T w e n t y S i d e d
Like I said in the previous post, the Xbox show is not a double act featuring both Xbox and Bethesda. Here is the second half of the Xbox presentation…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2021 Part 3: Still More Xbox”
E3 2021 Part 3: Still More Xbox
E3 2021 Part 2: Xbox (But really Bethesda)
In years past, Bethesda and Microsoft had separate shows. But this year Microsoft acquired Bethesda for 7.5 billion. So the two presentations were merged. Great. I already get Pete Hines and Phil Spencer mixed up all the time, and now they’re in the same presentation. Like, I think it took me one or two years of E3 before I realized these were two different guys.
(It’s not that they look all that much alike. They’re just two nondescript dudes of medium build in corporate casual dress that come out and recite boilerplate corporate copy before a series of trailers. They don’t literally look like each other, but they’re sort of generic and forgettable. So when I see the second one, I can’t remember if he matches the face I saw earlier.)
It’s really interesting that they lead off the show with Todd Howard from Bethesda instead of having an Xbox personality show us the latest Halo. Microsoft is evidently very proud of their acquisition.
Anyway, I’m just going to go through the entire show and comment on everything in order… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2021 Part 2: Xbox (But really Bethesda)”
E3 2021 Part 1: Ubisoft’s Cavalcade of Cringe
I realize the pandemic has been horrible, painful, and endlessly annoying, but I really like what it’s done for our premiere videogame trade show. Presentations are so much smoother now that publishers are focusing on the home audience rather than marketing to a crowd of hungover, overworked, jet-lagged journalists who are all fighting for a wi-fi signal in a deafening convention center.
It’s nice that presenters can get their requisite boilerplate “games are important” prattle out of the way without stopping for applause every ten seconds. The stream remains focused on the trailers I’m trying to watch and doesn’t keep cutting back to a convention hall of attendees that don’t matter to me. I think the presenters feel a little less pressure since they’re not looking out over a sea of faces, which means they’re a little more composed and a lot less wooden.
Old E3 was designed for a world before social media. A world where you needed to market to journalists, and then those journalists would write magazine articles, and then next month those articles would reach the intended audience. Now the intended audience can view your marketing directly, in real time.
I hope we keep doing things this way, even when/if we’ve given COVID the shove. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “E3 2021 Part 1: Ubisoft’s Cavalcade of Cringe”
Diecast #347: E3 Approaches
Like I said on the show, E3 kinda snuck up on me this year. It had barely started when we recorded this podcast, but it’ll be basically over by the time this goes live. Whatever. I doubt people come to my site because my coverage is timely.
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #347: E3 Approaches”
Eh! Steve! Batman v. Spider-Man
This week I sat down with Chris and we spent two hours talking about the Batman Arkham series, the Sony Spider-Man game that needs a subtitle, and even a bit of Resident Evil. It’s like a bonus Diecast. Actually, it’s like TWO bonus Diecasts. We also talk a bit about my attempt at a Bayonetta playthrough and how that ended.
Eh! Steve! Talking Batman and Spider-Man with Shamus Young
Also, Chris and I talk about superheroes that would be good for an Arkham-style brawler. I’ve played with this idea a lot over the years. It seems simple, but it’s actually kinda challenging once you get down to it. Let’s assume we PROBABLY want a hero that operates in the urban areas of Earth. I mean, yes, you can set the game in the wilderness or some fantastical other-world, but that is more challenging in terms of design and marketing. Audiences can immediately understand cities, slums, warehouses, and that sort of thing. That’s the classic superhero milieu, and marketing knows how to sell that.
Anyway. Let’s put together a pitch for marketing and see if we can get someone to green-light a game. Making a game on par with Arkham whatever isn’t easy. You need tons of animations, lots of varied foes, and a variety of environments. You can’t do this as a mid-budget game. We need AAA money to make this happen.
Here’s what we need…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Eh! Steve! Batman v. Spider-Man”
This Week I Played (June 2021)
On the podcast a few weeks ago, Paul and I talked about the theory that different gaming communities were isolated from each other. Instead of “gamers” being a single amorphous mass, perhaps we’re really a dozen or so completely different hobbies that all happen to share a common set of hardware. Imagine if we took people that were into football, baseball, other football, lacrosse, rugby, and cricket, and acted like all of those people were into the same hobby. Maybe we’d call them “fielders” because all of their different games are played on a field.
That would be silly, right? But maybe that’s what we’re doing with “gamers”.
Now, the idea that gamers are broken into different silos is probably true to some degree. The difficult question is: What are the different silos, and to what degree are they isolated?
I was reminded of this yesterday when the new trailer for Battlefield 2042 came out…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Week I Played (June 2021)”
Diecast #346: Mailbag Monday
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast346
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #346: Mailbag Monday”
From The Archives:
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
What is Vulkan?
What is this Vulkan stuff? A graphics engine? A game engine? A new flavor of breakfast cereal? And how is it supposed to make PC games better?
Zenimax vs. Facebook
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
Starcraft: Bot Fight
Let's do some scripting to make the Starcraft AI fight itself, and see how smart it is. Or isn't.
This is Why We Can’t Have Short Criticism
Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.
Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
The Witch Watch
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.