Shields forward and hold the line; its time for another edition of EpicBattleCry! In this week’s Skirmish we relish the announcement of Batman: Arkham City, revolt over the news Assassins Creed: Brotherhood is getting a PlayStation/GameStop exclusive multiplayer beta, fein surprise that Crysis 2 is being pushed back to 2011, sing a hearty song at word Torchlight 2 is coming our way, and bemoan the announcement that NBA Jam is coming to PS3 and 360 for free, but only, with NBA Elite 11.
We talk about gaming a lot round the Axe, but this week we take a step back to ponder the greater existential question our hobby/lifestyle raises: why do we game? Whether its for story, social interaction, the challenge, or just fun, we all have a reason (probably several) for doing what we do. So, this week, we, your humble Axe Lords, try to answer that question and we’re inviting all of you to do the same throughout the week here on EpicBattleAxe.com. Vote in the EBA poll over in the sidebar, hit up our Member Battle Cry post to share your thoughts, or leap in the discusion going on right now in the EBA forums. Whatever your course, be sure to Cry Havoc and Let Your Voice Be Heard!
The Battle Cry of the Week goes to Plunder, Vanquish (the game, not the tailer), and IGN‘s decision to switch up their scoring system.
If you’ve got a comment on the show, sound off below, if you’ve got a Battle Cry you want to share, click here and sound off on the latest topic-started post! Stay sharp.
Yeah! EBC time!
great episode!
i know its only been out for 20 minutes so theres no possible way for me to have listened to the whole thing but im still willing to say it ahead of time.
Sweet! I thought I was going to go to bed at 2am without watching EBC AGAIN.
Great show this week guys!
Cheers axeheads!!
Stop the presses!
Do my ears deceive me, or does this week’s episode have an absence of sweet ass GOG action?!
OH YEAH!!!! that’s why it felt weird at the end, Im always looking for BRENT’s INTRO, DK’s Sweet ass gog action and TG’s: “AND SRUSLY?”
I don’t think anyone is necessarily not looking forward to Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, it is probably just not at the top of their list because of the anticipation for Batman Arkham Asylum being so high, and the anticipation for Marvel Vs Capcom 3 being so high.
I know I am kind of excited for Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, but I couldn’t put my vote on it with Marvel Vs Capcom 3 on the list. Ever since Street Fighter came out, all I could think in regards to it is maybe this means there will be a Marvel Vs Capcom game to look forward to this generation. Now that it’s finally coming it’s hard for a comic book centric title to chart higher on my radar.
The reason I am a little anxious about Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, is because conceptually it reminds me of a game back in the SNES-Genesis days called “The Death and Return of Superman”, which in my opinion was the best Superman game I’ve ever played.
You start out as Superman then you get to a certain point and he dies, then he comes back as another form of Superman, and the game keeps progressing like that with losses of Superman resulting in a new character of a sort.
It wasn’t realistic in what you’d expect from a Superman game, but I think that was why it was so great, it didn’t try to take itself too seriously, the developers were just looking for how to constantly keep the gameplay mechanic fresh, and it really worked well. You weren’t stuck with any specific move sets for a longer period of time than you could stomach.
So while I think as far as storyline is concerned Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions might not be such a great title, I think they have come up with a way of keeping the gameplay fresh throughout, which will probably make for an entertaining experience if nothing else.
If the game accomplishes that, in my opinion it is a step in the right direction at least..and besides I hope it does well anyways so that Marvel gets it’s head out of it’s ass and sees that making legitimate games can be just as lucrative for business as essentially stealing 20 bucks out of the consumers wallets. Lets face it, movie based games are worth $40 at best (and I think that is being very generous). That is probably why not so many people are excited about the Thor game, because if they really wanted to be robbed they’d just look for a dark alley to wander down and then start blasting some christian rock.
So when are you guys gonna tweet what games you are playing?
Nice job DK Money Shizznet pointing out the artistic value of games. That actually slipped my mind when i was posting on the forum and EBC when talkin about why we game.
An example of where i love a game not because of the difficulty but for the way it looks and such was Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, which is a fairly easy game to play, at least in my eyes, but it looks amazing in its own cell shaded artistic sort of way. Its just a beautiful game in its own right and makes the Anime proud. NICE JOB DK!
I play Demon’s Souls or Stuntman for the challenge, LittleBigPlanet or Uncharted 2 for the entertainment value, Modern warfare 2 or Counter Strike for the social aspect and Killzone 2 or Crysis for technological and artistic appreciation.
My point is, games are interactive. So they can (for the most part) deliver what I’m looking for. I’m sure that if i wanted to know more about the story of Demon’s Souls i could, or just play Crysis in the hardest difficulty for the challenge.
I think that the opportunity to let me choose how i want to enjoy a game is unique to the gaming industry and its why i play games.
Good point Fanboy (wait a fanboy has a good point???
) Im in the same boat. Im more interested in Arkham City then in Shattered Dimensions, but its still a fun looking game.
I am unfortunately somewhat dismayed that there was a lack of a hand out of (pause for dramatic effect) SWEEET…ASSS…GOG…ACCTTION. Did you just find it repetitive to say every episode or is it just no longer offered and I missed the memo? This will not dis way me from commenting just curious.
great show – but what happened to the sweet ass gog action?
I totally agree the pre-order bonus for AC:brotherhood is total BS, and its a cheap way to give you nothing and make you think you got something.
But i found a way to f@%k them back i went down to Gamestop today to place my pre-order and get my code. as soon as i submitted my code i called Gamestop to cancel my pre-order and place my 5 bucks towards fallout new Vegas i encourage you all to do the same.
Great show guys! I really like that the feedback part is being extracted because I think feedback is a pretty large section of this show and it’s always nice to hear many different opinions.
I think Arkham City will be actually Gotham, not just bigger madhouse. All the wackos from the asylum infesting the city and Gotham City -> Arkham City. I could be wrong tho.
Regarding the Sweet Ass GOG Action…tis a mere oversight on our part. Rest assured, it shall be returning next week.
I’m of the same opinion…at least that’s what I’m hoping for. The thought of a full city to play in is too fucking cool.
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet asssssssss GOG action (for me lol)….another great episode fellas
Great episode… when DK started talking I expected another follow-up on the baby anouncement… so the whole ‘exlusive beta acces’ sounded a little creepy to be honest… reassuring the remains of at least some mental health remaining at our punniest Axelord, I was wrong. I mean, I get that it’s for fun and all, but it also points out how ridiculous our industry can be.
About the releasedate thing… well, I understand how autumn ’11 sucks for people who’ve been expecting the game sooner… however, if it’s a choice between that or getting a ‘spring 2011′ anouncement and then a delay to fall, I think this is, at the very least, a little bit more honest. Unless they’re completely going to blow away the last bit of faith I have and delay it to 2012 or something.
You guys raise a good point about the Beta stuff(and thanks for the ‘greed’ feature
)
Sometimes you gotta wonder if publishers (and gamers, for that matter) still realize what a beta actually is. All that stuff with exclusive beta-access, having to pre-order… Or straight up “Pay us 15 bucks to get into the beta” (and yes, that happened with, for instance; Men of War: Assault Squad)
To a lot of gamers it’s just an ‘early access’ thing, like a very extensive demo, which is clearly not the point of a beta. When you participate in a beta, it is (or should be) about helping the developers improve the overall quality of (a certain portion of) the game. Sadly, an important and good way of improving a game has also dropped into the ‘one for all, all for me’ trend that’s called marketing. And it works, so the pubs won’t stop.
The NBA thing is weird indeed. Let’s just hope it is indeed more of a demo and they’ll anounce the full title later down the line. (if so, probably sometime after NBA elite’s release) Let’s see what’s in that jar (that one’s for you DK)
On the subject of ‘why we game’, I’m not going to repeat myself so I’ll sum up my forumpost real short: For fun and because I enjoy it. After listening to this podcast I think there’s not a lot left for me to add, so to skip redundancy, I’ll finish this chapter after the next word.
I think slicing the podcast in half is a good
kinectmove, and it’ll probably also help with surviving the wait for next week’s dose of awesome. But I don’t like the name of the new segment… cause I don’t like it when things are forced, and if you send whatever you feed back, that’s going to leave a mess somewhere.Lastly: You guys rock. A Mt Augustus kind of Rock, but a rock nonetheless.
Don’t make me get my hopes too high Brent
I would love that too, but I fear that it might be too much of a stretch for the game. On the other hand they have 2 years of development time (augustus 2009 first game-fall 2011 second) so they might be able too pull that off….
And why does Daniel calls the number 2 position of Marvel VS DC third, while its second? just sayin…
Great episode, Daniel Kayser was just as annoying as usual but its a good thing he didn’t get to talking about his new baby again.
the story of Edward Picard and the axe.
Lightning struck in the emptyness of the night, a fire broke loose with all it’s might, a small boy with a simple thought, saw the light and how it fought, for it was not a normal fire, twas the axelord in a moment of dire, a monster wrapped in flames, attacked the lord in the name of James, the devil’s true name, without the fame, the battle raged on, till the break of dawn, all vanished but left behind, an axe so great it’ll blow your mind, the boy gently took the weapon, and with his eyes he gazed upon, an axe so cool it needed a title, not too big just a little, he named it after his father with the name of max, for he was once called the epic battle axe.
BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Huge fan of Batman can’t wait for the second one and great show as always.
Bow to our AxeLords! Great way to rock out with your axe out!
The reviews today suck a$$ because their structure hasn’t evolved with the games. The guys being PAID to review games are scared shizzlebags that really believe that “With great power comes great responsibility”. That being said i CAN NOT believe that there are people out there who base their purchasing decisions based on these so called “reviews”.
So what am I really saying? Well the problems with game reviews come from three main points.
1) The criteria/category’s by which games are scored by.
2) The inclusion of the subjective personal opinion in the review score.
3) The biggest problem of them all: The review only rates the developers performance and completely ignores the publisher. Because of this the people reviewing the game are placing the full responsibility on the quality of the game on the little guy. Which is why so many of them are scared to be honest about a game because they know their words can get Developers fired. The Publishers set the project scope, budget, marketing, development time, QA, support, price and platform. In other words the Publishers are the CEO’s and the Developers are the factory workers.
Now how do we solve this? Well here is a brief run down of my solutions:
1) Change the category’s to: Experience(Gameplay, Bugs, GUI, Difficulty, Access/Updates), Style (Graphics and Sound), Immersion (Story, AI, 3D, Graphics, Sound, Physics), Expectations (Advertising/Hype, Final features, Delivery, Release Date, Price)
2) Add a brief factual based run down in each category giving reasons why the game scores X out of X in each of the category`s. Then add an editorial piece at the bottom of the review where the person can give their subjective point of view of the game without it being part of the score. Off course the editorial can be as short/long as they want. This way the subjective part of the review is clearly labelled.
3) Include the publishers actions in the score! The Publishers have such a huge effect on how a game will turn out yet they are never held responsible for fucking things up. Its easy for us to bitch about the actions of some Publishers but most us still buy games published by them. If the game score includes the Publishers performance I bet we will see less Publishers using review scores as the means to determine how the developer performs.
Now that I have mentioned the score I guess I should explain how a score is handed out based on the Category’s I listed above. Basically all games get a score out of a 100. Unlike the old system different score brackets are used for different type of games. For example in FPS games the Style and Experience can be given 30 points each as they make up most of what people value in such games. In Action/Horror games the Immersion and Style would get the most points. In the end you add up all the category`s and give the game a “Score” out of a possible 100.
Basically rate the game on what its meant to be, hold both the Publishers and Developers responsible for the game score and remove the subjective section of review by giving it its own space.
Thank you. Good Night.
Seriously you are bitching about vanquish being like MGS? You sound like one of those crybabies everyone hates that watches a video and then grabs the most comparable game and says “OMG RIPOFF! So and so called they want their game back”. Get over it, if they make a good game that has alot in common with another good game does that not still mean you have 2 good fucking games? Why wouldn’t you want another game that is similar to another game you like?
This childish shit has to end. MGS is very well established and will always be that way, if Vanquish is excellent it will only drive the MGS creators to be even more creative and better.
Just want to go back to Skirmish 85 and you guys talking about “why we game?” I’ve played games for the majority of my life. I’ve found that as i get older i understand and appreciate some of the experiences i had as a kid with gaming and how it’s evolved my tastes. Games like Twisted Metal 2 really bring me back to a great multiplayer experience. I find that i really appreciate games like Battlefield BC 2 because of the online experience. BC2 blows me away because i play online to achieve a level of entertainment and competitiveness simultaneously. From the sound design to the ragdoll physics, I constantly find my self with my jaw on the floor from truly cinematic moments that i can also interact with. Another modern title that has done this for me is Red Dead Redemption. I know that every person who has played this game has probably shot someone in the game and said “Oh fuck.” The physics create a new and truly disturbing outcome. I shoot a man square in the face outside of the saloon in armadillo, and he reared back from the bullet then stood there with a hole in his face for about 3-4 seconds then collapsed. I actually felt bad for blasting a civilian in a rockstar game, that to me is why i play. Keep it brutal guys.
Batman Arkham City:
Honestly, even if it winds up being more of the same, the first game was so good that I wont care. More of that would be great. The “Arkham City” thing is kind of strange though… like wtf is Arkham City? Like Brent said, I was thinking Gotham City. It’s a ways off, so the long dev time and previous showing of quality makes me feel pretty confident that it will live up to expectations, or even surpass.
AC Brotherhood:
Fuck this shit. Whatever. Next.
Crysis 2:
No real surprises here. I’m with you on the obnoxiousness of announcing releases dates early and then missing them, but on this one I don’t really care. I’ve already got Fallout New Vegas, Brink, and Rage more than covering the first quarter of 2011, so Crysis getting pushed back is fine by me. More dev time is almost always a good thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if DK was right in his assumptions though: that the additional time is because Crytek is struggling to cram the Crysis beast on to consoles.
Good discussion on “why we game” this episode, left my thoughts on it in the EBC topic starter. Nice reference to “Let the Right One In” Brent :p
That video of someone paying Plunderland made me nauseous. Why does the camera keep shifting so much?
The IGN thing seems like a false gesture to me. So the scores will be shifted, but relative to the old range, it will wind up the same.
Brent — totally with you on that Vanquish trailer. LOL! It was so f’ing corny and over the top. Made the game feel pretty lame to me. I’ll reserve final judgement, but as of now it just looks like your standard 3rd person shooter (say, Gears of war) with an anime big robot makeover. I can’t wait to see how many thumbs down I get for saying that on GT.
No surprises on the poll. Batman was the obvious victor. The first one just left everyone thirsting for more.
Going to have to check out this new Forced Feedback dealy, although I did enjoy that segment of the show.
They could call it Batman: Arkham Lavatory and I’d still pick it up.
My Member Battlecry goes out to the new Bioshock Infinite trailer and the people over at Irrational who are making it happen. First of all, it was the best trailer i have seen in years. Thinking back, the trailer for the original Bioshock is the only other game trailer that has taken my breath away. And they are both Ken Levine masterpieces.
The trailer is obviously pre-rendered CG but given the 2012 release date i have no doubt high-end PCs of the day will be able to push out those visuals at 60fps. Ken himself mentioned a change in engine, amongst other reseaons for more addvanced A.I routines or something but it seems it wont be an Unreal Engine 3 game or at least will only partially be built with tech licenced from Epic Games.
At the end of the day
It blew my fucking mind and there is no other game i am as hyped about. I saw the trailer for the first time yesterday and i cant stop thinking about it – i know 18 months from now little will have changed.
Great show guys!