Faded Pixels

E3 Impressions

June 4th, 2009

This is my first year at E3, and I find myself with nothing to do at midnight on Wednesday night. I would just drift off to sleep, but I have two roommates off at various shindigs, and two stumbling home as we speak. So how about some random E3 stuff? Sound good? No? Too bad!

I’m going to drop some quick impressions of things I’ve gotten to try. I will upload lots of random pictures at some point, but currently my net connection is a random AP by the name of “KANG”. I’m going to assume it’s a super cool guy with a TMNT fetish in this hotel letting me steal some net juice. Thank you random person!

Day 1-2 Game Impressions

Fat Princess
Swung by the Sony booth and tried Fat Princess. The game is a marvel, utterly approachable with a great visual direction. I dropped in with zero instruction or real direction (Granted I had seen some coverage on Co-Op), and I was able to pick up the gameplay in about 15 seconds. The various hats keep the action varied, and let almost everyone play the way that they want, be it collecting cake to fatten up your caged hostage princess, or taking the battle to the front lines with a large, and sharp, polearm.

I have a friend who bought a PS3 strictly for this game, and it’s not hard to see why.

Battlefield 1943
If you liked 1942, you’ll love this. I went back and played 1943 at least four times. I’m not sure what it is that I love about DICE’s take on WW2, but I always find myself captivated by their direction in these games. Most other companies get an instant yawn from me when they introduce yet another world war 2 game, but DICE has yet to let me down in this arena. I can’t wait for the release.

I also have to doff my cap to whoever came up with the idea to have the third map unlock after 43,000,000 community kills. That was brilliant.

God of War 3
Looks incredible. I can’t wait to have this game running on my 1080p screen at home. The action is fierce and the art direction is as strong as ever with some of the most impressive battle animations this side of FFXIII.

The closeups during gameplay are in need of special mention. They are unlike anything you’ve seen in a game this fast paced… phenomenal detail, it’s unreal. Forget that backroom footage you saw around the time of GDC, the real game is solid and amazing. I wish the demo was a little shorter so the line cycled a bit faster… 1.5-2 hours to play is a bit much.

Pixeljunk Shooter
Pixeljunk is gold, and the guy at PSN who signed Pixeljunk needs to be given a bonus and/or a raise. Game plays great, the art and animation flow perfectly. Gameplay is everything you come to expect from a PJ game; simple and intuitive.

While I still think the title they chose is garbage, the game is outstanding. Hopefully I can finish getting all of the Eden Trophies before they release this gem.

MySims Agents
I was hoping from all the talk that Jeff Green was doing with regard to this title that it might be a little more skewed toward something I might want to play. Sadly this feels like a buy for the young kid in my life, and not one to add to my library… sad thing, that… I love adventure/puzzle games.

I did get a chance to talk with Jeff Green at length about some of the bits of the game. Jeff’s a great guy, very nice to meet him. He talks the game up, and it sounds fun, and some of the design ideas I find interesting… but yea… I’m not in this demographic.

Brutal Legend.
Day one buy. Confirmed. I was worried about this game not living up to how fun the previews were looking. I was so relieved when I picked it up and started playing. The first 20 minutes are very solid, and I hope that continues on through the rest of the game. Super fun.

I was hoping for places where you would be called on to pull off some Rock Bandesque riffs in order to proceed, but they don’t quite do that. They do something more along the lines of Ocarina of Time on a very rare basis, but there was no indication of any support for anything like a RB2 guitar.

Dragon Age
I snuck in and checked out the dragon age presentation and demo. The demo highlighted some really amazing interpersonal relationships systems that they have in place. They chose to tease a potential story branch that leads to an encounter of a sexual nature with one of the female characters, however engaging in said encounter lost the demo runner points with the other girl in the party (who happened to be loosely tied to the character you play), and as she got depressed over losing you, she lost battle effectiveness. As you do things that either jive or anger the members of your party they become more or less effective, and if you anger them enough they might try to interfere with battles or choices you are making… maybe to the point of leaving the party. Sounds amazing.

But, finding out if that system is as cool as it sounds will have to wait till later. While the presentation spent a lot of time talking about it, the demo was just dropping a few characters into a random dungeon where you had a few random encounters with generic villains. Game looks good to be sure, but I’m going to wait and see where they take it from here.

Muramasa
Super fun WiiWare game that has no business looking as smooth and crisp as it does. The game is a blast to play, and I wouldn’t put it past my wife to be able to pick this one up and have fun with it. If you played Odin Sphere (I didn’t, it’s currently in my stack of shame) I’m told that you’ll love this, as it’s a vast improvement.

Left 4 Dead 2
It’s great. The visual style they chose for the followup is striking… I imagine there will be some people who complain about the amount of color present in the game, but I like having varied visual pallets. The map I played was during a bright, sunny day outdoors in an environment that felt a lot less channeled than the original L4D maps. I’m hoping to get another crack at it tomorrow, my go was pretty short.

Batman Arkham Asylum
The first Batman game I’ve been interested in since the original NES batman. The game plays really smoothly, and I get the impression that a lot of work has go into making the title stand on it’s own, independent of the newer films. It plays well as a stealth game, and has been one of the first titles (albeit I don’t jump at picking up stealth games since most developers can’t seem to figure it out) where stealth felt like it was honestly the best option. I’m still not a fan of the direction that they chose to take with some of the characters, but overall it doesn’t feel wrong, just different. I will keep an open mind and hope that different means good, this time.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii

Looks like: New Super Mario Brothers for DS; Plays like: Four Swords for Gamecube. Since neither of those things are bad, and are in fact awesome, this game should go over well. I always get a little sad with Wii co-op games, as most of my Wii friends are of the long distance variety, and dealing with Nintendo’s online quagmire is an utterly disheartening experience.

Rock Band: The Beatles
Day one buy. It’s perfect. Everything you want it to be.

I really want that Bass, but I think my wife will throw things at me if I buy yet another plastic guitar…

Tomorrow I’m going to try and hit all the stuff I missed, as well as take a ton of pictures. Hopefully I’ll find some more internet for which to upload those pictures, but I’m not very optimistic.

(Disclaimer: EA is my employer, but EA does not pay me for PR, BizDev, journalism, game coverage, viral marketing, or even to show up at this conference. As such, the opinions expressed are my own and are in no way endorsed or sanctioned by EA, etc, etc.)

Tags: e3, video games
Posted in All Entries, News, Video Games | No Comments »

When Creative Directors Attack

April 2nd, 2009

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to attend a talk down at EA: Redwood Shores. The talk featured two fairly interesting creative directors at EA giving talks related to game design and production. The point being, that if we were spending all this money to send these guys to conferences we could at least have them come and give those talks at EA.

Paul Barnett introduced the session, and hinted that if he had his way that we would be doing this far more often, a sort of mini game developers version of TED. I think that would be amazing, but I don’t know that it would actually work out.

First up was Lars Gustavsson (Creative Director, DICE). He gave the talk that he recently presented at DICE in Las Vegas. (There’s a rough breakdown of the talk he gave at DICE here) His talk was mostly about how EA DICE manages their development processes, and he spent a lot of time discussing how they were able to manage the risk of creating a brand new IP (Mirror’s Edge) while mid development on another new game (Battlefield: Bad Company) and a new next gen game engine (Frostbite). The talk was very interesting, if a bit dry from time to time. He also stepped us through the prototyping phases of Mirror’s Edge when they were still trying to figure out if the idea would even work.

After Lars finished his talk, Paul Barnett (Creative Director, Mythic) took the stage. He spent a few minutes giving a talk about various aspects of creative directing. He also talked a bit about some tips for aspiring creative directors and game designers, and touched on creative thinking. It’s really difficult for me to recall the exact points he made, because listening to this man talk is a bit like riding a roller coaster, you just have to strap in and enjoy the ride, and try not worry about the order of the turns.

After his small speech was over he launched into a rehash of his GDC speech, which I am very sorry I missed. (I am so getting a full pass next year)

The speech starts off with him explaining that he didn’t want to come. EA forced him to come. He then told EA that he would come as long as he could talk about what he wanted. EA and GDC agreed, but never updated the schedule, so people who came to hear about Warhammer were probably disappointed (maybe only at first) when he launched into this diatribe.

His talk was 40 minutes of loosely connected anecdotes and non sequiturs about game design, creative direction, and the gaming industry. It was amazingly funny and astonishingly brilliant. Trying to condense the talk down to its talking points looses so much, but you can find a breakdown of what he spoke about at the GDC here.

I really hope EA does more of these presentations in the future.

Tags: creative directors, ea, ears, Lars Gustavsson, Paul Barnett
Posted in Design, Video Games | No Comments »

Commuting Gems; iPhone games that are keeping my attention this month.

March 31st, 2009

I’ve been playing my iPhone a lot more these past couple weeks; mostly due to the discovery of a few addictive little gems.

galcon

Galcon

Galcon is strategic little game from Phil Hassey. The gist is that you are given a field of planetoids, planets generate resources at a speed related to how large they are. Resources can be used to attack and gain control of other planetoids on the playfield. Games tend to boil down to 2-5 minute tap and drag fests trying to outwit the computer.

The difficulty ramps up nicely, and there are several modes to keep you interested, including some online functionality. it’s on sale for $.99 for a few days more (maybe). It’s very much worth the $1 investment.

Cost: $.99 (Normally $4.99) (iTunes Link)

zen_bound

Zen Bound

Zen bound is a object manipulating game where the object is to simply rotate the 3d object in a way that the attached rope ‘paints’ a significantly large percentage of the surface area.You are limited on rope, and have to be dexterious with your fingers in order to get every nook and cranny.

The graphics and audio are some of the best I’ve seen in an iPhone game, and always look amazing on the small screen.

I’m not too terribly far into either of the ‘trees’ of levels, but so far things have been moving slowly. I’m hoping that the difficulty increases a bit, currently I’m able to 99-100% most of the levels with string to spare.

Cost: $4.99 (iTunes Link)

geodefense

GeoDefense

Geodefense is the latest in a long line of tower defense clones for the iphone, but this is the first one that stuck with me. Plays well, looks amazing, and comes in at a very reasonable $1.

One of the only detractors is that difficulty curve is a little brutal. A few people I know have reported that they hit a wall pretty quick. There is also a tendency of some board to start unnessesarily slow and quickly ramp in speed to the point where you can’t spend your money quick enough. A little evening out on these fronts would make a good game great in my opinion.

Cost: $.99 (iTunes Link)

radio_flare

Radio Flare

Radio Flare is another IGF game I was able to pick up for $.99 right now due to post IGF sales. A neat little shooter that utilizes multitouch to target enemies in sequence. I’ve not gotten super deep into this one yet, but it starts slow and builds up at a nice pace.

Shooting enemies is done by dragging along their ranks when they appear. The ships are then destroyed in that sequence of up to four. AS they are destroyed you are given a trance like electronic beat in tune to the game. Very much evocative of the Everyday Shooter experience, albeit not as mesmerizing.

Cost: $.99 (iTunes Link)

Tags: galcon, geodefense, igf, indie, iphone, Radio Flare, video games, zen bound
Posted in Independent, Video Games | Comments Off

New Fez Trailer

March 26th, 2009

Fez is looking amazing. I am coming around to liking the new art style, at first I hated the change to pastels.

Tags: fez, indie, trailer, video games
Posted in Independent, Video Games | No Comments »

GDC Expo Impressions

March 26th, 2009

I spent some time yesterday at the GDC in San Francisco. Sadly, I was rocking an Expo Pass which gets you in to damn near nothing at GDC. So I was limited to combing the various expo floors for anything of interest.

Onlive was one of the biggest names at the show this year, as I’m sure everyone has seen. I got a chance to play a few games on the service and I came away impressed at the technology, but less than enthusiastic about the iteration presented at the show. They’ve been preping for this reveal for many years, and in a controlled enviroment they were having trouble getting 6-8 displays to work without strong screen lag. I played a good 20 minutes of Prince of Persia on the service, and as someone who got the achievement for “Elika saves you fewer than 100 times” I was missing a lot of easy jumps do to screen lag I experienced when I swung the camera.

Another thing that occurred to me was that in light of Comcast’s recent 250gb monthly limit I know that many people are going to be concerned with how much of that limit is going to be consumed by streaming gaming at 720p at ~5m/s.

But, the thing I had to keep in mind was that this service is running on a device that isn’t much bigger than a blackberry. The underlying tech is amazing, but it’s not perfect. I don’t expect this to be destroying the PC gaming industry anytime soon.

The stuff other than basic gameplay was all amazing; state saving, spectating, and the ability to instantly play new games were all fantastic, and worked as advertised.

Swung by the Nintendo booth, they had a few new Wii games out, and one of them was the new Punch Out. Some of the controls are a little weird, and at times it felt like a backstep from Wii Sports Boxing, but overall the game is far more fun. I’m not sure I’ll be getting it, but I might give a look.

Test drove a DSi; the hardware feels nice in my hands despite the tether that was attaching it to a blond woman who barely knew what was going on. The DSi WarioWare iteration feels a little less ‘fun-quick-thinking’ than I would like, and a lot more ‘gimmicy-camera-game’ than was tolerable.

I watch(ed) The Watchmen (in IMAX).

March 10th, 2009

I watched the watchmen last night; I was able to score a ticket to the 7pm IMAX show. Got decent seats, not great. Might try to go again and get better seats, but I digress. On to the movie!

Beware! If you have not read the comic, there are plot spoilers coming, but I’m not going to explicitly spoil anything that’s new in the movie (e.g. the new ending). Even so… reader beware.

This movie is visceral and graphic. I was taken aback at first, because the graphic novel is ‘tame’ in comparison. However, I remember that the novel was published back in the 70s when the violence contained within must have been about as extreme. If you couldn’t take the graphic content of Sin City, you’re not going to be able to handle the fights and more graphic moments in this film.

On a whole the movie is a very faithful retelling of the books, with all my favorite scenes still in place. The editing, effects work, and music work very well together to create an experience I would recommend to any fans of the book. However it doesn’t seem to me like the kind of movie that will appeal to non fans in the way that something like ‘The Dark Knight’ does.

Now, for some general praises and nitpicks I had;

Rorschach’s (Jackey Haley) performance was amazing. He owned that role and did it amazing justice (even if the voice gets annoying). The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) also managed to pull of his role amazingly well, and playing that character in a way that the audience doesn’t just hate him is a tough balancing act.

On the other hand, while I thought he did a good job bringing the character out in his acting, Matthew Goode’s portrayal of Ozymandias fell a little flat for me because he just didn’t look the part. Billy Crudup’s portrayal of Jon felt a little too emotional at times, but otherwise did very well in the role. The rest of the characters were well done, neither standing out as failures or amazingly impressive portrayals.

The Rorschach dog scene shouldn’t have been changed, the change didn’t do anything but add unnecessary gore. The scene in the book was more cruel while being far less graphic. That might have been why they changed it, what with people being squeamish about implied torture, but it felt like a weird choice to swap out implied torture for outright graphic violence. But the trend of milking scenes for shock value became kind of a running theme.

The alley attack scene was drawn out and ultra violent. I would have preferred that the violence had been hinted at, or expedited so that we could have gotten a few more scenes from the book into the movie instead of a 5 minute beat down.

The love scene… was just bad. I mean you have this amazing scene in the book that’s passionate and erotic, with two people stripping off latex costumes to make love in a hovering aircraft. So how can you fuck that up? I’m not sure what they did it, but the scene just feels awkward, tawdry, and drawn out. I was really hoping people were hyping how bad the scene was, but it was really the low point of the movie for me, and that’s kind of a shame, because it had such potential to be an outstanding scene.

The new ending is far more believable and relevant. Ignore the purists complaining about it.

There’s a lot of blue penis; which didn’t bother me in and of itself, but seemed unnecessary at times.

A friend noted that he would have expected this movie to get an NC-17, but After seeing This film is not yet rated I’m not that surprised that this only got an R; there’s nothing that sexual which seems to be the only thing that pushes movies over these days.

Tags: imax, movie, review, watchmen
Posted in Movies and Film | Comments Off