Or you could be suffering from any one of a million other ailments. Maybe you've been out gardening too much. Or working on your car. Or putting in too much overtime at work.
The only thing that can save Dr. Maressa from sounding like a total faux headline chaser is if she is super-hot.
At best, its a marketing novelty factor, like the flashy suit or spaceship
I dig what you're saying, but how can the original Metroid be faulted for marketing novelty when the fact that Samus is female is only revealed if you were a super-player? Nintendo didn't make a big deal about her gender in early marketing; she looks like a pixellized robot on the box cover. Most players simply had no idea because they never finished the game. Back then we had no internet to ruin things within.5 hours of a game's release.
Samus's reveal was more of a bonus surprise for dedicated players than anything else. And, motivational underwear aside, she still remains an early and inspiring example of a female video game heroic avatar. Which is cool, having diversity of leads in video games (male, female, alien, young, old, heroic, evil etc). I hope you're not arguing against that.
And not too long ago, there was an article about how often male players choose a female character, even in games that are not customizable or online. So, window dressing does matter. Yeah, gameplay is important, but story and characters and immersion are also important. Calling it "irrelevant" is an unfair whitewash.
Of course, turning Samus into an obviously mega-hot Lara Croft / Witchblade / Lady Death style of female "role model" is pure marketing... but that's more of a latter day invention. And I still would say Nintendo hasn't milked that in the way that Tomb Raider or Bloodrayne a hundred other games have.
I'd wager many, many Metroid fans would be streched to answer "Metroid" quickly.
And I would wager you're totally wrong on that one. Fans are on that.
Okay, first - it's pretty much clear from the get-go that the government is full of bad guys. Next, there's almost no conspiracy theory aspect to the gameplay
This is the absolute balls-honest truth about BG&E, and I want to make sure everybody who thinks this game has an excellent surprise-filled deep dramatic plot makes a note of it.
Largely fun gameplay, predictable story, too-small world. This game was over-hyped to appeal to "thinking gamers" who wanted something intense and cinematic... well, we all bought it (after the holiday price drop) and it did not live up to our expectations.
Also: I can't believe that there are still gamers out there who would not try a game based on the presence of A) female lead character, or B) talking bipedal animals. What a boring fantasy world you all must live in, if that's all it takes to keep you away from a game.
Sony is famously hands off when it comes to censorship. Nintendo is notoriously horrible for it.
Maybe back in the SNES Mortal Kombat days, but not in more modern times, where Sony was the one who toned down BMXXX and Nintendo let Conker's Bad Fur Day ride.
His own blog lists his credentials as five games. Five games. Over 13 years. And three of them are Twisted Metal games. Since when is five games enough for the gaming populace to turn him into a new game celebrity god? But we have - based entirely on the phoned-in God of War, mind you - so he now feels empowered to become the new Lorne Lanning... releasing orchestrated press releases full of incendiary sound bites. I guess he'd be the opposite of Lanning, since Lanning was desperate to tell some kind of cautionary tale in his overhyped Oddworld games. Maybe these two guys can go fight to the death somewhere.
I did read Jaffe's weblog, because I do think it is interesting to hear candid thoughts from a game designer. But God of War is hardly a "story heavy" game... at least, it's not a game that has a heavy story in it. It's a very simple story, and you can predict every move two cutscenes out. Really, were you stunned at all about the big revelation (the one involving his wife and daughter)? Yes, it is a mediocre game, sales notwithstanding. I didn't call it "unsuccessful".
And after watching all the featurettes on the God of War disk, I found it highly embarrassing that Jaffe and Company would go on at length about how "fucking rad" the game is and how hard they had worked on it. Seriously, how much work does it take to steal elements of basic mythology and make them heavy metal? Compared to all the poor slobs out there who are making their own IP out of almost nothing? You think it took longer to concept God of War than it took to come up with the backstory and characters and worlds of Ratchet & Clank? Or Sly Cooper? Or Fatal Frame? I'd be willing to bet that it took longer to draw up the plans for Katamari, for crying out loud. Standing on the shoulders of giants is one thing; blindly draping spikey armor and blood splatter on said giants is something else. Lame, I call it. At the least, not very substantive. God of War was action eye candy and nothing more. Eternal Darkness stood on the shoulders of giants. GTA stood on the shoulders of giants. God of War gets about to the asscrack.
If he wants to go make a non-story game, go right ahead. As you say, Tetris is justifiably a great game. But what I take issue with is all the cutscene-hating mofos who take this as a clarion call to come crawling out of the depths to scream about how much they hate movies in video games and Raiden was a fag and RPGs all suck. And how all cutscenes should be banned, etc etc etc.
The universe is large enough to include great games with story and great games without story. The universe is large enough to have games with cutscenes and games without cutscenes and games that blur the lines between the two.
Or maybe, we could have games that do it both ways? You know, because the world is big enough to support several approaches, rather than Only What MojoBox Decrees?
Because everytime hear bullshit like this, I think back to those poor scientists in Half-Life, trying to move the plot along while I was running away from them to make their audio sink into my speakers.
Jaffe is just dropping quasi-incendiary weblog bombs to keep his name out there. He has one of the shortest resumes in the business, but everybody bends over backwards to hear his latest "insight."
The division between gameplay and story is a false one. You can have great games with great story, and great games with no story. Why do people feel the need to argue about this? It's not like Jaffe is suddenly going to banish all bad games forever just based on his next non-story project. More than likely he's just out researching something public domain that he can decorate in spikes and blood anyway.
"Story games suck! My guy has tribal tattoos and bitchin' attack chains!" Yeah. I'll pay attention to Jaffe when he stops being mediocre.
The Xbox's catalog is smaller than other consoles... But there are a surprising number of quality titles, like:
Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Ninja Gaiden, The Splinter Cell Series (on Xbox first, and arguably best), Forza, Riddick, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Skies, Jet Set Radio Furture, Doom 3
Awesome. That's like one game every four months over the life of the Xbox. And people bash Nintendo for not releasing enough quality games per quarter.
It doesn't say much for your favorite console if 15 is a "surprising number of quality titles."
I believe it is wrong to produce a product that is crippled in ways that prevent it from being used effectively. For me, the inability to play DVDs and region encoding of games meant I bought a PS2 to fill in gaps that my gamecube could not cover.
Yeah, and the GameCube also couldn't make toast. Jerks.
The GameCube also provided 4 controller ports, memory cards of variable sizes, and a pile of great exclusive games. "Gaps" that Sony could not cover.
Reaching round behind the TV to swap cables gets old very quickly, so after a while you just end up with one plugged in and you buy your games accordingly (also ps2 games are slightly cheaper).
Dude. They make these great little things called ROUTERS. You can plug in as many consoles as you like simultaneously, and then hit a button to switch input. Also, just about every modern television has at least three external input sources anyway. Don't complain about minor annoyances that you could have easily circumvented.
The artificial restrictions placed on the gamecube led to me changing my console allegance to PS2.
Gee, I guess it would be too difficult to enjoy both systems because you can get great games for both. Holy fuck, you're a pill.
"The new Sam & Max titles, however, will not be exclusive to the service - consumers will also be able to purchase the episodes directly from developer TellTale game's website following their GameTap debut."
Lucky for you, we're all with you on this. Except for the $60 part.
If I see any of you jerks start waxing romantically about the "deep, involving, multifaceted, tension-filled, surprise-packed, complex" storyline of Ancel's Beyond Good and Evil, I'm going to send you an envelope full of shit for you to eat. Just a warning.
Whatever it is, you can be sure Jaffe will cover it in rusty armor and tribal tattoos... then immediately upon the game's release, he'll lapse into self-loathing.
Yeesh, that's a crazy argument. So if I make a PDF of the front page of CNN.com, I can't get Kinkos to print that out on cardstock because it, too, is copyrighted?
I realize my Fatal Frame Card Game is in a gray area... and if Tecmo came after me with a cease-and-desist, my pointing towards fanfics and forum avatars probably isn't going to help... but for bloody Kinkos to get up in arms about it?
I would like to see some evidence that your non-interesting pathetic attempt at a comment is not the result of a paid shill, trying to seem non-partisan yet still staunchly pro-Xbox Live. "The online console era is the new thing for consoles and is now definitely here to stay"? Come on now, really. Did you phone in this comment from the year 2000?
Kids ALWAYS say their interest in video games is declining when we're in the transition between console generations. Always. When the new systems hit stride, WHOOPS, all of a sudden it's boomtown again. Stop asking kids to participate in polls. It's as useless as student council elections.
Screw you guys. I love cutscenes. I love experiencing a well-told story with theatrical elements interspersed throughout the gameplay. When everybody dumps on cutscenes, there's this underlying assumption that no game does cutscenes well. I say many do. Right now I'm enjoying the heck out of Fatal Frame 3 (PS2)... a game that definitely has a story to tell, a story that I get to live out during the playable portions. The cutscenes aren't obtrusive, they don't appear every three steps, as most cutscene-detractors like to parrot. They're well-placed, they tell the story in ways that could not be done if I was playing 100% of the time. So fuck you guys who are out there bitching about them. There are plenty of games for everybody's tastes out there.
You know what I hate? When guys like David Jaffe stumble ass-backwards into public domain Greek mythology, staple GWAR armor onto everything, dump blood eveywhere, and call it the greatest IP since the world cooled. Maybe if you could tell a story that wasn't completely obvious and boring from the first half-hour (as God of War was), then maybe you'd have more use for cutscenes.
Yeah, it's a narrative thing. You face off against the "bad guys" who eventually turn out to be - SHOCK - not the actual bad guys. I'll agree that your first encounters with the Native Americans are not exactly complimentary, but they're not in HBO's Deadwood either. Why is it that video games can't be held to the same dramatic standards as movies and television?
Of course, Gun is a pretty lousy example of dramatic standards. No doubt nobody bothered to play through to the pro-Apache resolution because the controls / storyline were so painful.
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I'd respect your "It's okay to be a moron" post a little more if you had bothered to attach your name to it.
The only thing that can save Dr. Maressa from sounding like a total faux headline chaser is if she is super-hot.
I dig what you're saying, but how can the original Metroid be faulted for marketing novelty when the fact that Samus is female is only revealed if you were a super-player? Nintendo didn't make a big deal about her gender in early marketing; she looks like a pixellized robot on the box cover. Most players simply had no idea because they never finished the game. Back then we had no internet to ruin things within .5 hours of a game's release.
Samus's reveal was more of a bonus surprise for dedicated players than anything else. And, motivational underwear aside, she still remains an early and inspiring example of a female video game heroic avatar. Which is cool, having diversity of leads in video games (male, female, alien, young, old, heroic, evil etc). I hope you're not arguing against that.
And not too long ago, there was an article about how often male players choose a female character, even in games that are not customizable or online. So, window dressing does matter. Yeah, gameplay is important, but story and characters and immersion are also important. Calling it "irrelevant" is an unfair whitewash.
Of course, turning Samus into an obviously mega-hot Lara Croft / Witchblade / Lady Death style of female "role model" is pure marketing... but that's more of a latter day invention. And I still would say Nintendo hasn't milked that in the way that Tomb Raider or Bloodrayne a hundred other games have.
I'd wager many, many Metroid fans would be streched to answer "Metroid" quickly.
And I would wager you're totally wrong on that one. Fans are on that.
I believe it is time to update your copy/paste rant. WOTC lost the Pokemon license several years ago.
This is the absolute balls-honest truth about BG&E, and I want to make sure everybody who thinks this game has an excellent surprise-filled deep dramatic plot makes a note of it.
Largely fun gameplay, predictable story, too-small world. This game was over-hyped to appeal to "thinking gamers" who wanted something intense and cinematic... well, we all bought it (after the holiday price drop) and it did not live up to our expectations.
Also: I can't believe that there are still gamers out there who would not try a game based on the presence of A) female lead character, or B) talking bipedal animals. What a boring fantasy world you all must live in, if that's all it takes to keep you away from a game.
"The fucking hookers, ma. Duh."
Maybe back in the SNES Mortal Kombat days, but not in more modern times, where Sony was the one who toned down BMXXX and Nintendo let Conker's Bad Fur Day ride.
I did read Jaffe's weblog, because I do think it is interesting to hear candid thoughts from a game designer. But God of War is hardly a "story heavy" game... at least, it's not a game that has a heavy story in it. It's a very simple story, and you can predict every move two cutscenes out. Really, were you stunned at all about the big revelation (the one involving his wife and daughter)? Yes, it is a mediocre game, sales notwithstanding. I didn't call it "unsuccessful".
And after watching all the featurettes on the God of War disk, I found it highly embarrassing that Jaffe and Company would go on at length about how "fucking rad" the game is and how hard they had worked on it. Seriously, how much work does it take to steal elements of basic mythology and make them heavy metal? Compared to all the poor slobs out there who are making their own IP out of almost nothing? You think it took longer to concept God of War than it took to come up with the backstory and characters and worlds of Ratchet & Clank? Or Sly Cooper? Or Fatal Frame? I'd be willing to bet that it took longer to draw up the plans for Katamari, for crying out loud. Standing on the shoulders of giants is one thing; blindly draping spikey armor and blood splatter on said giants is something else. Lame, I call it. At the least, not very substantive. God of War was action eye candy and nothing more. Eternal Darkness stood on the shoulders of giants. GTA stood on the shoulders of giants. God of War gets about to the asscrack.
If he wants to go make a non-story game, go right ahead. As you say, Tetris is justifiably a great game. But what I take issue with is all the cutscene-hating mofos who take this as a clarion call to come crawling out of the depths to scream about how much they hate movies in video games and Raiden was a fag and RPGs all suck. And how all cutscenes should be banned, etc etc etc.
The universe is large enough to include great games with story and great games without story. The universe is large enough to have games with cutscenes and games without cutscenes and games that blur the lines between the two.
Because everytime hear bullshit like this, I think back to those poor scientists in Half-Life, trying to move the plot along while I was running away from them to make their audio sink into my speakers.
The division between gameplay and story is a false one. You can have great games with great story, and great games with no story. Why do people feel the need to argue about this? It's not like Jaffe is suddenly going to banish all bad games forever just based on his next non-story project. More than likely he's just out researching something public domain that he can decorate in spikes and blood anyway.
"Story games suck! My guy has tribal tattoos and bitchin' attack chains!" Yeah. I'll pay attention to Jaffe when he stops being mediocre.
Or it will be modded up by elitist punks who are just as ill-informed as you are.
He probably HAS heard of GameTap... and that's why he sees the model as a premature failure.
Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Ninja Gaiden, The Splinter Cell Series (on Xbox first, and arguably best), Forza, Riddick, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Skies, Jet Set Radio Furture, Doom 3
Awesome. That's like one game every four months over the life of the Xbox. And people bash Nintendo for not releasing enough quality games per quarter.
It doesn't say much for your favorite console if 15 is a "surprising number of quality titles."
Three years? That would suck. Where'd you pull that range?
Huh. All I ever read is the games subdivision, so for me, it's like a million games stories in a row. Woot!
Yeah, and the GameCube also couldn't make toast. Jerks.
The GameCube also provided 4 controller ports, memory cards of variable sizes, and a pile of great exclusive games. "Gaps" that Sony could not cover.
Reaching round behind the TV to swap cables gets old very quickly, so after a while you just end up with one plugged in and you buy your games accordingly (also ps2 games are slightly cheaper).
Dude. They make these great little things called ROUTERS. You can plug in as many consoles as you like simultaneously, and then hit a button to switch input. Also, just about every modern television has at least three external input sources anyway. Don't complain about minor annoyances that you could have easily circumvented.
The artificial restrictions placed on the gamecube led to me changing my console allegance to PS2.
Gee, I guess it would be too difficult to enjoy both systems because you can get great games for both. Holy fuck, you're a pill.
"The new Sam & Max titles, however, will not be exclusive to the service - consumers will also be able to purchase the episodes directly from developer TellTale game's website following their GameTap debut."
Lucky for you, we're all with you on this. Except for the $60 part.
If I see any of you jerks start waxing romantically about the "deep, involving, multifaceted, tension-filled, surprise-packed, complex" storyline of Ancel's Beyond Good and Evil, I'm going to send you an envelope full of shit for you to eat. Just a warning.
Whatever it is, you can be sure Jaffe will cover it in rusty armor and tribal tattoos... then immediately upon the game's release, he'll lapse into self-loathing.
I realize my Fatal Frame Card Game is in a gray area... and if Tecmo came after me with a cease-and-desist, my pointing towards fanfics and forum avatars probably isn't going to help... but for bloody Kinkos to get up in arms about it?
Anyway, glad you dig the game!
I would like to see some evidence that your non-interesting pathetic attempt at a comment is not the result of a paid shill, trying to seem non-partisan yet still staunchly pro-Xbox Live. "The online console era is the new thing for consoles and is now definitely here to stay"? Come on now, really. Did you phone in this comment from the year 2000?
Kids ALWAYS say their interest in video games is declining when we're in the transition between console generations. Always. When the new systems hit stride, WHOOPS, all of a sudden it's boomtown again. Stop asking kids to participate in polls. It's as useless as student council elections.
Absolutely love this series. Made a card game based on the second one. And the best website covering the FF/PZ series is Beyond the Camera's Lens.
You know what I hate? When guys like David Jaffe stumble ass-backwards into public domain Greek mythology, staple GWAR armor onto everything, dump blood eveywhere, and call it the greatest IP since the world cooled. Maybe if you could tell a story that wasn't completely obvious and boring from the first half-hour (as God of War was), then maybe you'd have more use for cutscenes.
Of course, Gun is a pretty lousy example of dramatic standards. No doubt nobody bothered to play through to the pro-Apache resolution because the controls / storyline were so painful.