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25.10.13

My toughts on Quantic Dream


If there's one trait I admire in a developer, is their ability to do exactly what they want and 
not go for what's hot and popular. So essentially I like devs that are outside the mainstream in one way or another....Guess that makes me a bit of a hipster. Oh well, In anycase while Quantic Dream is certainly no obscure gaming company, they're games are in no way traditional. 

More like interactive movies than games, taking a tiny step back to the fmv era with mostly QTE driven gameplay, they certainly are a very divisive group. You either love them or hate them with a burning passion. I love my devs this way, because if you like their flavour they give you lots of it. 

It's kind of like with food. For example notice how you always prefer home made food over some factory ready made thing or school cafeteria food is because, the ready made stuff and school cafeteria food needs to be ok for as many people as possible. If they make it too much the way some specific person likes it they end up alienating a good chunk of potential customers while some customers absolutely love it.

In my opinion this can be applied to video games. Games cashing in on whats popular all have this
trying to appeal to everyone wibe in it, wich means the end result may be alright but it's not something you'll remember for years and years because it was tailor made for your tastes.

But back to Quantic Dream. Id like to talk about each game of theirs that I've played and share my toughts on them and go on a bit more detail on common critisisms of the games
(especially heavy rain).

But before we go any further we need to adress one elephant in the room.
QTE's. I personally dont have a problem with QTE's in this manner, the whole game is built on them. 
This has been made very clear by everyone involved, so just be an informed consumer. 
If QTE's arent up your alley at all, dont play the game.

Farenheit/Indigo prophecy

 Just around the time Heavy Rain was coming out, I borrowed this game from a friend for the PS2.
My expieriences were mixed. The story had a pretty solid setup but around halfway the game went to completely different direction (if you played the game you know what I mean). Also the game over, while not a bad thing, certainly hinders the interactive movie thing a bit. Why? Well, it kind of makes your choices and gameplay rather uninteresting. 
Quantic Dream wanted this game to be a movie where your choices and game performance
 change the outcome, but they also wanted it to be a game.
To me this sort of highlights why strict failure states with game over screens don't really
work for a game like Heavy Rain.
With constant game overs it becomes apparent that most of your choices in the 
game dont really matter, they only result into an uninteresting game over.
To slighlty spoil the game, only factor defines what ending you get, and it's so darn obvious
that it really dosent warrant multiple playtroughs, because you know that the other choices lead to a game over. So its basically a bit more forgiving version of
Dragons Lair with some puzzleish things thrown in. 
Even despite all of that I can forgive the game a little, Quantic Dream was clearly experimenting (as they most likely still are), and they really hadn't found their formula yet and were still compromising with their gameplay elements (namely still having game overs).
But It's still an interesting experiment and it leaves you craving more from them because it has alot of potential. Wich convieniently brings us to.


Heavy Rain
Since Farenheit wasn't all that well know it mostly avoided the mudslinging 
that Heavy Rain recieved. Because of this I'm going to be alot more defensive on this so...yeah.
Anyhow, the hype for this game was......odd to say the least. Since their previous game was kind of a hidden gem, you'd never think that their next game would be such a hype machine. I guess Sony was really excited over any exclusive at that point.
In any case that hype might be the reason people are sort of quick to argee to any 
critique of the game. However it does not excuse some of the downright stupid and even false accusations. one of such accusations is that "there is no way to lose the game".
Technically this is true, there is indeed nothing in the game that states that you have failed.

However, all of your characters can die wich in any gaming circle is considered a bad ending. There are a copule of other bad endings as well. Personally I consider these bad endings as a failure state. Again, the game itself never declares that you failed, but when they tryed that before in farenheit the game sort of lost it's weight. "Oh, you died? Oh well gotta try again. Shame that really didnt change the outcome of the game" instead In Heavy Rain it's more like "Oh crap, this character died. I wonder how this will end now". 

Also this puts more weight into the otherwise bit dull QTE gameplay, since results are permanent. But that brings us to the next argument about how even if you fail a QTE you wont fail the entire game (like in dragons lair for example), and while it's true that not every QTE failure changes anything, the first time playing you really dont know wich failure gets you killed and wich dosent. And that add to the tension You dont know wich failure will get you killed, but you know that any one of your mistakes could be fatal.

This game isnt without it's share of flaws and I think it's all again about Quantic Dreams ongoing experiment of searching their style but here they have clearly improved already.
For example I hate how the game seems to give you a tutorial like task every so often. Making the omelette, trying get the baby to sleep etc etc etc. Ya know tasks that arent too hard and are missing all the weight that the more actiony scenes contain.

Also slow walking parts despite what Extra Credits says, are really dull compared to the weight of the actiony scenes. They're slow and meant to more set the mood and give a break. While there's nothing exactly wrong with this, it's still rather dull.

Also the controls are fucking weird, now I know what some of you are thinking. "Controls bad? What, but it's QTE's". The answer is because you do actually directly control your characters at times, however because of the changing camera angle I guess, you walk by pressing R2, wich is the most ackward thing ever. I understand why but goddamn is it weird.

Overall I think Quantic really found their direction with this game, and while it still needs a little tweaking, It's still a really great effort. Not to mention it was genuienly rather touching

Beyond Two Souls

With this game I have very little input on mostly because I only played the demo, however I wanted to comment my toughts based on the demo in contrast with BadCop69's video

 He complains about the controls, wich is weird because in the demo I found that the control was more fluent and natural than in Heavy Rain. It's kind of like comparing Red Dead Redemptions horse controls to shadow of the colossus. In SOTC the horse control is really natural while in RDR it's pretty much the car controls from GTAIV with living a creature. Then again I havent played the full thing so maybe it becomes a problem later on. Also from what I understand the main character can't die. So im curious as to how they're able to keep the tension up.


 Conclusion
 Quantic Dream are an experimental
bunch, they do thing differently wich opens new ways to look at games.
They didnt find find their absolute perfect direction with Heavy Rain, but it's still a significant improvement over their previous effort. Let's hope the evolution keeps going.

Now that I've opened up this whole talk I suppose
I should adress my opinion on David Cage as well.

Maybe next time, for now let this wall of text full of opinions be enough.

27.2.13

PS4 and the technical confusion around it.

So, PS4 announcement happened. Nothing exciting there really, except that Sony finally figured out the importance of RAM, oh and the change to processor architecture from POWER to x86 wich is good since now making games for the system is about as easy as it is for the PC. 
But with that change apparently comes alot of confusion for some.
Since they are changing the arcitechture, backwards compatability with PS3 is of out of the question and some people just can't comprehend this. I've seen this twice in the past week. 
First in this weeks Jimquisition.
And once more on AlphaOmegaSins video on the subject, 
and the comment section of both of course. 
Both of them were basically argouing the same thing but Im gonna adress 2 arguments 
that just baffle me.

 Lets go over Mister Jim Sterling first since he does this shit for a living.

"There is Sony again fumbling with an inability to provide backwards compatability
for PS3, even the shit you bought on PSN. Physical discs I kind of get because of the cell processor nonsense, but PSN games? No excuse there, PS4's new innards are no excuse"  - Jim Sterling

Im sorry, what? Do you have any fucking idea how computers work? At all? Im betting the answer is no, because this is pretty retarded logic. The storage media has fuckall to do with any given software functioning correctly. Software is software, If its programmed to work on certain proseccor architechture, it wont work on another one without emulation of that hardware, wich will be discussed more in length when I adress the next person but before that. I do understand the frustration however, it might not be cool decision gaming wise since it limits 
the game library to PS4 games only.
But the thing is that the choice Sony had was either to keep the 
clusterfuck that was the cell processor,
or become more developer friendly. 
They chose developer friendliness, sucks for your backwards compatability 
but thats just how that goes. 
Oh and before you ask the first bach of PS3's had backwards compatability solely because they also had PS2 parts in the system, wich they took out to make the system cheaper to buy.
So unless you want to pay 900 bucks for PS4,
then just accept that there is no backwards compatability.

Now, time to adress another topic, Emulation.
Ahh yes, the thing that makes playing anything on anything possible. 
Ok I'm lying, emulation is pretty much ALWAYS inaccurate.
But lets see what others say about this godsend technology.


From some guy on the comment section of AlphaOmegaSins video





Oh really now? So you're saying that you have achieved perfect ps2 emulation on your PC?
Either you're an amazing programmer that has done his own emulator that the rest of us dont have, or you just dont see the inconsistensies and framrate drops. Say, how much frameskip do you use?
Why do I doubt you? Well here's a link to the system requirements for a perfect SNES emulator. 
You see how absurd those requirements are for such an old system? Yeah so perfect PS2 emulation is literally impossible as of right now, playable sure but not perfect. And how realistic does that PS3 emulation seem now? Even playable PS3 emulation is literally impossible as of right now. 
So yeah there's your fucking emulation.
It's like tryin to fit a square piece trough the trianlge shape hole. It dosent work unless you make the piece out of sponge or similiar material, and after that it isnt the same piece.

In conclusion I really dont fault AlphaOmegaSin for not knowing all of this, He is just a guy on youtube, I can cut you some slack for not googling this one. But with Jim, dude, your job is journalism or so you say. Research is a part of that, you should really learn your shit 
before spreading misinformation.

9.2.13

The darkness in horizon

So ever since the talk about WiiU started, so did the talk about mircosoft and sonys new line ups.
While at first it didnt seem too likely, now it will probably be 
at the very least be accouned by the next E3.

Some seem to be exited, im really not. In fact as far as consoles go I havent been too impressed by the current gen at all. So this is gonna be a longwinded explanation 
to my negativity towards one of my beloved hobbies.

One reason I'm not too intersted in new console lineup is that console launched have sucked in the last few years. PS Vita, 3DS and WiiU have all launched with barely any games worth playing, even PS3 had this same issue but at least companies were kinda holding up. Not recently though.

Another big issue is market demand for rather dull games. Im sorry but  in no way can I say with any kinda honesty, that I find any enjoyment in most western developed games. 
For example the "western" approach to RPGs seems to be to give you a big sandbox with a dialogue system that uses a bland flowchart to determine wheter you're a pure innocent angel or a wittle naughty boy, oh and throw those stats there somewhere. That same flowchart morality mechanic is in many many other western developed games, the reasons why this bothers me should be another post on its own, but for now it helps to know that I dont like binary moral systems.

Also, Military FPS's just have never ever been my thing but even for those who like this stuff, do you really find yearly installment of every game THAT enjoyable? They're not that different.
Also talking about games that are pretty much the same fucking game every year, Nintendo.
Before you hang me as a youngster who just dosent understand the ways on ye olde. Know that I still wish I had my old NES around. But even when I wish that, I cant help but to question why would anyone buy Zelda games anymore, theyre the EXACT SAME GAME EACH TIME. 
No really, just count the differences, and you find that there are maybe a few new characters here and there, and the central gameplay gimmick is different, and by that I mean you use some mcguffin to solve your way trough certain problems.

Also the death of certain franchises is just downright sad,
though it isnt suprising since horror games have pretty much all become pc exclusive facecam let's play fuel, DMC style games are alive only with Bayonetta (and that WiiU exclusivity for Bayonetta 2 still sucks altough, I understand why it's happening), all the while the actual DMC franchise gets rebooted by a bunch of british idiots that dont know a fuck about gameplay. Tomb Raider has been a dead franchise for good decade now (In my opinion anyway). 

So, if most of the major franchises are either not my thing at all, and most the old big franchises are dead in my eyes, what is there left for me to be exited about the new generation?

The answer is nothing.

The big question is what do you think, yes you, who found this by accident or I linked this to, Seriously I want some input on this. Agree, Disagree, Call me a douchebag, whatever, I just want to hear discussion.

25.1.13

Random Paint Comic post

I sometimes just draw these out of nowhere so I might as well post some of them here

24.1.13

DmC, MGR:R and action games in general

So, the trainwreck that is DmC has come out,
judging by the demo I played it's exactly as I perdicted.
An average game completely overshadowed by the much better predecessors in the franchise. and in honor of the release of the bleh game, I stared playing DMC3 on the HD collection and man oh man does that game still hold up. 

CHURAAAAAZEE!!!!

Its kinda sad how completely Ninja Theory misunderstood the desing of Devil May Cry and action games in general for that matter. 60 fps of those games isnt just for show you know, its important for reaction time based manuevers such as doging. Oh and while were at it, 
HAVE A FUCKING LOCK ON BUTTON.


Fuck You!!!
Ninja theorys response to lock on button request

The Metacritic page for this game kinda saddens me as well, It clearly shows that the people who review these games are truly incompetent. Or paid off but I still truly question that notion, because I don't wear a tinfoil hat while I'm sleeping.

But not to worry because there is another action game in horizon that looks really impressive so far,
Metal Gear Rising: Revengance.

Despite it's ridiculous name, the actual game (judging by the demo again) is really impressive. 
Playing this after DmC's 30fps slugfest feels so goood. One thing that took me by suprise was that the game does still allow for stealth gameplay, altough the enemy AI is kinda dumb so sneaking by them isnt exactly a challenge. Still, it's a viable option to take enemies out since Raiden dies VERY easily.
I'm really exited to hopefully get my hands on the full product

And after all of that I leave you with what everyone remembers from the demo: