Friday, April 21, 2006

Afternoon rant

I woke up this morning thinking Criterion should make a flying game. How is this not a great idea? Or couldn't the next Burnout have Planes, Trains and Automobiles? And boats and motorcycles? It could be the Diddy Kong Racing of 2007. It made me start thinking about what I'm looking forward to at E3, and more specifically, what I want. There are so many genres that have grown completely stagnant within this last generation; fighting games are all the damned same, platformers skipped evolution and turned into something else entirely (Ratchet & Clank, Psychonauts), and uninteresting genres like flying games became exponentially more boring.

I'm obviously dying for the quirky stuff like Loco Roco (tangent: I recently found out the game is so named since it uses only the L and R buttons - awesome!), but I'm almost more excited to see what next gen power and design can do to otherwise sedentary ideas. Developers always say that new technology opens up new creative avenues, I say we just need more Tim Schafers. I do understand how technology can hold some genres like flying back though, where immersiveness is half the experience. Physics open up new puzzle game possibilities, etc. Change is good, but leaving what works simply as such shouldn't happen as often as it does.

For example, I'm more excited about Too Human than Red Steel at this point. I'm sure using the revmote will be tons of fun, but I'd rather play a cooking game with it and save the shooters for a controller with triggers. Too Human seems to be doing something I know works well, with a savvy story setting and some interesting art direction. I'm glad the Rev can push pretty graphics too, but a bland, vaguely Asian action setting does little for my aesthetic sensibilities. We'll see soon enough, just a preview of E3 rants to come.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Check out the timestamp!

In just a few minutes, ESPN is going to finally reveal the most intriguing secret in the video game industry - which NFL player will grace the cover of ESPN NFL Football: Madden '07. Did I get that title right? Oh well, doesn't really matter. I just wanted to get my voice out there because, like most things involving American developers, there isn't much secret in this announcement. EA has said it will be a high profile running back. That narrows the field down to five or six players, at the very most. Clinton Portis struggled last year, LT didn't even made the playoffs, and Curtis Martin is broken.

So the answer is... Shaun Alexander!

EA is quite predictable, no? Choosing the NFL MVP? Bah! Why not put an up-and-comer on there, like my boy Josh McCown? Well, I'm (going to be) happy since, with the jinx and all, Shauny will struggle this year.

Oh, and if I'm wrong you guys can mock me.

Monday, April 17, 2006

To be a Juke Box Hero...

Shocking Pre-E3 News! There is going to be a sequel to Guitar Hero! Oh my God!

Seriously, we all knew it was coming. Heck, anyone with a brain knew the darn thing would be coming out this year. It's a music game, not some epic RPG, of course they're going to push another one out in time for the holidays. There have certainly been better music games, Guitar Hero isn't even the best game made by Harmonix, but no music game has ever had the mainstream appeal before. Not even Dance Dance Revolution could tap into a market this large. Even if you like dancing on those four arrows, no one likes the music in DDR. But Guitar Hero not only lets you jam on the phallic-inspired instrument that most people dream of playing, but you get to play awesome songs as well.

If anyone has heard me talk about this game before they are probably wondering why I am so gung ho about a sequel. I have a few problems with the original. Namely, there is no variety at all. There is one mode and it just involves rocking. Unlike Amplitude you can't even remix the songs. Unlike Band Brothers you don't actually feel like you're playing in a band. Sure, wielding the sweet peripheral makes you feel like a Guitar God, but you are limited in what you can play. In Band Brothers, you can play notes at random. There are limitations to this, only five notes can be played, but the octaves change depending on how the actual song is constructed so it actually feels like you're playing music rather than playing Simon Says.

However, even with those obvious flaws, I'm still pumped for the sequel. First of all, they are including Bass and Rhythm guitar tracks. Thank Christ. The original just had some weird agglomeration of guitar tracks, meaning you played lead when solos came up but other string sections when lead took a back seat. Kind of lame. The new one should offer a more robust experience. Plus, when playing two player, you can chose two different difficulty modes. This is key since I am quite poor. I can't play anything higher than Medium whereas Nick likes to jam on Expert.

Best of all, there's going to be 55 new songs. That's a lot of songs. Ouendan only has 15! They can't get into any specifics yet because of licensing, but they did mention that the Toadies contacted them after the first GH came out. The Toadies broke up 4 years ago! Do you realize the implications of this? Guitar Hero is either a time traveling device or has the power to mend relationships. Either way, I get to rock out to Possum Kingdom in a few months. Yay me! And now that Pearl Jam is doing Saturday Night Live, maybe they'll put one of their tracks in the game... Would anyone say no to rocking on Go? Or maybe Grievance... I'm getting too excited now.

E3 can't get here soon enough. Last year, Nick was able to walk up to the Harmonix Booth (Red Octane had some involvement maybe...) and schedule an appointment that very day. I can't imagine it will be that easy now.

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