P.S. Everyone should go and watch the ceremony on the BAFTA website.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/kevin-butler-sony/63351

Honestly this guy always makes me laugh and the fact that he makes fun of both the wiimote AND natal just made it better.

I still dont think this is the right way to go for sony but this trailer almost makes me like the fact that they want to rip off the wii.

Now some of the names aren’t that bad and Natal isn’t the final name yet, hopefully, so they could probably improve it. But even with how bad some of these names are they could at least make sense. The Ipad, Natal, and Wii makes absolutely none. Ipad sounds like a feminine product, the Natal sounds like new slang for the word “no”, and the wii sounds like wanting to go pee or a man’s genitalia.

At least these companies could come up with something that makes sense. Just look at the phantom, it was so well named because it was just that, a phantom. It never actually existed. Even names like “Move” and “Onlive” work because one actually makes you move while the other takes place live and online.

Some of these names just make me question who really comes up with these names. Because whoever did needs to retake marketing because I do not want to own an Ipad just because of the name.

My battle cry this week goes out not to anything from GDC, but to lazy, cost cutting companies that put out online games and then short change their customers by not placing enough servers for their day one loads, and rendering the multiplayer games unplayable.

In recent years this has become a plague. I spent sixty dollars on SOCOM for PS3 when it came out, and it was two days before you could get into a game reliably, and that the game was even playable.

Then last summer, Battlefield 1943 was one of the worst offenders with a launch that was miserable. To make matters worse with both of those games, they are multiplayer only games! This means that when this happens, all of the hard earned money that you shelled into those games is rendered moot as you can not play your new game.

And to add insult to injury, not only does EA not learn from their previous mistake, they do an even worse job of responding and now Battlefield: Bad company 2 has had a series of problems because of a lack of servers.

While these companies eventually fix the problem, the fact that it exists at all is a shock. At this point in the game there is no excuse for it, other than trying to be cheap asses and sacrificing good customer service for a few more dollars on the bottom line. How dare they, especially with so many games coming out that are online only or online focused.

I’d love to hear your thoughts gents, because I see this problem only getting worse with each passing year, and never getting better.

Obviously I’m NOT talking about giving people more casual shovelware since thats the Wii’s homebase. Rather, what I’m talking about is their potential to really bring in gamers to the more mainstream games. Specifically I’m talking about shooter games (but this could extend to other games too). First of all, I know most gamers nowadays have no (or little) problem with the standard controller + 2 analog stick mechanism, but to be honest, I really dislike it. The only thing that makes me play these FPS games is if they’re really a quality title, and really I’d actually end up playing these games online for hundreds of hours if they had controls like Resident Evil 4 or the Metroid games on the Wii. As it is I just go back to the PC versions when I can but with support for that going down so much of late, the Move is my main hope now.

Furthermore, really think about the experience people new to gaming have when they try to play one of these games. I’ve tried to intoduce tons of my friends and family to 3d games (most of em did like the 2d ones back in the day) and they just STRUGGLE with controlling the camera with one stick while moving with another. Seriously my brother just could not get the hang of using both sticks with any ease, and his reaction was that he got embarrassed for doing so poorly, and then rather than continue and eventually get the hang of it, he just gave up. So the Move could provide people like this with the opportunity to naturally enjoy this kind of gaming without having played tons of games and having years of practice.

I think the reason this isn’t happening more on the Wii already is that the Wii doesn’t have that 3rd party support for the simple reason that they can’t design a game well for it and then port it to the other consoles and still have the standard of graphics/control expected on the 360 or PS3 (There are some ports down from the other consoles to the Wii like MW1 and if you look at that, its usually described as a better control scheme but the lowered quality going down to the Wii makes it a worse experience). So Reggie and Nintendo might go on saying that they won’t develop another console until a developer can’t do something with the Wii (besides HD graphics) but the reality is that developers don’t WANT to even try since they can’t make it multi-platform. This is strengthened obviously if Sony is actually being genuine that its not that hard to implement the controls while STILL retaining the traditional controls for those that prefer that (and I believe that since A. I read an interview with I believe a Naughty Dog dev and they said they’d be able to put it in if they wanted (yea they’re probably gonna back Sony but I don’t think they’d overtly lie), and B. The PS3 is totally powerful enough to handle that kind of processing in the background. Just throw one of its bazillion cores at the job). Its just up to the developers, and now they actually have incentive to put it in with the Move that they didn’t with the Wii. The proof that it enhances the gameplay experience is already there with games like RE4 so I hope they do follow through.

SilverJC:
My battlecry goes for Santa Monica Studios and the way they manage their production on God of War 3, specially on the voice acting department. Games like Mass Effect 2 came with marketing promotions making actors in their game talk about the game itself. Makes me wonder of this approach because when I play a game for the first time, I want to feel the character, not the actor that plays it.
This is where Santa Monica achieves on voice acting, they don’t go and spoil you who’s is the game acting what character, less goes on the internet and make videos with the actors like EA did with ME2. Unless you go and spoil it for yourself on IMDB.com, you will notice some recognizable actors that are newcomers to the game.
You can and go with the regulars like Terrence Carson, that is Kratos in all GoW games and you recognized it all the way. But to recognized voices after the fact with characters like Hercules in GoW 3 makes me not sidetrack of the voice actor and still be immerse in the game. Is hard in games like Uncharted series not to envision Nolan North on his character Nathan Drake when you play it, Yet it fails when I play Mass Effect 2 when I see Joker in the game, always come to my mind Seth Green and I get sidetracked.
Santa Monica Studios make a nice job working with this group of actors that many of us know, but when all is set and done I’m thinking of the characters and not the actors.  

on a side note: Elijah Wood was on the end credits on the voice part but it seems that they scratch his part on the game. And no He’s not a certain character that you interact most of the time in the game, even that perhaps immature people will connect him to that character (hehehe). Also if not mistaken was put on the Special Thanks section of the credits along with Stan “The Man” Lee for collaboration issues, if you see the Making of God of War 3 video you will know what I mean.

This is where Santa Monica achieves on voice acting, they don’t go and spoil you who’s is the game acting what character, less goes on the internet and make videos with the actors like EA did with ME2. Unless you go and spoil it for yourself on IMDB.com, you will notice some recognizable actors that are newcomers to the game.

You can and go with the regulars like Terrence Carson, that is Kratos in all GoW games and you recognized it all the way. But to recognized voices after the fact with characters like Hercules in GoW 3 makes me not sidetrack of the voice actor and still be immerse in the game. Is hard in games like the Uncharted series not to envision Nolan North on his character Nathan Drake when you play it, Yet it fails when I play Mass Effect 2 when I see Joker in the game, always come to my mind Seth Green and I get sidetracked.

Santa Monica Studios make a nice job working with this group of actors that many of us know, but when all is set and done I’m thinking of the characters and not the actors.