Worth Reading: 02/22/13

Some great reads this week Patrick, can't wait to hear you in quick looks and on the bombcast again soon. I'm all for multiple opinions on the PS4 event but some of them articles come off as so cynical. It is easy to be cynical about how of the stuff they announced will work but that was not what the event was about. It was about getting people excited about the potential of PS4 and on that front Sony nailed it. In my opinion they did so well that MS are going to have really differentiate themselves at their event to get people interested

@patrickklepek: I red that Gamelogical article before, I don't know man... A different approach to game conceptualisation is badly needed. However, I find that article to the lack of a better term just to "hipster". There are so many market an technical realities that hold back "innovative" game design.

For instance PS4 will allow native C# for the first time in a console, this is freaking big.. for someone who writes about game creation so seriously, Its pretty evident he has no idea how video games are done, which to my eyes rest credibility to its judgemental writing. My point being SONY is taking the right steps to allow innovation: solid development tools, the unveil was a marketing exercise, but the engineering decisions they taking are solid.

At the end most people is still battling just to have a videogame ship, its not like cinema. Videogame creation is very limited by the tools you have, that's why most unreal games look Gear of Warishh.. is not lack of creativity, its lack of better tools

Why would you link to neogaf instead of The Witch's House website? Plus Gaf's currently down for maintenance, btw.

I do love the abridged version of the PS4 announcement. Watched it a couple of times now. Pretty funny.

@subjugation: Oh jesus, you're right. 2nd.

Personal favorite pick of this week goes to the competitive Quake video. I've never watched a first person post-mortem/analyzation/commentary like that before. As someone who understands what makes pro gaming work in theory but can't grasp any of it in practice, I found that extremely enlightening.

Those fonts look bad.

Binary Boy + Ben = Good Times

Yeah, I'm not into sports or even that much into competitive games, but that stuff was incredibly fascinating.

So... Depression Quest is actually really eye-opening... Now to get me an appointment!

@patrickklepek:

Penny Arcade posted a fantastic rebuttal to that Buzzfeed article.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/buzzfeed-vomits-up-a-witless-attack-on-the-video-game-press

I like this format more. It's cool.

And yes, one of the tweaks to the new site that are left to be done are those side quotes. Ugh.

I hear you there. More and more I'm discouraged by how much people only take action to call out the negative or even to say they're just not interested in something.

I miss the times when people were more willing to talk about the things they were excited or positive about. I don't know if that ever happened, but I seem to remember it. Maybe it's a global thing, right? A bad economy, long wartime, acrimonious politics... I don't think it's the only possible outcome of this connected society, and I'd love to see things take a turn away from cynicism a bit.

A bleak (correct?) perspective on the biz side of creating quality enthusiast press games writing.

A wise man once said on this topic during Doritosgate:

There's a lot of talking in this thread, but the reality is that gamers got what they wanted. You don't have to pay for magazines to get your coverage anymore and it's all free on the web whenever you feel like reading it.

So you get what you pay for...

And HOOOOO-boy at this quote from the article:

If you’re the only outlet that dislikes a game, you’re criticized for seeking controversy to drive traffic.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the Echo Chamber that the industry suffered under from 2007-2011. Peer pressure and yanked access to media if you don't march to the beat of the drum.

Sony is getting on good terms with indies? When haven't they been on good terms with indie devs? The best indie games of the generation came our on PS3. They put more behind indie devs than any other console maker ever has.

Also, Infamous is boring?!?!? SERIOUSLY? Sorry, but what Infamous and the few other games like that, have done, isn't done very often. There are only a handful of open world, super hero, platforming games, and NONE of them are as good as Infamous. I'm halfway through Infamous 2, currently playing it, and it's one of my favorite games of this gen, and I play a lot of games. It's a really FUN game to play. It's one of those games that's just a joy to mess with. That the press rolls their eyes at it, but licks the spittle off the boots of CoD every year, says more about you than it does about Infamous. Infamous is one of the best franchises to come out of this gen, and it's a crime that it's been so overlooked.

I found Infamous to be really frustrating. I finished both games but more out of sheer determination than enjoying the game or plot. Your powers never feel quite powerful enough, the enemies just soak up too much punishment while you yourself are incredibly fragile. It sure beats the hell out of Prototype, yeah, but I had more fun with Spider-Man 2 back on the Gamecube. Also Just Cause 2, Red Faction Guerilla and Saints Row The Third.

That said, I'm anticipating some great sandbox-type games coming out for the PS4 with its massive RAM. Just imagine how huge and filled with fun stuff to do a game like that could be next time around. I'm not counting out InFamous Second Son yet either even though I didn't enjoy their previous outings. The idea is sound.

The Far Cry 3 writer sounds like a hilarious "HEY MAN, MAYBE YOU'RE THE REAL RACIST HERE" kind of guy.

Also an insufferable jerk. You looted stuff like "meth pipe" off the brown skinned natives, while the proud Aryan mercenaries arrived with stuff like "tooth paste."

There are countless other equally dumb examples one can pull out.

Patrick found himself nodding while reading that article by John Teti. When I read it, my eyes were rolling so far back in my head, priests were dousing me with holy water and shouting "The power of Christ compels you!".

Sony's next Playstation could come from the future, beamed down from the Enterprise itself and they would still "meh" it.

I have no idea what people expected from the PS4 announcement to be that disappointed in it. I thought it was fucking great, and this guy is calling it the "worst press conference ever?" Even Veronica Belmont said the event was pointless because she didn't get to see what the physical box looked like. Come the fuck on.

God that NY times "article" was terrible. I didnt know posting a bunch of tweets from people who don't know what they are talking about counted as journalism. Why do people think that just because we didnt get to see a black box makes the Sony event a failure?

I think the people treating the PS4 conference like it's the end of Sony are insane.

Also, I like the fonts. People just need to zoom in a little, probably.

You GB guys are so nonchalant about the whole next gen. thing? This is our passion! It's what you get up every morning for! Learn to enjoy again what a new console means, it's exciting stuff!!! Can't wait till PS3 launch day!

@patrickklepek I have played The Witches House, a friend of mine showed it to me a few months ago. It is pretty cool, the puzzles are mostly easy with one or two ones I got stuck on. It is all jump scares really, but is a fine way to spend a couple hours.

Wow, thanks for highlighting Depression Quest, Patrick! While I know I'm not clinically depressed, in part because I know people who are and they're far worse off than myself, playing through that made me recognize a few ways in which I let stress hamper my ability to do some of the things I want to do with myself. What a fantastic and sensitive little game.

@coafi: Amazing.

My God, that Gameological article was the most cynical, anit-Sony-Establishment article I've ever read. Halfway through, just the tone the guy had in criticizing every developer (Except Jonathon Blow. Blow is always correct in everything cause he's the indie underdog) for every comment they made about how the PS4 is offering new opportunities really tempted me to stop reading. I mean, there's pointing out the flaws of Sony and the PS4 presentation, and then there's just using Sony as some idol of everything you perceive to be wrong with video game development.

i am crying with laughter at the ps4 abridged thing

It's depressing how often I'll make a black person in games with character creation just because of how non-existent that perspective is in predefined narratives.

Yeah, I often watch American History X and think, "Why do people keep saying this is about race?"

I gotta say it seems really shallow to say that black people don't play video games because there aren't enough black characters in video games. However I remember how racist and dumb American's are and change my mind about arguing. I don't care whether the media is just being racist and presumptive or black people actually not playing games because of race, either way its dumb. But I guess that if the market really is that way then who are we to deny it what it wants? I'm just unsure, there's also a demographic problem, black people are generally poorer so maybe they can't afford these games as much.

Though I will say that the walking dead protagonist was one of the most relate-able characters and I'm a rural white dude. I don't need or care about the skin color of somebody's skin any more than I can about the color of his eyes, unless it makes a difference in the story that it is.

Damn that pothole. Clocked games count +1 for BB. Victor Morales has style. It would be so much better if the guy on the other side of Castle Mammon made each story up as he went along for $1.90/minute.

Depression Quest is absolutely worth checking out, it's emotionally draining but very helpful for anyone who's experienced depression to whatever quantity or has problems with procrastination.

Love the Farcry 3 writer's response. "I'm not the racist, you're the racist."

RIOT really looks cool. Might back it.

Only idiots believe their stories are immune to criticism.

"Nothing concerning race occurred to me while reviewing Far Cry 3. When I tell this to Jeffrey Yohalem, his immediate response is, “That says something about you, doesn’t it?” He elaborates, “When you approach a work you approach it with an angle. All of us do. It’s human,” and Far Cry 3 aims to “show your angle. On some level you can look at it and yourself and go, ‘huh, that’s interesting that I felt this way.’” In his eyes, those who perceive elements of racism, or even race, are “interested in these issues,” and project their concerns onto the material they’re consuming."

Those who don't read Far Cry 3 as having anything to do with race are either:

1) Less than Intelligent

2) Out of touch

3) Unfamiliar with racial themes as presented by Western artists in the past (ie. lack of context)

4) Being willfully ignorant

5) Some combination of the above.

Far Cry seriously wears racism on its sleeve, in both overt presentation of the plot and small gameplay touches throughout the game. To claim that the only people who see race issues are the ones who WANT to see race issues does not line up with the actual content presented to the player, and I find this claim from the developer to be disingenuous. I'm not opposed to racial issues being a theme that a mature game covers, but Far Cry 3 further cemented my opinion that UbiSoft is comprised of aliens who do their best to emulate human behavior, but are often found lacking.

@assinass said:

Depression Quest is absolutely worth checking out, it's emotionally draining but very helpful for anyone who's experienced depression to whatever quantity or has problems with procrastination.

Thanks for the link! think it was just what I needed to get me out of my bed fortress.

@patrickklepek I may be the n-th one to post this as a response, but here you go. Prepare to be underwhelmed. For some reason I can't embed the video, so here's a bloated looking link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJM_Kamyg&feature=share&list=UUxt9Pvye-9x_AIcb1UtmF1Q

*Sorry for the flood of words, I guess Sony PR aren't the only ones who need an editor ;-)

I'm amazed at how united everyone here in the comments are being about the PS4 announcement. I'll come right out and start this off saying I believe the PS4 will be a very solid console with an eventually good library of games. I don't hate Sony and I don't hate the PS4.

I'm not going to try to tell you the reveal was a failure. It wasn't. It did what it did, but what it did was pretty uninteresting and I'm baffled that there are people who disagree.

First of all, someone needs to learn to edit speeches at Sony PR. Seriously. Are they paying these people by the word or something? The ridiculous avalanche of empty pr buzz words had me practically falling asleep as I struggled through the overly long intro to the conference. This is an industry wide problem, but Sony has always been one of the worst culprits. Maybe we were all just impressed that they managed to mostly avoid any graphs.

Second, the features on the console look solid, but they were all expected features. Faster loading. Resume. More memory. Streaming games. These were all expected features for a next gen console. Obviously they belonged in the conference, but they didn't get me excited. Software is what I'm all about, games.

So I was glad that Sony actually showed off some games, but here's where I was truly disappointed and here's where I'm truly confused by the acclaim and support I see everyone throwing toward this event. Shouldn't the games for your next generation console do something, I don't know, different? Interesting? Exciting?

Media Molecule came through. Also, The Witness will be awesome, but that has nothing to do with the PS4 outside of proving that Sony is talking to indie developers (glad to hear it of course). And...what? What else was there? Killzone looked fine, if as artistically uninspired as ever, but the gameplay showed was beyond tired. Don't even get me started on the car game. Infamous, much like Killzone, didn't really show anything provocative (made even more obvious after a lead-up that made the game sound like it would be a treatise on freedom and security--maybe the game will, but the trailer was a guy using fire to burn dudes). Watchdogs will be awesome, but will also be on current platforms...so it's hard to use it as an example of why I should be excited for the NEW platform. I don't really remember what else there was. Diablo 3? Dragons or something? An old mans face with, like, a lot of polygons (seriously, we're talking about polygons?!? What's next, blast processing? Bits?). David Cage, you're a story teller. Don't show me a model. Show me a story. I remember that amazing PS3 tech demo with the woman and the gun. THAT'S what this event needed. Something emotional, powerful, unexpected.

I'm excited for the next generation. I'm excited for the PS4. This event was not exciting and if you don't like people pointing that out...well, that's your problem. It was the bare minimum I felt it had to accomplish to not be a failure.

@assinass said:

Depression Quest is absolutely worth checking out, it's emotionally draining but very helpful for anyone who's experienced depression to whatever quantity or has problems with procrastination.

Yeah. This is very good.