So true.
I used to work at Activision, and it was one of the worst jobs I've ever had, and hands down, the worst job I've had in the gaming industry. Fuck Activision.
Crash and Spyro aren't in this game. It's time to let that one go and move on.
Sad to hear that, bad working conditions are never good. I think this is something we're all coming to terms with now, that the icons we associate with Playstation won't be in this. I think I'm finally ok with it now :\
There's a few issues with this comparison. Firstly, Team Ico is a fraction of the size of Naughty Dog. I believe it's currently at the biggest it has ever been at like 50 people. Secondly, Team Ico is an internal team within Japan Studio. You know, the Japan Studio that makes Gravity Rush, and LocoRoco meaning that 50 member squad didn't just work on big weird bird things for the past half decade. Lastly, TLG is obviously a much more ambitious project than All-Stars. There is likely no source for Ueda and the rest of his team to draw inspiration from. That said, both games have taken a lot longer than they should have.
I agree that both have taken longer than they should have but to the majority of the public, All-Stars didn't exist until this year, most people outside of the hardcore community even know how long it's been in development for. They just see trailers or hear about it in passing comments from friends.
TLG has been officially revealed for much longer and it still doesn't have a solid release date. It's not as bad as the GT5 fiasco (huge, bloated team and ridiculous working conditions, several delays) but it's still pretty bad. The main thing I was trying to emphasize was how ridiculous Sony has been with their management of their Japan studios.
They basically go into a cave for x amount of years and Sony keeps throwing money at them, casually asking "Oh, is it done yet?" every year or so. In comparison, they build Superbot just for this game and then when Sony should be coming through with sealing these deals for
Playstation icons like Crash, Spyro and Cloud, they don't follow through.
From the public view, we're getting third party cash ins like Big Daddy and Dino, additions that are there purely to promote their upcoming games. The argument for Big Daddy not being a cash in is shot down by the very fact that Columbia, not Rapture is part of the stage mash ups. I know, his level 3 essentially converts any stage to Rapture but
it's not the same thing. People have even said that Ken Levine even wrote the story for Big Daddy in All-Stars, that he really pushed for his inclusion.
I don't want to sound like a jerk, but how hard can it be to write the story for a fighter like this? At most, it involves his dialogue (which is incomprehensible whale noises) so the only real worry is what the little sister says, and from what we've been shown so far, the story mode will only have small little videos with exchanges from both combatants - and the variances depend on whether or not each different character match up is different. I'll make an assumption now that
the only unique intros we'll see are from rivals. If this is true, they only have to write a few videos for him.
Superbot has been mum on whether or not those icons will make it into the game, yet they acknowledge that the huge demand for them is there. Now we pretty much know why we're getting Dino, Raiden and Big Daddy over recognizable Playstation icons like Solid Snake, Cloud, Spyro and Crash. Think about it, they kept touting how awesome Big Daddy's playstyle came out and how he's not a cash in, but
how can he ever be more of a Playstation icon than the ones mentioned above?
Maybe they tried to get those icons, realized they don't have the funds for it and said "Welp, let's make do with what we can get and say it totally makes sense over what the fans want". I already love this game so much but the third party choices just enrage me as a fan of Playstation. I'm slowly getting over it, but I'll never be happy with how they're taking third party characters that are there purely to promote upcoming games.
I think all of these things are definitely pointing towards Lightning being included over any other FF character, which is both depressing and shameful as well. The sad part is that Dino's playstyle looks really cool, it really captures the essence of what Dante was, but he is definitely not Dante. Someone even mentioned how terrible his portrait is - that's because he's a terribly designed character. He looks like an emaciated tranny witch.
It really sucks because overall I love this game and I think all of the Sony franchises represented so far have been great choices - I just think the third party choices have been terrible.
