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Visiting the Village: Episode 43

visiting-the-village-episode-43

This week, Ian and I discuss the fallout from E3, violence (again), Dragon’s Lair and indie art styles among other things.  Listen avidly or remain oblivious!
Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Visiting the Village: Episode 43”

  1. Mellzor:

    § June 28th, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    Beside the PlayStation Eye scanning game, Mattel also made their own small console called the HyperScan.

  2. Alex:

    § June 28th, 2010 at 9:14 pm

    Ian called nintendo focussing on the hardcore gamer with the 3ds! They made a statement about that today or yesterday. WELL DONE IAN.

  3. Pau:

    § June 29th, 2010 at 9:26 am

    @Mellzor Hyperscan looks amazing!

    @Alex Yep, I totally underestimated the POWER of technological gimmicks for the hardcore.

    Of course it makes total sense for them to go this way – they can tie in to the 3D thing (even though this tech is completely different from “real” 3D) by announcing all these core titles; it aligns with their current “look we’re making a Kid Icarus game” and “we’re being nice to 3rd parties” stance.

    They can have their cake and eat it with this too – once they’ve done that they can push any kind of virtual pet whatever at their new audience as well. I think they’ve done it again.

    It is a little odd to me, though – obviously this tech will work better with non-hardcore games if it relies on head movement to experience The Depth Effect. But of course, it’s 3D, and people associate that with TECHNO POWER.

  4. Herr_Alien:

    § June 30th, 2010 at 8:07 am

    @Nintendo 3DS:
    Dunno. I’m not too hot over 3D. I’d rather have a game like STALKER running at a decent FPS rather than play Mario Cart in 3D.
    I’m with Ian on this one; I think that the 3DS will be used for mostly casual games rather than hardcore games.

    @Sony 3D:
    I don’t think they know what they want. People didn’t go over the top with BlueRay; it is not yet widely adopted. 3D? I think it’s just too soon.

    @Kinect vs. Move:
    My bet is on Kinect. Not because it is a better system than Move, but rather because Microsoft will do whatever it takes to make kinect an attractive platform to develop for. They are good at making platforms that are attractive. They do this for a living with Windows and Visual Studio.
    And when they do that, and game developers will find it very easy to develop on Kinect, then you’ll have a similar situation like the XBox360: a platform with a shit load of games will ultimately outsell other (even better performing) platforms.

    @Games and violence:
    They go hand in hand! Ian is right on this one, it is mostly used as a shocker.
    Using death as a penalty … hmm … Serious Sam didn’t use (in one of it’s platforming puzzles) death as a penalty. If you’d fall, you’d be simply teleported to the last checkpoint in the puzzle. But you would not die. I am pretty sure they did it to avoid unneeded frustrations. I mean you didn’t manage to go through the puzzle, that’s enough frustration, no need to add more by killing your player.

    @Franchise fatigue:
    I belive there is a fatigue associated to franchises. While it does make marketing easier, people do get fed up with the same kind of games.

    @Activision’s competition:
    Thank you Ian :D . The terms of entering do allow Activision to release clones, with or without you. You pretty much gave the best advice anyone could give: if you think the game is good enough, you won’t need the prize.

  5. Paul Taylor:

    § June 30th, 2010 at 11:45 am

    @Herr_Alien

    3DS – you’re actually agreeing with me there! I have actually revised my opinion on this (see above) – Nintendo have definitely aligned this more with their “serious” 3rd party titles. But yes, I’m still calling gimmick and I’m not going to stop banging on about the optional depth level.

    Kinect – I’m not sure about this: you’re basically calling Kinect getting better development support, there. I’m not going to get off the fence on that one yet!

    Games and violence – It was the idea of “dealing” with violence. I’m not sure many games do this; maybe Postal and Manhunt etc. which actually foreground violence are taking up some kind of position on it?

    Activision competition – You know what? I think people are being completely ridiculous about this. I’ve now read the submission criteria. Here’s one…

    “acknowledgement of Sponsor’s development of game concepts that may be similar to entrant’s Submission”

    Game CONCEPTS that may be SIMILAR. That’s hardly handing them a carte blanche to rip off your design…which, HELLO, they could do anyway. This is simply something that’s been put in to stop idiots causing a fuss. I don’t see this as overly punititve in any way – it’s, in fact, almost competely standard.

    OF COURSE they’re going to ask for right of first refusal from finalists – why the fuck else would they have a competition like this?

    I’m changing my opinion on this – this competition is completely fine and I have no problem with it at all. If you enter it and you don’t read the terms, you are an idiot.

  6. Herr_Alien:

    § July 1st, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    @Activision competition
    Ha ha ha :) )
    So basically you think that this competition acts somehow as a Darwinian filter in the indie gaming industry? The dumb ones get eliminated?

    I have to admit, I never thought of it this way.

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