by NoCopy on Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:27 pm
First of all, good podcast, an excellent blend of good topics, humour and opinion. It would, however, be nice to hear from Elizabeth a little more often as she has a less hard-core perspective on games that is a nice balance to Chris' look through the magnifying glass.
On Rare:
I do agree that Rare has a questionable track record and they certainly weren't worth the purchase price; however, I must say, I think Kameo is one of the most under-rated titles of this gaming generation and I am not referring to published reviews (which range from good to excellent). Kameo is an original, fun, and extremely well presented action-adventure platfomer(?) . The graphics still hold up to today's games, both technically and artistically, and the game play offers tons of variety and intelligent design. I think the only thing that stopped Kameo becoming a break out hit it should of, is because it was marketed more as kiddie game beside Rare's other more serious "Perfect Dark Zero" and a kiddie game it is certainly not.
On COD4's presentation:
The one thing I think your ignoring Chris is that games shouldn't be striving to be a movie experience, they should be designed to be a game experience and that is all. I disagree with you that because an action game puts you in those critical action moments and nothing else it fails at achieving depth or is in some way inferior to a good movie. Case in point: If Call of Duty broke off at some point and had a mission where your argue with your wife about shipping out to sea, while realistic, and establishing character, doesn't make for the best game play scenario. I think COD4 does an excellent job at putting YOU in the position to make up the character, and the depth behind him, while experiencing the most engaging game play at all times.
Metal Gear Solid tries (and I believe fails) at what your describing; trying to achieve a higher form of gaming by become something closer to a movie. The problem is, when you are sitting there watching those 12 hour cut scenes you realize that YOU aren't Solid Snake at all, it's Hideo Kojima's Solid Snake and he is just allowing the player to view his pretentious Metal Gear directorial "vision".
If anything, I think Infinity Ward has a better handle on their medium than any other developer; they aren't trying to be like "this movie", they are trying to make the best game.
On Spore:
Don't you find it odd that everyone who says that Spore is a gateway game for casual players is a veteran gamer? I have a theory on this, they need to find a way to justify the simplistic disappointing nature of the game to match the crazy overblown media hype that was telling everyone that Spore is going to change the face of gaming.
The idea that people are going to go pick up Rage or Starcraft 2 and be prepared because they had some experience walking around a creature in Spore, is, to me anyways, completely outrageous. I would argue that in time it is going to have the exact opposite effect on new gamers; games like Spore are going to teach them that they don't have to think, worry about strategy , or even try to improve or succeed.
In some ways, this is already starting to happen with contextual help; When a gamer comes to dead-end with a crumbling wall and a hammer in their hand they will walk around in circles for 20 minutes waiting for the "press A to smash wall" tool tip to pop up.
Gamers are becoming devoid of actual intelligent thought and this is precisely why Spore is a dangerous game to new gamers. The next game they play that does require thought, strategy or even basic instinct they immediately become frustrated because they can't dance their problems away or can't hit the "press A to finish puzzle" button.
Spore is a technical showcase for procedural animation, customization, and user content; no question about that. In Spore you can make a creature, ship, or building in under 10 mins; and not just a crappy blob with an antenna either, a really decent and unique looking creation that behaves realistically. It should not be understated on how impressive this actually is in practice, and hope to see more of this in future games.
That being said, I believe that is all spore is, a fancy youtube platform for user generated content; unfortunately, besides looking pretty, that user generated content has zero bearing on the actual game environment, and any meaningful interaction with that content is reduced to 1 button interactions which are hardly compelling.
Some people will argue that the Space Phase shows signs of real game play but I believe the space phase does nothing new or better than Masters of Orion (made in 1993) and I would argue that MOO2 with its extensive tutorial is just as easy to learn and get into, while still offering 10x the depth of Spore.
The thing that really worries me the most about Spore is Will Wrights quote "we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life"
What he is basically saying is that he would rather sell out trying to create a safe franchise than to take a chance using his creative vision making the best game.
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