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E3 2010 thread of E3-ness and MASSIVE LEAKS

The image is amusing, but also pretty silly. Military FPS's, of which there are many, have always looked the same. This is neither a new nor novel idea and because of the variety present in the industry, not really a valid criticism.
 
The majority of all games made are about killing something though. I don't think it matters all that much if you're shooting someone or stabbing someone or jumping on someone's head (or, alternatively, you're running away from someone trying to kill you).

I imagine that's a problem of not being able to find another type of real life interaction that makes for interesting game play.
 
The image is amusing, but also pretty silly. Military FPS's, of which there are many, have always looked the same. This is neither a new nor novel idea and because of the variety present in the industry, not really a valid criticism.

The issue isn't that military shooters look the same. The issue is that there are so many shooters out there, period. ;) There is a severe lack of creativity going on and it's irksome.
 
And this is neither new nor is it limited to the gaming industry. And nor is Nintendo immune from this... their reuse of the same IPs and basic mechanics is the exact same phenomena as all the shooters, just in a different direction. Companies make what sells and everyone keeps buying shooters. :shrug:
 
And this is neither new nor is it limited to the gaming industry. And nor is Nintendo immune from this... their reuse of the same IPs and basic mechanics is the exact same phenomena as all the shooters, just in a different direction. Companies make what sells and everyone keeps buying shooters. :shrug:
And a consumer is going to complain if they don't like the product being offered :shrug:

What the hell is the point of this forum if I can't state my opinion on gaming?
 
Hey, if you say so, man.

Since the "big news" did NOT turn out to be Half-Life 3, so much the better for me that I was unbothered by any rumors, eh?


Look CD I really have no idea what you're acting like this over the reports of a rumor. But if you really want to call it "baseless" like you did before your edit, you're welcome to read the rumormills yourself.

Source 2 engine

Source 2 and HL3

Now maybe you can get a little less uptight about a "rumor"

New day, fresh perspective, and looking back over all of this, I can't figure out exactly why I was being such an uptight jerk either over something like this.

I missed the rumors, for some reason. There ya go.

Please accept my apology.
 
^ No worries mate, I've been far more unreasonable before. And probably will be again. :lol:

The majority of all games made are about killing something though. I don't think it matters all that much if you're shooting someone or stabbing someone or jumping on someone's head

I think it matters a great deal. The abstract, cartoonish violence in Super Mario Bros. is entirely different from the visceral, brutal violence of Manhunt, and there's a broad spectrum - from Age of Empires to Serious Sam to Call of Duty to Grand Theft Auto to Devil May Cry - in between. I don't tend to enjoy games which revel in gratuitous, brutal violence. 300 could've - given a few changes unrelated to its violence quotient - been a good film, but I wouldn't want to play it. There's only so far I'm willing to indulge that aspect of human - specifically my - nature.

The issue isn't that military shooters look the same. The issue is that there are so many shooters out there, period. ;)

I like how devs and publishers complain about the cost of developing modern 'AAA' games, and yet we never seem to be in any danger of running out of them. :lol:
 
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And this is neither new nor is it limited to the gaming industry. And nor is Nintendo immune from this... their reuse of the same IPs and basic mechanics is the exact same phenomena as all the shooters, just in a different direction. Companies make what sells and everyone keeps buying shooters. :shrug:
And a consumer is going to complain if they don't like the product being offered :shrug:

What the hell is the point of this forum if I can't state my opinion on gaming?

Wow, outrage much? When did I say that you shouldn't state your opinion and why does it bother you so much to put the industry in the context of business?
 
I think a lot of people succumb to the desire for new content regardless of whether or not it is the best that the industry can do. That is why a lot of mediocre games (including shooters) and movies are made. Consumers are so eager for anything that they don't set their standards very high.

Games that push new ideas are the exception. I don't think I've heard about anything from this year's show with as great a concept as Scribblenauts. I'm glad that they are trying the 3D gaming, and I hope that it will be 100X more successful than the Virtual Boy.
 
Video games are like movies. The major companies are going to put out products that (they hope) will appeal to the broadest audience, and for systems like the Xbox and the PS3 (in the United States), those happen to be gamers who enjoy games that are heavy on action and typically light on creativity. Is it annoying? Occasionally. Disappointing? Sometimes. But you know what, sometimes it's okay to want to just run around blasting people in the face with a shotgun. :lol:
 
Yup. Games are all about shooting people in the face. :lol:

You say that like it's a bad thing. :p

I full admit I'm part of the problem, but by necessity rather than choice. :lol:

I think it matters a great deal. The abstract, cartoonish violence in Super Mario Bros. is entirely different from the visceral, brutal violence of Manhunt, and there's a broad spectrum - from Age of Empires to Serious Sam to Call of Duty to Grand Theft Auto to Devil May Cry - in between. I don't tend to enjoy games which revel in gratuitous, brutal violence. 300 could've - given a few changes unrelated to its violence quotient - been a good film, but I wouldn't want to play it. There's only so far I'm willing to indulge that aspect of human - specifically my - nature.

Once in a while I'll have a similar conversation on GAF, so I have a prepared statement. :lol:
I guess my bigger point is - why isn't there a Sex and the City 2 game tie in? It's the hugest franchise of the year aimed directly at women, an audience that game publishers admit they don't know how to target, yet no one stepped up to the plate to try to come up with something that would appeal to fans of that franchise?

I see games falling in danger of the anime/comic book niche. Anime is all moe and highschool girls while comic books are all homoerotic men in tights. Games are a little wider than that (because of Nintendo) but between Halo and Killzone and everything in between, it's a wasteland of violence and half naked men (or naked women, if you're from Japan) shouting at each other loudly.

Right now, the only way the industry seems to survive is by building on the backs of people like us who are willing to shell 60+ dollars for a game... the same way anime survives in Japan on the nerds who will pay 80 dollars for a blu-ray disc or the comic book industry survives and 3-4 dollar 32 page comic books.

I'm fairly publisher friendly most of the time - you want to prevent used sales via "Project 10 dollar" and "Online Pass" incentives? That's cool. But maybe, just maybe, they can try to reach out beyond the 18-30 year old male demographic.

(You all better buy The Last Guardian when it comes out, damn it! :lol:)

The issue isn't that military shooters look the same. The issue is that there are so many shooters out there, period. ;)

I like how devs and publishers complain about the cost of developing modern 'AAA' games, and yet we never seem to be in any danger of running out of them. :lol:
It seems like they can't help themselves, because unlike the movie industry, there is no "upper tier non summer blockbuster" genre of games (ie, RomComs or indie films). Big studios don't seem to have the desire or ability to pump out stuff like Braid or fl0wer.
 
Yeah, at the rate some of these companies are going they might find themselves stagnating like some of their Japanese counterparts. You can only release the same game so many times before people start to go the other way.
 
The new Portal 2 gameplay demo looks interesting. They've really expanded the puzzle mechanics and unless I'm mistaken, the Source engine has had a bit of an overhaul too.
 
Yeah, at the rate some of these companies are going they might find themselves stagnating like some of their Japanese counterparts. You can only release the same game so many times before people start to go the other way.

Yeah. They're sort of surviving on the fact that there are more nerds in the West than there are in Japan. I really believe it's the same 10-15 million people in the West that's buying Halo/CoD/whatever.

I'm not saying I want Love Plus to be released here, but there has to be some way to interact with a text that doesn't involve physical violence of some sort. I guess I just want more Jenova Chen games. :p
 
The new Portal 2 gameplay demo looks interesting. They've really expanded the puzzle mechanics and unless I'm mistaken, the Source engine has had a bit of an overhaul too.

I think the Portal 2 stuff looks great, the puzzles are going to be pretty insane with these new mechanics.

And Portal is a great example of actual creativity in the industry. Yes, there are more things like CoD then Portal but this is the same with essentially every single entertainment industry ever. Most of it extremely derivative, and this goes for games, movies, tv, literature, theater, music and everything else. Making new IP within existing boundaries is hard enough but making something that truly pushes the genre as a whole along is extremely hard. Truly revolutionary things are few and far between and that's the way it's always been.

And even within the shooter space, there's still a lot of variety. If you compare Mass Effect, Dead Space, Mirror's Edge and Medal of Honor you find four very distinct experiences even though they can all be described as shooters in one form or another, and that's just one publisher. And Mirror's Edge is an example of why companies don't just abandon derivative games and just try to push boundaries all the time... because a lot of it is going to fail, innovation is risky, and if you don't have financial backing to prop you up after a failure, you run out of money real fast.
 
I just see that as a comparison between the film versions of X-men, Iron Man, Batman, Hulk, Kick Ass, etc. They're very different films by different filmmakers, but they're ultimately still superhero movies.

It's funny though, with Mirror's Edge, a huge part of what takes away from the game is all the shooter stuff they felt compelled to stick with. The game is at it's best when it's like Portal - figuring out how to navigate a 3D space in first person. The fact that the DLC is essentially a series of challenge maps indicated that they figured that out, but only after the game was near completion.

Speaking of Mass Effect, my favourite sidequests were the ones where you just spoke to people and didn't have to kill anyone. Of all the missions in the game, that amounts to like 2 out of 20 or so story missions in the game. I think if BioWare took their dialog wheel tech and threw in elements of the Heavy Rain tech, you could come up with some very interesting games.
 
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