E3 2010 thread of E3-ness and MASSIVE LEAKS

[Arrqh]

I'd say that using such a broad brush as "superhero movies" actually does quite a disservice to the movies in question. Ironman and The Dark Knight were both released in the same year, are both superhero movies based on comics but are substantially different in tone, themes and execution.

I agree with you on Mirror's Edge, and I think there were some other design flaws as well (IMO, if you ever had to stop and "think" about how to navigate, the game was broken... it should have always had a feeling of speed and flow). But that's the risk you take on when you try and innovate, sometimes it isn't clear what's going to actually work and not work until you have a finished project. But if Mirror's Edge had been made by a startup instead of EA with it's wide financial base generated by more traditional titles then that startup would probably be out of business now.

The game industry, no industry, can't just try to innovate all the time. Companies would be failing all over the place and the entire thing would be so volitile as to collapse. Studios absolutely have to make traditional titles that sell to make the more risky innovative things financially viable. Companies like Valve and Blizzard are the exceptions, they have enough of a financial base that they can take their ideas and iterate them to death internally to be sure they have things that will be successful and scrap them if they aren't. Which is awesome for them, but simply not a luxury most developers can afford.

 

[firehawk12]

That's the thing, you don't need to make a "AAA" Mirror's Edge. Portal's success is because it was a small game that hit as part of a remarkably priced package that came with 5 games.

I look at it in terms of actors - Sandra Bullock ended up winning an Oscar and Razzie in the same year, because she did one film for the "role" and one film for the "money". Or, to look at it in another way, you can make "Star Trek" and "Moon". One cost 200 million dollars and the other cost maybe a tenth of that, but they're still decent/good science fiction experiences.

Making "interesting" games and "big budget" games need not be mutually exclusive. Imagine if they just had a small team of people at DICE do Mirror's Edge 2 and then sell that for 15 bucks or, even better, throw that into a package with Battlefield Bad Company 3?

I just look at Braid and fl0wer and see a lot of potential for games. There's no reason why innovation and interesting stories have to be limited to indie developers.

 

[Arrqh]

Moon, of course, being produced by a smaller independent studio. And Bullock got a cut of The Blind Side's box office take and she probably made quite a bit on it as a result. Bullock also doesn't have to answer to any shareholders...

This is the way creative industries almost always are. The real boundary pushing comes on the fringe. It's the same way with movies and music. It's why a lot of the real boundary pushing TV comes from HBO and Showtime and not the major networks. The game industry isn't stagnating, it's just behaving in the same way that all creative industries behave. It's up to us as consumers to support the good, innovative titles but as long as there's money in the traditional model, there will be developers using it.

Portal's success was in part because it was a small game in a nice package. But it was mostly a success because Valve is able to iterate to death. That's why TF2 took forever, that's why they've made a joke out of "episodic" content with HL2. Even Valve themselves have said that Portal was an experiment and the reason it was short and included in the Orange Box was to provide a "safety net." Valve is in a secure enough position to iterate and trailblaze in this fashion, but most places are not. Maybe their success will help push others into trying similar models but that sort of thing takes time and to expect the industry to do a 180 overnight is just unrealistic.

 

[firehawk12]

That's the thing - I full expect Respawn to make yet another CoD-style game. They're good at that, and I'm happy for them. I don't want people to just drop everything and make experimental indie games that appeal to hardcore nerds who debate whether "games are art".

Ubisoft can make their Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy Shooter Featuring Tom Clancy also starring Tom Clancy games... but they opened their press conference with Child of Eden. Heck, I think Inner-G will probably bomb harder than Tony Hawk Ride, but at least some guy at Ubisoft was given the chance to make a game with a silly peripheral.

And hey, you guys at BioWare managed to make a Sonic RPG on DS while doing DA and ME. I'm sure that wasn't a huge 200 person project with mocapped strippers in Vancouver and support from coders in Montreal. Big companies can do weird projects - they just can't expect everything they do to make a billion dollars and chart in the top 10 of the NPDs.

 

[Aragorn]

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.

There are a lot of shooters, but there's a reason the Battlefield, Call of Duty, Ghost Recon, etc. titles sell well, and why no one is touching Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Rogue Warrior and Darkest of Days. Unlike Guitar Hero, this is one genre Activision can't oversaturate the market with and kill.

 

[TheBrew]

The Force Unleashed II looked pretty awesome. I loved the first game and it looks like they are trying to make it a smoother experience which is really all I want anyways.

The RAGE engine looks promising.

And my interest in the 3DS went from 0-80 pretty quickly.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, I think if they come in at 200 bucks it'll be a pretty quick purchase for me. The rumoured "cartridge copy" feature is the killer app for me anyway. No more worrying about carrying your book of DS carts with you all the time.

 

[JonathonWally]

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.

I hear ya, we all have those kinda days. It's all good.

 

[Lonemagpie]

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.

Except that the reason they're there is to play *against* the shooter stereotype, and undermine it.

What made it a disappointing game was the fact that it was so obviously just a tech demo that had been promoted to full-game status. And that it could have spawned a brilliant Matrix game if it wasn't about eight years too late.

(I remember posting online at the time that if you could combine the dropping from rooftops of Assassin's Creed - itself originally a tech demo for Splinter Cell Conviction's crowd mechanics - with the first-person free-running of Mirror's Edge you'd have the perfect Batman game.)

 

[Jax]

It appears shops are listing Kinect for $149.99 so in UK for me probably around £99.99

AWFUL not a chance I will buy it or any for that price. Hell I can get a console (Arcade) for a £129.99

 

[firehawk12]

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.

Except that the reason they're there is to play *against* the shooter stereotype, and undermine it.

What made it a disappointing game was the fact that it was so obviously just a tech demo that had been promoted to full-game status. And that it could have spawned a brilliant Matrix game if it wasn't about eight years too late.

(I remember posting online at the time that if you could combine the dropping from rooftops of Assassin's Creed - itself originally a tech demo for Splinter Cell Conviction's crowd mechanics - with the first-person free-running of Mirror's Edge you'd have the perfect Batman game.)

They *tried* to work against the shooter stereotype by making her completely ineffective while holding a gun. The problem is that you are forced to use guns in certain sections where you can't outrun the guys chasing you.

Portal had the turrets that shot at you, but at least they were used in a way to either guide you in a specific direction or they were placed so that you could destroy them with your portal gun.

I mean, ideally it's awesome to run down a path, disarm a guy and then keep running (and they even have an achievement for not killing anyone in the game) but doing that without being frustrated is very difficult.

I think if they just kept it to the scale of the flash/ipad games they've since released for the IP - small games where you just ran - then ME would have been much more successful than it ultimately was.

It appears shops are listing Kinect for $149.99 so in UK for me probably around £99.99

AWFUL not a chance I will buy it or any for that price. Hell I can get a console (Arcade) for a £129.99

There's also the fact that it only works while standing, which some people are already apologizing for, is probably more of the deal breaker.

I mean, I understand standing for the obvious games like the dancing/exercise ones but who wants to drive a car while standing?

 

[Random_Spock]

Looked at the list of games coming out on the 3DS and I about did a double take at one of Majesco's...

A Martha Stewart game ... now that cracked me up.

I wonder what it'll be about, aside from cooking and stuff...

 

[firehawk12]

Well, they do make the Cooking Mama games...

 

[Aragorn]

Looked at the list of games coming out on the 3DS and I about did a double take at one of Majesco's...

A Martha Stewart game ... now that cracked me up.

I wonder what it'll be about, aside from cooking and stuff...

Cooking and insider trading. From the makers of Grand Theft Auto.

 

[LightningStorm]

Looks like the E3 hype has officially died down now..
unstuck

 

[Lonemagpie]

It appears shops are listing Kinect for $149.99 so in UK for me probably around £99.99

What, UK retailers actually do a price conversion rather than just swap the currency symbol and keep the same numbers? Not in Ripoff Britain. I bet it'll be listed for £149.99, mark my words

 

[Rincewiend]

Hm, if they do a PS3 Move pack, with both controllers and the EyeToy, it would be €110ish...

 

[BigFoot]

You can pre-order PS Move, PS Eye Camera, and a demo disc for £49.99 from amazon.co.uk. That's a pretty good price.

 

[clint g]

You can pre-order PS Move, PS Eye Camera, and a demo disc for £49.99 from amazon.co.uk. That's a pretty good price.

The problem is that to play all possible games you will need two moves, one nav controller and one eye. When all of that is taken into account, the price gets much higher.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

You can use a PS3 pad as a substitute for the move controller, so for me already having the eye camera means all need i need is the motion controller.