Open Thread and Mini-posts
July 23rd, 2007I’ve decided to take a page from Geoff and post some quick thoughts and links, since I haven’t had much time today for some bigger posts. Feel free to discuss these or other topics here (after the jump):
- Rock Band appears that it will cost $200 for a bundle that includes the game, drum set, guitar, and microphone, as rumored earlier. Apparently the 360 bundle will come with a wired guitar (and drums?) due to the licensing cost to do wireless on the 360 (a wireless guitar can be purchased separately for supposedly $20 more than the PS3 version). I’m hoping that there will also be separate packages for drums and guitar, as I just don’t think I’ll want to splurge $200 for the game myself. Otherwise, I may re-think my decision to go with Rock Band over Guitar Hero 3.
- It’s amazing that Microsoft has been able to take so many exclusives away from Sony. Their VP of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim, didn’t know that Resident Evil 5 was coming to the 360 until E3.
- Kotaku thinks that Stranglehold is too short at 12 hours. While that’s according to the developers, my question is, what exactly is the threshold for the length of a good game for Kotaku? I think even masterpieces like Super Metroid took me about 6-8 hours to finish my first time through, but apparently that shouldn’t warrant a purchase? I wonder how many Kotaku writers bought Dead Rising, which supposedly has less than 6 hours of gameplay, or Prince of Persia Classic, which literally has around an hour of gameplay.
- IGN has their “Best of E3″ picks up. Mario Galaxy, Killzone 2, Fallout 3, and Bioshock took the “Best” honors for Wii, PS3, 360 and PC respectively. Mario and Bioshock were predictable, but Killzone 2 and Fallout 3 surprised me. I guess I’ll have to get my hands on Killzone myself, as a lot of critics seemed to think that the Killzone 2 demo looked about as good as the pre-rendered one from 2 years ago, but the movies I saw of it didn’t look nearly as impressive to me. It looks good, but also seemed to lack color, like so many games these days. Fallout 3 just surprised me because of the 360s strong lineup this year and what I thought was a fairly brief experience with the game at E3. It also took the “Best Overall” award. I just figured it wouldn’t have been ready, but I’m definitely interested now.
- Ebert has another editorial regarding “Games as Art”, responding to several arguments that Clive Barker had made. I still think Ebert is being a bit closed-minded about it, but he does raise some decent points. Does the fact that a game is interactive automatically mean it cannot reach “high art”? Personally, I think that’s a fairly limited definition of art, and not even entirely accurate. The best “art” from other mediums may not require user input, but I think you could argue that you still interact with it. It challenges you and requires you to think and, in that sense, is interactive.
- The Heavenly Sword demo comes to PSN on Thursday. The game has been on my radar, but more recent positive impressions has my interest piqued. People are calling it a God of War clone, but if it’s a well done God of War clone, and not just a mediocre ripoff, then I’d be perfectly happy with that.
That’s all I have for now.
Posted in Jeff, Open, PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 |
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
- Ebert is an assed movie reviewer who sometimes acts like he’s God or some shit. Fuck that guy.
- Games are one of the most breathtaking art ever, especially in today’s era of shitty music [don't know about movies; also, don't care, I don't watch them]. However, I’m very disappointed in today’s trend for making games for movie-ish. Lengthy non-interactive cut scenes are nothing but frustration at stupid CG movies and crap voice acting. GTA on PS2 got it very good, but GTA 4 comes off as….more of the same. Very meh, no?
One good example: I love how Darkness starts. THAT is awesome voice acting, and how it gradually leads the player into interaction, instead of letting the player languish into boredom. Now, if only they’d get off that brown-black-gray color schemes…
- I posted this before, but I think AAA games should be 10-15 hours max, and make them 30-40 dollars. Come-on, let’s use HDD for something other than HD movies and music….say, GAMING, perhaps? Kotaku…smug, as always.
- Lastly, one of the problems I have with 360 is that it has a glut of been-there, done-that shooters. Another thing is, many of those titles are available as a PC. To me, this says that 360 is “just another PC.” I love the fact that 360 has HDD [despite the price gouging] and Live, but if its software tries way too hard to connect itself with PC…then, this can only appeal to shooter fans.
THoughts?
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm
On the third point, I meant to add:
- If those 10 hour AAA games prove very popular/sell well, the dev can use HDD and 360’s Live to sell off chunks for small prices, say 5-15 dollars. Is this not beneficial and win-win?
July 24th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Laesperanzapaz:
-I don’t think you’ll get your wish for AAA games costing $30-$40, no matter how much gameplay there is. Gears of War probably has around 6 hours of single-player gameplay in it (if you run through it once) and sold incredibly well. Seemingly all games for PS3 and 360 will retail for $60 now, despite Microsoft originally pricing their own stuff at $50. Even if it had 2-3 hours of gameplay, if it’s ridiculously well made people will probably buy it anyway. 2 hours would be a bit on the short side for me, 5-10 hours is not amazing, but isn’t terrible if it’s a really great game… Over 10 hours I think is pretty much fine. Sure, some games can theoretically be a better “value”. There is very little of Twilight Princess, for instance, that I was bored playing, and that took me around 45-48 hours to beat. These games are exceedingly rare though. Give me a really solid 15-20 hours, like RE4, and I’m pretty happy.
-Speaking of 360 games available as PC games, I just put the rest of my deposit down on Bioshock for 360 today… but I’m still torn. Do I try to run Bioshock on my Laptop? It has a Geforce 8900 GS in it, which is pretty good, but clearly not as powerful as a regular high-end desktop video card (which I don’t have and won’t have). Anyone know what the modding utilities will be like for Bioshock? If they’re going to release them, I may just opt for the PC version and hope that my computer can handle it reasonably well. Of course, if I get it for PC, I may never finish it either. I never even finished Half Life 2 because I was too lazy to play a game on my PC.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Perhaps if they’d held off on HD for one more gen, things would be different. Dont’ get me wrong, 360 graphics are awesome and very welcome, as I love high poly count and textures…but it makes me wonder: If we staved off the HD fetish for one more gen, would things be different?
But looking back at last-gen…I guess not. I just don’t like how AAA titles are getting more expensive. All those ‘collector edition’ bullcrap is a ploy to test the waters for $90 games. This is not to say Wii is perfect, it’s not.
It’s just that, how many hardcore gamers can truly take such hits to the wallet? How many devs can afford massive financial risks to churn out HD gamers?
Ugh man, I’m rambling yet again. Got to get a life….
July 24th, 2007 at 1:43 am
To be honest, I think the bump up to HD was just an excuse to start raising prices again. Games actually used to cost more when they were in cartridge format. I think Mario 64 and Pilotwings when they first came out may have been something like $60 or $70. They settled down to the standard $50 when everything finally moved over to discs because discs are so much cheaper to produce. Now publishers want to increase their margins again, so thus to bump to $60.
I’m not sure if $50 is just my psychological barrier, but I think I’m much less likely to buy $60 games than $50 games. In fact, I don’t think I’ve actually bought a single $60 game, if you don’t count my 360 launch package crap. Gears of War I got for $50, and the few other 360 games (and one PS3 game) I have I either got used or traded for them on Switchplanet. If Heavenly Sword ends up being really good, that may be the first $60 game I buy, unless of course I can find a better deal on it.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
A few thoughts.
- Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like games becoming more expensive either, but they’ve been holding static at $50 for a few generations now. We were probably due for an increase. In fact, even some Super Nintendo games were $75 (Street Fighter II, anyone?)
- I love Roger Ebert as a movie critic, because he understands the medium very well. He doesn’t understand games at all, and he dismisses any attempt at understanding them more as a waste of time, so I don’t think he’s worth listening to on the subject.
- I’m not surprised that Killzone 2 took Best of E3 for the PS3. Killzone: Liberation for the PSP is a very, very well-made, highly polished game and I expected that trend to continue with the next game.
- I know EB lists SKUs on their preorder sheet for Rock Band packages with just a guitar, or with just a drumset. So I’m pretty sure you will be able to buy just one if you want. (The other members of your “band” can buy their own, I guess.) I plan to do that to start off with, as I have friends who will buy the other stuff. Eventually, though, I will probably want all of them. (Although this discounted price, if accurate, may tempt me into buying full kit straight out.) Whichever route I take, I plan to buy only one guitar for Rock Band; I will buy the other one with Guitar Hero III, as they can interoperate (and thank Christ for that).