Ben-DutkaSince when is February this busy? Geez, I used to be able to look forward to a few months "off" after the holiday blitz. "Off" in quotations because of course, I'm never off. 😉
These geniuses may be tough to work for
When it comes to guys like Hideo Kojima, Kazunori Yamauchi, David Cage, David Jaffe, the peeps at Naughty Dog, Fumito Ueda, and other iconic, proven figures of the industry, you can't help but have respect for the work they've done. However, you hear things…at least, you hear things from my end; I'm not sure what leaks out to the public. You sorta hear that some of these guys can be exceedingly difficult to work for. Because they demand such a high level from themselves, they expect nothing less from the guys and gals under them, and they have little patience or tolerance for excuses and failures. This can create tense work environments. So when I hear there's "very slow progress" on The Last Guardian , I wonder how Ueda and Co. are faring…
Sometimes, you just need a staff that understands the mania of their boss, and are willing to adapt. But when deadlines get missed, situations change (i.e., Ueda's leaving Sony as an employee), and people start to ask difficult questions, one starts to worry. After ICO and Shadow of the Colossus , I say Ueda can do just about anything…but maybe things aren't working out the way he planned.
…and on that same note…
David Jaffe decides to take his leave from the studio he helped create. Again, you hear things… I hope Twisted Metal is awesome; if it isn't, I'll feel like a part of my past has died. But that's another subject; currently, I'm interested to know what Jaffe plans to do. It seems he's not on the mobile/casual games bandwagon, but the rest of Eat Sleep Play is (or something like that). The rumor is that he wants to start another studio in San Diego where he can be on-site more often, and perhaps be more directly involved in the projects…? It's hard to know. Some say he should just go back to Sony and help the Santa Monica team work on God of War IV , but I think he's going to fly solo from now on.
The question is, do some of these old-school developers – if I'm allowed to call them that – feel any pressure to leave something behind? Like they grew up professionally in a different era? Maybe there's some frustration there. …maybe that's why Jaffe is going to let us fire an automatic weapon at an ice cream truck .
Personal gaming update
After a week and a half of The Darkness II, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning , and Shank 2 , I'd like to return to Final Fantasy XIII-2 now. But I can't for very long, as more games are coming this week, Twisted Metal among them. For some reason, I really can't stop playing FFXIII-2. …didn't see that one coming.
In other news, the latest episode of the PSXE Show will go up in the PlayStation Home Community Theater on Wednesday and we'll do another get-together. I plan on giving away a copy of the Resistance 3 soundtrack and maybe something else; not sure yet. I'll post up a headline when it's official. Lastly, it's very nearly Vita time…I've already got all five of Ubisoft's launch offerings and as for the Vita itself, stay tuned. 😉
I'm not having the same experience with XIII-2, it's just such a convoluted mess of parts that don't fit or work well. Oh well, I'm still gonna push through and beat it.
It's probably a blessing and a curse to work for the greats. I think Jaffe is about finished, as much as I like him it would be hard to go off on your own once again and put out anything bigger than another bad downloadable.
If I remember right, there was a supplemental movie feature with the original PS2 GoW. It had interviews with Jaffe and the team. It makes me wonder if his sudden depature from Eat Sleep and Play is related to the obvious emotional distress the team felt due to his leadership.
Anyway, I did try a bit of that Twisted Metal demo last week. In one hand I'm really amazed by how uniquely engaging and creatively imagined the series is. It's a huge breath of fresh air from military FPS style combat. On the other hand, the graphics, at least from what I could tell from the demo, were underwhelming. Hopefully, they tighten up the texture work and spruce up the lighting for the final release. I totally forgot how complicated the game's controls are. It's definately not trying to accomadate the FPS mindscheme of interface and simpilicty. Not that I'm complaining, it's just odd to have to actually think about my controller again rather than just adopt a near standardized template. But I guess Im comparing FPS to TM… maybe not a good idea.
PGU: I've played nothing all week. School has me so busy with projects that I start the day with studying, only stopping to eat and spend a bit of time with my family, then working on school projects until I'm ready to fall asleep, sometimes not until a little after that. Not necessarily a bad thing, just little time to breathe for anything else.
There was a Resistance 3 soundtrack? When did it release :O?
''It seems he's not on the mobile/casual games bandwagon''
Awesome!
Ben, will you be doing a review on ufc undisputed 3? it has been getting alot of good reviews but, i trust and look forward to yours the most.
I should be.
i hated ufc undisputed 2010 or 2 or whatever they called it. hated the damn shine system. i got to the championship belt knocking opponents out, leveling up my stats especially submission defense/offense. no matter how tired i got the enemy, i couldnt do submissions. once i got the belt, i had to defend it agains shogun. that bastard submits me in the first 30 seconds of the round. i couldnt get out of the submission no matter what i tried. in the end i gave up on the game and sold it.
Well, i look forward to once again ( after a very long time ) to being able to join everyone at the psxe show on wednesday. ill be getting my internet hooked up, so ill finally be back online. hope to see everyone there.
Pgu : been playin alot of kh:bbs. its a pretty sweet game, and it definately shows some of the going ons that youre not aware of in the original kh. ive done terra and vebs stories, on proud mode. but for some reason im finding it really tedious to complete aquas story. i feel like im having to force myself to do it. and thats just not right.
Looking forward to getting my Vita this week, and Twisted Metal.
Any one getting Twisted Metal on/or around day 1? We should get a PSXE TM Lobby organized.
I might wait a bit on TM, cause I'll be getting a Vita next week. Today, I'm taking about half my games, and trading them at gamestop towards a Vita. With the extra 10% given by membership, and the extra 30% of trade-in value, I'm getting about $250. I'll be getting the 3g wifi $300 bundle, not the $350 early launch bundle, because it comes with an 8Gb card, instead of a 4Gb one. And instead of getting "Little Deviants", I rather just use that extra $50 towards Uncharted: Golden Abyss.
those guys might be tough to work for, but you cant argue with the results. working for bosses like kojima should force you to up your game by a lot. I'd prefer to have a boss like that but he should also know/have realistic goals. thats what i believe happened with ueda. he had a vision but it wasnt very realistic financially. he wanted to work on every detail of the project that he was missing sony's timeline/deadlines.
Jaffe should just go back and join a sony first party development team again. he has already proved that he is capable of creating games. starting a new studio doesnt seem like a good idea at this point. i did find it surprising that he left the studio after finishing twisted metal. who's gonna handle online support for the game since the studio will focus on mobile/casual games? makes me think that jaffe got muscled out of the studio because they wanted to make casual games thinking that its more profitable.
PGU: i just finished mgs3 for the first time in the mgs hd collection. still gotta play peacewalker and maybe replay mgs2 again. i dont think i'll get platinum on it because finding all those collectibles and damn green kerotans seems like a pain. for now i'm taking a break from metal gear, dont want to burn myself out on the series like i did playing all 3 god of war games back to back.
i started to play hyperdimension neptunia and loving it. i gotta say, the english audio isnt bad at all. i just love the game's atmosphere. it seems like i'm in an jrpg kick this year. i bought atelier rorona and atelier totori the same week. thinking about getting ar tonelico qoga. i only see 2 games that i want right away this year, tales of graces and hyperdimension neptunia mk2. all the other games i can wait till they're cheaper than $20, under $10 in ff13-2's case. also got final fantasy 5 from ps plus. also remembered that i havent beaten resonance of fate yet. turn based jrpgs, i'm good to go. screw you square enix!
Last edited by johnld on 2/12/2012 12:55:15 AM
i was really shocked to hear jaffes leaving.
he seemed so happy where he was, im just worried now this is the end of TM.
kinda miffed to be honest, i mean they have already said theres no DLC coming to it.
just makes it feel like a rush cut and run job.
come on the longest running franchise in playstatons history deserves better then that!
just finished the darkness 2 last night.
im really starting to get sick of this 110 bucks for 5 hour games BS!
its WAY too short, just ends so abruptly.
first one was way better, there did not feel like there were enough moves you could pull off.
i constantly found myself plucking things from the environment and using them to kill enemies, instead of using the darkness itself.
just feels like they could and should of added a hell of allot more moves to the mix, just gets boring killing enemies the same way over and over again.
executions for instance yea theres 4 different types that have different results, but theres only 4 variations and there all so similar.
just lacking creativity and variety, just feels like they could of and should of added so much more!
i miss the stealth missions from the original too, where you detached from your body and became a darkness arm.
yea you have the darkling levels but they were as entertaining and fun as watching paint dry!
just feels like they could of done so much more with it!
Finally! Last thursday I got internet again after a month with my only access to the net being the phone.
So a pile of demos were waiting for a spin. And after that, I ended up with buying:
Kingdoms Of Amalur!
It's got a MMORPG vibe that I can dig: Excellent character development, a wonderful and beautiful world to explore and absolutely gorgeous battle mechanics. That's all I expect to get from this game so everything on top of that will be considered a bonus. Can't wait to continue playing this evening!
Last edited by Beamboom on 2/12/2012 7:15:36 AM
PGU:
Finally finished Bioshock (amazing game), next is MGS 1 for the first time (played a little bit after i got into the first elevator, even with the dated graphics i love the atmosphere of the game).
After that is Socom 2 (need to get new memory card, the game is 3mb) and The Getaway, playing both for the first time.