Prototype - Now you too can be Sylar

[Kunikos]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/prototype/news.html?sid=6176885&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;4

Looks like a game where you play a Sylar-type mutant who eats people to get their memories and uses mutation powers to kill his foes (both human and mutant alike).

[RepoMan]

Yes, it does look much like that, indeed. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=37188&highlight=prototype)

[Andrew Mayer]

There was a profile of this in Last Month's Game Informer.

Color me curious.

[RepoMan]

This and Borderlands are currently the two open world titles to watch in 2008, AFAIK. (Not counting Big Daddy GTA4, which is a 2007 game held over.)

[Kunikos]

What was the name of that one title that was like alternate future France with templar agents and multiplayer where enemies were controlled by players?

[Thomas Wilde]

I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago at Sierra's press event and I'll say it again now: putting out an open-world action game set in a realistically modeled New York that's basically an invitation to messily devour the city's citizens and do battle in the streets with the American military in an election year when one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination is a known anti-video-game assclown who is currently the junior senator for New York takes balls of steel.

[Marcin]

What was the name of that one title that was like alternate future France with templar agents and multiplayer where enemies were controlled by players?

The Crossing.

[Erlend Grefsrud]

I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago at Sierra's press event and I'll say it again now: putting out an open-world action game set in a realistically modeled New York that's basically an invitation to messily devour the city's citizens and do battle in the streets with the American military in an election year when one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination is a known anti-video-game assclown who is currently the junior senator for New York takes balls of steel.
No balls of steel required. All you need is to skip the politicky bits of the papers.

[Skipper]

I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago at Sierra's press event and I'll say it again now: putting out an open-world action game set in a realistically modeled New York that's basically an invitation to messily devour the city's citizens and do battle in the streets with the American military in an election year when one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination is a known anti-video-game assclown who is currently the junior senator for New York takes balls of steel.

I take it you feel strongly about that? If I made a game where say, you shot and killed terrorits who were muslim or arabic would that in any way also take balls of steel? It's a game bro, sometimes they mimic life. The same folks that always jump up and down about game viloence will continue to do so, regardless of it being New York citizen killing or slaying teddy bears. In other words, situation normal: all fucked up.

[Thomas Wilde]

I take it you feel strongly about that? If I made a game where say, you shot and killed terrorits who were muslim or arabic would that in any way also take balls of steel? It's a game bro, sometimes they mimic life. The same folks that always jump up and down about game viloence will continue to do so, regardless of it being New York citizen killing or slaying teddy bears. In other words, situation normal: all fucked up.

I don't feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other, honestly. Depending on what mental space I'm in at the time, it either makes me chuckle sardonically or shake my head in vague disbelief.

It takes no particular courage to make an open-world game that's characterized by spectacular acts of fantasy violence, especially not now when Rockstar seems to be the industry's lightning rod. It is simply an interesting confluence of game design and political timing. They didn't just make an extraordinarily violent open-world game; they didn't just set it in a realistically-modeled New York City; they didn't just make it a game that's largely about stalking, killing, and eating people; they went ahead and made the United States military and police one of the game's major antagonists.

Then again, the game is also so unbelievably over the top that they're not in much danger of attracting maladjusted teenagers to base random murder on their activities or whatever. As the designers themselves said at Sierra Gamers' Week, they will be in some way responsible if a homicidal, cannibalistic shapeshifter begins stalking the streets of New York at some point in the near future, but otherwise, they cool.

[Kunikos]

I'm not sure what open-world has to do with any of your points. A linear game with set-piece maps would be equally treated by the press, who knows only how to sensationalize trivial bullshit for a living.

[Thomas Wilde]

I'm not sure what open-world has to do with any of your points. A linear game with set-piece maps would be equally treated by the press, who knows only how to sensationalize trivial bullshit for a living.

Good point. I suppose the only relevance of open-world vs. fixed-world is that open-world games tend to allow the player to generate more of a body count, but even that's a largely illusory distinction.

[Kunikos]

I still think we need a game where you kill Scientologists for cash and prizes. The closest thing so far is killing all the Hubologists in Fallout 2.