A poetic story about Earthbound from series creator Shigesato Itoi
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
At first glance something like this comes off as a little “odd”, but when you get passed the weird translation oddities and the stigma of being weirdly artistic in this industry, I think this sort of thing is super awesome to see from a developer. The following is a (long) piece written by Earthbound series creator Shigesato Itio where he tells you exactly what the games mean to him as a person. It’s a pleasant little read if you’ve got some time to kill!
You can find it all after the break actually, since it’s pretty long.
The Death of “Secretive” Games – How ‘A Boy and His Blob’ and ‘Black Ops 2’ are keeping a sinking style afloat
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Gaming, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
The birth of the internet has brought about the death of “secretive” game design, but what is it, and can a few developers keep it on life support long enough for a resurgence?
Author: Austin
It might be the most common legitimate complaint among game-players this side of DLC being exploited to high heaven: Games nowadays are just too easy. We used to live in a golden age of toughness, and now our hands are held through even the most simplistic of tasks. We used to spend weeks or months trying one particular part in a game before we beat it. We used to get satisfaction from figuring these things out. Now you never spend more than half an hour on any given task before looking up the answer online and continuing on with the game. After all, anything that gets in the way of you having fun right this second is bad for the game, right?
Maybe. There’s no use starting off on a tirade about how easy games are bad, or how games built for constant stimulation are degrading the industry. There is then, similarly, no use in preaching the power of difficulty, or making the falsely “bold” claim that every game needs to be as hard as Mega Man 2. They don’t, and they aren’t. Any declaration of any type of game being intrinsically superior to any other type of game should be– though usually isn’t– ignored in lieu of fostering somewhat more positive discussion about a hobby and/or passion most of us share.
No, the problem is not that ridiculously easy games exist. The problem isn’t really even that ridiculously hard games don’t exist. The problem is that ridiculously hard games don’t exist in the same way that they used to.
THQ files for bankruptcy protection, studios and games to be sold to bidder
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that THQ has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. After months of struggling, the company will now enter a purchasing agreement with a bidder to acquire “substantially all of the assets of THQ’s operating business, including THQ’s four owned studios and games in development.”
Filing for bankruptcy will allow for an easier transition of owned studios and games that are currently in the works. THQ Wireless, THQ Digital Studios Phoenix, Saints Row developer Volition Inc., and Darksiders creator Vigil Games are specifically mentioned in the announcement.
UK tabloids blame Call of Duty and Dynasty Warriors for Sandy Hook school tragedy
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments
After any tragic public display of violence– such as the recent, heartbreaking shooting at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Connecticut– there is always a certain subset of society that instantly tries to find something to blame like video games, movies, gun control laws, the media, etc. While narrowing the causes down to anything so simple is somewhat shortsighted and narrow-minded, it hasn’t stopped the UK tabloids from spreading misinformation about the shooter from Friday’s events.
“The Sun” and “The Daily Express” have both said they got information from a plumber (the irony is not lost) who got a look into the basement room where the shooter spent most of his time, and they said he appeared to play “Call of Duty” and “Dynasty Warriors”.
Petition for ‘Dark Souls II’ on Wii U started
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
I actually saw this on reddit a couple of days ago, but didn’t think it was news-worthy for our great website. Apparently, IGN has not such high standards.
I kid, of course. This is serious business, because the ultra-hard sequel to the ultra-tough game Dark Souls was announced just a few days ago for PS3, PC, and 360– but not for Wii U. Apparently a group of gamers is pretty frustrated by this, so they’ve started an online petition to try and get Namco Bandai to reconsider. Currently there are about 6,000 people who have pledged support, and while I’m not sure that’s quite enough to get the game released (try 100,000… or more!), it’s a start. If you would buy Dark Souls II on Wii U, add your name to the petition:
Eurocom officially shutdown
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments
After laying off 150 staffers last month, Eurocom has now dismissed its remaining employees and will now close its doors. The company suffered from a “severe cash flow shortage” once it was unable to land expected development contracts.
42 staff were left at the studio following last month’s wave of redundancies. They were each let go this morning.
A lengthy statement from Eurocom can be found below.
Activision executive says smartphones and tablets threaten the 3DS/Vita market
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
“It is a challenging market, and challenging in a number of ways. From a gameplay immersiveness standpoint, from price point and business model standpoint, I mean it’s $40 for some of those games and you can get great experiences – not necessarily comparable experience, but great nonetheless – for seven dollars on a tablet. Our relationships with Sony and Nintendo are important and we continue to support them by creating games on both [Vita and 3DS] platforms. Beyond that the market’s going to speak ultimately as to the viability of those products.” – Activision’s Vice President of Mobile Development, Greg Canessa
Well, I think the market is speaking fairly strongly on the issue! The 3DS just recently surpassed the lifetime sales of the Gamecube (yes, after just two and a half years being out), it’s halfway to meeting the lifetime sales of the SNES, and two-thirds of the way to meeting the N64’s lifetime sales. On top of that, it’s still outselling the original DS on a week-to-week basis!
Vita isn’t doing so hot, but I think the 3DS’ performance alone speaks to how healthy/unhealthy the portable gaming market is.
NBA 2K13 (Wii U) producer says devs shouldn’t base games around a console’s features, and instead only use them when they enhance the experience
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 0 comments
“One of the main things– and it’s a philosophy I wish more people would take– is not trying to build your game around what the feature set of the hardware is, but analyze how your customer has interacted with the game up to that point and see if the hardware’s feature set can further enhance that. Because you’ve been successful for a reason, so to go and try and reinvent everything just because you want to use this feature doesn’t necessarily mean your customer is going to enjoy the new experience.” – NBA 2K13 producer Rob Jones
Much like what Jim Sterling said in a recent piece about Black Ops 2 on Wii U, sometimes you just have to let games be regular games, even when a console has specific features that make it stand out. Mr. Jones seems to understand that! He continued:
“For example, with the Wii you could use the remote as a pointer, but people don’t experience basketball games that way, so trying to change the game just to get the Wii pointer to work didn’t make a lot of sense. PlayStation Move probably had the same kind of effect. We tried to make a game that could be played simply with the peripheral, but the peripheral just didn’t match our core customer. So what you’ll see with the Wii U title is we only did what we thought would be an extension of what our customers were already experiencing because it makes sense that way.”
I like this guy! He understands how games are made! Of course, it’s a steady balance– if you (as a developer) pass up the opportunity to use a feature that would clearly improve gameplay just because you’re lazy, and then you try and pass it off as “not being gimmicky”, you’ll get into trouble. I have a feeling that’s not what’s happening here though.
New ‘Kunio-kun’ game in the works?
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Before you scroll past because you have no idea what that is, Kunio-kun is the Japanese name for the series that spawned River City Ransom, Super Dodgeball, and Nintendo World Cup. So what does it mean that a teaser page for the series has been put up by Arc System Works?
It’s hard to say, but the last game released in this conglomerate series was a remake of Renegade on 3DS last year. That game has yet to come out outside of Japan.
Next ‘Inazuma Eleven’ game is getting back to its roots?
Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Fans of the soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven will be pleased to hear that a new game is in the works, and Level-5 CEO is saying that it will return to the “origin”. No exact word on what that means (translations are tough!), but I would guess he just means it’s getting back to its roots as a franchise.
Keep your eyes peeled– we’ll likely hear more shortly.
