Well, this is my second week back to work after being on the road for two weeks with my band. We did a small tour, worked on mixing our album and got messed up close to every single night. While it was all totally awesome, and I wish I was still out there, my buddies are not huge gamers and I had basically not been able to touch a game for nearly two weeks (except for a few hours at my place when we stopped over in the city for a show we were playing). So it comes as no surprise that I dived right back into the pile of games I have pretty much as soon as I had a free second.
I jumped back into Red Faction: G to get myself started. Blowing up stuff is always awesome.
Then, I went ahead and loaded up my old Fallout 3 save and dived back into the action.
After running around for a little while clearing up quests here and there, and just generally enjoying traipsing around The Wastes, when I thought back to my old days with Fallout 2, and a thought popped into my mind.
Back in the glorious days when I played Fallout 2 for hours and hours, one of my favorite quests in the game was scraping up enough cash to be able to pay Smitty to repair a Highwayman (a totally awesome nuclear powered car that you could feed power cells into, that would take you places on the map much faster). Just having the car, which was always with you, with the awesome trunk space - it just felt awesome - the fact that you were rolling around the wastes in a beat up junker piece of shit nuclear powered vehicle just fit so well with the universe that if I had to say that there is something missing from the world of Fallout 3 - it would be a nuclear powered motorcycle version of a Highwayman. It could make use of the schematic system in the game, make it available perhaps at the end of a quest and then let you go home and build an awesome motorcycle. I'm sure it could be balanced out to make the speed at which you can travel just right, and make it feel cool.
Bethesda did it with Elder Scrolls with the horses right?
So what the hell Bethesda. Where the hell is my fucking Highwayman?!
I want to share some thoughts I have about marketing and teasers as they exist in todays crazy world of video games.
If you have followed the Bombcast for the last couple of weeks, you probably already know what I'm talking about.
Ironically enough, my frustration really stems from arguably two biggest video game franchises in recent histroy: Metal Gear, and [Call of Duty - can we even say that anymore?] Modern Warfare.
The pedigree of both franchises above are absolutely ridiculous. They are great games, no doubt, and have sold fucktons of copies throughout the years with their many iterations and sequels. I love COD games, and I love MGS games, but recently they have been giving me kind of a headache, and lets examine why that is, shall we?
Ill start with the Metal Gear franchise here, because I don't want to seem unfair.
Hideo Kojima is a crazy, diabolical mastermind when it comes to teasing information. I mean this guy may have very well wrote the book on how to get millions of rabid fans to foam at the mouth when he is going to release a game. It's like in my mind, Kojima IS Kojima productions' marketing department. It seems to me like everything done up till now with regards to teaser sites, tiny information leaks has all been as a result of crazy shit he just comes up with off the top of his head. All of that kind of stuff is just so indicative of Kojima's style.
But seriously, did anyone get a little bit sick of that teser site that was up recently with a countdown timer that resets itself a million times? Couldn't the goal simply have been achieved by him letting out a release every couple of days - starting with "Hey everyone, we've got some MGS stuff in the works, more information to follow, to tide you over, check out this picture!" I think that either way, people would have gone crazy with anticipation for news, was it really necessary to put a freakin clock on a website?
While they might not have had any actual videos to show at this years E3, whether it be the inducements of Metal Gear coming to 360, or the new PSP game coming out, might it have been a bit better to hold off on the announcements until E3 itself. Does an announcement like that really need to have a teaser anyway?
Next up Modern Warfare 2 - the teaser of a teaser of a teaser videos.
I mean really? A 15 second clip of a teaser that will fully be uploaded the next week and that teaser will be about 15 seconds longer than the first teaser.... wow.
I mean, didn't the community manager at Infinity Ward already twitter that MW2 was coming out anyway? Do we really need to have a "Hey guys, here's 15 second teaser of the 30 second teaser that will officially confirm the un-offical confirmation that Modern Warfare 2 is officially in development".
...What?
People actually got PAID for that shit! And I mean there were meetings, people had sit downs, phone conferences, data correlation, market testing and justified man (and woman) hours for this kind of stuff. For a 30 second teaser without even a hint of gameplay.
We're talking about Modern Warfare 2 here, any announcement about its release will collectively make millions blow a massive hole out of the seam of their pants. Did they really need to be that extravagant and take that much panning to tease the release of a game as popular as Modern Warfare 2? In my mind, they could have got a guy who works at Infinity Ward, with a name tag that says "Hi my name is Tim" get on camera and say - "Hello, I just wanted to tell everyone that Modern Warfare 2 is coming out, check back into infinity ward.com in a couple weeks for a trailer" and it would've had the same effect. The internet would crap itself, site visitor numbers would have soared and they wouldn't have had to spend a penny on getting a marketing team on that stuff.
Instead they put adds on the side of bus panels, then tell you to go to gamestop and then gamestop tells you to go watch football.
...What?
Now I'm not saying that marketing your games in a smart way is not important for any videogame publisher to make sure as many people know about your game as possible. But with these two latest examples, its kind of like someone is constantly tapping on your shoulder saying "Hey, did you know [insert game name] is coming out?!?!"
Yes. I know its coming out because you wont shut the fuck up about it already.
Anyone else annoyed? (Why do I think I'm going to get my ass handed to me for this blog.... maybe its better if no one reads it....)
Hello dear readers.... or the one person who might be reading this.
So I was plugging away at bringing my Custom fighter up to snuff in the career mode yesterday when a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to play a couple rounds online. I promptly responded sure as I had not played the game online yet and was eager to see how the game changed once playing against a human opponent.
It was fun, but fucking brutal.
We played 4 or 5 rounds, and I got my ass whupped, only taking one victory by way of a very satisfying arm bar submission.
Basically, standup game I'm all good, defending againt shoots I'm not too bad, but the problem came when he did manage to take the fight to the floor. At this point, I was completely fuckered.
He would bypass my guard crazy fast, get full mount, and pound the shit outta me till KO was achieved. At full mount, countering a punch into a submission was tough (it seems like the farther up the guard ladder your opponent gets, the more clunky your controls become as defender), and trying to go for a transition constantly gave up my back.
So I ask you, my fellow giant bombers, how the crap do you defend against the mount, or blocking offensive transitions in general. Any tips that might improve my game are welcome.
Oh and If anyone wants a friendly game, I'm always happy to oblige - Gamertag: Guard Larkin
As we all know, at this point in time, 3d Realms is kind of not so good at releasing games on time. Didn't they start development LAST FUCKING CENTURY?!
Anyway, I figure that if Take 2 is pissed off enough to sue 3d realms for not delivering on a game, if they eventually do secure the source code for Duke Nukem Forever (keeping in mind the fact that the litegation itself could take ...... forever.... <.< >.>) Then I'm pretty sure that Take 2 will grab the source code, give it to a developer and have them shove it out the door in 12 - 18 months if they can - maybe even if they can't. At this point, with all this bullshit and all this back and fourth, it will sell either way. Wouldn't be surprised if they tried for a console release right out the door. That would be fucked.
It seems like its been awhile since anything significant (that isn't freaking DLC) has hit the market, doesn't it?
This week we shall see the release of two games I'm quite looking forward to:
UFC 2009! - Yay
I've been playing the demo over the past few weeks and I must say, this game looks like its going to goddamn rock hard. They've pretty much pinned down every nuance that comes with your standard MMA match - straight up boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, clinches, ground game, submissions - its all there, plus the fact that fighters are so diverse (or so it would seem, only having access to Chuck Lidell (straight up ass whooper) and Shogun Hua( clinch / muay thai) gives a pretty good impression of how fighter skills are going to be laid out)
The biggest knock to the game so far ( if you want to call it a knock) is the learning curve - going through the traning (which is actually quite well done) - every aspect of what does what in a given situation (hard / soft counters to clinch moves, when a guy is on top of you, trying to get into or break a submission) can get pretty tough to remember off the top of your head. There were multiple times I had to go back to training to remember exactly what I needed to do on the analogue sticks to completely reverse a guy that was on top of me trying to beat my face in, or how to get them back into a less ideal position to protect the ever so soft tissue my face seems to be made of.
Overall, it looks like UFC 2009 is shaping up to be a great game, lets all just hope and pray that the netcode is up to snuff when the game is released so we can all beat the crap out of each other with no lag!
Terminator Salvation -Super yay!
I am a fucking geek. And I love Terminators. And by that I mean I love to blow up their synthetic asses.
It looks like all you'll be fighting with is general slug weapons - I think that the movie/game is set some time before plasma / lazer weapons were developed as seen in the movies, but maybe we'll get a taste towards the end of the game. I just really want to melt a metal skull with a white hot plasma round. Is that too much to ask?
I am also afraid that this is going to be another shitty 6 hour movie to video game tie in. I haven't followed its development that much just because I don't want to get caught disappointed.
I'll hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Ill make sure to give it a rent first.
So after a really crappy weekend, some stomach pains a few days in the hospital and a fistful of pills, I have a couple of days off work.
My days with warhammer online are done, account canceled, game deleted.
Don't get me wrong, the game is good, but between population issues, server stability (when engaging in really massive fights), but mostly the correlation between the content offered and need for actual human bodies to engage in that content, the game leaves me wanting just a tiny bit more. Maybe some day I'll go back. Again.
So instead, with my few days off, I loaded up Medival: Total War - Kingdoms and started up a Britannia campaign with the Scottish faction. William Wallace is about to take back the north of Scotland from Norway. Goddamn agressive Norway. At first when playing the Scots it takes a bit of time to realize how valuable the fact that they have tons of castles and Pikemen right off the bat. Stick the pikeman in front of a hole in a wall, put em on devensive and in formation, and they will hold off a lot. Especially the armoured ones.
Later on in the day, maybe tomorow, its time to get back in with the fallout DLC (I will get both Pitt and Broken steel) or Fable ( again, both expansions...) but I dont know which one... Fallout or Fable?
Better start typing up some words in here to grind my ass out of the gutter that is #0
So because of Hard drive space restrictions (recording music is a damn space hog, and I'm lazy to buy a new one) I decided to stick with one game on my PC for the time being (Yes my Harddrive is THAT fucking small) and I have my 360 anyways.
I'm not all that sure how many people are going to be reading this post, which I suppose is quite fitting because the game I'm playing right now doesn't really seem to have too many people playing.
I am of course speaking about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
I got the "Call to Arms" email whereby they let you re-activate your account free for 10 days and I've been mulling around with the game - and I'm still on the fence about what I think.
The PVP focus of the game is actually really fun, I have a level 14 Warrior Priest on the Ironfist server - but there is one thing that does kind of bug me - Population on servers.
It seems like there aren't that many people playing on the servers - trying to find people running the various Public Quests for example is really tough.
The game almost seems like it gives you too much stuff to do, with not enough people to fill constantly fill up the group oriented content.
I've never encountered a situation in a game where there fact that there is so much stuff to do actually detracts from the experience, but there it is. First time for everything I guess.
I'm going to stick with it for a little while longer to see if my mindset changes, and I've joined a relatively new guild to see if that might make the experience a bit better, but I think I may have figured out why I stopped playing the game in the first place, which is a real shame, because the game is good, just not enough people playing at the same time.
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