sephfire
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Posts posted by sephfire
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I didn't think it was amazing, but Resistance 2 previews did look pretty cool. Not a console-seller, but worth a look-see at any rate.
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Also, you totally missed all the good racing games, seph. Both Motorstorms and Wipeout HD are great. GT5 is also sorely missing from your upcoming games list. Someone doesn't like racing games?
I don't play many of them outside of the Mario Kart type. That's usually how I am with sports games too: always favoring the "video-gamey" versions rather than the simulations. SSX, Mario Kart, NBA Street, etc.
Let me go add those suggestions ...
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I will attempt a PS3 list. I fully expect to miss a few, so please tell me what I skip.
1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and, by association, Metal Gear Online. MGS4 is a strong "conclusion" to the series and Metal Gear Online is great fun as well.
2. LittleBigPlanet is an extremely unique, adorable game. There's really nothing else like it right now.
3. Valkyria Chronicles is a great blend of strategy and shooter with a gorgeous water paint aesthetic. I'm still surprised by how well this game works.
4. Disgaea 3 is exactly what you expect from a Disgaea game. If (like me) you like the series, you'll love this. Otherwise, it probably won't change your mind.
5. Flower is breathtaking. I can't recommend it enough as a beautiful experience.
6. Killzone 2. Solid shooter, from what I hear.
7. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Described by quite a few people as a big reason to own a PS3.
8. Resistance: Fall of Man. Another solid shooter. Also, there's its sequel: Resistance 2.
9. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is loads of fun. Imagine a really good Tomb Raider game, except with a male character and Whedon-esque dialogue.
10. flOw is simple, but calming.
11. Pixeljunk Monsters, a tower defense game with co-op mode. Lots of fun.
12. Pixeljunk Eden is rather difficult to describe, but very fun as well.
13. EchoChrome is great if you like mind-bending puzzles.
14. Noby Noby Boy. A game by the creator of Katamari Damacy that somehow manages to be 10x weirder than its predecessor.
15. inFamous, I hear, is pretty darn fun.
16. Heavenly Sword, not so much for its gameplay, but for its presentation. Great acting, great music and Andy Serkis.
17. Folklore didn't grab me personally, but a lot of people like it and it is definitely unique.
18. MotorStorm is a pretty fun racing game. Apparently, so is its sequel: MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
19. Wipeout HD is good too, I hear.
And those yet to be released:
20. Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I don't need to say much here.
21. Heavy Rain, a murder mystery from the creators of Indigo Prophecy.
22. The Last Guardian, Team Ico's new game.
23. God of War III would have to work pretty hard to not be awesome.
24. MAG, an online shooter said to support 256 players. Army tactics, my friend. This could be huge if it works.
25. Fat Princess is a weird cross between Team Fortress, Capture the Flag and Animal Crossing. This might be the PS3 game I am most looking forward to.
26. Katamari Forever is apparently a tribute to the series. I don't know what that means, but it looks great.
27. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves looks to be everything that was great about the first Uncharted, but better.
28. White Knight Chronicles is a highly-anticipated RPG title.
29. Mod Nation Racers seems to be a Mario Kart clone with a cool track-building tool suite.
30. L.A. Noire is a noire-style game from Rockstar. Enough said, I think.
31. Final Fantasy XIV Online looks to be a spiritual sequel to FFXI. This may mean nothing to some, but to Tweek and I, this could mean obsession if they fix the problems FFXI had.
32. Gran Turismo 5 might also be of interest to you racing enthusiasts.
On the whole, I think the Wii has more killer app exclusives at this point, but there's a lot to look forward to on the PS3's end. I expect they'll be pretty neck-and-neck.
Not mentioned:
30. Kingdom Hearts 3. Every day this game isn't announced angers me.
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Completely forgot about Metroid Primes. How do they compare to other popular shooters?
They're really a completely different kind of shooter. I remember we all once had a long argument over whether the Prime series was really an FPS or a puzzle/adventure/whatever game. You do shoot a lot of things, but there's a lot more focus on exploring the world, getting past obstacles and building your arsenal with new weapons and abilities.
Basically, do you remember what Super Metroid felt like? It's just like that. In 3D.
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It really is a matter of exclusive preference at this point, and both consoles are pretty neck-and-neck with the number of good exclusives they have.
PS3
If you've got an HDTV (which I assume you do, based on your interest in BluRay), you'll get a lot more mileage of the PS3 than if you didn't. I was pretty surprised how much I've enjoyed having the PS3 just for movies alone. It's my favorite movie player now.
Killer exclusives include: LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid 4. I would also personally suggest Uncharted, Heavenly Sword and Disgaea 3. The PS3 also has plenty to look forward to: Final Fantasy Versus XIII, God of War III, Katamari Forever, Heavy Rain, The Last Guardian, MAG and White Knight Chronicles. Also, Fat Princess.
Wii
The main benefit the Wii has going is probably that a lot of its killer exclusives are already out. Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Smash Bros. Brawl, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Mario Kart Wii, Punch-Out!!, Super Paper Mario, Boom Blox and de Blob. I would have included Metroid Prime 3, but you'll be able to buy the whole upgraded Trilogy soon, so might as well wait for that. Other games down the line include Mario Galaxy 2, A Boy and His Blob, FF Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers, Metroid Other M, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Cave Story (if you haven't played it already). Probably a Pikmin game, too. Animal Crossing: Wild World is fun if you haven't played an Animal Crossing before. And Wii Sports is still pretty fun too.
Also recall the Wii's Virtual Console features. Tons of classics to be found in there if you don't own them already.
But if you can't decide which set of exclusives excite you most and you can afford the PS3, I suggest just going with that. The Wii will always be there at a relatively cheap price point. And having a BluRay player around really is nice.
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I just watched your video and I fricken love your presentation. It really keeps me interested the whole time.I likey.
BTW I never knew you went to/go to SCAD. I go to Georgia Tech, which you probably know is like walking distance from SCAD. =O
Yeah, I was at SCAD in Savannah a little while back. Now I'm living in the Athens area.
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My apologies for the complete post rewrite. Newb mistake not to refresh before posting.
Yep, I concur. Not a bad analogy with the books, either. But truly, what you're pointing at is exactly what I fear: the middle-of-the-road games will be compromised.
Imagine a sliding scale that ranges from manly to womanly. Braveheart was a bad example on my part; that's way over to the manly side of the scale. It's akin to, oh, Halo or Left4dead. Chances are those games aren't going to be messed with. They're going to stay how they are because they're so freaking masculine that designers couldn't possibly slide them far enough towards the feminine side without creating an entirely different game. Master Chief with flowers and puppies... that's not going to happen, so that's not what worries me.
What worries me is directors of game companies seeing games that are just to the manly side of the scale and trying to tweak those to make them appeal more to women. The untapped potential you mention equals dollar (or yen) signs in their eyes, and I don't fault them for their thought process. I just don't like what I see as the result. I'm two gens behind, but based on playing FF4-9, I think it's safe to say that the Final Fantasy franchise is not 'ugh' manly. It's well within the danger zone of developers trying to tweak the a story to appeal more to potential female audiences. And that's exactly what's going to happen as the female-gamer demographic increases. One could contend that FF8 was an early attempt at this, and we know how that landed: a more-than-decent game that got a tepid response because it pissed off a bunch of fanboys (doing what they do best). Even if that had drawn in the female audience, would it have been worth it? I don't know if female appeal was a goal or not, but those who played the game have to wonder if developing more plot intricacies and character depth were sacrificed to focus on the appeal of the central love story.
Our difference in opinion probably boils down to our take on women in gaming. I couldn't care less about any gamer besides myself. You are benevolent and want to open the doors to female gamers and developers. I would have no problem with this except that I, perhaps cynically, see this trend leading developers to mangle otherise perfectly-good titles (that lie toward the center of that sliding scale) in an attempt to appeal to the woman gamer.
I'm also resistant to change.
As an aside, not every character is idealized. Many video games have taken cues from our modern era and made very human characters. The appeal is in their flaws and how they struggle to overcome them. IOW: we're not all reading Verne these days.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I could see that sort of thing happening. Even in movies, you sometimes have to wonder if Hollywood threw in that pointless love interest just to get more women into the theater. I would argue that Final Fantasy 8 is criticized for more reasons than just emphasizing love story (the Draw system, the somewhat unlikable main character, etc). And it's not like playing up a love story is a sure-fire way to lose male interest. There are plenty of love story movies out there that hold our interest because they're just really good movies. If we had that level of storytelling prowess in our games, I don't think we'd mind a love story now and then. Heck, FF6 had a friggin' opera scene and we ate it up because we were so wrapped up in the characters and story.
I guess I feel that, despite that possible downside, the gains would outweigh the losses. Bringing a wider variety of people onto a creative team lead to greater variety in the team's output. Everyone brings new experiences and perspectives. Not only would we see a broader range of stories, but new approaches to design, new aesthetics and new gameplay innovations. Still, I definitely understand your concern.
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Hmmm...
First off, as always, very well-done video. Interesting throughout. Put the compliment upfront because my post for your last video was idiotic and your videos are always good.
However, I wonder, did you intentionally shy away from the obvious question? That is: do we really want girls involved in the gaming culture? Do we want to change the substance of video games so that women will want to play them?
I'll use a movie example to show what I mean. I love Braveheart. It's fucking awesome. I can relate to the efforts of and personalities of just about all the main protagonists, to the sacrifices made for honor's sake, and to good kicking the ass of evil (in the end). But how many chicks love Braveheart? How many would put it in their top ten? From my experience, not many (and I know because I used to somehow manage to bring it up to most everyone I knew at some point). I could be wrong, but I don't think Mel made any compromises in making Braveheart. Sure, there was a love story, but it wasn't forced. And it was told from the man's perspective. Sure, there was backstory on the French hottie. But she had her head on straight and was worried about doing the right thing; even though she was holding out for love, she put right before her own desires. Plus, the good guy got to 'know' her. And, of course, there was a hell of a lot of swords and blood throughout.
What would Braveheart had been if it had made women a target audience? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm certain it wouldn't have been Braveheart. It wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I had to hear the plight of women involved in the movie. I don't care about women when I'm watching Braveheart. I care about loony Irishmen. I care about kicking the shit out of the bad guy. I care about putting right over your own life.
Back to video games. When you talk about dubiously scantilly-clad women and crass stereotypes, I'm with you. No need for them in mainstream gaming, and specialized games can always be made for the interested audience. But to bring women into the mainstream gaming world... yeah, I'd rather keep it a boy's club. I want to look at game's from a man's perspective. If a game has a good design team and can do the balancing act, awesome; I'm all for it. For example, I couldn't care less that the controlled character in Portal is a woman. It doesn't affect the gameplay, storyline, etc. And I absolutely loved ICO. My folks and I had a good time playing it when they visited me (and hell it's been about a decade since I could get my mom even remotely interested in a video game). So you don't need gore and you don't need sex for a game to still be a guy's game (and it's obviously an enjoyable game for ladies too). However, if I play an RPG, I don't want to be a woman. I also don't want to drudge through blatantly-feminine sidekick dialoge or side quests that delve into the woman's world. That's not my thing. If games are made like this, that's cool; I won't hate on them. But I'm probably not going to buy them. And I'd rather have developers of my favorite franchises focusing on kicking ass and triumphing over evil in a completely 'ugh' manly way. Because that is my thing.
I'm not implying you were saying the only way to get women involved in mainstream gaming is to include sappy love-interest side plots. You didn't say that. But that's how it's done in other mediums. Because it works. And I don't want that for video games. I'd rather have my lady friend completely uninterested in my casual pastime than water down my pastime to involve my lady friend. It's not like there aren't better things for us to do together.
[longpost is looooooooooooong]
This is pretty reasonable, and you're not the only person to suggest this.
I don't really want ALL games to become gender neutral. I wouldn't want to lose my Bravehearts either. Even with more women involved in the industry, I think there will always be room for "guy games."
I'll stick with the film industry comparison. We've got a pretty decent male/female ratio going in that field, and there are movies for everyone. Guy movies, chick flicks and kids movies, as well as tons of movies that don't target anyone specifically. Movies don't have to be completely homogenized to suit a wide variety of tastes.
But what if the movie industry was overwhelmingly majority male? Sure we'd have our guy movies and some women might even get into them along with us, but that industry's output would be significantly different. We'd see far less variety in the kinds of movies being made and stories being told. Over time, the industry might stagnate.
That's kind of where I feel games have been. There are definitely games with universal appeal that have attracted both male and female fans (Sims, Zelda, etc), but there just doesn't seem to be much there to attract women to this medium. A lot of that might be the "Boy's Club" issue, but you see what I mean.
One commenter on the video came up with a great analogy. Think about romance novels. They make up a small percentage of the books out there. They aren't for us. We don't have any interest in them. Now imagine if 80% of all books on the market were romance novels. We would feel pretty excluded from the novel world. That's probably what the game industry looks like to many women.
In the end, I guess the main reason I want more girls getting into games isn't that I just want more girl gamers around. It would be fun having more girls around who liked our hobby, but that's just a minor issue. What I really want is to see more women involved in games, getting into the industry. Because that's a change that could really advance this medium. I really want to see the sort of games that industry produces.
Wooooooooooorrrrds.
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Great vid as always, sephfire, but as a bit of a tomb raider buff, I feel the need to harass you about bringing it up
. It might just be coincidence, but when you draw the line between Lara Croft as a sex symbol, and Lara Croft as the attractive, capable, female Indiana Jones, you use footage/artwork from the older games to illustrate her being a sex symbol, but post-legend artwork to make your point about her being the attractive, capable etc.I bring this up because if I recall correctly, Tomb Raider: Legend was supposed to be the game where Lara got 'reinvented' to be a more mature, realistic character, and you'd be hard-pressed to find official post-legend artwork of her that's as risqué as the 'topless' artwork that came with the earlier games. The point I'm trying to make is that I think she's actually a lot closer to Gard's original vision of the character nowadays, and I do believe she's been quite succesfully reinvented as such, being a nice indicator of how the industry has 'matured' and even sort of emancipated women in games.
TL;DR Me spergin' out over the emancipation of Tomb Raider.
I liked her in Legend too. It was a pleasant surprise to see her become an interesting character. I haven't seen yet if Anniversary and Underworld continued the trend, but either way, I think most people (even most gamers, I'll bet) still think of her as Lara Croft: gaming's swimsuit model. Her reputation is just kind of solidified now. Shame, that.
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Is that who she is? I just picked one of the only images I could find on Google that wasn't overly risque. My bad, I guess.
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Hey Sephfire, if you're open to suggestions for future episodes, maybe you should take a look at nostalgia. It could make for some interesting discussion, and at the very least, give you an excuse to look at some old games you like.
Seriously, nostalgia is a powerful, wonderful, horrible thing, and I think it would make for some damn good good watching.
That could be pretty interesting. At this point, James is doing most of the topic-picking, but if I have any ideas on that one, I'll pass the word on to him.
We've already got our next two topics picked and I'm already pretty excited about them.
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That's mostly because my site is terrible and needs a complete redesign. I should put hers up, though. Good idea.
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It's that time again.
This time, we're discussing why more women aren't interested in video games. To assist in covering this topic, we have a special guest: Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander.
Special thanks to AE for unwittingly providing end credits music and, as always, to CarboHydroM for my title theme.
Enjoy!
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Fun fact:
Tim Burton studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts. His teachers included three of Disney's Nine Old Men and his classmates included John Lasseter and Brad Bird.
That is a classroom where dreams are made.
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This guy's stuff is awesome. Thanks for passing it on!
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you don't know what i mean by art, do you? visuals = i liked the way things looked. art = i didn't like the CONCEPTS behind the visuals - like that tomb thing. it was the most boring and ugly thing i've ever seen in an FF game. they just plastered the save five tiles over the walls instead of creating something really unique and cool (which they totally could have done). time and time again, every unique area of the game was bland. it looked pretty, but it didn't have that polished vibe that other games that came out around the same time had.
I don't know ...
I think this is a case of preference. The inside of the tomb may have been so-so (I didn't dislike it), but XII's art design was no slouch job. There was a lot of detail in there.
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All I know is that every time a new gaming interface is introduced, my first question is always: "What will this mean for lightsaber games?"
And if Natal works properly, it could lead to one kick-ass lightsaber game.
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Why let them release it? Private FFXI servers have been around for forever... haven't they? I kind of assumed every MMO out there has private server versions of it running.
I think PlayOnline makes FFXI private servers a little trickier to do. Maybe there are some out there, but I haven't seen any. I'd be all over it if there are.
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I wonder what will happen to these online FF entries once they finally decide to take down the servers. It would be rather odd to have one of the numbered Final Fantasy entries just vanish completely.
Deep inside, I nurse the hope that they will release a single-player modification of it at the end of the game's life. Or a kit for creating private servers. Or something.
Pie in the sky. I know.
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Every year or so, I get really homesick for Vana'diel. I switched to WoW years ago, but I have so many fond memories of FFXI. And then I log in and remember why I left. Always a bummer.
If this game can capture the FFXI magic without the ridiculous tedium, I am 100% on board.
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I believe this says it all.
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It did strike me as funny that they involved Molyneux in this.
: "Hey, I'm worried the public is going to think Natal is too 'pie-in-the-sky.' We ought to bring in a developer or two to back up our claims."
"Let's get Molyneux!" : "Perfect!"Man, I hope this technology takes off. The Wii-mote has lots of potential, the possibilities for tech like this really are endless.
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I'm going in to this cautiously optimistic. My first instinct is to get crazy excited, but that's what I did when the Wii-mote was revealed and that one's been a bit disappointing.
Fingers crossed!
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Not only is Up the first movie to actually make me cry in a theater, it almost made me cry twice. Those first fifteen minutes are fantastic and heartbreaking all at the same time.
What to Buy: PS3 or Wii?
in General Discussion
Posted
Congrats on the new console then!