tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post5593831895457557980..comments2024-02-26T00:27:47.712-08:00Comments on Cross-Up: Beyond: Two Souls (feat. Kamen Rider Fourze)Voltechhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01038586008627390463noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-37076995671470059702014-01-22T05:56:02.127-08:002014-01-22T05:56:02.127-08:00Well, Kostantine is pretty much right. I can't...Well, Kostantine is pretty much right. I can't top what he said. This industry is so backwards in how they manage budgets and determine financial success, I have no goddamn clue how these people live in their homes, buy food and clothes, and pay their taxes without ending up in the five-block long line for the soup kitchen once a week. No wonder no one has money anymore. It's being shoved into frivolous, forgettable, short-term shlock that will never serve any use to anyone because it will be replaced by more expensive junk that is just as broken. Then we ask why the money is gone and we're sitting in a pig sty.<br /><br /><br />But I digress.<br /><br /><br />Beyond 2 Souls just sucks on the most fundamental aspects of storytelling. I watched two playthroughs, and I had no clue what was happening. Once I got used to the scatter-brained order of events, I began listing the worst chapters in the whole tale because of how cliche, recycled, and ridiculous they are. The birthday party was a lazily terrible Carrie imitation, the punk phase was just filler - for the sake of following the misconception that all troubled girls dress in dark clothes, be emo, enjoy aggressive rock music, go out and have 30 year old men sexually assault them -, and Dafoe becoming a villain was the most bullshit plot twist I have ever seen. No one is likable, the events take place in a vacuum, many characters appear only once and are forgettable, and no moment was upsetting because of how much you care. For crying out loud, the boob and blood infested trash fest of Elfen Lied had better crafted and justified drama than this lifeless -<br /><br /><br />... Wait. I forgot what I was writing about. Why am I wasting my fingers typing away something so uninspiring when I could be going Christmas shopping? Hmm... better finish up my purchases.<br /><br /><br />Meanwhile, I should go back to playing Etrian Odyssey.<br /><br /><br />And maybe check out this Kamen Rider Fourze. If Gurren Lagann made my cynical self get swept away so easily, this might be fun to watch.Melanie Lightnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-45782292867829195092013-12-28T21:15:01.619-08:002013-12-28T21:15:01.619-08:00Percy Jackson was 95 million, huh? God, all the f...Percy Jackson was 95 million, huh? God, all the families that could have been fed...and they had to make a movie with a dancing goat man. They just HAD to. As if they sat around a round table and said, "This. This, gentlemen, will be our legacy."<br /><br /><br />Someone get me ALL of the drinks.<br /><br /><br />I won't deny that the film industry spends about ten times as much on their products as the games industry. I don't even like thinking that amounts of money that large are even possible, let alone spent routinely. But man, the parallels between the two are really starting to become more apparent, aren't they? I might be reaching a bit here, but when the latest Godzilla movie trailer reminds me more of Call of Duty than Godzilla, and this "Edge of Tomorrow" feels more like any given sci-fi TPS than anything else...well, I can't help but be a little worried. But that's a whole can of worms I don't feel like opening.<br /><br /><br />I see where you're coming from on "validating the medium" -- well, to some extent, at least. There's no such thing as a perfect game, but even if there was, there's no way anyone can prove that said game is what makes the medium worthwhile. Metal Gear Rising is my personal Game of the Year for a number of reasons, but how could I use it to prove games' worth? I don't know. I doubt it's possible. Plenty of gamers have already shrugged it off, and just trying to convince non-gamers that it's high-quality -- "it" being a game featuring a sombrero-wearing cyborg and the central mechanic being slow-motion, high-fidelity body-severing -- is about as easy as climbing a mountain without arms and legs. I guess the most that can be done (for now at least) is to enjoy the games we can, and try to understand why...maybe so we can ask for, and look for, more like them.<br /><br /><br />Whatever the case, another dazzling comment. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand once again, you've proven that you're at least 1.54 times smarter than me. In at least 1/5th the space of my average.post. MAXIMUM REJOICE.Voltech44noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-27262179675605514202013-12-28T04:12:19.705-08:002013-12-28T04:12:19.705-08:00That's a pretty damn eloquent and to the point...That's a pretty damn eloquent and to the point response to me, Sean.Kostantinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-50836255780200215472013-12-28T01:28:54.455-08:002013-12-28T01:28:54.455-08:00This relates to my reply to Konstantine. I found a...This relates to my reply to Konstantine. I found an article soon after my post that demonstrated my point rather well.<br /><br />For one, movie costs don't include marketing. Video game costs do. <br /><br />Essentially, I only object to the use of "this industry." The entertainment industry as a whole needs to cut back drastically. <br /><br />http://www.iii.co.uk/motley-fool/121281/why-you-can%E2%80%99t-compare-grand-theft-auto-5-movie-industrySean Weeksnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-59201823469892264992013-12-28T01:24:28.387-08:002013-12-28T01:24:28.387-08:00Repetition of "by the way" in paragraph ...Repetition of "by the way" in paragraph four. Och.Sean Weeksnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-18884016295046840132013-12-28T01:23:10.157-08:002013-12-28T01:23:10.157-08:00*Yeah, it feels weird to me too.
I suspect a numb...*Yeah, it feels weird to me too.<br /><br />I suspect a number of these typos litter the text. <br /><br />Whatever. Goin' to bed.Sean Weeksnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-78290434979446835092013-12-28T01:21:57.738-08:002013-12-28T01:21:57.738-08:00The blog ate my reply. I'll cut to the chase.
...The blog ate my reply. I'll cut to the chase.<br /><br />The film industry is no better. In fact, it's much worse. Video games are cheap in comparison to movies. Pirate's of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Curse of the Black Pearl cost 450 million each; Pirate's third installment cost 300 million; Waterworld cost 172 million, and that's not accounting for inflation; Spider Man 3 cost 258 million; Tangled cost 278 million; Wild Wild West cost 278 million. Kevin Smith's Clerks is infamous for its "low budget" cost of 5 million. 27 million is on the low spittin' side of any movie you'd care to name. <br /><br />Hollywood gets far too much valor in the videogame community. Our large budgets are a result of cultural excess, not subcultural largesse. I'm simultaneously not worried about the video game community and concerned by the lack of big picture thinking here. Film costs are often obscured by budgets adjusted in post-production, bargaining fees, and increased stock exposure, whereas games tend to get made on the budget they put on paper.<br /><br />Yeah, it's feels weird to me too. Games are actually more responsible about their budgets than movies. It's disturbing we don't emotionally recognize that because that means Hollywood producers get a convenient "moral panic" distraction while they bankroll bigger and bigger flops (Percy Jackson was 95 mil, by the way, Voltech). I'm not defending developers, by the way. Every budget I see needs to get slashed. There's no reason for our entertainment to cost this much. This phenomenon is, however, the result of a greater cultural schism. <br /><br />But the gaming community seems to shoulder the entire cultural burden by themselves. <br /><br />So why do gamers and developers like Jonathan Blow (who seems like an honest craftsman and not a calumny factory like some of his fellows) act as if they're trapped in an industry which singularly thrives on talent abuse? Well, it's because a generation of critical peers have convinced us that we're a problem akin to the tobacco industry and must self-regulate in order to look respectable. Meanwhile, there's a canard tossed out over and over again in video game discussions: well, does it validate the practice of making video games? Can we place it in Plexiglas and label it Exhibit A?<br /><br />These people automatically assume we're under trial. <br /><br />They should be ashamed of themselves. Nothing on this Earth in movies or books, prose or poetry can stand to validate the medium it's in. Everything has its detractors who believe it doesn't represent the virtues of the medium in which it's placed. You're never going to find a perfect sentence, a perfect book, or a perfect movie that will convince everyone that it's "what it means to video game." <br /><br />Yet many gamers (who tend overly associate themselves with the medium to an unhealthy degree by using that label -- myself included) have deluded themselves into thinking this way, and it's tearing the whole community apart. Even if that canard isn't embraced by the larger community, it's pursued tirelessly by its ambassadors.<br /><br />I wrote a longer, more eloquent response earlier. My words are clumsy and insufficient here.Sean Weeksnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-65592475441886150692013-12-20T21:52:08.253-08:002013-12-20T21:52:08.253-08:00Well, I've heard the argument that "the e...Well, I've heard the argument that "the entertainment industry is recession-proof". There's probably some truth in that (there are probably a ton of movies that reach into the hundred million-dollar range, because reasons), but if the number of studio closures in the game industry are any indication, that's not exactly an ironclad rule. <br /><br /><br />It's a shame that 2Souls turned out as bad as it did. It really is. I have to respect the ambition that Cage/Quantic Dream had, but they don't have either the skills OR the vision to make something more than The Try-Hard Bonanza Quest. It's as if they willingly decided to make all the worst possible choices for the game and the story, and in doing so effectively wasted their goodwill AND the funding from Sony AND hundreds, likely thousands, of players' time. It just could have been so much more.<br /><br /><br />Speaking of Kostantine, you should probably check his blog, Shapescapes, for a much better what-if version of 2Souls. He does the concept justice in a way Cage and his EMOTIONS never could.<br /><br /><br />In any case, if I get one person to check out Fourze, I can consider my life complete. That said, I'll admit right now that while it's got some high quality, it's not the best written of the KR series I've seen. That's not to say that it's bad; it's just that compared to OOO (the series that came before it) it's not quite as...well, let's call it "intelligent" and leave it at that. So I guess if you want Gurren Lagann-style thrills, energy and spirit, start with Fourze. If you want something that'll tickle your brain a bit -- along with a surprisingly-awesome anti-hero/foil/bro/maybe-sorta-love interest -- start with OOO. <br /><br /><br />Or go with W. It's got detectives and junk. And a cat that can henshin.Voltech44noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-50280832659573732572013-12-18T21:09:33.765-08:002013-12-18T21:09:33.765-08:00Yeah, I've seen it -- and I haven't forgot...Yeah, I've seen it -- and I haven't forgotten about it, mind. I've actually come up with a few ideas, but the problem lies in the execution of them...along with deciding on which one to go with. And which one is actually, you know, good. But whatever. We'll just see how it goes.<br /><br /><br />But yes, you're exactly right about the game industry getting out of hand...which is, unfortunately, common knowledge by now. That Tomb Raider game that came out a while back? Cost about $100 million, as far as I know. Sold three million plus copies. Deemed a financial failure by Square-Enix. Let that sink in for a moment.<br /><br /><br />Resident Evil 6 is in the same boat. I don't know how much it cost, but it was made with a team of 600+ members across several studios. Sold about...I think it was 4.8 million or so? Well, it doesn't matter, because that was ALSO deemed a failure by Capcom -- a company that just months ago was reported to barely have enough money to make a game. Let THAT sink in for a moment. A company that makes games almost didn't have the money to make games because it made a game.<br /><br /><br />And lest we forget, DmC. Capcom/Ninja Theory originally wanted to sell 5 million copies of that game. When it got closer to release (and the backlash was still in full swing), they lowered the number to 2 million...except money already got pissed away to use "the same motion capture technology as Avatar". Now I'm hearing that DmC barely made 1.1 million sales -- just over half the second projection, and a fifth of the original. Little wonder, then, that Ninja Theory -- the company that, prior to release, suggested that DmC would be a literary evolution designed to take games to the next level -- is now saying that the market is borked and mobile games are the way of the future.<br /><br /><br />The question, good sir, is not whether or not the gaming industry is fucked. The question is how hard it's fucked. Which, as it turns out, is plenty.<br /><br /><br />But on the plus side, at least The Wonderful 101 came out before it all crashed and burned. If you haven't seen anything of it yet, I would proooooooooooobably head over to YouTube. I have a sneaking suspicion you might like what you see.Voltech44noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-51678407003480501092013-12-18T11:30:15.827-08:002013-12-18T11:30:15.827-08:00Personally, I don't believe Two Souls is too m...Personally, I don't believe Two Souls is too much deserving of our hate. Not because it's shit (because it totally is) but because, after checking up on your comment that a 27 million dollar game is at the low-end of an A-list next gen game I realized that Call Of Duty: Same Shit, Different cover (or Ghosts, for short) cost nearly a hundred million dollars and was dubbed 'the most forgettable piece of crap ever'.<br /><br />I think that Beyond signifies something much more than an example of a shitty game: it's a clear sign that the game industry is losing it, spending good money that COULD feed starving children or save Third-World countries not through charity but through some halfway intelligent investment and it instead gets wasted on 3-d photorealistic panoramas. I know I am probably getting way off topic here, but when GTA5 ends up costing 285 million (the GDP of FUCKING MALTA) it means that we have let our entertainment get out of hand and that Two Souls is the schlocky afterbirth.<br /><br />Oh and since you mentioned Kamen Rider Fourze, I am just gonna leave this here...*shameless promotion*<br /><br />http://shapescapes.blogspot.gr/2013/12/transforming-titans-super.htmlKostantinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-55978983151502508802013-12-17T19:46:15.648-08:002013-12-17T19:46:15.648-08:00To be fair, it was a pretty easy task. I can'...To be fair, it was a pretty easy task. I can't look at Gentaro/Fourze without a big goofy smile sliding across my face. I can't look at Jodie/2Souls without groaning and rolling my eyes. Everything that came after that was a snap.<br /><br /><br />That said -- and I hate even thinking this -- I agree with you. 2Souls IS pretty much a virtual hate crime. I don't know what David Cage and his buddies at Quantic Dream are thinking up next, but I hope, DEARLY, that they take the criticisms lobbed at this game to heart.<br /><br /><br />Alternatively, I hope they realize that there's more than one emotion in the world besides "sadness." If they can just give me that instead of more try-hard melodrama, I'll salute them.Voltech44noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6904713839696769313.post-52978627027322018092013-12-17T12:41:37.968-08:002013-12-17T12:41:37.968-08:00Glad to see another person feels the same way abou...Glad to see another person feels the same way about the virtual hatecrime that was Two Souls.. and somehow stay on topic while gloating about Kamen Rider. I commend you!Cheap_Boss_Attackhttp://cheapbossattack.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com