To be fair I believe in movies if you say the word fuck more then three times it can cause the rating to go up to R if not higher. Something silly.
And that doesn't even begin to describe how corrupt and inept and all backstage politics that is involved with those ratings.
Actually, any more than one Fuck and it's automatic R rating.
Thought I had mixed it up a bit but yeah I mean that's pretty damn crazy.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited June 2012
As Southpark has taught us sex and violence is okay as long as nobody says any bad words.
You can have all the decapitations and partial nudity you want, but by God if you say "fuck" there will be Hell to pay!
Hell I say!
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited June 2012
Getting pretty tired of the F-bomb myself, especially in the Ubisoft stuff. They do realize other words exist, right? And that the vast majority of people don't actually use "fuck" for every other word in a sentence? It sounds clunky and unnatural as hell slathered all over the top of every line of dialogue. Even people who cuss all the time don't use it that much; they at least mix things up a bit.
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
Getting pretty tired of the F-bomb myself, especially in the Ubisoft stuff. They do realize other words exist, right? And that the vast majority of people don't actually use "fuck" for every other word in a sentence? It sounds clunky and unnatural as hell slathered all over the top of every line of dialogue. Even people who cuss all the time don't use it that much; they at least mix things up a bit.
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
Heh, I am certainly not defending their use of the word "fuck" as I think it is overplayed and a bit forced sounding most of the time myself, but I will say when I was deployed we said "fuck" a lot. Took me about two weeks to "relearn" how to speak in public when I got home. :P
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Getting pretty tired of the F-bomb myself, especially in the Ubisoft stuff. They do realize other words exist, right? And that the vast majority of people don't actually use "fuck" for every other word in a sentence? It sounds clunky and unnatural as hell slathered all over the top of every line of dialogue. Even people who cuss all the time don't use it that much; they at least mix things up a bit.
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
Heh, I am certainly not defending their use of the word "fuck" as I think it is overplayed and a bit forced sounding most of the time myself, but I will say when I was deployed we said "fuck" a lot. Took me about two weeks to "relearn" how to speak in public when I got home. :P
Don't misunderstand; my brother is active duty Navy (and actually in a boomer out in the Pacific somewhere right now) and my family has military history, so I fully understand the vital importance of harsh language in military life. But even in full-on sailor cuss-mode, my brother doesn't sound half as crude as some of the "gritty" game characters that come out these days. Writers are just trying way too damn hard on that score and it sounds awful, especially when it comes from characters who are fairly normal.
The problem is that you have what are a bunch of people who don't cuss regularly writing characters who do in order to make those characters sound mean or tough or whatever. It just... doesn't work out.
I give exemptions to games like Bulletstorm, though, where everything is over the top anyway so it makes sense when all the dialogue is also over-the-top jam-packed with all sorts of foul language.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I hear ya and agree.
And Bulletstorm is also a pretty good example of it being used, uh, good I guess.
Like, if the story you are telling is supposed to be "serious" or "grounded" or "realistic" and you have your characters swearing all the time because that is what you think they would do then it sounds bad to me.
When you have something crazy-over-the-top like Bulletstorm or Southpark then all the swearing doesn't bother me because it is silly.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Devil May Cry has a serious potty mouth now.
Also Forbes is by far the best gaming journalism around, even though they aren't even remotely a dedicated gaming site. Their commentary is usually actually to the point eg, the ME3 ending and they seem to pay attention to what people actually say. Their e3 analysis was great as well, fully agreed with it. Hope Forbes keeps it up.
It all pretty much just strikes me as the same people who've always been writing the terrible dialog in video games being told they need to project a certain image to pursue their demographic.
Amazing dialog is obviously possible while going overboard with profanity. The Wire had a scene that ran for around 8 minutes with the characters only saying "fuck" or "motherfucker". It was brilliant. The people who make AAA video games are, at best, only capable of dialog that is unintentionally amazing.
I think the reason the FarCry opening was cringe-worthy was because it shows how immature the "mature" rating can be at times.
You throw in some tits, some fucks, some blood...blam...you've got your mature right there. And really I generally don't get up and at 'em like most people do about these things.
That being said I had that feeling with quite a few titles, not FarCry specifically.
Getting pretty tired of the F-bomb myself, especially in the Ubisoft stuff. They do realize other words exist, right? And that the vast majority of people don't actually use "fuck" for every other word in a sentence? It sounds clunky and unnatural as hell slathered all over the top of every line of dialogue. Even people who cuss all the time don't use it that much; they at least mix things up a bit.
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
The problem is language got so lax, there's not much else to use. Damn and hell are kids stuff. Bitch and Bastard don't really have much sting anymore. Even asshole is pretty mild. Shit and fuck are pretty much the only real swearwords left that don't still have sexist connotations (cunt and twat are still fairly associated with women.)
Shit and fuck are pretty much the only real swearwords left that don't still have sexist connotations (cunt and twat are still fairly associated with women.)
As someone who lives across the street from an elementary school I can tell you that fuck is totally a kid's word!
Shit and fuck are pretty much the only real swearwords left that don't still have sexist connotations (cunt and twat are still fairly associated with women.)
As someone who lives across the street from an elementary school I can tell you that fuck is totally a kid's word!
By kids words, I mean you could easily see them in a G movie and nobody would bat an eye.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Getting pretty tired of the F-bomb myself, especially in the Ubisoft stuff. They do realize other words exist, right? And that the vast majority of people don't actually use "fuck" for every other word in a sentence? It sounds clunky and unnatural as hell slathered all over the top of every line of dialogue. Even people who cuss all the time don't use it that much; they at least mix things up a bit.
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
The problem is language got so lax, there's not much else to use. Damn and hell are kids stuff. Bitch and Bastard don't really have much sting anymore. Even asshole is pretty mild. Shit and fuck are pretty much the only real swearwords left that don't still have sexist connotations (cunt and twat are still fairly associated with women.)
But that's my point. Bad language does nothing to help bad writing, it just makes the writing even worse because nothing means anything. When you take, say, a character like Niko Bellic and have him swear his head off at people crossing the street in front of him, then it means nothing at all when he lambasts the guys who would actually have it coming. Niko gives the same vitriol to a random innocent schmoe in his way as a guy threatening to kill him, so there's zero impact.
Conversely, if you have a character that does show some intelligence and doesn't pour bad language over every sentence, then he can walk up to the big bad guy after several hours of plot development, say "fuck you" to his face, and then it actually means something and it isn't just random noise thrown in because somebody thinks bad language makes every story better. It's not just eXXXtreme words, it's an expression of "I want completely horrible things to happen to you and I'm going to enjoy making them happen".
Same thing applies to any other foul language. Pick the right moment, and something as lowly as "damn" has infinitely more impact than endless amounts of pointless obscenity.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
So after watching Nintendo's conference I have to say that this E3 has been immensely disappointing all around - except ironically for Ubisoft. It really shows to me how irrelevant that E3 is to these companies, none of them even attempted to really put out a very strong showing or (in microsoft/sonys case) show what they are doing with the next gen. The continued push by MS/Sony to drag this generation out as long as they can is particularly noticable. But what disappointed me about Nintendo was their complete ineptness at sticking it to Microsoft/Sony right then and there.
They could have shown tons of great software - where was that Zelda game we saw last year? - but didn't. Pikmin 3? Fan-fucking-tastic. NSMBWiiU? It's more of the same, but it's more of the same of something I thought was great so no complaints from me there. The Nintendoland stuff was just insipid and ran on for far too long. I really didn't need to know they were making another shitty Wii Fit game either while I was at it. They also wasted a ton of time just talking about rubbish and could have put that into showing more games. I know they knew they needed a good showing of third party stuff, but honestly Batman, AC3 and ME3 - all games I'll have played on my 360 by the time the Wii U even comes out here are irrelevant to me.
Why did Ubisoft show possibly the best Wii U game that I've seen so far (Rayman Legends, which I loved and thought was awesome) over Nintendo? It's just insanity. I would not have let Ubisoft show that at their presentation and I would have had them at mine (if I was Nintendo). That game looked great, showed something genuinely different in platform gaming and had a fantastic reception as well (the developer was so clearly overwhelmed by the genuine applause, it was adorable!). I just don't know what the fuck Nintendo were thinking.
None the less, I am not here to rag on Nintendo because their conference did at least focus on games. Microsoft on the other hand, clearly didn't care about E3. They also clearly don't care about new IPs or anything else either. When they did show something new they tende to really bungle it like the launch of Ascend, which just came off as a really bland and horrible god of war rip off. I do wonder if that game is actually based on toys or action figures, hence the odd look and style. Would fit given its coming from the developer of toy soldiers, which wasn't exactly a spectacular system seller either.
They started the conference well at least, with Halo 4. I am not a fan of Halo and don't think terribly much of it as a franchise, but I was still enthused with what I saw and it looked like it could be fun. I don't know if I will buy it, but it's a good showing considering I had never heard of 343 studios before. The live action right into the gameplay was a neat touch overall and it got me interested. That's something... right? Then there was the second demo immediately after of Spinter Cell. Now I'll say right away that I thought the game was actually Black Ops 2. It came as a surprise to me when I realized suddenly it was actually Splinter Cell. In any event, it looks like a largely linear scripted killathon (it even seemed to play itself) of shooting typical middle eastern fellows.
If it's not clear, the fact I couldn't even figure out at first that the game wasn't Call of Duty and it's utterly unexciting looking gameplay means I wasn't enthused. At all. We then got a bunch of complete shit for 30 minutes (though it felt like forever), of which the only notable thing was the smart glass system. How that works out in practice will be interesting to see, but I did find the concept of looking at a tablet while watching TV to be rather hilarious. Yes, I really want to know where in the world of Game of Thrones the people on the TV are! The use in games is most interesting to me, but on thinking about it I doubt it will really be taking the Wii Us thunder at all. I tried "pretending" to play Skyrim using the map app on my iPad and it was, well, awkward. It didn't feel comfortable at all, having to look around at the iPad (set up on the table next to me) compared to having the screen right in front of me at all times (like the WiiU). I'll give it a chance, but I'm not so enthused about it now.
Tomb Raider was a great plus, but again felt like the game was playing itself a bit. I do recognize you pick these sequences because they show well, are cinematic and involve little input to screw everything up at the conference. I liked what I saw of the game, but that game
Microsoft then ended the entire thing with an entirely embarassing demo of Black Ops, which generally completely dragged. Here is a bunch of scripted stuff! Here is an entirely lame shooting gallery segment that I've seen about ten billion times before! Here is your obligatory on rails turret segment and oh look a building fell over and ... How long has it been now? I don't mean to dismiss this game off hand, but that was an awful demo and it seriously dragged. The GTTV poll of "Will Black Ops 2 raise the bar for FPS games" being 90% "No" was indicative of the reception it received.
Sony at least had lots of exclusive games, but again where is the brains in these presentations? Having someone sit around and look as unexcited as possible while using the move to bring "spells" out of books was insipid. Who is this even for? I can't see children being that excited about it for any length of time and I can't really see any core/casual gamers really picking it up. The presentation of it also dragged tremendously - why are the most awful things just dragging on and on? Nintendo with Nintendoland, Microsoft with the ridiculously stupid Nike fitness whatever that was and Sony's magic books?
In any event, Sony came through showing the new God of War - which does look good but again I wonder about this whole "We wrote ourselves into a corner with game 3, let's make a prequel!" sort of thing. See Gears of War: Judgement for the same thing (except they showed basically nothing relevant about the game). They also had another good dose of David Cage insanity with Beyond. Criticize Heavy Rain all you want, it was at least an interesting experiment and the scene where you had to cut off your own finger is one of few examples of video game violence that made me actually cringe. So I am actually excited about this.
Sony also came through with the Last of Us, which I thought looked really brutal and definitely got me interested in the game. Sony Smash Brothers on the other hand looked utterly uninspired and just reminded me of how much Sony are trying to copy Nintendo. I won't be surprised if their next console has a tablet controller as well at this rate. Overall I found their conference to be kind of ... underwhelming. They definitely didn't give the Vita a whole lot of help here and I can't help but feel the Vita is going to be in serious trouble now. While the AC demo and a Call of Duty were presumably there to sell it, I've got no interest in playing "console" games on a handheld. This appears to be the same mistake Sony made with the PSP coming back to haunt them.
Minding of the three, I felt Sony did better overall just due to the quality of the games they had to show and that they had a pretty good selection of exclusives. Nintendo just spent too long on third party games I will have already played by the time it comes out and Microsoft might as well have not bothered showing up.
Overall an incredibly disappointing E3 from them. I will comment though on how Ubisoft stole the damn keynotes to me. Rayman Legends looked great and I am a huge fan of Rayman Origins, which is a criminally underrated platformer. Beautiful art and incredibly tighly designed levels should be something anyone into platformers should be mad for! While their conference had awkward chemistry between Aiyesha and whoever the token nerd was, it didn't overshadow the excellent games they showed. Assassin's Creed 3, Rayman Legends, Far Cry 3 (even if it did have a really bizarre first showing and TITS!) and then a new IP! A NEW IP! I didn't even know of it beforehand! What a blessing and relief it was to see Watch Dogs, which seems to have a great premise and could be really interesting.
It's all up when a general games publisher stands up Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft entirely. Especially considering Ubisofts incredibly stupid performance last year. Minding they did have the odd dumb thing in their presentation, but at least Shootmania's staged "tournament" (which I think wasn't even played live?) and the Just Dance things didn't go on forever like the bits of the other conferences presentations that dragged.
I think I agree overall. Especially with Ubisoft. Honestly, I think all of the games I am excited for that were shown at E3 most of them were Ubisoft games.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Yeah the game most excited about on Wii U? Rayman Legends. Most excited about overall? Assassin's Creed 3. Most interesting new IP? Watch Dogs. People can criticise the "shovelware" that Ubisoft sometimes pushes out, but I'll grant them all of that in the world if they keep making great games like the above consistently.
With all these game announcements, the most exciting release of all has been overlooked pretty heavily.
Ninja Gaiden 2! on XBOX 360 games on demand in UK/Ireland! For 60 bucks!?
Yes really. 60 euro for a five year old game that is currently 14 euro on play.com
ALso, I'm so surprised that people are not making more of the announcement that New super mario 2 will be downloadable at launch. It seems like a big deal, poss overshadowed by knowing they want to do this for wii U titles too.
EDIT: so surprised that I think I may have imagined it. Have i?
So at this point, who is E3 even for anymore? The non-gamers don't give a shit. Which adds a bit of poetic irony, since due to the business shift of pandering to them, there's precious little for the hardcore crowd now, so they don't give a shit. Even the big companies don't seem to give a shit anymore, more so since they just have their own events where they break out the big news.
It's like nobody wants to be there anymore, but they still go because it's "tradition".
I guess it's like Christmas with the in-laws.
So E3 slims-down, calls that a failure, bulks back up and then nobody cares?
Kinda hilarious.
E3 was originally about retailers and to a lesser extent, press. The idea was that store owners and buyers would go there to decide what to put on their shelves during the following year. It was never really aimed at gamers directly. Then the press part of it started growing and the whole thing became a glitzy mediafest.
With all these game announcements, the most exciting release of all has been overlooked pretty heavily.
Ninja Gaiden 2! on XBOX 360 games on demand in UK/Ireland! For 60 bucks!?
Yes really. 60 euro for a five year old game that is currently 14 euro on play.com
ALso, I'm so surprised that people are not making more of the announcement that New super mario 2 will be downloadable at launch. It seems like a big deal, poss overshadowed by knowing they want to do this for wii U titles too.
EDIT: so surprised that I think I may have imagined it. Have i?
Part of the problem with E3 now is that we know about most of these games in advance. So a lot of what should be awesome surprises just end up being trailers to give more information on what we already know.
For Nintendo I feel like there are still a lot of questions about the Wii U. They did show the most new stuff and I was entertained more by what I saw than with the other two.
I expected E3 to be a let down. Even more so when listening to Giantbomb a week ago and not hearing any excitement about the judge screenings.
For the console market we are looking at Wii U (price?) with two years of releasing the same IPs on the 360 and PS3.
SCEE CEO Jack Tretton has stepped in to counter speculation that Sony is aiming to make the PS4 the first released console of the next generation machines.
Speaking to GameTrailers Tretton stated: "We've never been first, we've never been cheapest, it's about being best."
"And I think if you can build a better machine and it's going to come out a little bit later, that's better than rushing something to market that's going to run out of gas for the long-term."
But their success has been due to a combination of being earlier than the strongest competition and being fairly cheap. The PS1 had a low price point and was earlier than the N64. The only time they tried something different ended up with them losing a shitload of money and some analysts expecting them to only break even this generation.
Hopes of a PlayStation Vita price cut announcement at E3 have come and gone, and Sony reckons the price of the system will not be reduced any time soon.
“Oh, absolutely," Sony Worldwide Studios chief Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer when asked if he was happy with the current price of the system.
"From the value for money standpoint, we think we have a good price for what the system is. And our priority is to achieve the potential through more games and services.
"Of course people who are looking to buy are also talking about the price of PS Vita, especially when they have to buy a memory card as well. That's something we have to spend time to cost reduce and address in the future. But now, our laser focus is to increase the content and to realise the potential of the system."
UK sales of the console currently stand at around 10,000 units and are lagging significantly behind the sales posted by its predecessor the PSP upon its release.
Global sales as of the end of March had reached 1.8m units. Sony has forecasted combined Vita and PSP sales of 16m units for the current fiscal year.
Yoshida blamed Vita's sparse showing on Sony's attempt to cut the length of its press conference compared to previous years.
"As far as how our conference went - it went as well as we thought it could," he said. "I'm getting lots of tweets from people saying, 'where are PS Vita games?' That was, in retrospect, our fault - not looking at every angle when we designed the programme for the show. We have 25 new games, Vita titles, playable on the show floor.
So why not do what Nintendo did and have a separate little program for the Vita? Even then, Nintendo probably showed as many 3DS games at their show as Sony did. And why should the brand new handheld not be shown off more compared to the aging system even with attempts to cut the length of the press conference?
It's like Sony hasn't learned a goddamn thing in the last six years.
To be fair, the gaming division is bringing them money. The same can't be said for most of Sony's other departments.
I think it has become pretty clear that Microsoft and Sony are content with their gaming divisions making money. They are having a staring competition to see who wants to lose money first on a new console launch.
Digital sales platform Steam has a reputation for its 75 per cent sales - and many gamers love them. But for rival Origin and its maker EA, that's not the right approach.
Origin boss David DeMartini told Gamesindustry International that random deep-discounting of games "cheapens" IP, and promised not to copy the practice.
"We won't be doing that," he said, bluntly. "Obviously they think it's the right thing to do after a certain amount of time. I just think it cheapens your intellectual property.
"I know both sides of it, I understand it. If you want to sell a whole bunch of units, that is certainly a way to do that, to sell a whole bunch of stuff at a low price. The game makers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target. We're trying to be Nordstrom.
"When I say that, I mean good value, we're trying to give you a fair price point, and occasionally there will be things that are on sale you could look for a discount, just don't look for 75 per cent off going-out-of-business sales."
Origin is now the number two direct to consumer game service with over 11 million registered users, having launched a year ago. It is second only to Steam, which has some 40 million accounts.
A year into its life, Origin has generated $150 million in revenue, fuelled by the launch of Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Indeed full game downloads were up 76 per cent year on year.
But it has been the subject of much debate among PC gamers who have seen EA titles removed from Steam as the battle between the two platforms has played out.
In April Valve boss Gabe Newell said Origin still had a long way to go before it could boast that it properly satisfies its customers.
"They have a lot of work to do to get to where they need to be and where I as a customer would want them to be," he said. "I don't think they're doing anything super-well yet.
"They have a bunch of smart people working on it but I think they're still playing catch up to a lot of people who have been working in the space for a while. I think they're recognising what the challenges are with building and scaling out this kind of system."
One criticism some have labelled at Steam is that its heavy discounts damage video game brands because gamers hold off on buying new releases at launch in anticipation of a future sale.
DeMartini agreed with this position: "What Steam does might be teaching the customer, 'I might not want it in the first month, but if I look at it in four or five months, I'll get one of those weekend sales and I'll buy it at that time at 75 per cent off.'
"It's an approach, and I'm not going to say it's not working for Valve. It certainly works for Valve; I don't know if it works as well for the publishing partners who take on the majority of that haircut."
Newell has is in the past defended the practice, insisting it has no negative impact on sales in other channels.
"Actually, Gabe will usually say it improves sales in other channels because if the game is good there are some water-cooler moments and it has a spring-up effect," DeMartini said.
"Without revealing too much, what I'll say is one way to deal with ageing inventory is you do deep discounts like that. There are other ways, which I can't really talk about, of dealing with product as it ages over a period of time, where you present a value to the customer and you engage them in your service on a going-forward basis."
DeMartini teased an alternative to Steam discounts will come to Origin, but stopped short of revealing what it is. "We don't believe in the drop-it-down, spring-it-up, 75 per cent off approach, but we've got something else that we do believe in that we'll be rolling out," he said.
You can't attempt to brand yourself as the high end alternative shopping place when you're selling literally the same products as your competitor. Especially when the customer is an alt-tab away from doing a direct comparison. That's ridiculous.
I'm curious to see what sort of thing they intend to incentivize customers with, but it really just comes across as coy bullshit rather than confidence.
I have no problem with the life cycle of the current gen being extended, none. However, my 360 is collecting dust, literally everygame I want to play now is a PS3 exclusive, or available on both systems. So why would I buy it for 360 when I can play it on PS3 and not have to pay for XBL? Don't get me wrong, I'm no PS3 fanboy, I own all the systems, and PS3 was a paperweight the first 2-3 years I had it, now my xbox hasn't been powered on in over a year. I got 2 XBL 1year service cards, but I see no reason to use them until next gen cause they got nothing except the occasional XBLA game.
Wii U ....well at least they got NSMB, but man, wtf else is there. I've been burned by Nintendo before when buying their system for 1 or 2 games. I'm not gonna pretend I'm unwilling to do that again, but its gonna depend on the pricepoint if they don't show more cool software. Though I got a lot of red flags from their conference....they dont seem interested in making real games, just dance party, wii music, etc crap. This is not what I buy systems for man, I want games.
PS Vita is a system I want to love, but can't justify. Hope they keep pushing it with software and features. I'm close to wanting to buy one. Just really need a game that demands I buy it *cough*Monster Hunter*cough*. I'm really impressed by what it can do, just needs more games and a couple more good exclusives.
Yoshida blamed Vita's sparse showing on Sony's attempt to cut the length of its press conference compared to previous years.
"As far as how our conference went - it went as well as we thought it could," he said. "I'm getting lots of tweets from people saying, 'where are PS Vita games?' That was, in retrospect, our fault - not looking at every angle when we designed the programme for the show. We have 25 new games, Vita titles, playable on the show floor.
...they spent TWENTY THREE MINUTES on Wonderbook, and nearly all of the games they showed had slow, atmospheric parts that could have been tightened. They could have easily economized and put some more Vita in there.
With all these game announcements, the most exciting release of all has been overlooked pretty heavily.
Ninja Gaiden 2! on XBOX 360 games on demand in UK/Ireland! For 60 bucks!?
Yes really. 60 euro for a five year old game that is currently 14 euro on play.com
ALso, I'm so surprised that people are not making more of the announcement that New super mario 2 will be downloadable at launch. It seems like a big deal, poss overshadowed by knowing they want to do this for wii U titles too.
EDIT: so surprised that I think I may have imagined it. Have i?
Nintendo announced a while ago that they'd start doing digital distribution of 3DS games with NSMB2, so it's not actually news.
I think you missed the big news: if this goes as planned, you won't have to re-buy VC stuff for the Wii, you can transfer it all over to the Wii U. That's fantastic.
Oh, and you know all the comments that were in the game in the NSMB U demo? Well:
So at this point, who is E3 even for anymore? The non-gamers don't give a shit. Which adds a bit of poetic irony, since due to the business shift of pandering to them, there's precious little for the hardcore crowd now, so they don't give a shit. Even the big companies don't seem to give a shit anymore, more so since they just have their own events where they break out the big news.
It's like nobody wants to be there anymore, but they still go because it's "tradition".
I guess it's like Christmas with the in-laws.
I went one year care of Atlus (thanks Atlus). It was awesome and absolutely nothing like the bullshit we have now. I would have been down right embarrassed to watch the Ubisoft Just Dance girls for the fourth time in two days.
EDIT
EA is taking the Nintendo approach, I suppose.
Sell 5 copies at 10 bucks = 50 bucks.
Sell 10 copies at 3 bucks = 30 bucks.
Sheep on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I think Sony have just buried the Vita by not dropping the price. Here is where I've got to massively respect Nintendo: They quickly acknowledged their mistake, fixed it (price drop) and then released fantastic software. Sony aren't doing the first two and I doubt the last will save them. I like the Vita, but I don't want a console experience on a handheld. It's not what I want or am interested in. So I am not going to buy a Vita to play Assassin's Creed, Killzone, Resistance or whatever other stuff like that. When I'm out and about, I have $2 apps on my iPad, which I already use for many other purposes as well, that entertain me for hours (Civilization Revolution for example). I also only play these games in short 10-30 minute bursts as well - not really the sort of timeframe for a console like experience (which requires a longer investment).
When I'm at home and want a console experience? I use my 360 or PS3 (well soon anyway, once I can afford to buy another one. Moving country is expensive )
Vita got a grand total of two games that may or may not get people interested (if CoD is exactly the same as CoD on consoles, I think we can count that one out), and no price drop.
Unless there's some sort of surprise bombshell at TGS, the Vita is absolutely boned. Even the folks in the Vita thread are grumbling about the system's weak showing.
Looks like Jason Rubin got a crash course in PR bullshit.
THQ has hit back at allegations that the firm used yesterday’s busy day of announcements to bury the bad new of lay-offs at its San Diego studio.
Just before E3 began, Electronic Arts announced that it had won the rights to provide games based on Ultimate Fighting Championship, previously published by THQ and developed by the San Diego studio. News of the studio’s closure, which employed around 50 developers, emerged on Monday, the same day as Microsoft and Sony’s annual E3 conferences, and a very busy day for games news. Many on Twitter and games forums accused THQ of timing the closure to minimize negative PR fallout.
Jason Rubin, recently appointed president of THQ, told IGN, “It’s a conspiracy theory to think we were trying to bury the news in E3. You can flip that and and ask what was the best time for the UFC and EA to announce their new partnership? Obviously, E3. It’s simply not the case that we tried to bury it at E3.”
He said, “It is an extremely painful thing to have to lay someone off, especially in this economy. We did right by them. We did much more than was required by California law to help them and we are actively seeking something for them to do and we have set up a situation so that they have the best possible chance of finding something to do, but this was a necessary thing for THQ."
Rubin, original founder of Naughty Dog and more recently an internet entrepreneur and comic-book writer, was appointed head of THQ last week, in the wake of Danny Bilson's departure. THQ has suffered a string of poor financial results and is seeking to restructure and focus its future efforts, with a likely shift towards digital distribution and non-retail models.
Rubin said, “I apologize to everyone who has lost their job. I’m not shying way from the fact that it’s a terrible thing to lay people off, but it’s essential for THQ to focus on in its future. We are doing the things that are necessary to move forward. I think at this point, as far as development goes and as far as teams go we are the perfect size to go forward.”
Looks like Jason Rubin got a crash course in PR bullshit.
THQ has hit back at allegations that the firm used yesterday’s busy day of announcements to bury the bad new of lay-offs at its San Diego studio.
Just before E3 began, Electronic Arts announced that it had won the rights to provide games based on Ultimate Fighting Championship, previously published by THQ and developed by the San Diego studio. News of the studio’s closure, which employed around 50 developers, emerged on Monday, the same day as Microsoft and Sony’s annual E3 conferences, and a very busy day for games news. Many on Twitter and games forums accused THQ of timing the closure to minimize negative PR fallout.
Jason Rubin, recently appointed president of THQ, told IGN, “It’s a conspiracy theory to think we were trying to bury the news in E3. You can flip that and and ask what was the best time for the UFC and EA to announce their new partnership? Obviously, E3. It’s simply not the case that we tried to bury it at E3.”
He said, “It is an extremely painful thing to have to lay someone off, especially in this economy. We did right by them. We did much more than was required by California law to help them and we are actively seeking something for them to do and we have set up a situation so that they have the best possible chance of finding something to do, but this was a necessary thing for THQ."
Rubin, original founder of Naughty Dog and more recently an internet entrepreneur and comic-book writer, was appointed head of THQ last week, in the wake of Danny Bilson's departure. THQ has suffered a string of poor financial results and is seeking to restructure and focus its future efforts, with a likely shift towards digital distribution and non-retail models.
Rubin said, “I apologize to everyone who has lost their job. I’m not shying way from the fact that it’s a terrible thing to lay people off, but it’s essential for THQ to focus on in its future. We are doing the things that are necessary to move forward. I think at this point, as far as development goes and as far as teams go we are the perfect size to go forward.”
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Actually, any more than one Fuck and it's automatic R rating.
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Thought I had mixed it up a bit but yeah I mean that's pretty damn crazy.
You can have all the decapitations and partial nudity you want, but by God if you say "fuck" there will be Hell to pay!
Hell I say!
You sure couldn't tell that from the stuff they've put out for E3.
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Heh, I am certainly not defending their use of the word "fuck" as I think it is overplayed and a bit forced sounding most of the time myself, but I will say when I was deployed we said "fuck" a lot. Took me about two weeks to "relearn" how to speak in public when I got home. :P
Don't misunderstand; my brother is active duty Navy (and actually in a boomer out in the Pacific somewhere right now) and my family has military history, so I fully understand the vital importance of harsh language in military life. But even in full-on sailor cuss-mode, my brother doesn't sound half as crude as some of the "gritty" game characters that come out these days. Writers are just trying way too damn hard on that score and it sounds awful, especially when it comes from characters who are fairly normal.
The problem is that you have what are a bunch of people who don't cuss regularly writing characters who do in order to make those characters sound mean or tough or whatever. It just... doesn't work out.
I give exemptions to games like Bulletstorm, though, where everything is over the top anyway so it makes sense when all the dialogue is also over-the-top jam-packed with all sorts of foul language.
And Bulletstorm is also a pretty good example of it being used, uh, good I guess.
Like, if the story you are telling is supposed to be "serious" or "grounded" or "realistic" and you have your characters swearing all the time because that is what you think they would do then it sounds bad to me.
When you have something crazy-over-the-top like Bulletstorm or Southpark then all the swearing doesn't bother me because it is silly.
Also Forbes is by far the best gaming journalism around, even though they aren't even remotely a dedicated gaming site. Their commentary is usually actually to the point eg, the ME3 ending and they seem to pay attention to what people actually say. Their e3 analysis was great as well, fully agreed with it. Hope Forbes keeps it up.
Amazing dialog is obviously possible while going overboard with profanity. The Wire had a scene that ran for around 8 minutes with the characters only saying "fuck" or "motherfucker". It was brilliant. The people who make AAA video games are, at best, only capable of dialog that is unintentionally amazing.
I Settled with Activision
and all I got was
this lousy T-shirt.
By kids words, I mean you could easily see them in a G movie and nobody would bat an eye.
But that's my point. Bad language does nothing to help bad writing, it just makes the writing even worse because nothing means anything. When you take, say, a character like Niko Bellic and have him swear his head off at people crossing the street in front of him, then it means nothing at all when he lambasts the guys who would actually have it coming. Niko gives the same vitriol to a random innocent schmoe in his way as a guy threatening to kill him, so there's zero impact.
Conversely, if you have a character that does show some intelligence and doesn't pour bad language over every sentence, then he can walk up to the big bad guy after several hours of plot development, say "fuck you" to his face, and then it actually means something and it isn't just random noise thrown in because somebody thinks bad language makes every story better. It's not just eXXXtreme words, it's an expression of "I want completely horrible things to happen to you and I'm going to enjoy making them happen".
Same thing applies to any other foul language. Pick the right moment, and something as lowly as "damn" has infinitely more impact than endless amounts of pointless obscenity.
They could have shown tons of great software - where was that Zelda game we saw last year? - but didn't. Pikmin 3? Fan-fucking-tastic. NSMBWiiU? It's more of the same, but it's more of the same of something I thought was great so no complaints from me there. The Nintendoland stuff was just insipid and ran on for far too long. I really didn't need to know they were making another shitty Wii Fit game either while I was at it. They also wasted a ton of time just talking about rubbish and could have put that into showing more games. I know they knew they needed a good showing of third party stuff, but honestly Batman, AC3 and ME3 - all games I'll have played on my 360 by the time the Wii U even comes out here are irrelevant to me.
Why did Ubisoft show possibly the best Wii U game that I've seen so far (Rayman Legends, which I loved and thought was awesome) over Nintendo? It's just insanity. I would not have let Ubisoft show that at their presentation and I would have had them at mine (if I was Nintendo). That game looked great, showed something genuinely different in platform gaming and had a fantastic reception as well (the developer was so clearly overwhelmed by the genuine applause, it was adorable!). I just don't know what the fuck Nintendo were thinking.
None the less, I am not here to rag on Nintendo because their conference did at least focus on games. Microsoft on the other hand, clearly didn't care about E3. They also clearly don't care about new IPs or anything else either. When they did show something new they tende to really bungle it like the launch of Ascend, which just came off as a really bland and horrible god of war rip off. I do wonder if that game is actually based on toys or action figures, hence the odd look and style. Would fit given its coming from the developer of toy soldiers, which wasn't exactly a spectacular system seller either.
They started the conference well at least, with Halo 4. I am not a fan of Halo and don't think terribly much of it as a franchise, but I was still enthused with what I saw and it looked like it could be fun. I don't know if I will buy it, but it's a good showing considering I had never heard of 343 studios before. The live action right into the gameplay was a neat touch overall and it got me interested. That's something... right? Then there was the second demo immediately after of Spinter Cell. Now I'll say right away that I thought the game was actually Black Ops 2. It came as a surprise to me when I realized suddenly it was actually Splinter Cell. In any event, it looks like a largely linear scripted killathon (it even seemed to play itself) of shooting typical middle eastern fellows.
If it's not clear, the fact I couldn't even figure out at first that the game wasn't Call of Duty and it's utterly unexciting looking gameplay means I wasn't enthused. At all. We then got a bunch of complete shit for 30 minutes (though it felt like forever), of which the only notable thing was the smart glass system. How that works out in practice will be interesting to see, but I did find the concept of looking at a tablet while watching TV to be rather hilarious. Yes, I really want to know where in the world of Game of Thrones the people on the TV are! The use in games is most interesting to me, but on thinking about it I doubt it will really be taking the Wii Us thunder at all. I tried "pretending" to play Skyrim using the map app on my iPad and it was, well, awkward. It didn't feel comfortable at all, having to look around at the iPad (set up on the table next to me) compared to having the screen right in front of me at all times (like the WiiU). I'll give it a chance, but I'm not so enthused about it now.
Tomb Raider was a great plus, but again felt like the game was playing itself a bit. I do recognize you pick these sequences because they show well, are cinematic and involve little input to screw everything up at the conference. I liked what I saw of the game, but that game
Microsoft then ended the entire thing with an entirely embarassing demo of Black Ops, which generally completely dragged. Here is a bunch of scripted stuff! Here is an entirely lame shooting gallery segment that I've seen about ten billion times before! Here is your obligatory on rails turret segment and oh look a building fell over and ... How long has it been now? I don't mean to dismiss this game off hand, but that was an awful demo and it seriously dragged. The GTTV poll of "Will Black Ops 2 raise the bar for FPS games" being 90% "No" was indicative of the reception it received.
Sony at least had lots of exclusive games, but again where is the brains in these presentations? Having someone sit around and look as unexcited as possible while using the move to bring "spells" out of books was insipid. Who is this even for? I can't see children being that excited about it for any length of time and I can't really see any core/casual gamers really picking it up. The presentation of it also dragged tremendously - why are the most awful things just dragging on and on? Nintendo with Nintendoland, Microsoft with the ridiculously stupid Nike fitness whatever that was and Sony's magic books?
In any event, Sony came through showing the new God of War - which does look good but again I wonder about this whole "We wrote ourselves into a corner with game 3, let's make a prequel!" sort of thing. See Gears of War: Judgement for the same thing (except they showed basically nothing relevant about the game). They also had another good dose of David Cage insanity with Beyond. Criticize Heavy Rain all you want, it was at least an interesting experiment and the scene where you had to cut off your own finger is one of few examples of video game violence that made me actually cringe. So I am actually excited about this.
Sony also came through with the Last of Us, which I thought looked really brutal and definitely got me interested in the game. Sony Smash Brothers on the other hand looked utterly uninspired and just reminded me of how much Sony are trying to copy Nintendo. I won't be surprised if their next console has a tablet controller as well at this rate. Overall I found their conference to be kind of ... underwhelming. They definitely didn't give the Vita a whole lot of help here and I can't help but feel the Vita is going to be in serious trouble now. While the AC demo and a Call of Duty were presumably there to sell it, I've got no interest in playing "console" games on a handheld. This appears to be the same mistake Sony made with the PSP coming back to haunt them.
Minding of the three, I felt Sony did better overall just due to the quality of the games they had to show and that they had a pretty good selection of exclusives. Nintendo just spent too long on third party games I will have already played by the time it comes out and Microsoft might as well have not bothered showing up.
Overall an incredibly disappointing E3 from them. I will comment though on how Ubisoft stole the damn keynotes to me. Rayman Legends looked great and I am a huge fan of Rayman Origins, which is a criminally underrated platformer. Beautiful art and incredibly tighly designed levels should be something anyone into platformers should be mad for! While their conference had awkward chemistry between Aiyesha and whoever the token nerd was, it didn't overshadow the excellent games they showed. Assassin's Creed 3, Rayman Legends, Far Cry 3 (even if it did have a really bizarre first showing and TITS!) and then a new IP! A NEW IP! I didn't even know of it beforehand! What a blessing and relief it was to see Watch Dogs, which seems to have a great premise and could be really interesting.
It's all up when a general games publisher stands up Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft entirely. Especially considering Ubisofts incredibly stupid performance last year. Minding they did have the odd dumb thing in their presentation, but at least Shootmania's staged "tournament" (which I think wasn't even played live?) and the Just Dance things didn't go on forever like the bits of the other conferences presentations that dragged.
So well done Ubisoft.
I really hope next year holds some surprises.
I think I agree overall. Especially with Ubisoft. Honestly, I think all of the games I am excited for that were shown at E3 most of them were Ubisoft games.
Ninja Gaiden 2! on XBOX 360 games on demand in UK/Ireland! For 60 bucks!?
Yes really. 60 euro for a five year old game that is currently 14 euro on play.com
ALso, I'm so surprised that people are not making more of the announcement that New super mario 2 will be downloadable at launch. It seems like a big deal, poss overshadowed by knowing they want to do this for wii U titles too.
EDIT: so surprised that I think I may have imagined it. Have i?
and some good news:
mynintendonews.com/2012/06/06/nintendo-confirms-you-can-transfer-wii-virtual-games-to-wii-u/
Beat me on 360: Raybies666
I remember when I had time to be good at games.
E3 was originally about retailers and to a lesser extent, press. The idea was that store owners and buyers would go there to decide what to put on their shelves during the following year. It was never really aimed at gamers directly. Then the press part of it started growing and the whole thing became a glitzy mediafest.
Nintendo announced a while ago that they'd start doing digital distribution of 3DS games with NSMB2, so it's not actually news.
For Nintendo I feel like there are still a lot of questions about the Wii U. They did show the most new stuff and I was entertained more by what I saw than with the other two.
I expected E3 to be a let down. Even more so when listening to Giantbomb a week ago and not hearing any excitement about the judge screenings.
For the console market we are looking at Wii U (price?) with two years of releasing the same IPs on the 360 and PS3.
Oh well. Screw E3, go PAX.
I was expecting it, but I thought at least Nintendo would deliver. So much for that I guess.
There's a lot of antipathy for the whole thing but honestly there was still a load of great stuff shown this year.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/e3-2012-sony-rules-out-vita-price-cut/097535 That should be 100,000 units.
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To be fair, the gaming division is bringing them money. The same can't be said for most of Sony's other departments.
I think it has become pretty clear that Microsoft and Sony are content with their gaming divisions making money. They are having a staring competition to see who wants to lose money first on a new console launch.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-06-ea-origin-wont-copy-steam-75-percent-off-sales
I'm curious to see what sort of thing they intend to incentivize customers with, but it really just comes across as coy bullshit rather than confidence.
Wii U ....well at least they got NSMB, but man, wtf else is there. I've been burned by Nintendo before when buying their system for 1 or 2 games. I'm not gonna pretend I'm unwilling to do that again, but its gonna depend on the pricepoint if they don't show more cool software. Though I got a lot of red flags from their conference....they dont seem interested in making real games, just dance party, wii music, etc crap. This is not what I buy systems for man, I want games.
PS Vita is a system I want to love, but can't justify. Hope they keep pushing it with software and features. I'm close to wanting to buy one. Just really need a game that demands I buy it *cough*Monster Hunter*cough*. I'm really impressed by what it can do, just needs more games and a couple more good exclusives.
...they spent TWENTY THREE MINUTES on Wonderbook, and nearly all of the games they showed had slow, atmospheric parts that could have been tightened. They could have easily economized and put some more Vita in there.
I think you missed the big news: if this goes as planned, you won't have to re-buy VC stuff for the Wii, you can transfer it all over to the Wii U. That's fantastic.
Oh, and you know all the comments that were in the game in the NSMB U demo? Well:
At least EA knows that the PC market isn't dead. But damn I do not want to have to download Origin just to play Sim City.
I went one year care of Atlus (thanks Atlus). It was awesome and absolutely nothing like the bullshit we have now. I would have been down right embarrassed to watch the Ubisoft Just Dance girls for the fourth time in two days.
EDIT
EA is taking the Nintendo approach, I suppose.
Sell 5 copies at 10 bucks = 50 bucks.
Sell 10 copies at 3 bucks = 30 bucks.
When I'm at home and want a console experience? I use my 360 or PS3 (well soon anyway, once I can afford to buy another one. Moving country is expensive
Unless there's some sort of surprise bombshell at TGS, the Vita is absolutely boned. Even the folks in the Vita thread are grumbling about the system's weak showing.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/06/e3-2012-thq-slams-conspiracy-theory-over-studio-closure
Come on. THQ knew they were losing the UFC license well before E3.
Jason Rubin, what happened to all those years with Naughty Dog?
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He's lying like Sony, ain't he?