I don't think it's the DS. I think it's Best Buy. I have noticed several new trends at their stores.
1. Their employees are constantly trying to help you or sign you up for some plan. Once Best Buy was one of the few places where people were helpful but they also left you alone to just buy the game or whatever. The Geek Squad is always on the move. 2. Their media sections have gotten increasingly smaller and moved out of the center of the store. Bluray and DVD have been pushed off into the corner in the last 9 months. 3. They have started to sell products like yoga mats and electric razors. 4. They now have seperate rooms at some Best Buys for the highest-end home stereo equipment called "Magnolia" and musical instrument sales areas for sythesizers and real guitars.
Trend 2 and 3 really point to the fact that they are gearing up for a world where digital distribution is the way. So how this reflects on the DS, I don't know. It just seems like they are focusing most of their business on material things. Hardware and stuff that has some heft. Perhaps the DS is behind the other platforms in that it doesn't yet have big titles available for digital download on it.
This is curious, given stories early this month that it is the biggest platform, in terms of US sales, of all time. In general though, I think all these things point to the fact that stores like this are in trouble. Best Buy survived when stores like Circuit City and CompUSA went down the tubes. I think it is looking for an identity in the mind of consumers, when in reality consumers don't care and are going online to do their shopping.
Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer is already a zombie-like experience without the DLC. It feels kinda dead. Without the story and nice mix of random encounters from the first game. The multiplayer just isn't that fun.
Just to clarify, I was saying that the intonation of the characters was different in the French than in the English, making them sound like the actors were going for different characterizations. So like compare the voices of the Bob Hoskins Mario with the Chris Martinet Mario. Totally different interpretations of Mario. I was not saying that the translation was off or anything like that.
Watching the video that was posted today "The Law of Red Dead Redemption" got me thinking about The Beatles and its appeal to an older audience. I wonder what Michael Pachter is saying about this game. Does he think that this game will appeal to the 50 and up demographic? Anyone who loves any of the spaghetti westerns might be given pause by the style and tone of what we have seen so far of Red Dead Redemption, or at least be willing to sit and watch all of the cut scenes with someone who has completed the game.
So basically what I am saying is that they need to start making period drama Jane Austen games to really widen the market up. Well that's not really what I am saying, but setting a game in an entirely different time period than the present, near future, or post-apocalyptic future, is a really nice change of pace. Its part of what made Vice City so much fun. And we don't get many games set between 1500 and the Present, its either knights or full on automatics/future tech.
Thexder. I haven't checked out the new version, but the quick look looked nearly identical to the original, aside from the graphics. Can't say I am in any hurry to revisit though.
So I noticed that you can play the Heavy Rain demo in French. Turns out that the voice acting is just different in the French. I didn't play the whole demo again in French, but for example, the prostitute is characterized much differently in the French than the English. In the English her tone is more of that, "I'm a tough seen-it-all woman (cigarette drag), what the %#&@ do you want." In the French she is clearly a young woman who lost her child, more frightened, demure. This makes you ask a lot of questions, like whether or not this woman was always selling herself. Maybe the death of her son sent her into a downward spiral. The American woman sounds like the type who would keep a gun by the door and not put up with that dude busting into her apartment.
I'm no dubbing purist. But I think I might be playing Heavy Rain in French with subtitles.
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