Monday, March 08, 2004
It's about damn time
Whew, it's been a while since I posted last. I've been working on the site design and such though, so at least I've still been contributing to the G-pinions universe, per se. Since one of my main purposes on this site is to argue and discuss with Tom, I shall proceed to catch up with the topics of the last week or so. Enjoy.
Licensed games - Yes, they have historically blown. And as a genre, they will probably always lag a bit behind of the rest, simply because their time constraints and prerequsites are different for developers than most. But I still think that they have a place in videogames, and that for the most part, they've gotten better. The Lord of the Rings games are great for the most part, and mirror the high production values of the movies. The Hulk game was pure fun, aside from a few frustrating battles, and Wolverine's revenge was badass if you were even a slight fan of the character. I even enjoyed Enter the Matrix, which is quite the taboo opinion in the industry it seems. I'm sure at least that many licensed games were released in the same time span that were virtual excrement, but I must have steered clear of them because I haven't played a bad licensed game for quite a while. As far as the Fight Club game, I'm all for it. It's being developed by a group of guys and gals who understand it's a delicate license, and want to do the movie justice as much as we want to see them do the movie justice. And the game covers timespans in the movie that you didn't get to see, such as Tyler Durden fighting in all of the cities that he travelled to, which is just badass. As long as a developer has the interest of the fans and not the publisher in mind, I'm behind them all the way. Some games that use an old license for a completely different type of game can be hit or miss with their audience I imagine, such as the upcoming Seven Samurai 20XX. The game looks decently cool, but I don't think any hardcore Kurosawa fans are gonna be stoked to kill hordes of cyborgs in the future in his name. And I have yet to see a great game based off of a TV series (except maybe Simpsons: Hit or Run), so I wouldn't get your hopes up about the "24" game, Tommy boy.
Tom busting his shit playing Mario Party - That's what you get for playing it by yourself.
The new Splinter Cell - Stealth games are obviously an acquired taste, but I'm a big Metal Gear fan. I don't think the combat needs to be deep and thrilling, otherwise there would be no motivation to sneak around. I like knowing that I'm almost surely fucked if I get caught. I can totally understand the appeal of the first Splinter Cell, but it was just a bit too slow for my tastes. There's stealth, and then there's crawling along a ledge for fifteen minutes only to get spotted by some moron who was standing behind a lightpost when you jumped down. But it was very well done for what it was. Pandora Tomorrow, on the other hand, is a totally different story, thanks to the online multiplayer mode. I'm sure the single player mode will be the tits, and I might even play it if I get the game, but the online mode just sounds mega-awesome, as Tom mentioned. Two on two, spies (third person with stealth and gadgets galore) versus mercenaries (first person with guns and anti-spy shit) online action. Check out these videos for a taste of both sides, it's pretty fucking spectacular what you can do. The guys playing in the videos talk like professional douchebags, but they get the point across of how crucial communication is. And Tom's point is well taken about how it might be tough to find four fairly intelligent people to play with online, but if I can sometimes manage it with sixteen people in Socom, I figure I'll be able to pull it off in PT. The balance of sides just seems so perfect; the spies can knock out the mercenaries but not kill them - they have to complete an objective (such as setting off a bomb) to win, while the mercenaries just need to find spy ass and beat spy ass until spy ass is no more. Sweetness.
That about brings us up to date. I'll have some more original thoughts tomorrow, I've got some good stuff brewing. For now, I'm off to watch my cat fight with a rubber cockroach and a speaker. Bring it speaker, bring it.
Licensed games - Yes, they have historically blown. And as a genre, they will probably always lag a bit behind of the rest, simply because their time constraints and prerequsites are different for developers than most. But I still think that they have a place in videogames, and that for the most part, they've gotten better. The Lord of the Rings games are great for the most part, and mirror the high production values of the movies. The Hulk game was pure fun, aside from a few frustrating battles, and Wolverine's revenge was badass if you were even a slight fan of the character. I even enjoyed Enter the Matrix, which is quite the taboo opinion in the industry it seems. I'm sure at least that many licensed games were released in the same time span that were virtual excrement, but I must have steered clear of them because I haven't played a bad licensed game for quite a while. As far as the Fight Club game, I'm all for it. It's being developed by a group of guys and gals who understand it's a delicate license, and want to do the movie justice as much as we want to see them do the movie justice. And the game covers timespans in the movie that you didn't get to see, such as Tyler Durden fighting in all of the cities that he travelled to, which is just badass. As long as a developer has the interest of the fans and not the publisher in mind, I'm behind them all the way. Some games that use an old license for a completely different type of game can be hit or miss with their audience I imagine, such as the upcoming Seven Samurai 20XX. The game looks decently cool, but I don't think any hardcore Kurosawa fans are gonna be stoked to kill hordes of cyborgs in the future in his name. And I have yet to see a great game based off of a TV series (except maybe Simpsons: Hit or Run), so I wouldn't get your hopes up about the "24" game, Tommy boy.
Tom busting his shit playing Mario Party - That's what you get for playing it by yourself.
The new Splinter Cell - Stealth games are obviously an acquired taste, but I'm a big Metal Gear fan. I don't think the combat needs to be deep and thrilling, otherwise there would be no motivation to sneak around. I like knowing that I'm almost surely fucked if I get caught. I can totally understand the appeal of the first Splinter Cell, but it was just a bit too slow for my tastes. There's stealth, and then there's crawling along a ledge for fifteen minutes only to get spotted by some moron who was standing behind a lightpost when you jumped down. But it was very well done for what it was. Pandora Tomorrow, on the other hand, is a totally different story, thanks to the online multiplayer mode. I'm sure the single player mode will be the tits, and I might even play it if I get the game, but the online mode just sounds mega-awesome, as Tom mentioned. Two on two, spies (third person with stealth and gadgets galore) versus mercenaries (first person with guns and anti-spy shit) online action. Check out these videos for a taste of both sides, it's pretty fucking spectacular what you can do. The guys playing in the videos talk like professional douchebags, but they get the point across of how crucial communication is. And Tom's point is well taken about how it might be tough to find four fairly intelligent people to play with online, but if I can sometimes manage it with sixteen people in Socom, I figure I'll be able to pull it off in PT. The balance of sides just seems so perfect; the spies can knock out the mercenaries but not kill them - they have to complete an objective (such as setting off a bomb) to win, while the mercenaries just need to find spy ass and beat spy ass until spy ass is no more. Sweetness.
That about brings us up to date. I'll have some more original thoughts tomorrow, I've got some good stuff brewing. For now, I'm off to watch my cat fight with a rubber cockroach and a speaker. Bring it speaker, bring it.
// posted by Nick @ 12:00 AM 
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