Lemme start off by apologizing to anyone who’s just came to my site to read about FPA. There’s plenty of links to FPA related content on the right… The rest of this is for those gamers out there who like to keep their eye on the industry. Really, first and foremost I’m a gamer, and I believe that the most important part of creating video games is having a love and understanding of the medium. So, I figure that posting as a gamer is just as relative to my blog as posting as a developer.
Anyways, about E3 ’08. Pretty disappointing eh? No matter what I tell myself, I still, I suppose by some terrible habit, act like E3 is still what it used to be. If you’re a serious gamer who likes to keep his eye on the gaming pipeline, E3 could be a lot like Christmas morning. In reality, it’s now about nothing more than talking numbers and bullet points for the shareholders and mainstream news outlets.
That’s really the truth of it. My inner gamer wants to claim how full of fail all 3 press conferences were, but come on, E3 isn’t what it used to be. Nintendo announced their next big thing, and if you haven’t heard about MotionPlus, I’d look into it, because it’s awesome. Aside from that, they’re being Nintendo and not announcing games until a month or two before they ship, just like Apple does.
Technically, I am part if the gaming industry, but being on this side of the fence is still pretty new to me, so I still geek out about game announcements just like I used to, so that’s why I’m even writing about it in the first place, haha. I still tend to root for Nintendo, but I have to remember that E3 in no way represents their full target audience. The E3 PRESS CONFERENCE is for the casuals, sneaky behind the scenes interviews done by gaming sites are for us ‘core gamers.’
Besides, Nintendo works on a little bit of math that goes something like this:
Casual games = $$$
$$$ = Zelda, Metroid, Mario, etc.
So as far as I’m concerned, Nintendo can make and sell as much casual software as it wants. Besides, that leaves a big empty space for other developers to fill.
Yeah… don’t really know why I choose this post to actually put that disclaimer up on… guess it finally just hit me how many people come to this site every day, and that this really is my site as well as just a blog…
You mean Sony HAD some awesome exclusives! (buh dum phsing!) I dunno about LIttleBigPlanet, I mean, I was hyped for it for awhile, but I’m more a fan of tightly designed levels, the game looks more built super sloppy to accommodate 99 percent of the populous’s complete lack of level design expertise… Probably still pretty fun to play with 4 people though (I guess I just think I could make a better sidescroller if I had the budget, call me arrogant
).
I got a ps3, and I still can’t really say it’s worth it. I was hoping MGS4 would be amazing, but the gameplay really just fails in almost ever conceivable way. It’s like it you were watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and every half hour you have to walk forward 10 paces to continue the movie
As for reviewing like a developer, you’d really just be answering a few questions about game design (which basically means how fun the game is). I’d think it would really be more like reviewing a game as a gamer, instead of as a reviewer… (moreso about fun than technical merits, as that’s what developers should be focusing on).
hey drnero!
let’s make animations like theswain does related to these!
http://www.bornegames.com/forum/topic.php?id=124
You mean Sony HAD some awesome exclusives! (buh dum phsing!) I dunno about LIttleBigPlanet, I mean, I was hyped for it for awhile, but I’m more a fan of tightly designed levels, the game looks more built super sloppy to accommodate 99 percent of the populous’s complete lack of level design expertise… Probably still pretty fun to play with 4 people though (I guess I just think I could make a better sidescroller if I had the budget, call me arrogant
).
I got a ps3, and I still can’t really say it’s worth it. I was hoping MGS4 would be amazing, but the gameplay really just fails in almost ever conceivable way. It’s like it you were watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and every half hour you have to walk forward 10 paces to continue the movie
As for reviewing like a developer, you’d really just be answering a few questions about game design (which basically means how fun the game is). I’d think it would really be more like reviewing a game as a gamer, instead of as a reviewer… (moreso about fun than technical merits, as that’s what developers should be focusing on).
put that in a blog entry!
I can’t pass judgement on MGS4 as I haven’t played it. But having played some of the previous games a little; I can see where you’re going with it. I never liked the over-use of cutscenes, it becomes more like a movie and I don’t like how you lose control in cutscenes. You’re meant to be the person playing, controlling what the character does. Too many of those cutscenes destroys the “game” feel.
Oh, I can do that… I guess. I think I do that already, it’s always “whether I find it enjoyable” before anything else when I’m reviewing games. And it’s not just gameplay, sometimes it’s also important that I enjoy the story or enjoy the characters. Because frankly, I don’t want to play a character that I dislike. But yea, reviewing from the perspective of a gamer is certainly something I can and already do to a certain extent. (I’ve done a few reviews on my blog)
I don’t know about inFamous, I guess all those trailers are starting to look the same to me… (first I heard about it I thought they renamed Protocol). Dead Space, however, looks fantastic. As strange as this sounds, the way they do the HUD is exactly how I want to do FPA’s, at least, it would be the cartoon equivalent of Dead Space’s in game holographic HUD…
I guess when I think of criticizing games from a dev’s perspective, the main thing would be what they got right, what they got wrong, what you can learn about what makes games fun by playing that game, new ideas brought to the table, if they make you think differently about how a fundamental gameplay system should work (like the recharging health in Halo, now what games don’t have that) (I know, I know, the answer to that is Half Life 2).
I need to make a blog entry on licensed games…
Oh and SPCC, do you mean you want me to expand on that as a blog entry, or you just want that on the front page? haha.
Well, inFamous is going to be a sandbox game. So, hopefully it’ll be like GTA with some Star Wars like electricity powers. And you can choose to be good or evil; which is always a win in my book.
Dead Space does look amazing, I agree with you on that. I haven’t seen too much on it but it does look good. How his life is represented by the lights on his back are genius and the holographic HUD works really well. I’m not sure how you’d integrate it into FPA though… He doesn’t exactly need holograms to tell him how much ammo he has.
Sounds sorta like a regular review; except you delve more deeping into the gameplay experience and such. And like Yahtzee said; for some reason the whole game industry had a fallout with the life-bar. Pity really. The recharging health is overused and doesn’t fit in a lot of games. (Oh look, you’re in WWII but you automatically heal when you take cover! – at least it made sense in Halo)
For one simple reason alone, recharging health bars make games far less hardcore and much more casual friendly, though Gears of War or CoD will never admit that.
Though, is does work much better for online games, most definitely.
That is true. I remember the old days when your health doesn’t recharge. It was always amazing to go on a killing spree left with only the tiniest bit of life.
It works in games nowadays because, like you said: online. Frankly, no one wants to be stuck looking for health kits just so you can jump back into the action. Obviously, this is rectified when you have medic classes but the problem is that very few people play medics because they think it’d just be healing people constantly. I admire how the Medic works in TF2, with the ubercharge you seem much more in the action and a much more valuable asset to the team.
screw xbox, wii, and ps3
I want sims 3, diablo 3, and red alert 3!
Awww, IDK. Nintendo’s the only game company I’d really TRUST, hands down… Well, besides Bornegames.