Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, getting busy signals when you’re trying to vote for Paul McDonald, Kobe Bryant’s unfortunate language, or BlackBerry PlayBook reviews, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
People in the gaming business love creative games. Titles like Flower, Limbo, Braid, Swords and Sworcery, etc. are almost universally loved by people in the gaming the business. Some feel that these games deserve every bit of praise they get. Others feel that insiders get overly enamored with games that are different, simply because they’re different.
I think both are true to a certain degree. I adore Flower for its originality and uncanny resemblance to several dreams I’ve had. I also understand that most gamers are of the balls-and-guns variety — Madden and Halo are way more important to them than some artsy game with flower petals that may or may not be the result of too many marijuana brownies. I can count on writing about a Madden game or a Halo game every year or so, but a game like Flower is more exciting to write about because it’s atypical.
Do you think the gaming business is guilty of overrating and over-hyping creative games? Or should these titles be lauded for being refreshingly different? Do you like reading about and playing unique games from indie developers? Or would you rather stick to balls and guns?
Yeah I think too much praise is given to those types of games. Flower and Limbo were kinda so so to me and I didn't get all the fuss. Braid was fun and Sword and Sworcery is good simply because it is a new bar for the iPad. I do enjoy my visceral run and gun with lots of cussing type of games though. Seeing as how I'm an adult, I enjoy some over the top stuff :)
Kobe's fine is ridiculous if you ask me. I think in America we get to offended by things. Should he have called the guy what he did? (i'm not using the word simply because you didn't in the opening). Guys trash talk in sports all the time. If they had to keep it nice and clean, I'd like to remind you of the fun we had with Kevin Garnett's trash talk. That was a great Coffee Talk.
Are the reviews bad for the PlayBook? I'm enjoying ME2 so far btw. Hype was good for this game.
The reviews are mediocre to bad. Two of my friends reviewed it and said it was buggier and more incomplete than the Xoom. The more interesting part is that the PlayBook is a good indicator of what BlackBerry OS will be like in 2012.
@Ray
I expected less than perfect with the exclusion of native chat and email but that is unfortunate to hear. Makes you realize just how long Apple has been envisioning the iPad huh?
I think there could actually be interesting competition by Q4. Android will be ready by then and will have more tablet-specific apps. The PlayBook just seems like a QNX testbed to me. The lack of an email client — you know, that thing BlackBerries excel at — is just dumb.
@Ray
Hopefully. I'd like this new market segment to be highly competitive. Even Apple isn't immune to doing something minimal if there is no real competition. Honeycomb needs some good 3rd party support though and I'm curious to see if Google is going to allow the skins on it. I have ideas on that front but they don't necessarily stem from general distaste of custom skins. I think Honeycomb needs to be just that…Honeycomb in order to push iOS on the tablet front.
In a word yes. I do think that the games press gets enamored with certain games because they are "different." Heavy Rain is another game that falls into that same category for me. But a good game is a good game whether it's "different" or not. A bad game is a bad game whether it's "different" or not.
In fairness, I think that we all tend to overlook flaws in certain games for different reasons though. I'll gladly overlook the planet scanning in ME2 because the rest of the game is phenomenal (glad you're enjoying it Smartguy). In the case of most game writers, you can only play so many Section 8's before you long for something different, so it's understandable to some degree that when something new and different comes along that they gravitate towards it.
That being said, mediocrity does seem to get rewarded quite often by game reviewers simply because it's "creative." And that's where I kinda lose patience. If it's an average game, it's average no matter how "new" and "refreshing" it is.
I wasn't specifically talking about the press. The press are barely a part of the business. The sentiment is much bigger than that.
It's weird that you put Heavy Rain in the same group as Flower, Limbo, etc. Quantic Dream has an established style and a track record to follow. Comparing its third big-budget game to debut titles from small indie developers doesn't make sense to me.
@Ray
I agree with Nightshade. That game departed from the normal type of mechanics and did a quicktime and button mashing scheme. To me that was a form of creativity and or departure.
I really think if that game had a different control scheme then I would have liked it.
It departed from the norm, but played very similarly to the company's previous game. So really, it wasn't anything new for the developer.
@Ray
Why does that matter? Heavy Rain was a lot of gamer's first interaction with that developer. I know it was mine for sure.
It was different and praised for its way of playing though. I don't see why you want to say that isn't relevant.
Yeah, I agree with Smartguy on this one. People who play a lot of games for a living often forget that most gamers don't play everything. Just because something has been done before by developer X, that doesn't mean that it still isn't different from the overall norm, which is going to be most gamers experience. if you never played Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain's "gameplay" is completely new concept.
Are we talking about you as a consumer? Or Nightshade as a reviewer? It's one thing if it's new to you as a gamer, but for someone that reviews games that's just ignoring history.
Is it? Or is it acknowledging that to most people it's going to be "new" and "exciting," and that if we don't acknowledge that we're basically being arrogant about the fact that "we know more than you do!"? I can see the argument both ways.
Being prepared with background information is arrogant? Uh…okay.
Depends on how it's presented.
That's straying from the point. I was surprised that you, as someone that reviews games, put Heavy Rain in the same category as Braid, Limbo, and Flower.
We are talking about creative overrated and over-hype creative games, no? Heavy Rain just about fits that bill, even if it wasn't an indie game.
@Ray
Of course it's arrogant if you think that everyone reading a piece on something knows the intricate backgrounds that a fanboy/superfan/enthusiast knows. That goes for anything honestly. Music, movies, games, sports, etc.
I don't see how Heavy Rain doesn't fit into this discussion. If you want to exclude it, then you'd have to include Indigo Prophecy right? That is if it played the same as Heavy Rain. If that's the case then both are overrated in my opinion.
When did I say anything about the readers knowing the backgrounds. I was talking about the writer.
Again, Heavy Rain has precedent — several actually. Does Flower?
I was comparing it from the point of view that because it's "different" it gets more praise than it should as a "game."
The game was praised primarily for its storytelling. Secondarily the graphics and music impressed. If anything, what made it atypical — its control scheme — was used against it.
Yeah, we've been down this road before and we're never going to agree about the game's qualities. But it's clearly atypical of the video game market and a more "artsy" effort than most. Thus it falls into "different."
If you were speaking specifically about developers, you're talking about artists who like artsy stuff. I don't see what's so surprising about that.
I wasn't speaking specifically about developers either, but certainly more about developers than journalists. Even on the publishing side, these games get a lot of love.
If publishers REALLY loved these games, we'd see a lot more games like them and a lot less of "random shooter #507." But publishers REALLY like games that make money. It's kinda the whole point of their business. Fact of the matter is, personal love for a type of game doesn't translate into a business decision, which means that their personal love for these types of games has just barely above zero influence on the average gamer. They may publish the occasional "creative" game as a way to expand their portfolio (and they may even genuinely like the games), but they're not gonna put a whole lot of eggs in that basket. As such, who cares if they "love" these types of games or not if they're not actually publishing more of them? Until you start seeing a lot more artistic games actually make it to retail, critical response has a lot more influence on the average gamer than what John Riccotello thinks in the deep dark recesses of his mind.
You misread again. I wasn't speaking about publishers as companies. I talking about people that work on the publishing side. You'll notice that I was referring to journalists (people) and developers (also people). I wasn't talking about companies at all.
Well since I don't see Bobby Kotick writing any op eds about how he wished he'd published Flower, I don't see how their personal opinion on the subject really matters all that much. it's inside baseball if it doesn't actually trickle down to the consumer.
Honestly Ray, I'm a bit confused about your premise since you specifically asked, "Do you like reading about and playing unique games from indie developers?" and then said "I wasn’t specifically talking about the press." Well, no matter how ofter David Cage runs his mouth about how much he hates the video game industry, most people wouldn't even hear about it if someone didn't report it. So thus the games press is an important part of the equation, especially if we're talking about "overrating and over-hyping creative games."
You took that quote completely out of context. Look at the question you answered "yes" to and look at how you introduced the press in the follow-up sentence.
I'm almost laughing that you think the press is an important part of the business.
The premise is that the gaming business is caught up in its own little world. If you went to DICE or GDC or E3, it would be easy to have a passionate discussion about Flower. It would be much harder have an exciting conversation about Madden. Yet far more people outside of the business are interested in Madden.
Maybe your context isn't as ironclad as you think it is.
Okay, but are you still confused by the premise? I don't know how to make it any simpler for you.
If your premise is that "it's easier to go on for hours with a developer about Flower than Madden, and the rest of this discussion is irrelevant," than I tend to think the premise is going to be irrelevant to anyone who's never been to DICE or GDC.
@Ray
I'm not following your context here. The way I understood it is that you meant the gaming industry (that includes press) over hypes these games. If you meant solely the consumer then we aren't talking about the games mentioned so far like Flower. We'd be talking about FF7 which is way over hyped.
So I'm doing a convo with you and everyone as it concerns the whole industry and not just a consumer point of view. Which is it?
Read the comment I wrote to Nightshade at 10:11AM.
I want the creativity in games that I play, but a game like Halo can be creative each time if it tries to be—even if it does come out every other year or so. I do think that creativity is taken for granted a lot of times though with games that come out each year, but most developers enjoy seeing or implementing creativity in games. It's something to strive for, but hard to achieve.
@BSU
I think creativity is harder to achieve on the consoles because of the business models in place. DLC, franchises, sequels, etc. But yeah, something refreshing is nice to see.
In general, I think a lack of creativity — or really opportunities to be creative — should be blamed on the publisher.
@Smartguy
Yeah the model that is in place can certainly make for a difficult time with the creative process. But I think that despite those limitations a creative developer will find some way of using that to their advantage, or at least they can.
@Ray
That's probably true, publishers seem less willing (cough bobby kotick cough) to invest in new IP's and instead opt for overdoing it with old IP's. It can make developers afraid of being creative I'm sure.
Since we are incorporating titles that aren't just indie games…I will go on record and say this:
Ico was horrible to me. I don't know why the praise is there. I think it was inflated because it was different.
There…I said it.
I liked Shadow of the Colossus more myself, but I did enjoy Ico.
Yeah SotC was a better game. I found ICO to just be drab. I couldn't force myself to finish it either. Which is significant because back then when I bought a game, I HAD to finish it since I couldn't afford more than 2 games per month.
I was really drawn in by the setting of Ico I think. It was majestic and sad all at once. I think that allowed me to gloss over some of the gameplay issues that I would usually have hated. The game is, to an extent, one big escort mission. And I HATE escort missions.
@Nightshade
Yeah that sums it up pretty well.
I played Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom and it was sort of like an escort mission game but different. Kind of like an RTS/squad game. So I'm open to diff types, just that one fell flat on its face to me haha.
( i agree the planet scanning is a bit of a chore)
I haven't played Majin, but I see it's gotten some mixed user reviews on Gamefly. I had it on my Q for a while but the more something falls into the backlog, the more likely I am to take it off so I can get relevant games to review. I may go back and play it at some point though.
@Nightshade386 Again, the connection between Heavy Rain and Flower is a stretch for me. Was there a game like Flower before? Not that I know of. Was there a game like Heavy Rain before? Yes, including two made by the same developer. One game has a precedent and the other doesn't. That's a huge difference.
You are splitting hairs on that one Ray. Braid is a platformer as is Limbo. Didn't you just have to press start to play Flower? I'd have a hard time calling that a game. More or less interactive music with pictures. None of this was the first of its kind.
That precedent is negated by those. Really…what game is original these days? That's what we are talking about right…games that stray from normal conventions. Heavy Rain did so and was worse off in my opinion.
Did you actually play Flower? It doesn't sound like it.
I'm not splitting hairs. I think you're being too broad.
Anyway, I have to check out of this conversation for a bit. Have to write something for other people for $$$.
Now I'm confused over whether we're talking about all creative games or just Flower. If we were talking about one game I'd never played as opposed to all creative games in general, my first comment (if I'd bothered to make one) would have been completely different.
@Ray
Yes. You are splitting hairs here.
Smartguy makes a great point about both Braid and Limbo. There are plenty of sidescrolling platformers out there. Is what makes them unique creatively all that different a concept from what makes Heavy Rain unique creatively? Other than a connection to an indie developer, no, don't think so.
Actually think that's a terrible point and overly basic. First of all, I wouldn't call Braid a platformer. That's a puzzle game more than anything else. That's like equating Portal with Doom.
Secondly, those three games are unique for very different reasons. If you think they are unique for similar reasons then I don't know what to tell you. Your reviews for all three would certainly be questionable just because of the viewpoint.
Okay, NOW I'm going to write for $$$
So you're saying that a sidescrolling platformer can't have a heavy puzzle element to it? You can't say that Portal is a puzzle game that plays like a FPS due to the camera perspective? And I guess uniqueness itself isn't a part of the discussion today, just a specific type of uniqueness? I'd say your the one being overly basic in this case and Smartguy and I are both thinking on broader terms – which is what's clearly causing the disconnect here.
Not what I said at all.
Smartguy's perspective and your's are completely different to me. I understand where he's coming from as a gamer. I'm just surprised at your stance as someone that reviews games.
I've never made any pretenses to being an industry insider Ray. I have opinions based on experience and preference, just like anyone else. I try to do more research than the average layman, but that's because I have pride in the work that I do. That doesn't make me some paragon of industry standards though. I'm well aware of that fact and I'm always looking to improve (as should anyone who does anything, for love or money).
Maybe I'm just not as jaded towards more conventional games as a lot of people that review them. At least that's the impression I get from a lot of reviewers who complain about things like, "Why do we ALWAYS have to save the world/galaxy/universe in every game," who then turn around and complain that you didn't have to save the world/galaxy/universe in a game like Dragon Age 2.
That being said, if you honestly think that you can define creativity in a narrow path of your own choosing and exclude all other creativity in the discussion, that we're not going to click in this conversation.
Also, it's fair to say that when I write game reviews I tend to stay in my comfort zones with regard to genre (RPG, Sports, Action, Platformer, FPS). So I'm much more likely to review an Halo 3: ODST than an Halo Wars, since I'm not particularly fond of/good at the RTS genre. So even though I may play something and have an opinion of it, that doesn't mean I'd review it if I didn't think I could be fair to the game.
I'm actually kind of glad that someone else on the old site reviewed Heavy Rain and not me, because I would have savaged it and my opinion would have been an outlier. I'm smart enough to know when to say "You do it, I'm not right for this job."
My perspective isn't narrow. I'm differentiating. You're not.
@Ray
Why would his perspective (no offense Nightshade) have to be more qualified and unique than mine? Just curious about that. I've been playing games for over 20 years now and have owned every system near about. I think I'm quite qualified to give an opinion, and accurate accounts of software. Your take on something like Pokemon would of course be more in depth, but I don't think that would diminish my take on the matter with the exception that since I'm not a pokemon fan, my critique would be more in lay terms. If it were something we both had interests in I don't see the difference.
It's not like you have a degree in video game appreciation or analyzation. If you do though, please tell me where you got that from as I'm always looking to keep myself educated :P
No offense taken.
Gamers are free to think whatever the hell they want about the games they buy. Reviewers have to be more careful with what they critique and have to be more informed.
@Ray
If you say so. I don't think such is the case. I think not being on a payroll of a place who makes/publishes games are more important criteria.
Your ideas of informed and mine are also different. I've seen you rant about someone not knowing a tiny detail that may or may not show up in research (the bridge thing) and that to me is a non-issue in reviewing a game.
I agree with Nightshade on this. Heavy Rain is an artsy type of game.
Sorry Ray, but knowing the entire "history of gaming" is not necessary to review a game and say "This is fun" or "This is not fun." It's not needed to say, "This portion of the game is broken," "The graphics are really impressive," or "There's an insane amount of clipping and collision detection in this title."
Also, you keep going back to this idea that I should "think differently" because I review games every time we disagree about something game related on here. If every reviewer thought the same way, there'd be no point to having more than one review of anything. Different perspectives are important, because not all gamers are monolithic. My perspective is mine. Yours is yours. Neither is "wrong," they are just different.
The entire history of games? I've no idea where you pulled that from. The context was Heavy Rain and knowing Quantic Dreams' other games. If you really don't think it's important to know the history of a series or the history of a developer when you're reviewing games then you're never going paid for your work. I'd like you to get paid for this if that's what you want, but you can't just have a fan perspective. Not knowing the history and context of what you're reviewing is a disservice to readers.
I know the history of the developer Ray. I also know enough to acknowledge that to many people who tried out Heavy Rain it was new and different to them and well outside the expected norm you would find in most games, and thus it applies to the discussion in my opinion. How you translate that to "you don't know anything about the series" I really don't know. Just because it's been done before once or twice by a single niche developer, that doesn't make it common knowledge and it shouldn't be treated as such.
If you know the developer history then your initial statement of the game in the same category as Flower and Limbo is more suspect then I initially thought.
Not that your original point was actually clear, as half of us that responded seemed confused by it as it appeared to be a much more general discussion than it actually was. But this was apparently a narrow discussion about one game, and no other "creativity in games" was allowed into the discussion. Fine. what I would have said was: "I have nothing to say about Flower. I haven't played it. I don't care if developers and publishers like it, because they're not making games like it. Besides it goes without saying that artist like art."
So what does that have to do with your original statement about Heavy Rain. Since you claim to know the developers history, your original opinion seems suspect.
I get the feeling sometimes that any opinion that's different from yours is "suspect."
@Ray
Portal and Doom are both an FPS type of game. You can say that Doom contained Puzzle elements and shooting elements…so did Portal. Portal is more along the lines of a pure puzzle game. When I say Puzzle game I think of Tetris, Dr. Mario, etc. I don't consider Portal a breakthrough, just a clever merging of ideas.
That said I can see why it would be considered unique to some gamers.
The majority of the creativity on Portal was in the designs of the puzzles. You had to really think outside of the box, particularly the later rooms. That and the "dialog" was creatively funny.
Agreed. Portal was 50% creative puzzle solving and 50% humor. You could have made that game without GlaDOS, but it wouldn't have been memorable.
"Remember when the platform was sliding into the firepit, and I was all "Goodbye!" and you were like "NO WAY" and then I was all "We pretended we were going to murder you"? That was great."
"We were going to throw a huge party for you, and we were going to invite your friend the Companion Cube. But he couldn't make it. Because you killed him."
Full of win!
-M
Every game writer I know would classify Portal as a puzzle game and Doom as an FPS. None of them would call Portal a shooter or Doom a puzzler. That would be like calling Twisted Metal a driving game.
No, twisted metal just sucks.
Seriously though, I think the gaming community is too damn uppity for their own good. Much like the movie critics they feel they are above the target audiences and go too deep into this stuff.
I've never thought of Portal as a puzzle game that just happened to be in the first person, rather an FPS with very heavy puzzle elements. Tetris, bejeweled, lemmings, sudoku, professor layton (from what I've played) etc. Those are puzzle games. My mom can play a puzzle game any day of the week—she cannot play Portal for the life of her because it is an FPS (I tried to get her to play because I knew she would like the creative puzzles, she failed horribly).
Oh you journalists, always bickering. That was a jk and I enjoyed reading this thread. I wish I could of peppered it with "He's heating up" and "He's on fire!".
There aren't any journalists here. :P
Until I start getting paid for all the work i do, I cringe at being called a "journalist." lol.
I'm pretty sure everyone knows we're not actually bickering, just having a conversation.
Lol that is a good point guys. I know there is no bickering going on It's just how often do you (I) get to use that word?
"Journalist," or "bicker?" I watch the news and have a 4 year old. I get to use them both quite a bit. lol.
Lol I was referring to bickering but with your situation it makes perfect sense that you use them all the time.
@Pokemon
I hate how the Dreamworld only lets you on once every 24 hours, instead of just once a day. I have all this free time in class when I could do my Dreamworld activities for the day but I can't get back online for another 3 hours.
Strict 24 hour limitations are annoying to me because I will be forced to miss a day somewhere along the line because I will not always be able to get online exactly at the 24 hour mark so that I can keep the streak going. If I have to postpone it by 3 hours then I will have to be online 6 hours from now guaranteed and remember to do my Dreamworld activities exactly then. Etc, etc. It just gets messy, and would be easier to do a once daily Dreamworld log on—anytime during the day.
Wow. That sounds annoying. I'm glad I stopped playing this game or else I'd be frustrated with this to no end.
-M
It's not a required part of the game, just an added part. It's frustrating though to have an addition that I think could be better. What I do hate that is part of the actual game is the way they changed the PC boxes in the 5th gen., but that's a different complaint I've made before.
Playoff time, bitches! Bring on Philly and watch them squirm. They're just a minor stepping stone on the way to another Championship trophy. I just hope Boston doesn't loose their series so that we can beat their asses silly (again) and then rub it in Big Blak's face. I would love to end up playing the Lakers and embarrassing Kobe (yet again). EAST SIDE, MOT*#ER F*@#ERS!!!
If I can't have football, I'll take my trash-talking to basketball.
-M
PS- Big Blak; Please send me your address, I have a "buy one, get one free" coupon for Kleenex that I need to send you.
I'm all for the Heat winning a title, but it's not Boston I'm worried about (Heat will beat them assuming Boston makes it that far) it's the Bulls. They are the real contenders in the East this year, and they will only continue to get stronger.
If the Heat make it to the championship I will be amazed if it isn't against the Lakers. As much as I hate Kobe he is good.
First of all Iceman that is really funny. Number 2 I think you should hold on to that because the heat are losing in the second round.
Twisted Metal was the mystery game I saw yesterday. Full preview on Shacknews should be up soon. I got to play multiplayer and had a blast with it. Really fast, really violent, and more diverse than I thought it would be. The vehicles feel very different from each other and the gameplay modes require different tactics for success. The teamwork aspect of the game very cool and can be lots of fun to coordinate.
Music to my ears.
Did the visuals in TM suck still? They blew ass last year at E3. I actually lost a lot of respect for Jaffe when he showed that game off. Not necessarily because of the PS1 looking visuals, but because he went back to do a series after he ranted and raved about how new ideas were so essential. The guy is a joke to me now. Oh well.
They looked better but not yet great. Cars looked a little better, while the environments looked much better. Have a good story about Jaffe from the event, but I'm waiting for my Shacknews story to post before I write about it here.
I never got into the TM series.
@Nightshade If you get that feeling then you haven't paid much attention to my comments over the years. Are we done here? This isn't going anywhere.