I'm personally having a lot of fun with Spore, but it took a little while to get to that point. The game that was released this month differs from that described by Wright in his famous GDC '05 talk in some big ways, and many of these that I've noticed have to do with the way things are paced out. I'm sure this happened to a lot of people: they sat down, ready to sink their teeth into an epic experience, and were whisked through the first four phases of the game so quickly that they wondered what they were doing wrong.
But the Space Phase is obviously where the majority of the development effort and refining process was spent. The way everything pieces together in a single engine is stunning at times. A favorite moment of mine was the realization that the giant blue planet, which I remember thinking was a cool artistic touch when I saw it in the sky as a wee mud crawler, was actually there, orbiting silently, when I finally blasted off; and now I have colonies on its moon.
Well, after watching it for a long time, I've finally started a character in Pirate of the Burning Sea. While I was in on the beta for a while, I never really got a good feel for the game, and decided to wait out the intro period, and jump back in once the game was a bit more stable. Here are a few impressions of the first seven levels.
Of course, I created a pirate character. I mean, what's the point of playing such a game, and not being a pirate? Besides, as an amateur pirate historian, it was time to play out all of those fantasies tht have been running around my much-addled brain. And speaking of fantasies, my character turned out to be a tall, pale-skinned, raven-haired pirate wench. If you have to look at your character's ass for hour after hour, she might as well be hot, and not much is hotter than fictionalized pirate women! A very good character creation system allows you to maike pretty much whomever you want, and dress them in any number of ways. Heck, it was fun just sitting there and pressing the 'Random Appearance' button over and over again, just to see what came up.
And it's time to get back to work here at VGCT
Who's playing Spore? Is it any fun? I have no real desire to play it, if "play" is even the right word. What are your thoughts on this game/sim?
Wired has a hands-on with the Spore creature creator, and I have to admit that it looks like fun. Molding forms, bending spines, adding arms and fins and eyes and all sorts of things, and then getting to watch it walk or swim or just flop around helplessly, well, it brings forth the deity in all of us. The creative aspects of Mr. Wright's next opus are undeniable, and hopefully will be embraced by those old and young, gamers and non-gamers, the anatomy-curious and the procedural programming curious. As for the overall game, however, I'm a bit concerned. The general feeling that the previews and the videos of Wright showing it off gives is one of "once you have done it, you have done it." Is there going to be a replayability issue with Spore? Are players going to quickly get bored with stepping their creations through the same stages over and over again? It seems to work for The Sims, but that could be because players get to live a life separate from their own, but within a familiar context. Will tribal wars and space travel to other worlds be too limiting to a general audience? And more importantly, will it be fun? These are concerns for a game that everyone want to be everything that they say it is.
Picking up MGS IV today at lunch. Anyone midnight it, and started playing through? Looking forward to the experience, but I'm not totally sure why. Most all of the reviews agree that if you are a Metal Gear fan, you will like this one, too (Tycho may have said it best.) I enjoyed the previous games enough, though not enough to play MGS 3. Think I'm more curious about the entire package, and how Kojima is molding the medium to his vision. If this truly is the end of the line for the series, you would expect he pulled out all the stops. Of course, now being free of the franchise, with it's restraints and expectations, perhaps his next project will encompass a purer form of what he believes can be done with a "video game".
Had an interesting experience the other day. I was playing a bit of Guitar Hero III on the 360 (ok, ok, it was on easy. I AM 40, you know...), and was doing pretty well. Somewhere in the middle of a song, I noticed, consciously, that my fingers on the fret buttons were moving mostly of their own accord. Now, we all play a lot of games, and for the most part, after the initial learning curve of a particular game's control scheme, we really don't have to think much about how to get the on-screen persona to do what we want them to do. The controller is simply an extension of the game-mind, another node in the input/decision/output flow. But with most games, the decision part, which is to say the active thinking of what do to and what to do next, is really the key component of that flow. With GH, that doesn't seem to be the case. There isn't a lot of thought involved; you just need to react to the colored dots as the flow down the screen. As such, for the first time, I was conscious of the fact that my fingers were moving to the correct (mostly) buttons seemingly independently. It was a very interesting phenomenon, to say the least. I was almost detached from the game itself. Now, this was different than being in the zone. When you are zoning a game, it becomes your entire world.
We bring you another in our popular line of copied GoogleTalk chats. This time Bill and I address MGS IV, and gaming as an emerging art form, especially in popular culture. It is also presented as further proof of our "expertise". Enjoy! (as the discussion goes on, so shall the post)
Dib
can you resend the last thing you sent yesterday?
Bill
last chat?
Dib
yes
Bill
eh..
hang on
oh yeah
about games
Dib
yes
Bill
er, in response to the MGS4 fam score
one sec
Dib
yep
Bill
yeah
you said:
"boucaner: Japanese games mag giant Famitsu has rated Metal Gear Solid 4 and bestowed it with its highest honor: a score of 40/40. MGS4 is the first PS3 title to receive such high praise from the magazine's editors. It has already picked up similarly glowing scores from European and Western publications.
Famitsu has only handed out a 40/40 score to seven other games in its history: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64), Soulcalibur (DC), Vagrant Story (PS), The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GCN), Nintendogs (DS), Final Fantasy XII (PS2), and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii). We imagine Otacon is peeing his pants right about now."
i said:
whoa...
"are we seeing the advent of the post-pubescent years of the electronic game as a form of popular art?"
Can we now please put a moratorium on movie creators revisiting their successful franchises some twenty years later? First there were the joys that are Episodes I-III, and now we have the latest installment of our favorite swashbuckling archaeologist, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Michael Jordan, Deion Sanders, and Indy all have something in common: they should have stayed retired. Perhaps a review of the movie is in order (SPOILERS!!).
Most of you have probably reached this point in GTA IV, but if you haven't and you don't want any spoilers, PLEASE STOP READING, AND GO HERE!
Bill and I ended up having a long IM about who we killed, Playboy X or Dwayne. While the conversation isn't a bad read, what is really interesting is that the game could produce such a dialog. For a game that most of the world thinks is a murder simulator (thanks Jack and Fox!), there is a lot of depth to the characters, and their actions, here. This was true of San Andreas as well. Nico and CJ both come off as "good" people in bad situations. Claude and Tommy Vercetti really had few, if any, redeeming qualities. As a player, I didn't feel anything when I made them run over and kill innocents in their games. That's different for Nico and CJ, if only on occasion. Funny to feel bad about doing something like that when the character does little else but kill. Maybe the missions feel different because you have to complete them to finish the game. Or maybe as a player, I think that the people I'm killing in a mission deserve it "more" because they are "bad", where the people walking down the street are just folk. Whatever the reasons, it shows how well Rockstar has crafted both their game, and their game world.
Did I mention picking up Guitar Hero III as well? I suck. There is no rock star awaiting his burst onto stage within me. I can live with this. It doesn't make the game any less fun. It has a connection to Rayman Raving Rabbids that is clear if you have played both games. On the "dance" levels of Rayman, if you can get into the song, moving to the timing of the rabbids becomes easy. If you can't get that feel, that rhythm, shaking the wiimote/nunchuck tain't easy. GH has that same feel, though getting into the song is proving tougher for your white-bread narrator. Still, it's a good challenge, and anything that increases finger dexterity is a big hit with the ladies.
Guess I'm about 6 hours in, and so far it's a nice little jaunt. I'm rooting for Nico, and find it almost surprising when he does something bad, even though I'm controlling him. He seems like his heart is in the right place, but his past is very much a part of who he is. To even things out, I'll drive down the sidewalk once in a while, just to get that old GTA feeling back.
And that feeling is the one big thing that is missing. Remember when you played your first GTA III version? How new and exciting it was to do pretty much whatever you wanted, and the only consequences were a fun filled police chase, and the loss of a few of your hard-earned dollars? For those of us that have gone that would way though, that shine is off the game (just as it is missing from the city, intentionally), and it's loss brings a touch of disappointment. That's what makes Nico's story stand out even more. The fact that you get wrapped up in it fairly quickly provides a wonderful substitute for the missing new-found freedom of the game. How much did Rockstar take the returning player into account when designing their world? Of course, if this is your first go-around with a GTA game, you get the best of both worlds!
With the news that City of Heroes will start allowing user created missions, the game has suddenly become very interesting to your humble narrator. While I have never played, it always looked somewhat interesting. Now, with people being able to create, and totally control, their own missions, the game might find a place on my hard drive. What will be most interesting to see is the mission editor, and how user-friendly they have made it. You have to assume it is similar to the mission builder the devs use, with fewer features to keep the masses from breaking things, or doing the really cool things that the devs didn't know they could. While it smacks of desperation on the part of the publishers, it could be, as noted at Kotaku, the birth of the next big thing.
Well, I finished the fight. The Halo 3 campaign is now complete. The flood is gone, the human and elites are friends, and Master Chief is sleeping in his warm and cozy cryo-bed. I wonder if some future event will cause Cortana to wake our hero up, so he can fight us to freedom once more? Floating alone out there in space, no one anywhere nearby…what are the odds?
Not being much of a FPS fan, I was surprised that I got into the game. The first attempt to play though it was after it came out, and it felt then like just another shooter. Move forward, kill whatever you see, rinse, repeat. Granted, nothing about that changed when I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago, but for some reason it was more fun this time. For one thing, I was playing it more slowly, not just rushing in, blasting, and inevitably getting killed over and over (though that did happen once or twice). Nothing like learning to take advantage of those sniper rifles and big boomers! Plus, having played through Bioshock and Half-Life 2 recently may have helped. Both of those games stepped outside the traditional FPS mold, Bioshock with its Plasmid powers, and HL2 because it is a fantastic game (play it!). Halo didn’t break any new ground, but it was fun enough, and short enough, to make me finish.
