| good chance to catch up |
[Mar. 1st, 2012|11:58 pm] |
a lot has been going on!
livejournal is clearly not a habit anymore, though darned if i don't keep tabs on my friends page.
there's probably a lot to catch up on.
the most obvious, biggest, and exciting thing is snoring away on my couch right now: francesco is here. he's been here since sunday and he's here until april, which is just amazing. ah, to live a normal life of a couple for that long. some people take that for granted.
we need to figure out our next steps, but for right now, this is pretty heavenly...
he's been hit really hard with the jetlag stick. i'd be more sympathetic, except that the last time i came to europe and was dying, he lectured me about how jetlag doesn't exist and if you don't want to sleep JUST DON'T SLEEP what could be easier! *facepalm*
i took him out to kinokuniya where he freaked and dropped $120 on artbooks within moments. :3 and then to the board game store. he's been happy. and so have i~
next week is GDC, which will be a madhouse. my schedule is shaping up really well, i think. it should be a good show. i love it, though it's such a long, draining week. one work day left until that happens... which i'll spend, at this point, trying to get as much unrelated stuff off my plate as i can, so it doesn't have to get all cobwebby. my schedule is about done.
i had a bunch of things in mind to blog about but then i had to run off and do some grownup chores and i forgot about them. erm.
oh, one is the last story. this is the new (A)RPG from mistwalker (sakaguchi's studio) and published by nintendo (well, in japan and europe -- it's being brought over by xseed in the US.) fran brought me a copy from italy and we have been tearing through it since he got here so he can review it.
well, also, we've been tearing through it because it's FUCKING AWESOME. i can't remember the last time i've been this into a game. fran and i have been handing off the controller and trying to play together exclusively (i've missed some because of work and stuff, but not that much.)
it's really an action RPG. it has some tactical elements to the battle system but basically (especially before they are introduced) you're more or less mashing on enemies musou-style. but this is fun, as everybody knows. the game gets so much right, too. pacing, for one. things (dungeons, battles, cutscenes, story segments) neither last too long nor are too short.
the story is a bit on the 16-bit JRPG side at times (hi sakaguchi!) but this is sometimes a benefit because you lose the kingdom hearts-ish ultrapretentious megacrap that infests the genre. also the localization is top notch -- the voice acting (all UK actors) is fan-fucking-tastic.
the game reminds me a lot of a bunch of other games thrown into a blender. and some of them might surprise you. gears of war is an obvious influence but it's only to the good. there's a cover system (!!) and some slight nods to the locust in the form of the burrowing reptids (though they're not the main antagonists.) it also has a merry band of mercs as the party, which is not exactly GOW but it's shooter-ish. but the characterizations are great -- which, again, is a 16-bit thing, if you think about it. really effective.
and the story is interesting. sometimes the characters will even surprise you by commenting on things being fishy or unlikely, which is such a refreshing change of pace for games. usually they follow the jem rule of "everybody just goes along with it for the sake of the plot."
i feel like i ought to talk about the gameplay more: you control the lead party character, and the rest of your group is AI. they can either be mages or melee characters, and they run around big battlefields. your job is basically to target the tough enemies that are the most strategically vital targets, or unravel the pattern/trick to the boss so you can actually damage it. you also have to resurrect your party (run and touch 'em, again, a bit of the gears influence.)
the main character steadily gets new abilities throughout the game, but it doesn't feel like an FF13-style drip-feed because the gameplay is always fun -- the new abilities just make it more strategic anytime it threatens to get samey. it's really well paced, did i mention?
and it looks gorgeous. yeah, you'll notice shit textures sometimes (it's a wii game) but the models and environments are as good as they get on the wii. it's a lovely game to look at -- really.
all in all i'm super into it. you simply have to buy it later this year. that and xenoblade as well.
which makes me realize that the two most innovative and cool JRPGs of the generation are both of the wii, both first party, and both released after the system died. what the fuck?
but beetween xenoblade, last story, and dark souls, nobody can make the argument that japan doesn't know how to develop games anymore. they just need to concentrate on (a) learning design lessons from contemporary games while innovating on them (b) sticking to tech they know and can work with (c) in genres they actually know how to make, not aping western stuff for the sake of aping it.
i mean, compare the last story -- an ARPG influenced by gears of war, with quantum theory, that piece of shit tecmo game that was a ripoff of gears of war with some attempts at innovation. i actually like shibata, the guy who directed that game, but it was such a misguided attempt to try and beat epic at its own game + innovate + code an engine from scratch instead of licensing unreal to do it. so wrong.
i hear binary domain is OK though. i really wanna try that and see. yakuza team shooter? neo-tokyo? uh, sure. yes. please.
and speaking of musou, as i did a bit above, i picked up one piece kaizoku musou as a surprise for fran, as he's an OP fanboy. after last story we might play that next. though i am dying to get my paws on asura's wrath, which i also have. interactive anime by cyberconnect 2? um, yes.
i still have a lot of 2011 games to play. and, hell, older. i'm playing dragon quest 9 now. it's nice! i know i was a hater up front, because i liked the direction 8 was taking the series, but that's obviously down the shitter for now, looking at 10. meanwhile, 9 is a really nicely made game if you take it for what it is, not what it's not. (that's something fran has been reminding me to do: take things for what they are. also, to give games a chance, since they all have flaws, rather than writing them off early on. that's the most important lesson, and one i already knew, but jadedness lured me into stopping doing.)
anyway.
i guess now i'll just layer in some links to my recent good work in case you aren't following me on twitter or facebook...
Mojang, take 2: Scrolls
everybody knows minecraft, but i speak to the co-founder of the company about mojang's new game, scrolls.
Unity's Future In High-Definition
unity, as far as game engines go, is becoming more and more powerful, and there's a big push from within the company to make it happen. so i talk to them. this is one of the things i did in sweden.
Emotional Poems: Mizuguchi's Expanding Future
tetsuya mizuguchi talks lumines, child of eden, and the future of games + humanity. for real. guest-starring my old coworker james mielke, who now lives in tokyo and works at Q.
Hanging in Limbo
big interview with the two main guys from playdead, the studio behind limbo. which is very overrated. i've been dying to say that publicly and my lj is obscure enough i guess.
David Jaffe and the Language of Interactivity
david jaffe talks about why games are the wrong medium for storytelling. playing the last story, i don't agree! but it's not as though his argument isn't easy to understand or compelling.
Building the World of Reckoning
a really interesting interview, imo, with the lead world builder of reckoning, that RPG that came out a bit ago. as far as an interview that really is developer-centric, this is my recent favorite of mine.
Talking the Future of Minecraft
interview with jens "jeb" bergensten about what the hell is up with the biggest little game ever.
Games That Can't Be Duplicated: Arc System Works' Ishiwatari Speaks
the dude who invented guilty gear talks to me about what he thinks. wide-ranging and fun.
The Verge of Change: Ben Cousins on Founding Ngmoco Sweden
this guy is bloody convinced that we are in a similar transition from consoles to tablets as we once (twice?) were from arcades to consoles. and he is going to be doing his damnedest to usher that along, btw. industry-watchers should read this one. |
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