Over at Tap Repeatedly, Amanda Lange shows how to write videogame reviews in her Dragon’s Crown review. She doesn’t list features. She doesn’t hold forth about whether the game is fun. She doesn’t try to gauge whether I’ll like it, or whether you’ll like it, or whether the game playing public will like it, or whether the enthusiast media will like it. She doesn’t focus on how it runs on one platform vs another platform. She instead focuses on her own experience and her reaction to Dragon Crown’s distinct style. She writes articulately, she includes scads of context, and she puts at the forefront her unique insight. She doesn’t even focus on gameplay, just as some movie reviews might not focus on acting or special effects or cinematography. She has her own priorities.
Furthermore, Lange is slyly funny. How can you resist this lead-in, acknowledging the controversy about the game’s sexy and/or sexist portrayal of women?
…it’s impossible to separate Dragon’s Crown from its visual art. I think we should go ahead and gaze into the cracks here; let’s stick our faces in and motorboat the hell out of this controversy.
There are plenty of other quotable tidbits. But unlike reviews that just string together a list of bon mots without any meaningful insight, Lange has an important point. The crux of her review is that Dragon’s Crown illustrates — quite literally — the difference between intentional hypersexualization and ignorant hypersexualization.
And like all great reviews, it doesn’t matter one whit whether I agree with it. As a videogame, I don’t care for Dragon’s Crown. She loves it. That difference of opinion has no bearing on whether her review is good (it is) or whether it’s of any value to me (again, it is). If more people wrote reviews like that, I’d read more reviews.
Among the announcements rolling out of Gamescom is Electronic Arts’ promise that the upcoming Command and Conquer, a free-to-play real time strategy game that doesn’t need a number or subtitle after its name, is totally going to tell a story. Eventually. Like, next year. Several months after it’s out.
Electronic Arts announced that episodic, story-driven Campaign Missions are in development for Command & Conquer and will be available early next year. The next installment of the award-winning real-time strategy franchise from Victory Games will launch in 2013 as a free live service, with an emphasis on continually adding new content to the game, such as Campaign Missions, based on fan feedback.
In the quote written for him in the press release, veteran developer and EA general manager Jon Van Caneghem says the number one feature requested by the fans is new story content. Really, fans? You guys couldn’t come up with anything else? Really? Thanks.
Real time strategy games are horrible at telling stories, unless the story is about how you told these dudes to go over there to fight those dudes. Although some real time strategy games also tell the story about how your dudes built up defense against those dudes who came over here to fight your dudes. Command & Conquer was a pioneer in telling the story about how one super-powerful dude (or chick named Tanya) moved through a maze populated with weaker dudes that obligingly hung fire until they were killed. I love the genre, and I’m excited to see where EA is taking the Command and Conquer franchise. But the potential for meaningful narrative in RTS gameplay is effectively zero, which is why the stories are always shoehorned into cutscenes between the actual game parts, or yammering heads in a tiny box shoved to one corner of the screen. These are toyboxes, not story delivery devices.
There are certain issues in gaming that ebb and flow like the tide. People will argue and fret over whether games are art or if the ratings system is effective or whether or not there’s a 7-9 scale. One of those common subjects of dissection is whether or not violent gaming desensitizes the player, making human life cheap and giving birth to a new generation of young killers. I never took much of a stance on the subject outside of knee-jerk reactions to criticism of my beloved industry. That all changed during one standard workday a few months ago.
Let’s get the big Sony Playstation news out of the way. Minecraft will be a launch title for the PS4! Whew. That’s done, so that leaves us with the ho-hum stuff.
Sony presented a lot of games at Gamescom. Killzone Shadow Fall, Watch Dogs, Rime, a reimagined Shadow of the Beast, Hotline Miami 2, Rogue Legacy, Gran Turismo 6, and a host of other promising looking titles either had trailers or quick snippets of gameplay. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was used to show off the PS4 to Vita feature.
Speaking of the Playstation handheld, Sony announced a price drop. The new price of the Vita in the US will be $199. (That’s 199 Euros as well thanks to wacky pricing math.) Sony Europe’s CEO, Jim Ryan, said there would be a price drop for the Vita memory cards as well.
Free Twitch streaming support for the PS4 sharing feature was announced. Only Ustream support had been announced at E3 for the console, so that’s welcome news for gamers with a streaming preference.
SCEA president Andrew House revealed that Sony will offer a discount plan for gamers that purchase titles on PS3 and then later wish to upgrade to PS4 versions of the same games. While he didn’t have any specifics, he did say that Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Warner Bros are participating.
Finally, despite rumors of an earlier than expected October release date, Sony fizzled by confirming a November launch for the PS4. The US launch will be November 15th, while the date for Europe will be November 29th.
Microsoft’s Major Nelson confirmed that FIFA 14 would be free to all pre-orders of the Xbox One in Europe. As an additional incentive, FIFA 14’s Ultimate Team Legends feature will only be available on the Microsoft console. For those interested, EA will reveal the full roster of legends later.
In other Gamescom news, Microsoft made a number of announcements to entice gamers (and developers) to their console. They published the full list of launch titles that will be available for the Xbox One, which has 23 entries. Fable Legends, a four-person co-op game with heavy use of SmartGlass was revealed. Microsoft and Ubisoft announced that Tom Clancy’s The Division would have exclusive content, although there wasn’t much specific to say about it. For all the Call of Duty fans, Infinity Ward said that Call of Duty: Ghosts on Xbox One would use the Xbox Live Cloud service to host dedicated multiplayer servers.
Finally, Microsoft issued some details of their indie games program, called ID@Xbox. It will offer free Xbox One development kits to developers and an easier path to publication. Unlike the current Indie Games Marketplace on the Xbox 360, the ID@XBox program will offer many of the bells and whistles that big-money blockbuster titles get.
Games that come through this program will be able to access the exact same features as any other large game company on Xbox One: Achievements, Gamerscore, Kinect, Xbox SmartGlass, Xbox cloud services and more. What’s also exciting is that these games will be available in the exact same marketplace (Xbox One Store) as every other game on Xbox One, making discovery for players easier by using all the curation and discovery tools that Xbox One will offer, including Spotlight, Trending, Recommendations and great social discovery with features like Game DVR and Upload.
Unfortunately, a launch date for the Xbox One was not announced despite heavy speculation that Microsoft should have a firm date set by now.
Saints Row IV is an epically meta mindfuck of a love letter to fans of Saints Row, which is to say an epically meta mindfuck of a love letter to videogame power fantasies. Profane, indulgent, sleek, varied, luminous, familiar, new, and brimming with the joy of chaotic chaos. No one does open worlds like Volition. And almost no one does self-referential humor like Volition, a studio that vaults gleefully over the top, cackling madly the whole time, without leaving the basics behind. If you don’t fall head over heels in love with Saints Row IV, you are a little dead inside. Also, I can’t be your friend anymore.
After the jump, is Saints Row IV the best game of all time?Continue reading →
A few days ago, we reported that the Xbox.com PC Marketplace would be shut down, so new PC game purchases would not be possible through that service. At the time, Microsoft said that everything previously purchased could “continue to be enjoyed” through the normal Games for Windows Live client. Bzzzzt!
According to the newly posted support page, Age of Empires Online will not be playable after the service shuts down. From the text, it seems as if the whole of the GFWL service will also be going the way of the dodo.
Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down. Please visit the Age of Empires Online forums for additional details.
That first bit seems to directly contradict the earlier statement about the PC Marketplace closure which raises a few questions. What’s going to happen to the PC versions of Dark Souls, Super Street Fighter Arcade Edition, or Viva Pinata? I can probably live without ever completing the Achievements for Halo 2 on PC, but what about Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War?
Update: The text regarding the GFWL service being shut down has been removed from the Age of Empires Online page. Perhaps we weren’t supposed to know yet? We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment.
Update 2: Here is the official response from Microsoft:
“Yesterday, an Age of Empires support web page communicated that the free to play Age of Empires Online will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. We believe in Windows/PC gaming and have long-term plans to grow our support. We expect there to be transitions as we build out new investments, but we remain committed to bringing first party gaming services and games to Windows for years to come. We will share more details in the future.”
Answering precisely nothing other than confirming the shutdown date.
Comedian John Hodgman calls himself “D&D adjacent”, claiming he bailed on RPGs as a kid because they had too much “dumb math”. So the latest Judge John Hodgman podcast, in which he adjudicates various types of disputes, might seem outside his bailiwick. The dispute is between two players in the same long-time RPG group. One player wants to spend more time RPing, exploring lore, and engaging in banter. The other player wants to rush into combat to raise the stakes in a gaming group he feels has become too safe and cerebral. They’re each appealing to Hodgman. It’s a recipe for the usual ridicule. Take a drink every time Hodgman makes a joke about them living in their mother’s basement or not having girlfriends.
Fortunately, no such thing happens (I think there’s a single basement joke). Instead, Hodgman graciously hosts a discussion about the tension between gameplay and the social dynamic, a familiar topic to anyone who plays RPGs or tabletop games. I’d even argue it’s a relevant issue for videogames, where we talk about the tension between gameplay and narrative. It’s a fascinating discussion, partly for how articulate the two men are in presenting their case. And I couldn’t agree more with how Hodgman eventually rules.
GOG.com has announced its new Indie Games Portal. The submission portal allows indie game developers to apply for self-publishing through GOG.com with an “industry standard” 70/30 split. Unlike most other digital self-publishing arrangements, GOG.com will offer an advance on royalties. The developer will get a 60/40 arrangement until the advance is paid back. The split will then revert to the standard deal.
In addition to offering advances, GOG.com also promises to help market indie games submitted and approved through their program.
Every release becomes our website’s main feature and gets a campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other social channels.
While the 70% split may be the “standard” for the industry, many indie developers have been attracted to the Humble Bundle site because it can offer up to 95% of the of revenue split. For cash-strapped independent studios, the possibility of an advance may sway them towards the GOG.com offer over the competitors.
Happion Laboratories’ stunt-swinging Kickstarted game, Energy Hook, is now available for preorder directly from the developer’s web site. A $35 preorder will get you access to the alpha now, along with all future updates until, and after, the game’s release. The alpha even has Oculus Rift support! Jamie Fristrom, the creator of Energy Hook, was one of the driving forces behind Spider-Man 2’s wonderful web-swinging city travel, so he knows a thing or two about going Tarzan between skyscrapers.
Fristrom joined us on a Quarter to Three Games Podcast back in June. Tom and Jamie waxed nostalgiac about traversal in games.
Speaking at GDC Europe 2013 “F2P The Wrong Way,” Microsoft Studios executive producer Kevin Parry, said that a lack of content was Age of Empires Online’s biggest issue. Perry said the team’s output could not keep up with the revenue model the game needed to thrive. According to Polygon‘s summary of Perry’s presentation, the game had a broken free-to-play model at launch that capped spending at $75 which prevented the “whales,” players that spend the highest amounts of money, from supporting the game with their purchases. Once the cap was removed with the addition of consumables and cosmetics in June 2012, purchasing jumped, but the team was unable to keep up with the demand for deeper content while remaining profitable.
Part of the reason people expected so much more was the Age of Empires name. The brand is associated with expansive real-time strategy experiences, which the production team could not keep churning out at the rate needed to retain players. Perry also said the game’s poor initial reputation hindered new player acquisition.
“You don’t get a soft launch for a branded title,” Perry said. “Players come there for your brand. You only get word-of-mouth once. Whenever we got new players, they always came in with the overhead, ‘but I heard this game sucks.’
“That hill was extremely difficult to climb,” he added.
Although Age of Empires Online is still playable, content development ended in January of this year. Tom didn’t like the launch version of the game at all, but he did like it a little more after the summer update.
I have already played all the way through pre-release versions of Saints Row IV and Splinter Cell Blacklist and I can say about them something I can say about very few games: I will eagerly play them again when they come out. Which is this week. Like Tomb Raider, another game I eagerly played a second time, these are mainstream AAA franchises at their latest best, with great production values, shrewd game design, and a vivid sense of identity. Sometimes mainstream is mainstream because it’s good.
Indie gem Race the Sun officially launches today. But if you’re like me, you’ve been visiting the beta daily for your fix of an “infinite speed experience”. Still, it’s always satisfying to see a version number make the decisive click from 0.9 to 1.0. Which reminds me that the free-to-play and web-based — normally, I’d run screaming from either of those things — Card Hunter comes out of beta this week. I can’t get a sense yet for whether it’s got legs, but I’m really enjoying how it shuffles a tactical combat game with a deck building game.
Disney Infinity, an action figure delivery device, launches with a whimper that includes two Johnny Depp characters and no Star Wars, Marvel, or actual Disney characters. And I have no idea what to expect from 2K Games’ long-in-troubled-development X-com flavored shooter, also out this week. I can’t even keep the title straight. I think it’s something about a bureau or an administration or a classification. But I’ll play anything made by the studio that made Bioshock 2.
UPDATE: Card Hunter just got pushed back a smidge. The new release date is early September.
It’s hard to believe a podcast that’s been running as long as ours has never done a Woody Allen movie. This episode changes that. For this week’s 3×3, which starts at the 53-minute mark, we pick our favorite space habitats.
A lot of bad horror movies start with teenagers heading into the woods for a vacation. Very rarely, good horror movies also start this way. Such as Sebastian Silva’s Chilean tale of missed social cues, superstition, paranoia, madness, and worse. Magic Magic is partly one of those “foreigners are evil” movies, about the strangeness of Chile through an American visitor’s eyes. But the foreigners here are the Americans, which is the exact opposite of Eli Roth’s crassly ignorant stories of otherness, where he couldn’t care less if it’s South America or Eastern Europe. Silva’s intimacy with his own country, and particularly the way he conveys menace in the mundane, gives Magic Magic its power.
Next to Silva’s insidious direction, the key to Magic Magic is Juno Temple. This is the sort of fiercely discomfiting and fearless performance you expect from, say, Gena Rowlands. It’s hard to watch. She’s a fascinating actress, singularly committed in a way that’s all too rare for actors of her generation. And although it might give you pause at first, Michael Cera’s role is perfect. He’s just Michael Cera, but he’s in exactly the right place doing exactly the wrong things right. To Cera’s credit — he’s one of the producers, along with indie heavy hitters Christine Vachon and Mike White — he’s not forcing himself into new types of roles so much as finding unexpected and appropriate places to situate himself. This Is the End, for instance.
The rest of the cast is exemplary, with actors far more talented than the usual horror fodder playing roles that transcend the slut, jock, virgin, and nerd archetypes that venture into the woods. Director Silva’s brother, Agustin Silva, is the movie’s scruffy heart. The icily Latina Catalina Moreno (remember Maria Full of Grace?) is its voice of reason and perhaps its villain. One of my favorite shots features Moreno in the background and out of focus, and it’s a sign of Silva’s skill as a director. And the ageless Emily Browning, looking more 14 than ever, is all heart and empathy. Finally, if you’re going to shoot a horror movie in a mysterious foreign country, who better for a director of photography than the amazing Christopher Doyle to bring the color alive and shine shards of light into the dark? All told, Magic Magic is an almost magical concoction of Hollywood talent and arthouse horror storytelling.
Magic Magic is available on video on demand. Watch it here to support Quarter to Three.
Many videogames that struggle to reconcile gameplay and storytelling fail valiantly. Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us would have been so much better if the developers hadn’t jammed into their wonderful stories the rote gunplay, stealth, and scavenging you expect in your games. But then there are games that know enough to dispense with that stuff to concentrate on story. Some of these are called “adventure games”. There was a time in the olden days, before actual gameplay had been invented, that good writers were making adventure games. Gone Home is a rare instance of modern storytellers reverting to that format without feeling obligated to include gunplay, stealth, or scavenging. Gone Home doesn’t even have achievements.
After the jump, the best haunted house game since Fatal Frame 3Continue reading →
