the opinions of you and your circle of friends.
Highlights of this period include *17* Mortal Kombat games, a half dozen NBA Jam games, roughly the same number of NFL Blitz (NBA Jam on a football field) games, a couple of light gun games and racers that actually weren't that bad and curious attempts to bring just a little originality (Primal Rage) and absurdity (War Gods) to the gore gimmick that the company had been living off since the original Mortal Kombat.
As Allison clearly states in the article, which is reproduced in the Slashdot blurb...
"We killed Fear and Respect," Allison explains, "because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe."
Those aren't the words of company focused on making original properties or great games, they just want to catch and ride trends for easy sales.
They had a crap games on their hands that they intended to sell with a fad-appeal and a big name license. The fad died so they killed the game.
It's really that simple. That's how it works, when you sell games based on trends, not the quality of individual titles or your brand as a developer.
One day, people will finally stop buying whatever the latest Mortal Kombat rehash is and Midway will die just like spiritual sister Acclaim.
I never played GTA: San Andreas. I got bored after the first 20 minutes of playing the original PC version of GTA. I don't imagine it's concept is a whole lot different than the original. I've seen it played and it just seems like a 3D 3rd person perspective of the same. Here's the thing that game developers have forgotten. Engaging characters and a story line. You have to hate some of the characters, you have to like some of the characters and you have to give a rats ass what happens to them. In the rush to create these immense virtual worlds(and I don't just mean 'urban' games but MMOGs as well) the designers have left out a cohesive story. The only thing that keeps people playing the MMOG after a while is the other players in it. GTA doesn't have other people in it to keep things fresh. There's only so many times you can steal someone's car and shoot a pedestrian before it becomes old hat.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I think you've missed the point of the GTA series. You're *supposed* to be mocking and laughing at San Andreas, because it's intended to be ridiculous. From the cheesy (though sometimes good) music, to the apparel choices, to the Cluckin' Bell and other restaurants, it's a parody of, if not itself, then the genre. Just as GTA: Vice City was a parody of Miami Vice, Scarface, etc.
So keep laughing, but understand that the designers intended you to.
Oh, and I like Hayao Miyazaki too.
Trust not a man who's rich in flax / His morals may be sadly lax
Sure theres still good hip hop music, and the teens enjoy it, but its not the same as it was.
Do so many, many adults. The people who were buying hip-hop in the early 1990s are all grown up now. We're not going to switch over to Good Charlotte just because we've aged.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I see the common response of "there's a difference between developers, designers, and directors". Yeah, the difference lies in the job description, but not the ethnic background. Most developers, designers, and directors are either white or of some asian/pacific background. Look at the demographics which are in the industry and you'll see mostly white followed by asian/pacific.
As far as I'm concerned, these games are made for white people by white people using blacks, latinos, and asians merely as content. A difference can be made if the game was made by a better mix of people than the usual bunch. I'm not saying it would be more politically correct, but it would definitely be more entertaining and enjoyable.
PS - I'm American of Mexican descent. Before you jump on the bandwagon and start talking about being a woman in a world of men, take note if you add all latinos and latinas in the gaming industry it's still smaller than the count of white women.
For those without the time or ambition to read the whole wikipedia article, I'll pluck out a few phrases.
"2005".
"'Worst Game for the PS2' award"
"sold over two million copies"
The most interesting part of the post would be the reference to Hayao Miyazaki. GTAs are parodies, like someone else told you. GTA:SA is so fucking hilarious with all of its references and satires. It is as much of a comedic game as a violent one. That is the beauty of it.
Oh i didnt mean to say i did not enjoy GTA: SA. I'm saying that I had no interest in GTA SA. I enjoyed GTA 3 a lot. I didnt care for any of the sequencial rehashes... and as i saw them become more and more "ghetto" to meet the growing market of similar games that have failed... i quickly lost all interest in GTA :SA
:) Its not that i dont have a sense of humor :) Its a fun game and we have fun with it... I just dont play it. I find the concept tired and its not offered much in terms of new ideas.
I personally think GTA:SA is the best GTA made... It overs so much more than any of the others and i did not say it was a bad game. I just said i had no interest in it...
By mocking it... I meant that i sit and watch my friends enjoy the game.. We laugh, have fun, we make fun of the cartoon of it all. Beleive me i want a game where you kidnap a retard bus and hold them hostage while fucking farm animals to john denver tunes
I still think GTA:SA is the best GTA made... I just have no interest to play it. I watch my friends play... but that is all.
Beleive me i get GTA :) I love the concept... The problem is that it hasnt evolved enough, and they started to just rely on marketing.
GTA:SA is the best GTA game that i've never played. Its the same as GTA3 with better environments, some cut scenes, and some small added gameplay features...
But it hasnt evolved enough for me to buy it. My friends own it, and play it. We laugh as we try to do ridiculous things with the limited gameplay in it...
It definatly is a cartoon, and i think its intended as such but its not quite marketed that way. Its like saying "you and i know the joke... but the other guy doesnt"
They're banking on the fans, and that other guy... the other guy being the guy who remains from the "ghetto" is cool days...
Look at Mark Echo's graffiti game.. people like it, some say its garbage. He's a very nice guy in real life actually... but the game is aimed at an obvious ghetto wannabe audience... and it really offers nothing in terms of gameplay... and people still play it.
I would wager that most people want to play games not only because it gives them a fun diversion, but also a temporary escape and relief from reality. Not to say that the "hood" is anywhere near reality, but the urban settings are just a little bit close to home. Take GTA for instance; the engine and gameplay was unique and that's what makes the game great, but then when you get down into concept--do I really want to play a game where you walk around in a modern day city and drive cars to and fro? Hell, I do that every day of my life. I've had enough!
Back on topic:
I aggree that all the fantasy MMO's do get a bit annoying, especially when I am browsing the game department and I see that some other game company has published their "me-too!" fantasy MMO...
1 @M T3H Ub3R PH@xx0rz!!11!1one!11 - http://www.rabidcentipede.com
It's not that i think people just change music... Its that i think if people listen to themselves, they can find a lot of great things in other places.
:)
:)
And i think as we grow up we experience those things... and figure out what we like and dont. I'm not saying we stop liking rap. I didnt... I'm just saying we become more rounded and cultured.
Kids wont like rap much longer... they're not going to be into what their parents are
Ah, the embarrasing moment of being picked up after school (with your friends) by your mother with the new Eminem Album blasting.
Perhaps no one is ever more tired of the "Thug Gangsta" lifestyle than the people who are sterotyped as such. By that, I mean minorities including blacks, hispanics, and asians.
These minorities as well most white people are starting to realized that the idea of the "Thug Gangsta" lifestyle is a mediocre fabrication by a bunch of marketing agents from some rich, predominately white, part of some major city along the coast.
Secondly, what is more sillier and ignorant looking than a buch of suburban white guys dressing up as poor black people and talking all sorts of slang? All the bullsh*t advertising and media that makes it look popular.
Sometimes whatever is popular is not as cool as people say it is.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
If urban games suck so loud, then why does "The Warriors" game rock so hard? Tagging, mayhem, gang violence, knifing people, hurling bottles, stealing stereos. Running back to your turf on Coney Island. Beating up on mimes and Orphans. Man, I haven't enjoyed a game this much since I first played GTA and discovered what you could do with hookers. Most games suck the same reason that most movies suck: they're copies of things that've worked in the past. The nimrods who control the purse-strings figure the slight difference is enough to keep the hoi polloi coming back again and again. The dork who said urban themed games are dead realizes that, eventually, the great unwashed eventually wise up. Thing is, he's desperate to find the next bandwagon to jump on. If he'd realize that he's talking about GAMES and concentrate on stuff that's actually fun to PLAY, he'd be showing wisdom. Can you dig it?
"If urban games suck so loud, then why does "The Warriors" game rock so hard?"
Because the heros are white?
Too late for keeping the disc though as I already have it listed and there are bids in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See Roman history for an example of an unstoppable juggernaut of a country suffering from incompetant leadership.
...
Actually the Roman citizens were just as much to blame, if not more, than the Roman leaders. The citizens were no longer willing to serve in their own military, the citizens were no longer willing to accept dirty or difficult work, and the citizens developed a culture of entitlement rather than responsibility and merit.
Wait, a minute, this all sounds familiar too
They didn't bother because the ninjas always win.
:-)
Ninjas lose when the other guy isn't using a sword. That's why the US had a ton of farm boys coming home with souvenir samurai swords in 1945. A decade of practice with a sword just can not compete with a couple of weeks practice with a Colt. I can't watch anime with chuckling to myself as I think of the Indiana Jones scene.
I'm still amazed there's not a Pirates v Ninjas v Zombies v Robots MMOG.
...
... and then I skinned Bambi and Thumper too.
I think I fought all those in WoW
As long as there is a lifestyle divide between suburban life and inner city life, suburbans will always aspire to be part of the 'city'. Not all can. For those who can't urban theme games will work.
The problem is not the idea, it's how it's been executed ad nauseum...
B/c of the above post, I went to watch the trailer of EVE ("the world's largest game universe" - ouuu!!). It seems like a mix of infinite stock market analysis, a customizable space simulator, and an ecosystem filled with duties to fulfill in order to preserve the game's food chain. ("In a nutshell, EVE can be described as an alternative reality!") - says the FAQ.
The whole thing is a mess - the main problem is also the industry's biggest impulse in sales; it's obvious and highly discouraging to the attempting consumer: games are unproductive and extremely time consuming. Right, many see it as a form of relaxation, but there is room to grow! We seem to be sitting in a cage and abide to old and stupid market rules!
For example, take away the fact of unexplored markets and money to be made. Tell everybody to go fuck themselves; you're in it for a personal revolution, not for money. The barrier gaming hasn't yet overcome is to take all this modern history we have behind us (investment and economics, strategy and management, science and engineering)... whatever set of combination fits best... of course these subjects have interesting and basic in-depth concepts - and making a learning experience out of them. In a game. Be it GTA or not.
On the April issue of Wired, Will Wright wrote Dream Machines, an intriguing highlight on the power and the potential this industry holds. Unfortunately, consumers just play and eat up on the junk that gets thrown at them, so the power to revolutionize is in the hands of eccentric developers.
I'd think they would be tired of drawing endless monsters by now.
sorry missed the link for Wright's article http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/wright.ht ml
only niggers care about linux.
Most spot-on post I've ever read on here. You're absolutely right.
That's a perfect example of the trouble in game balancing.
In KotOR, the swords were meant as a way to counter Jedi/Sith characters, since a blaster does absolutely nothing vs a lightsaber (or worse than nothing if you get hit on the rebound). The blades surviving a lightsaber strike doesn't make much sense, given that we've seen sabers cut through solid metal doors, and since nobody seems to wear suits made out of whatever the blades use, but leave that aside.
For the sword wielder to have a snowball's chance in hell in a melee, the swords have to be powerful and the non-Jedi has to be armoured. This yields the counter-intuitive situation whereby bladed weapons are better than blasters - they're essentially lightsabers without the deflection. While it was a damn good game in most respects, that was the one area I had some serious problems with suspension of disbelief.
It's a good example of what happens when you can't make the game both consistant with the reality it's supposed to depict and balanced. In the movies, lightsabers are unbeatable weapons; if this were true in the game, then you'd have zero use for any non-Jedi/Sith characters (and that's almost true regardless). So they dumb the sabers down to standard melee weapons - no more killing in a single swipe. But that still leaves anyone without a saber in a bad way, given that they can't very well shoot the Jedi, so instead the add swords which give them a fighting chance. In making these changes they end up moving away from how combat looked in the movies, but retaining at least some balance.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Aside from GTA: SA, I can't think of a single decent "hood" game. Perhaps with good reason since the culture is not one that anyone with half a brain wants to imitate. And even then GTA: SA, the supposedly successful hood game got the hell out about 1/3 through and didn't come back until the end.
Imagine a game, where you're stuck in this huge zombie infested city.
The objects of the game are:
* survive (duh)
* find a way out of the city within X units of time, before the ZombieCleansingNuke (TM) hits
If you break into a hardware store, you're likely to find a chainsaw. Guns shops have guns (unless already emptied). Some cars work, but the streets are filled with debris, so not all roads are accessible. Cars are, however, a nice tool for zombie carnage.
You'll find other survivors here and there. You can either kill them for their weapons, or bring them along. Maybe you need to bring a repairman to fix the radio transmitter, so you can call a chopper.
Look out for the numerous zombie hordes patrolling the streets (the new fast running kind!). If they spot you, you may find shelter in buildings, but they'll siege the building and you might have to escape by ways of the roof.
Preferrably, the city would be randomly generated every new game, and the way of escaping the city different. Maybe you could pick up clues and rumours from other survivors.
I'd play that game.
Well good on these guys.
If I saw another rapper/game company collaboration turn up a "nigger runs down da street and pops caps in bitches' asses" game again, I would have gone popped a cap in some bitch's ass.
Me, I like the urban theme. Running around an alive city, driving cars, shooting people...
It's just that I hate the "Yo dude, we're from the rapping banditz hood" scene. I don't give a shit for these people, I don't like their rat music, and I certainly don't want to play any games where the main character (me) is one of these.
Simple.
I bought every single GTA version, including the last one. Loved them all, but hated the last one. Jus' hitz a baaad vibe with me, huh?
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
I was excited when Mythic picked up the Warhammer franchise for an MMO, but then realized they were doing the fantasy side and not the Warhammer 3000 stuff :(
My perfect MMO now would be the world and options of AO(huge world set in a futuristic time, guns, implants,etc...), with the combat mechanics of DAoC (for some reason out of all the MMOs I've played combat just felt right in this game, especially PvP).
... and they shove out another GTA clone. D'oh! Too late... http://www.saintsrow.com/index.php
No shit. The arseholes running Midway have no idea at all when it comes to games. LA Rush anyone? These guys think that if you shovel shit down people's throats by marketing it on MTV, they'll lap it up and ask for more.
When was the last time Midway actually turned a profit?
Am I bitter because I worked for a studio that Midway bought then shutdown a few months later, despite the fact the game we were making for them was shaping up to be kick-ass? You fucking bet I am, but mostly my anger and bitterness is because of the way they treated us. I wouldn't piss on David Zucker, Matt Booty, Steve Allison and all the other cocksuckers running that company if they were on fire.
My understanding is that the swords are actually derived from earlier Old Republic fiction (canon, too). I guess we don't see them in the current movies because Jedi aren't common enough to require them, but when the Jedi were so dominant it was seen as important to have a weapon that could at least stand up to the lightsaber. I forget the kind of metal they are made out of (and Wikipedia seems to be down right now), but I think they also tended to make some armor out of it as well. This is actually mentioned in the game's fiction too, I think, but it's an easy thing to miss. I don't particularly buy the metal excuse either. Presumably the Jedi are more of a threat because of their Force powers (and the way this augments their melee combat) rather than just their weapon, but maybe if attacked in great enough numbers it's effective. But it is part of the expanded Star Wars universe and has been for quite some time.
I agree with the fact that lightsabers were still made far too weak for gameplay balance purposes.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon