Tag Archives: e3

Why I Hate “The Last of Us” (Now With More Hate!)

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[NOTE: Full review is on its way. This was a reaction to the initial E3 trailer and hype.]

NOW WITH MORE HATE!

[Added a second part.]

You’ve probably heard of The Last of Us by now, which means you’ve probably shrugged and said yeah, cool I guess.  It’s the gory post-apocalyptic PS3 exclusive developed by Naughty Dog, makers of the Uncharted series.  It’s already won a bunch of awards, including “Best of Show”, “Best Original Game”, “Best Console Game”, and “Best Action/Adventure Game” at this year’s E3.  There’s no doubt that it will be a highly polished, carefully crafted, and feature unparalleled voice acting and CINEMATIC CINEMATIC CINEMATIC.

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(Updated) Konami’s E3 Show features trailers, Mega64

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Konami’s “Pre-E3 Show” is now available.  Interviews, trailers, and a great Mega64 skit are being shown.  We finally get to see more of Rising‘s gameplay, which looks very typical for this genre.  Sadly, level design seems to be ripped from the Nintendo 64 era.  Huge crates scattered around for no reason, allowing you to reach higher areas; generic wide city streets with nothing going on; a train chase; a scripted bridge collapse.  The rushed development schedule is evident, and so is the lack of ideas.

And in case you hadn’t figured it out, the theme of cutting everything and has been cut down as well.  The developers say that only enemies and certain background objects will be sliceable, meaning you shouldn’t be expecting to get too creative with your sword.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

I’ll be talking about the upcoming E3, Zone of the Enders, and a bunch more on my twitter.  I’ve started using it regularly, and I’ll be using it to announce new articles and such for your lazy ass.

Ravi Singh brags about playing Peace Walker HD

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After keeping it a big fat secret from us all, he’s now basking in the glory of his E3 experience and bro status with Ryan Payton.

You can read about it here.

No one likes a bragger, Ravi. Also, thanks. Looks like PWHD (which is what I’m going to call it from now on) is going to be a pretty respectable cash-grab from Kojima Productions after all. Right thumb stick for the win, I say.

As for “MGS3DS”, here’s my initial thoughts: it makes me sick.

MGS3DS is the kind of soulless experiment that illustrates what happens when the Japanese get a taste of success. That’s not racist — that’s just the pattern, they admit it themselves. Oh shut up. Look at how the team developing MGS: Rising decided to not only make the game a prequel but also a new genre, instead of continuing the series properly. That’s game design cowardice. Everyone’s too scared to innovate or take a step in a new direction, wasting perfect opportunities to make new stuff by just remaking the same old stuff for new platforms. Can you imagine a brand new Metal Gear game on the 3DS?

I can. I can imagine it being cool too. My imagination works like that.

The reason why the HD Collection is tolerable is because Peace Walker was begging to be ported to consoles from before it was even released. It really is a major installment in the series, and it deserves a wider audience. Giving MGS2 & 3 to the Xbox crowd feels right as well. But remaking MGS3 for the 3DS? Nobody was asking for that.

EDIT: It may seem contradictory to say that the Rising team is scared to take a step in a new direction while simultaneously complaining that they picked a new genre — a new genre sounds like a new direction, right? — but the issue is a fear of being compared to the “actual” series, or push the story forward in a new direction.

Kojima set up the plot of MGS4 so that it would tie up loose ends and give his team freedom to continue the series with a new story, not so they could shit out a spinoff prequel that hides behind a new genre to avoid being comparable to the major installments.

Why the Wii U will be a great console

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The Nintendo Wii U, codenamed “Project Cafe”, was officially unveiled at E3 just days ago. It’s already the subject of much debate and concern. I believe these concerns are stupid, and based on a few critical misconceptions.

The critic’s argument goes like this:

“The Wii was supposed to be revolutionary, but in the end it just sat on our shelves and collected dust! Only some of the first party titles developed by Nintendo were cool, and the rest were crappy. It was a huge disappointment, so therefore we should expect the same from the Wii U.

“The failure of the Kinect and Move motion controls, as well as the mediocrity of the Nintendo 3DS, also reinforce that Nintendo’s strategies are filled with bad ideas and they can’t be trusted to innovate.”

Nintendo Wii U console and controllerEven if I agreed that the Wii was a failure (which I don’t,) it’s a fallacy to argue that its failure translates into some kind of doom spell for the Wii U. In fact the only problem the Wii really had was the misunderstanding of what it was trying to do! And that was thanks to the ridiculous interpretation given by gaming sites and magazines.

For those of us who bothered to pay attention, we know that the Wii was trying to appeal to people who never normally played games. This is called the blue ocean strategy, in which a company targets new demographics instead of always trying to satisfy the same small group of devotees. This was a stroke of genius, even if it made them unpopular in the eys of the old fans. Millions of people who never paid attention to consoles were suddenly intrigued and willing to give videogames a try, so yes, the Wii was a success, not a failure.

However, the game industry (and other millions of gamers) felt betrayed, so they left the Wii out in the cold. The old paradigm was having trouble coping with the fact that Nintendo was returning to it’s family-oriented origins and shrugging off the imaginary “debt” that they owed to the 20-30 year old nerds who supposedly kept the industry afloat. “You can’t break up with me! I’m breaking up with YOU!” The Wii got a bad name for no good reason, and to this day I can’t talk to a fellow gamer without hearing about how the Wii was a “gimmicky failure”. They just can’t comprehend that Nintendo wasn’t trying to impress them, and that’s okay.

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So it’s E3? Settle down, people.

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Another year, another E3 to get all excited about, right?

Well… Yes and no.

Yes, there’s the possibility that we’ll see awesome games, consoles and innovations; Nintendo supposedly has a new console to reveal, and of course Kojima Productions will have its own spotlight, even if the man who the company is named after is shunning the event. Some think that Sony and Microsoft will also reveal their plans for new consoles, even if it’s basically just a concept. So there could be sweet news!

But as my old grand-uncle William Shakespeare used to say: all that glimmers is not gold. There’s also the harsh reality that businesses love making huge promises that ultimately become stupid disappointments. If you’re the kind of person who is satisfied by simply having something new to speculate about (a stance I’ve been known to take), then it’s probably a win-win situation. But please, if you’re going to speculate, do it right: balance your hype with some criticism and realism, okay? 70% of all new ideas are garbage.

Knee and back pain simulator in the works for KojiPro?

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According to recent tweets it seems Kojima Productions may be developing some kind of new, next-gen pain simulator.

Although we cannot confirm that it will be a pain simulator at this point, there are plenty of juicy details to feed your active imaginations. Kojima has revealed some following tidbits:

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