Played - Episode 46
Published by Mark October 23rd, 2008 in Main Page.
After a few weeks’ break and some technical difficulties, Played is back with a particularly bizarre episode. This week, the crew discusses Diablo III corpse runs, Wizard: The Movie: A Diablo III Tale, and the upcoming StarCraft II trilogy. Plus, we take a trip down memory lane with Prototype and the most pretentious developer video diary ever recorded.
Finally, Liz has been playing Rock Band 2 and Spore, Chris is immersed in World of Goo, and Mark is playing through Dead Space and De Blob.
References: Blizzcon 2008 contest winner, some crazy guy and his hole, and Hinterlands.
There we go!
Good job mark
An entertaining podcast.
Really looking forward to world of goo from all the good mentions, I really don’t know if I want to go with the Wii or the PC version, probally the Wii version as it is the only one that allows other players to partake..
Didn’t know anything about Hinterland until you mentioned it, looks intrestingly addictive.. will keep an eye on it..
THE WIZAAAAAARD!!!! D:<
Great podcast guys…
On Diablo III, I am actually one of those people afraid of all this streamlining. If you look at a game like Space Siege, it is streamlined to the max. and suffers because of it. You are basically doing nothing in Space Siege, and I am afraid of Diablo heading down a similar — though not as extreme — road.
Stuff like town portals, resurrection penalties etc are all aspects that give the Diablo games character. After all, the actual gameplay in Diablo is quite boring, and it is the tons of extra little stuff that makes the whole experience so unique.
I thought one of the mistakes the developers of Titan Quest made was to streamline so many aspects of their game to an extreme end. When I discovered that I was able to roll back my character and skill point investments, I was quite disappointed. It just made my character feel less unique, and it made the skill point decisions feel less important.
Hell, I still remember taking five hours to roll the perfect character in Baldur’s Gate. I know a lot of people were like that.
I just find all this efficiency to be overrated. All these aspects of the game don’t need streamlining… because they are actually what make the game. If you streamline everything, all you will be left with is a lot of *click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*….
Let me put it this way. Would you rather have a nice delicious 500 calorie burger, or would you rather swallow an efficient 500 calorie food pill?
I know it sounds like I am overreacting here, but I just don’t want Diablo to be the soulless affair, that Titan Quest was in terms of gameplay.
Sure, Valve are releasing a lot of stuff. But that’s Valve the publisher, and not really Valve the developers. They see something they like, and they buy the developers. Not saying it is a bad thing, but I do find their whole episodic schedule to be ridiculously poor.
Especially with the Source engine looking so terrible.
Last comment… I promise…
Chris was in a real mood in this one… it was great. It was like listening to the George Carlin of video games journalism..
Also, the best comment of the podcast:
Elizabeth, “you have to jerk it ridiculously hard… upwards…”
I am sorry, I just finished with Season 3 and Season 4 of ‘The Office’, and that Elizabeth comment sounded a lot funnier than it was.
Thanks for the comments Pugnate. I fixed the comment approval thing so from now on you and everyone else should be able to comment without the need for moderation.
I think next episode we’re (finally!) going to read some listener comments and will include some of yours.