“Taking Metroid down new emotional corridors.” I agree with pretty much everything in this snap reaction to the Nintendo keynote, over at Game Informer.
“Taking Metroid down new emotional corridors.” I agree with pretty much everything in this snap reaction to the Nintendo keynote, over at Game Informer.
Sooooo….
For once Nintendo actually shows an entire trailer chock full of Metroid gameplay…and you hone in one teeny little remark that Reggie made at the very end of the Metroid portion of his presentation.
Are you seriously vying for the Cynical Jerk of the Year award? You may beat Sean Malstrom just yet, Jack, so keep it up!
And for a guy who delights in blogging about the foolishness of the hardcore, is your agreeing with Game Informer of all publications really something you wanna advertise?
I’m sorry; I was too bedazzled by Nintendo 3DS to remember the first half of the conference. Even Zelda to me didn’t sound great anymore. Although Billy and Miyamoto didn’t do it any favors due to interference. Heh; from Sony fanboys perchance?
What surprises me more is that Nintendo managed to get at least 71 games on the handheld BEFORE the system even has a release date (and only eight of them from Nintendo). That doesn’t sound right to me for some reason.
More Game Informer:
“A few things still worry us about the game. Samus sounds like she belongs in princess fairy school, and we don’t have any confidence in Team Ninja’s storytelling skills. The sequence we saw, which had Samus awkwardly interacting with her old military boss, certainly didn’t impress us with any dramatic skill.”
Utter crap.
I will hold to this:
“Consider this: when DKC 4 comes out will be when Sakamoto’s crazy Metroid game comes out. I can already tell you that DKC 4 is going to clobber Other M in sales. It won’t be a contest.
Now consider the year 2013 (or around then). Retro Studios could release the first true sequel to Super Metroid, i.e. a 2d Metroid game on the home console. We know Retro knows how to make Metroid games. But if DKC 4 proves Retro knows how to make 2d platformers, I insist that Retro be assigned to make a 2d Metroid for the home console. It would be glorious.”
Yeah it’s almost as bad as watching FF7′s endless cinemas.
And LOL Speaking of Malstrom and “game gods” Epic Mickey is going to be a great game because Warren Spector is a great developer with a good track record. (LOL IRONY)
“Seeing how Warren Spector was in charge of some of my favorite games, Epic Mickey has high potential. Reader, you may not know who Warren Spector is, but he has a good track record:”
“What I’ve found about games made under Warren Spector is they have a large amount of replay value in them. Epic Mickey’s focus on playstyle will have that replayability. But I’d like to see more of the game to get a sense of what the gameplay is. When you look at Warren Spector’s history, there is no giant turkey among them. Those are some sweet classics.”
LOL!!!! Seriously? For all this talk against “game gods” he certainly has a few he worships in the closet when no one’s looking.
And some fo these “classics” are so chock full of cinemas and cutscenes it HURTS, Like Deus Ex and it’s awful, stilted plot. Good gravy, what is this guy playing at?
Yeah LOL Retro making DKC is a secret plot to make a Metroid sidescroller in 2013.
Go on, keep attacking him/her/it =)
I thought it was very clear that the “game god” thing is about how some people see game developers with exagerated eminency.
You mean like he does with Richard Garriott, Sid Meier, and apparently Warren Specter?
OH That’s right, my attacks are ineffective against him because he has no name and nobody knows his identity.
With this, the power of a filthy hobo on the street, he will conquer worlds.
As long as you keep attacking the character instead of the arguments they are ineffective.
And I can’t believe you are seriously comparing what he says about those developers to what the fans he talks about say.
I did attack the arguments.
He posts pictures and videos of Richard Garriott floating in space and says “the earlier developers were a different breed.”
How is that NOT “Game God” behavior? Answer that.
Hell one guy even emailed him about it the post “Incongruities” and he spent six paragraphs trying to change the subject, before ultimately admitting that he does think the earlier developers were leaps and bounds better because of “who they were” or something. In the mean time he mentioned Roman Polanski like that’s relevant, and as if video game developers would be anything like that.
He seems more like of the politicians he hates every passing day.
Had you seen Malstrom blindly follow a game developer, even if that went against what he says, and you would have a point.
What he is doing is showing his personal preferences, and longing for the kinds of games that are not made today. Meanwhile, he presents patterns/decisions from these earlier developers which he thinks would lead to games which would be more interesting for him. But this is not “Game God” behaviour. Even if he greatly admires certain game developers, he still talks about them as humans, as the people you meet everyday, and that’s the point.
“How is that NOT “Game God” behavior? Answer that.”
Seriously? Do you really want to take that seriously? When so much of his blog is tongue-in-cheek?
“he mentioned Roman Polanski like that’s relevant, and as if video game developers would be anything like that.”
Like what? Incapable of doing whatever Roman Polanski did?
“Had you seen Malstrom blindly follow a game developer, even if that went against what he says, and you would have a point. ”
Erm, he hates cinemas. Richard Garriott’s Ultima games are chock full of them, as are most of Origin Systems games. That’s an incongruity that’s only explained by fanboyism of Richard Garriott, period.
He talks about content “not making sense” when the Wing Commander have FLYING SPACE TIGERS.
Every single thing he accuses whoever he’s mad at this week of doing, Richard Garriott has done, and to a higher degree. He even has a more opulent “lifestyle” that most of the “Rockstar” developers by paying $30 million to go on a space trip. And Malstrom posts it all on the internet like anybody cares what a guy who is no longer even making games does with his free time.
Game God behavior. Period.
“Erm, he hates cinemas.”
The impression I got is that if something, he hates how cinemas are misused – either because they do not improve the game, because they are amateurish or both. In a period where so many game developers are still in love with Hollywood and actively try to emulate it on videogames, you can see where this cames from.
“He talks about content “not making sense””
He talks about the content not making sense from within the game world. What you said about Wing Commander says nothing about this. Starfox has flying space foxes, rabbits and frogs.
“Game God behavior. Period.”
This is not “Game God” behaviour. I checked the post and it was about enriching videogames with every kind of life experiences, not about linking rockstar behaviour with making better videogames. What Malstrom complains about is not very far from what Ken Levine said: “Most video game people have read one book and seen one movie in their life, which is Lord of the Rings and Aliens or variations of that.”
If Garriot was making a game and that behaviour had a negative impact on his job, that would be closer to “Game God” behaviour.
If Garriot did that and Malstrom defended what Garriot was doing because it is Garriot and Garriot knows better, THAT would be “Game God” behaviour.
When Malstrom talks about “Game Gods”, he is complaining about “sacred cows”.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sacred_cow
Skip button for cut scenes?
Sorry Terebi, he basically idolizes Richard Garriott, period. It’s obvious throughout most of his posts. Most of when he talks about the “good old days” he makes references to people selling games in Ziploc bags in their garages (direct reference to Garriott.)
Malstrom hates the idea of games becoming franchises, yet he’ll defend Ultima and it’s many spinoffs, including some about people in the 1800′s living on Mars (LOL Content making sense, right?), purely out of nostalgic attachment and not because they were good games, which most weren’t. Ultima was long, boring, and full of cutscenes that nobody cared about, referencing a bunch of old sci-fi and fantasy novels nobody read, but the game developers wanted to force what obscure novels they read onto their players, to show how smart they were (More Irony.)
And if Malstrom wasn’t exhibiting Game God behavior with Richard Garriott, why did he post his video of him playing around in space? Nobody cares. But he wanted to show that Garriott was a “different breed” or something. He wanted everybody to know that Richard Garriott was so awesome and that it didn’t matter that Ultima Online blew ass and that the last Ultima game sucked, which Malstrom pins on EA or something.
Face it, Malstrom has his own Game Gods. Which is fine, fanboys of people exist. But he can’t “tsk tsk” at anybody else for doing it without being intellectually inconsistent.
So, your point is that you are trying to prove that Malstrom has Game Gods, so you can dismiss what he said about the Game Gods of others?
Glad to see you’ve conceded that Malstrom has a few sacred cows and game gods that he doesn’t like people criticizing.
Doesn’t that imply hypocrisy and thus a dismantling of most any arguments? How can he decry people being vicious fanboys (which most any one thing has, including pet rocks and swiss army knives) and use them as strawmen when he does the same thing himself, and to about the same degree?
Doesn’t that make all of his ax-grinding at whoever his target is today quite disingenuous?
His arguments rest on people not analyzing his golden Era with the same lens he analyzes the current one. Such as Zelda 2 having a huge drop off in sales primarily for violation of gameplay content, and Mario 2 only being popular in America, two “phenomenons” as he calls them. Yet these days he’d decry any games as such. Trains in Zelda? that violates content! That’s as silly as LAZER BEAMS LOL! But Zelda 3 has Laser beam enemies, and that game was a phenomenon! oops. Bonus props for Malstrom praising Sid Meier for saying little boys love trains though, though he slammed the Zelda guy for saying the exact same thing in the exact same way. 3D Mario only being very popular in America and not in Japan? SHAMEFUL! Except “smash hit and cultural phenomenon” Mario 2 tanked in Japan vs. legitimate Mario 2, which the Japanese ate up. Oops again.
Both of these points were brought up in that “incongruities” email, and Malstrom made some pretty weak defenses. When analyzing his Golden Era with the same lens he analyzes with today, you see hypocrisy and disingenuous arguments. More’s the pity. And that’s analyzing just his arguments. Nobody cares about his manufactured identity.
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Anytime you post an article related to Other M, your comments explode (and typically all antagonistic infighting). Jack, stop going after Other M for our sakes…I’m over listening to ‘game god this’ ‘Malstrom that’ and ‘Sakamoto IS Metroid over there.’ =p
haha! too late! I just wrote a short post devoted to nothing BUT game gods!
And I’m not even a Metroid fan.
Jeff, it seems your problem really is with Malstrom, not with his ideas. Even though I kept talking about the “Game God” thing, you kept coming back with the “Malstrom also has Game Gods”.
It is completely tangent, and even if you could prove that, it has absolutely no impact in the discussion. It is as if you are trying to get to the message by hitting the messeger. You even admit to that: “Doesn’t that imply hypocrisy and thus a dismantling of most any arguments?”
This is what I really find sad. Malstrom raises a lot of interesting points, some of which I mentioned here: are videogames becoming closed over themselves? Does Hollywood values really mix with the videogame medium? But the ideas get lost in the middle of the Malstrom beating.
But the message itself is undermined by his own worship of his own Game Gods. Why should he light a few psycho fans on fire when he’s also a psycho fan himself? Does he truly not like the concept of Game Gods, or does he just think everybody’s worshiping the wrong ones?
If his message is don’t treat developers like deities, why doesn’t he follow it himself?
And yeah Malstrom did raise a lot of interesting points, but they are mostly points from late 2008. Birdman Fallacy is awesome and true. But lately he’s just trying to punch fanboys, and try to tell everybody how great the old days were. And it’s boring and not very informative.
Jeff: I suppose the only thing worth noting is that even a broken watch is right twice a day.
So even if Malstrom himself can be argued as a nutcase/fanboy/whatever, are there things he says, which on their own merit, are valid and worth walking away with? Or are they worth walking away from?
A lot of his business stuff makes sense and is grounded in research. His “Game Gods” concept only applies realistically to such a small number of people (one could argue even him) that its hardly worth worrying about. A bigger issue would be the overwhelming “casual” stigmatization brought on by developers, fans, and the press who are so heavily invested in the way things are that changing the topography of gaming scares them to the point of belittling antagonism.