The range of my writing has been a recent source of concern for me. I have looked at what others write about video games; I’ve looked at what is popular. I’ve considered writing news, reviews, and even analysis and predictions, but I have no affinity for any of it.
I don’t want to write about news. If news is to be a site’s bread and butter, its writers must obsess over and write about every minor occurrence: every collector’s edition, every screenshot, every rumor — anything tangentially related. Inevitably, the news writer is forced to betray their passions. I can’t let an information trickle dictate the direction of my writing. Continue »
This is good news, but it opens an old wound. There was much uncertainty surrounding the PC version of The Force Unleashed; gamers expected it, but Lucas Arts wasn’t talking about it. In May of 2008 producer Cameron Suey addressed the issue saying there would be no PC version of the game. He cited scaling issues:
“The PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn’t be the same game.”
That line was as much a load of bull then as it is now; if an Xbox 360 can run a game, so can a $500 PC built in the last two years. There’s a reason people are amazed to see CryEngine running on a console while still looking decent. The Force Unleashed is said to be coming this Fall, and I have a feeling I’ll be playing it using the PC I built in January of 2008 for $700.
I am so glad that these Civony/Evony people are finally getting called out. Their shady ads featuring stolen art assets are everywhere. I can only hope they haven’t tricked many people into playing, but I know that mammary glands are powerful things.
This is a big one, and I will admit that I skimmed a bit, but there’s some interesting stuff here. Particularly, the acknowledgment that the general perception of the PC gaming market’s health is largely due to a lack of marketing and representation; that’s interesting coming from a PC manufacturer, not to mention a founder of the PC Gaming Alliance. Next up: much respect to Chris Remo for not letting the comment about $1,500 – $2,500 being what somebody needs to spend on a gaming PC slip by. The notion that a person needs to spend more than $700 to play any game is one that is hurting the platform. Finally, I very much like the idea of Steam being pre-installed on Dell and Alienware systems. I’m no fan of crapware, but if they’re injecting new machines with a bunch of it anyway, they may as well throw in something great like Steam.
I am ambivalent to this bit of news. It would be unfortunate if Microsoft decides not to bring Alan Wake to PC, but I can’t say that I would be surprised. Very little concerning Alan Wake’s very existence was anywhere near set in stone until this year’s E3, after all.
Nothing interesting happened this week. Seriously. There was a whole bunch of StarCraft 2 stuff, but I don’t need to talk about that here. Surely, you’ve already absorbed it all elsewhere! So…
I thought I’d call attention to a blog post made this week over at Schnauzer Studios. The funkdacious Rob Geboers (whose March of The Zombies was recently featured in Audiosurfing) shared what he remembers about his time making music with Amiga systems as a youth. He’s even posted a couple of his creations for us to hear, one of which is all about peanut butter. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Ooh! fanboy fodder! Really, though, this is a good thing. Activision won’t seriously ever stop supporting Sony consoles. This is actually one of the least-evil things they’ve done or said lately. It’s a fact that the Playstation 3 is too expensive. Most gamers agree, most of the press agrees, and the sales numbers of multiplatform games make developers inclined to agree. Any other day I’d be jumping at the chance to hate on Activision, but as a person who wants to play some PS3 games, but doesn’t have a PS3, they’re right; that machine’s too expensive.
Yes, you read it right. The Ghostbusters developers didn’t include multiplayer in the PC version so that they could make the console versions better. Meaning the Xbox 360 version, apparently, since the Playstation 3 version renders at a lower resolution and has lower resolution textures. To be fair, the PC version is $30 instead of $50, but I’d rather have more co-op and less $20.
It’s impossible to not make this weeks’ Bearly Noteworthy post completely about E3 and E3-related announcements. Since most of the E3 coverage that I consumed originated at GiantBomb.com, I’m also finding it difficult not to make this a post that links solely to GiantBomb.com. So fuck it. They simply killed it on coverage with basically five dudes. Tons of video content, daily podcasts, interviews, wrap-up posts, and very little of the premature, judgmental snark that is endemic to rapid-fire coverage.
Bullet-point highlights from the Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft conferences. My favorites from Microsoft: Crackdown 2, Alan Wake. From EA: Crysis 2, hooray! The Saboteur looks rad. And Ubisoft: I am stupid amounts of excited for Splinter Cell. Rabbids make me sick.
Brink is the game that I most wanted information about when going into E3. I haven’t made up my mind on S.M.A.R.T. yet (it’s explained in the video embedded below), but I think it may make more sense within the context of the game. I hope we get to see some gameplay soon. I’d also like to know what Bethesda’s involvement is with this project; they haven’t said much, only Splash Damage has. I’ve got a feeling Bethesda may just be publishing on this one.
Comics
The range of my writing has been a recent source of concern for me. I have looked at what others write about video games; I’ve looked at what is popular. I’ve considered writing news, reviews, and even analysis and predictions, but I have no affinity for any of it.