Adressing the Masses THREE!

Yes, it's that time again, folks. Actually, it's a little over that time again. I haven't done one of these since the beginning of December last year, so we got a lot to talk about. So without delay, let's get to your comments. And just a note for change here, I will be referring to commentors by their names, so if you can't remember that you said that, have no fear. Or have fear. Depending on the comment, of course.

Way back in December I asked you guys to tell me your game of the year list. AppleJuiceJones replied with a very hefty list of his games for the year, and while I know much of this may not be true now, some of his reply is worth noting. If you'd like to read his entire comment, you can go to the post here.

360 Game of Year: Modern Warfare 2. Pretty much geared for the 360, MW2 is great for single player, spec ops and multiplayer on xbox live.

Unfortunately, I have to agree, and I actually did in my game of the year awards. MW2 sold 360s and made Microsoft very happy last year. As a flagship title for the MS console, MW2 fits almost perfectly with what the Xbox has to offer. Looking back now after a few months being on the market, however, I believe MW2 has much less staying power than, say, Halo 3. This is somewhat because of the several major glitches in multiplayer, and the fact that for me, MW2 gets old after a while.

Gameplay: A three-way (;D) between AC2 MW2 and Brutal Legend. Oh and Arkham Asylum. God i enjoy too many games...

Lol. Anyway, I agree and disagree. Once again, knowing now what I did not then, MW2 gameplay is not that great. No innovation, and compared to other titles, even the ones you mentioned, MW2 gameplay is nothing special. I have not played Brutal Legend either, so I think I will trust you somewhat on that.

Best Character: Ezio Auditore da Firenze. He is so dynamic more so than any other character this year in games. Reminded me a lot of Niko Bellic.

Great comparison. I really like it. While I think there are some fundamental differences in how the player invests in these characters, I do agree that there is some similarity in how their personalities seem to jump out at you.

By the way, if you'd like to check out AppleJuiceJone's blog, you can at rantwhiteandblue.blogspot.com .

All of you had some very nice words to say about the blog's redesign at the beginning of the year, and I thank you for that. On my opening of the new year blog, I made some predictions for they year. RagnarokO1 has some comments in regards to some of my predictions.

I think BioShock 2 is going to be great, thank you. Who knows, maybe the multiplayer will "advertise" to more people. It could mean Bioshock 2 gets more replayability, and therefore more time in the minds of consumers.

First, let's once again take this comment in the context of when it was written. BioShock 2 is now a major success, and it is yet to be seen whether it will surpass it's predecessor or not. But when I made this prediction, I said that some might be dissapointed with the sequel. Certainly, the second game was in many ways different than the first. For me, it was missing some of the key elements that made BioShock what it was. But in regards to multiplayer, I feel that this multiplayer does not have any lasting effect. You and I both know that BioShock 2 was bought by consumers for the singleplayer. Multiplayer is great, but it isn't necessary, and I don't feel that will garner any replayability past the occassional matchmaking game every couple months. Gamers will turn to much more popular multiplayer games such as Battlefield or Call of Duty, games that have established themselves on multiplayer.

And about Jak, you said The Lost Frontier came out already, and I have yet to play it. But regardless of whether it's good or bad, Jak is dying. The series is losing momentum very quickly. Which is a shame. It took years for The Lost Frontier to come out, and it wasn't even made my NaughtyDog. So... yeah.

The Lost Frontier, in my opinion, was a gimmick. It was a game made to hang on to lost times. Jak represents an era of video games that are slowly evaporating, but not completely gone. Platformers are hard to come by these days, and the only game series that has managed to maintain a foothold in the current market is Ratchet and Clank. But I don't think that a series such as Jak will completely go away. Gamers love series coming back to next-gen consoles. They love to see remakes. Hell, this is why hollywood makes sequels and remakes. They sell the most money because people can be moderately positive that they will like it or not. Naughty Dog, or even another developer, could very easily start Jak up again for the new console generation. But the likelihood of Jak coming back gets less and less everyday, and this is mostly because developers have found goldmines in other IP's. For Naughty Dog, it's uncharted. For Insomniac, it's Resistance. For Sucker Punch, it's inFamous. As good ole' Bob Dylan sang, "The times, they are a'changing".

In another post, AppleJuiceJones remarked on the news that Star Wars: The Old Republic will not be releasing until 2011.

The spring 2011 release date is perfect. Bioware can use the extra year they've given themselves to polish the game till it shines. Not to mention the game won't have to battle WoW: Cataclysm in release (hopefully).

I really don't feel that the release date has anything to do with Cataclysm. SWTOR will surely compete with WoW in the fact that WoW is the main MMO on the market. But SWTOR is a vastly different game, and I would take a stab to say the demographics of people interested in SWTOR are different than WoW players. SWTOR is going to aim much more at a mainstream audience as it is BioWare and it is Star Wars. Pending pricing announcements and other things, SWTOR isn't trying to take away WoW gamers, they are trying to take away everyone else. Spring 2011 allows them plenty of time for marketing, which I think is the main reason for this choice of release. Allowing plenty of time at game conventions and I'm sure plenty of viral marketing, SWTOR should garner lots of popularity, more than it has now.

Emericanheretic26 has a comment about World of Warcraft on my "15 Thing I'm excited for" post.

Really? Cataclysm is so not gonna be the last expansion. The lore behind the game is so vast that they haven't covered it all. WotLK was only the first step in the story. Good post though. Im hella (yes hella) excited.

Yes, I think Cataclysm will be the last major expansion. This isn't to say that Blizzard won't continue to release patches full of awesome free stuff, but I think anything left for WoW will be free. WoW has had a long run, even for MMO's. And while Blizzard will support it and make new things and continue to be awesome, WoW is gonna slow down in the next couple years. Here's why. Blizzard has stated they are hard at work on another MMO. What this is, no one knows. But it's very hard to support two MMO's at once. In fact, Blizzard is already very strained for resources. Starcraft II stopped development for a month because they needed people to work on WoW: Cataclysm and running WoW. The new MMO will need the same attention and care that WoW gets, and this means that WoW will have to be slowed down. Blizzard cares, and they would not make another MMO unless they gave it the full attention they give all their games, and this means slowing WoW down.

GDC sure inciting some comments. The first day brought some nice comments. RagnarokO1 said this:

AND OMG PORTAL OH EM GEE! I am so excited. Altough the "painting walls" to add new physics has me thinking... Portal 1 was amazing because it delivered so much with such a simple idea. I just hope that Portal 2 won't be too "cluttered".

I think the painting wall addition to gameplay is actually continuing with the simplicity that Valve knows how to do so well. Pick up an issue of GameInformer this month with the exclusive article about Portal 2. It really does have some nice insight into what Valve is trying to do. In my opinion, I love that they are taking a risk again, because the last thing I would want is more of the same. One of the things that made Portal such an amazing game was because it was so groundbreaking and it took a gigantic risk. Portal 2 will only be successful if it does the same. The painting walls idea is just another way of taking a risk, which I think is great. I am also sure that this feature will be limited in some respect too, so you won't be able to paint the wall anywhere, kind of like how the actual portal gun was restricted to a certain type of tile in the first game.

There were some comments about the announcement of the Playstation MOVE on my second day of GDC coverage. RagnarokO1 and Pankahku09 had this to say:

Pfft. "Move". That is SUCH a cliché name. Geez. Yet, I have no idea what Natal means... Hmm, I'm confident Natal will hold down the fort nicely. I want to hear news about Natal. I haven't heard anything about it since E3 09.

Awesome, thought the Move isn't original, it will be nice to see it tower over Nintendo at their own design.

You both bring up very good points about Move. First, I agree that the name is stupid, but it seems that names these days don't mean much of anything, as someone actually thought naming a long controller you waggle a "Wii" was a good idea. On a sidenote, Natal will most likely change names too. Natal does not really appeal to the market as much, and it's really only a codename. There's a possibility of it staying Natal, but unlikely. I'd say something like "LIVEmotion" or "motion360". Move seems to be aiming much more at the Wii then at Natal, although both are competitors. While I do agree that the tech behind Move trumps the Wii, it is nowhere near perfect. Demos that have been shown have had a suprising amount of lag, which is upsetting. In terms of Natal, it's hard to compare the two. Natal is a much different type of tech, using no controls whatsoever. Which one become superior is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't go picking a winner yet. Microsoft will unveil Natal to the world on July 13th. One last thing. It's not about the tech. It's about the software. Wii sales for games get lower and lower every month because there simply is no variety of software past Mario and the Wii series of games. What Sony and MS do on this front will determine who wins in the end.

Some cool comments on my three-part post on linearity. RagnarokO1 made me lol.

First.

That's fucking hilarious. Anyway, another interesting comment about the poll that day on favorite gaming weapons. Pankahku said:

I'm slightly pissed that daggers is not an option on your poll, but w/e.. =P

If you're talking in a literal sense, yes, a dagger is a weapon, and I didn't include. But technically, anything can be a weapon. I can kill you with a lamp, a bar of soap, a bottle of water, or anything you can think of. In a gaming sense, I always think of weapons as the thing you carry in your main hand. Daggers, to me, are always sidearms, and therefore not a main weapon. Sorry if I offended you and you're rogue-ness.

Some very awesome comments on Part 2. Blaaarg! said:

Hmm. Well, I like the bioshocky linearity (yes, I'm still in the bioshock "high"). In bioshock two, there was a set path, the only choices the player had was weapons (which most games give as an option), adopting/rescuing and harvesting little sisters, and killing or letting a few characters in the game live. And what was cool is that the overall plot wasn't affected by this, but it was actually "warped" to your actions. Your main goal doesn't change or anything, but the "tone" does. Your actions are reflected in the way Eleanor thinks and acts, and the ending cutscene does change, but in the end, you still think Sofia Lamb is a total female dog, and you still have to save Eleanor, no matter how different eleanor is because of your actions.So in a way, this type of linearity does place you in a deep inmersive story, but the story is mildly personalized for you. Kinda like you said, it places you in the shoes on another and takes you to a different world, but Bioshock 2 gives you the right size of shoes that fit you, the player, just right.

Much of what BioShock 2 fits a very Mass Effect type of design, but in a much simpler way. BioShock 2 stays in the same place, immersing you in one character. This is in no way a game full of choice, in my opinion. But, as I did explain in the post, this game does a great job of "mimicking" choice. You naturally do what you feel is best, and the game sets some things to fit that. There is no obvious path, in my opinion. You have no idea that you are even making a choice that will effect something. Hell, I didn't even figure out my choices on saving or killing people mattered until that achievement popped up on my screen. And I had no idea that Eleanor was changing based upon all my actions until after I finished the game and discovered this fact on the internet. BioShock 2 does what Mass Effect did in a small scale. It doesn't immediately effect the game, but it changes the future. In this way, it mimicks real life. Great point. Kudos.

And finally, we had some awesome inner comment debate. I effing love this. Pankahku09's comment incited a reply from AppleJuiceJones, and I feel I should give my two cents. Here's the comments.

"Many games have shown that a strong narrative can be given in a game, and can immerse players in ways other games cannot."Linearity is important but not too much. Great to follow a storyline but give players more freedom. But if too much freedom is given like in games such as WoW or GTA, then the story losses its importance.

pankahku09 i completely disagree with you, at least on GTA. GTA IV was one of the best games of all time (sorry i sound like Kanye) not only because it had open world gameplay where the city was a living, breathing character, but because it nixed the complete freedom that RPGs like Fallout and Fable gave you. Sure, you could complete missions in a multitude of ways, but there was far less choice than in an RPG. In the end, the story still came to the conclusion Niko wanted, because Rockstar incorporated a deep meaningful story into a sandbox game, forever changing the face of open world gaming.

I have to disagree with a lot that both of you said. First, you forgot to say "Ima let you finish" to pankahku09, AppleJuiceJones. Just kidding. First off, it's worth noting that GTA IV did take a big step out of freedom for the series as whole. The story did take a much bigger importance. But it certainly did not approach any sort of linearity, in my opinion. The core of GTA IV was still the idea that I can do anything when I want, how I want, and where I want. When it comes down to it, GTA IV still gives the player the ability to shoot down hookers, run away from the police, and all those things that make the freedom of the series what it is. Is this a bad thing? No, not at all. In fact, this is a big element of the fun of the game. But unless developers are willing to take bigger risks, a game like this won't ever really approach the nice blend of linearity that much superior games like Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 have. This comes in the idea that the developer lessons freedom. One of the key things in my opinion that GTA IV does right is the fact that the player gains an automatic 5 star wanted rating if they go to another part of the island. This is a limiting factor that forces gamers to play through the story. It is an element of linearity. Unfortunately, I feel the follow-through of this was not executed nicely. I have not played the two expansions to GTA IV, but I have heard that they take much more emphasis on story. I feel this is where the series should go.

But to go back to what pankahku09, he is incorrect in my opinion also. If there is one thing that I tried to explain with this three-part post, it's that a success of a game has nothing to do with linearity itself. It is all the parts working together, not one at a time. GTA IV is a great game because although there is a lot of freedom, that freedom aspect is fun, and fits perfectly with gameplay and the story it sets itself around. A game like Crackdown is fun because it doesn't attempt to tell a story. It is just fun, and that's what makes the game valuable. Immersion is a great thing in games, but every game can't do that. Some games need to be that fun, pick up and play experience, or else there would be no variety in games. Final Fantasy and Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed are all great game series that immerse the player, but they don't have what a game like Crackdown has. They are fun in a completely different way. So it's wrong to say that there is something called "too much linearity". If the developer makes a good game with a lot of linearity, so be it. It's how that amount of linearity works with the rest of the game that is going to determine whether the game is worth it or not.

Thanks a lot, guys. As always, it means so much that you take the time to comment. I listen to each and every one of them. As always, enjoy and comment.