Well, I realized that the whole idea of a weekly segment being the actual title was pretty stupid, so I’ll just relabel that bit with the word, “Rundown”. If only because it fits and I like how it sounds. So… PAX East! Very cool convention, with some cool things happened in and out of it that I want to speak about. At least enough to fill a segment with things I personally consider to be worthwhile. But it was originally going to be both GDC and PAX, until I realized that was an awful idea, and am just putting everything together minutes before the post goes up.
And what could I be more personally attached to than more stuff about Saints Row IV? You know what I am not a big fan of? DLC. I understand its uses, but little bits of DLC are more annoying than anything. I get expansions, or releasing new versions, but the idea of paying for an extra outfit baffles me. Which is obviously what they are planning… Okay, okay. Charge $50 like you’re doing with Dead Island Riptide or $40 like THQ was talking about, and we’re cool. Give me a pass to get all of it, and I mean everything, for a fair price that would amount to a total of $80, and we’re fine. Anything else? Hit the road, you schmuck! Although the gameplay apparently looked pretty radical. So I might enjoy it more than I did part 3.
Or maybe they are telling the truth when declaring a funkton more side content will be in SR4… that was actually a typo, but I’m keeping it! I’m actually pretty excited for this, but I’m also dreading it due to the sheer mass of the collectables implied in the interview. Now, I love collecting stuff in games, I mean, I played Donkey Kong 64 as a kid. But adding more stuff doesn’t always mean it will be better. Especially when you apparently outsource some of it to a second tier developer. And my fears that the game was actually a mix between multiple ideas have been confirmed… kinda. I originally thought that they just expanded the expansion pack that was quietly canned, Enter the Dominatrix, but really they just only took a bit of it when making SR4. Effectively explaining why the game seems, kinda, sorta… crazy from the designer’s POV. So many things!
Although, tons of things looked radical. From WayForward’s Ducktales Remastered. Which managed to snag the VAs, along with a very pleasant 2D animated look, but 3D backgrounds, because they’re cheaper. Paired with Jake Kaufman doing more stuff, which makes me smile due to his awesomeness. Not unlike how Capcom and WayForward are getting along super well. As Capcom are also bringing back 2 old beat ’em ups, both of them being Dungeons and Dragons based, which is pretty rad to me, someone who owns player books, but barely even read them. Although, I must admit that there are a lot of Beat ‘em Ups, so I might not remember it.
Double Fine offered some details on their Kickstarter Adventure game, called Broken Age. Namely how it is about a boy in space and a girl being offered as a sacrifice. The first idea being reasonable, but I’m guessing the second is just them flexing their freedom from publishers. While Renegade Kid showed off a new FPS for Nintendo’s handhelds, this one called Cult Country, and not being of any note to me, due to how I found two of their three previous FPS titles to be poopy, with the third one obviously being untouched.
And there are a couple of titles that I obviously want to get my paws on, but can’t because I’m running a PowerPC Mac from 2005. Such as Chasm, a retro styled PC Metroidvania title, which makes me super upset because it is probably my favorite subgenre and I really am keen on the style is wears like a scarf. The follow up to the critically acclaimed Bastion, Transistor, which I’m not head over heels about, seeing as how Bastion was only meh to me, but it was interesting enough for me to give the studio a second shot. Rain-Slick 4 which makes me realize that I forget nearly everything about Rain-Slick 3, despite playing it and reviewed it. Hell, I can’t even really follow my review, even if it wasn’t screwy with the formatting. I remember liking it, but despite loving all of the games, I can’t justify purchasing a sequel to something I can’t remember. Maybe I’ll re-review it, but only if I get bored with Sengoku Basara.
Breaking the veil, a small bit of relatively minor news popped up, highlighting why I think online games are dumb. Seeing as how one of the many games Keiji Inafune has been working on is now gone… No, a game about a superhero president is no more after less than a year. Everything that went into the game is nothing but a memory because of how the server costs weren’t worth it. Now, who would like to see that happen to their game? Nobody, because you only made memories rather than something immortal and will be available forever.
And now getting your title immortalized, even on a console, is easier than ever. Namely with Nintendo of all people, due to their revamped restrictions. If you want to release a title on the WIi U or 3DS eShop, you need to have made a game before, a reasonable way to avoid a lot of crap. Have a dev kit that you’ll keep secure, which I get due to keeping hardware safe. And you need to be a company, very different from owning your own workplace to make games. This means that anyone who burped out a decent iOS title and a few hundred bucks for both making a company official and getting a dev kit, can make an eShop title. Which I think might actually be better than Steam’s rules. Now if only they would make the eShop more appealing to navigate.
Speaking of appeal, the thought of Square Enix going under creates lotsa that. After reporting losses of 13 billion yen for the end of the fiscal year, the company president, Yoichi Wada resigned. Not much to say except that I still am hoping this will cause them to pander back to making good enough stuff that they rock this industry like it’s 1987 or 1997, and break out some sexy lunchboxes of innovation and success- Actually, no, my disdain is almost irrational, and I want to see the three biggest publishers of Japan just kinda fade away. Well, maybe not Konami, because they are humiliatingly awful with PR.
But what is amusing is how their losses were made. Well, amusing isn’t the right word, I think pathetic fits more, seeing as how Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs all failed SquareEnix. Selling 1.75, 3.6, and 3.4 million respectively, they all failed, meaning that Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution cost about 100 million to make… What is wrong with you?
Probably the same thing wrong with DICE, because bringing the newly announced Battlefield 4 would be “too risky”. That does not make any sense. What is the risk of making a few units for a Wii U version that is “bare bones”? You don’t need to rework the wheel for the Wii U version, just launch a straight port to show some goddamn support, you lazy badgers! And where is the version of the last game you promised and an E3?
Speaking of games that could come to the WIi U, but won’t, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has been properly announced. Apparently the whole Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes thing was not a separate game, and rather the open world, Fox Engine powered, Tactical Espionage Action, Psychological Thriller, will be one title for the PS3 and Xbox 360… Where to begin?
Now, I’m still catching up years late to the MGS party, currently trekking through Snake Eater, which is lovely. But the idea of an open world MGS game seems to go against its nature of carefully crafted rooms to traverse. And even though Kojima Productions spent a lot of time in this, exclusively releasing on the nearly obsolete systems, the lack of a dual generation launch seems odd, since I’m sure people would buy a PS4 to play a new MGS, like they did with 4. Yes, there’s a bigger instal base for your ~200 million dollar budget, which is a guess, but I see very few issues with bringing over a more visually compelling version of the game. That, and I have no clue what the game will be, but it has alicorns made of fire, so it is probably going to get a lot of 9s.
…What? I’m done for now… not even a conclusion, I want to get back to more Cave Story+ and eat spiders in the Russian wilderness…. Goodnight pebbles!