-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Surfer Girl Rumors What's True, What's False, and What's Unconfirmed
- Thread starter DuckRacer
- Start date
KidGalactus
Member
Don't... when you say things like that it makes her appear.
First her... then the other.
Quiet your mouth boy. You know not what you do.
pizzaguysrevenge
Banned
Metroid makes more sense in first person.GrotesqueBeauty said:You mean shoehorned into a 1st person perspective because the dev team can't figure out how to get a 3rd person engine running properly?
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Maybe Nintendo wants to out-Oblivion Oblivion.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
KidGalactus said:
Meh. After Twilight Princess, I have absolutely no hope for another competent console Zelda anyway.
The Hermit
Member
:lol :lol Well, that was fast!
Anyay,I hough Surfer Girl quit... or is hse bck?
whoa my kyboar sucks!!
Anyay,I hough Surfer Girl quit... or is hse bck?
whoa my kyboar sucks!!
CamHostage
Member
choodi said:
GDJustin said:
What were talking about magazine journalism, which is tremendously different from news journalism (and should probably have another title.) True news breaks when something happens, but creativity and ideas ... those develop over time. This idea that videogame journalists are retarded because they don't report new titles the very second they're conceived is silly. Journalists fit into the development timeline at an appropriate point, when the game has become a "game" rather than just an idea (they are, after all, "game" journalists,) and that happens typically at a certain juncture when the product is at a point when the public would be interested in knowing about it. Now, exactly when that point is depends on the product and the audience the journalist serves. A GamePro crowd may want to know the month before it ships, a Game Informer crowd would want to know as soon as its playable and a journalist can give impressions of its going to be good, and a Gamasutra crowd may not care what the title of the game is but may want to know as soon the technical roadmap is outlined and partnerships with middleware providers are settled so they can learn about whatever b-spline or procedural rendering technology this development house is working on.
The bottom line is that this balance has been worked out because it's whats best for the videogame makers, the videogame journalists, and the videogame fans. The game makers get to do their work in relative peace and quiet, concentrating on the creative work until they absolutely have to switch gears and bring the promotional exposure team in. The videogame journalists get to write about actually playable games, bringing top-traffic stories to the audience with screenshots and realtime clips to back up claims and draw more eyes. And the videogame fans get to hear about cool stuff at just the right time so that when they actually get the game, theyre not so fed up with hearing about it that they can't enjoy it. (And its good for NeoGAFers too, because you get to fuck with the balance by breaking news that friends-of-friends-of-a-guy-at-Nintendo heard, making a l33t name for yourself by telling other forum posters about exclusive news that only you know about even though there are 90 other people in the studio office who have been quietly working on the project since October.)
It's not a perfect balance, and scoops like SurferGirl help to whip the balance back out of PR's control (which can become a major problem if left unchecked by too many pussy journalists, we've got a competitive blogosphere going today and it's hard to say if it's out of balance or is balanced just right), but that balance of exposure and timing is healthy for the industry and for fandom. This is a balance that exists (to varying degrees) in all other forms of art/entertainment journalism. Yes, there's a conspicuous absence of the "trades" in videogames. Movie titles break pretty early because of these trade papers. That said, even with the movie trades there's still that gestation period where the script's being worked and also a certain amount of darkness in development, shooting or editing processes that journalists really don't get into. There's not preview impressions of the work print. No studio sanctions script impressions. Somebody will sneak some shots from the set or some costume tests will leak out. (Same as how character models or early footage of games sneak out when a developer has leaks - something rarer in games because it's not Teamsters and dayplayers making the product, it's the 150-man family at Insomniac who have worked together some as long as 15 years.) For the most part, however, magazines and websites don't get access to the nitty-gritties of the creation process. And honestly, they don't really care because their audience isn't interested unless they can see something cool and real. (The interweb has a shit-fit whenever a teaser trailer is shown with no gameplay, could you imagine how fun it'd be if our first-looks at games were pre-alpha demos and concept trailers?) Magazine-style journalists focus on the art and the entertainment, not the gossip and IP management. There is news to report -- Free Radical closes its doors or Rare gets bought by Microsoft -- but the bread and butter of videogame coverage (or any other entertainment reporting) really is in opinions, and an opinion on something that doesn't exist yet isn't worth much. When Take 2 "announces" Bioshock 3 or Siliconera confirms that Defcon DS is in development, that feels like news to people, but of course it's not news at all. It is instead the disclosure of an impending entertainment event years in the making, and those who cover the videogame beat are there to give you opinionated access all the way through that event's launch and aftermath.
SCENARIO: God of War took approximately three years to make. According to this idea of what videogame journalism should be, the very day that David Jaffe said, Hey guys, I have this cool idea for a game where mythical gods are at war, some embedded journalist should have badgered a peon at SCE to give him the scoop so he could rush home and write, TM Designer Planning 'God War'. Then somebody else would report hand-on impressions of the first character scale test, giving comments about how the jumping algorithm needs work and how the attached screenshots of untextured graph walls and mannequin character models will look better once art is put in place. Thered be a scoop about strife in the office -- Jim and Steve cannot agree on whether to use Maya or 3D StudioMax, and former lead texture artist Pam has gone on maternity leave, so the headline God War Team About to Die? breaks all across the internet. Dave decides to change the lead character from a frumpy roman knight to the thuggish antihero Kratos, but the fansites still cling to the belief that the old character design was better. Dave proposes special playable kill sequences done with button taps, and the controversy of this game ripping off Shenmue instantly drives away the Sega diehards. Dave comes up with an idea that Kratos should have blades he swings with chains so that the game can have both ranged and close-up combat, and the license holders for Ghost Rider go, Hey, our character has a bladed chain we need to see if we can shut that God War shit down, and while were at it, maybe we should make our own videogame just like what theyre doing. Finally, all of the elements have come together and the game is playable in an Alpha state. David Jaffe steps out on the show floor at E3 in 2004 and begins to introduce his teams proud new creation, but as soon as he starts talking, the audience groans and goes, We know, we know goddamned God War again, we get it! Now get your ass off the stage and show us some PS3 CPU benchmarks and target renders!
choodi said:
Whoa.
Whoa.
Thanks for the post. I'll find sources for the rumors you highlighted and update the OP tomorrow when I have some time. (about to hit the bed soon)Shiggy said:True:
7) A2M is working on Indiana Jones for people who cannot stand to play consoles with the number three in the name--DS/Wii/PS2/PSP.
1) That Avatar game that Ubisoft Montreal is working with will ship with high-quality stereoscopic 3D glasses (like the ones that you get when you see an IMAX 3D film).
4) A2M's Indiana Jones title, which has had a far more stable development, follows same plot its big next-gen siblings, but in an alternate universe sort of way. Waggle-lovers shan't worry, Wii is the lead SKU for the title.
3) Codemasters is publishing a Hollywood simulation akin to the The Movies.(You're In The Movies)
3) Yes, Onimusha 5 is coming out [in 2009] for PS360. So are Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2.
3) As previously mentioned, the last crack at a new Road Rash was a PS360 affair over at the now-defunct Warrington studio. Despite no new plans currently existing for another Road Rash, the prospect is being contemplated.
2) N-Space is going back to its roots with a PS(t?)Wii60 license music game aimed at the tween demo. They have also apparently finished development on their version of The Force Unleashed and are in the midst of development of a new dual screen title. No word on whether they are still Nintendo's Floridian inamorata.
I learned a few days ago [Red Dead Revolver 2] was a sequel, not spiritual successor (yes, that information was wrong), coming to PS360, official announcement later this year, release [in 2009].
4) Activision has a tie-in for next summer's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Originality! Excelsior!
4) Even though Sega Superstars Tennis is not doing particularly well, Sumo Digital is working away on "a new entry in a venerable Sega sports franchise that draws upon the team's previously-established expertise."
This is partly true:
4) Ancel's studio also has a "kinda epic but kinda expected" Wiixclusive (not named Beyond Good & Evil 2), apparently on track to ship for this holiday season.
These were true, but changed due to the Brash thing:
2) A sequel to 2007 GOTY Alvin and the Chipmunks is on its way.
1) Factor 5 has not abandoned the PS3, despite yesterday's announcement appearing to indicate the contrary. Also, some may mishear one of the company's forthcoming projects as Toucan Sam title.
I keep believing the Zelda rumour
JasonUresti
Member
AniHawk said:
I agree. Why should Nintendo put Zelda into more capable Retro hands, when the same stock design and safe, risk free recycling from the home team still gets the nostalgia sensors tingling in its long term fans?
JasonUresti
Member
GrotesqueBeauty said:You mean shoehorned into a 1st person perspective because the dev team can't figure out how to get a 3rd person engine running properly?
You mean put into a first person perspective because corporate manager Miyamoto insisted that the game be a FPS?
I'm surprised Nintendo didn't give him lead designer credit for that contribution.
Pojo said:
They had to design the game around a crappy control scheme which made the game boring.
JasonUresti said:
The shitty FPS it became was apparently an improvement, since they were actually able to complete anything at all. Retro was such a shitty company, they couldn't even pull off a third-person Metroid game. I'm not sure why you'd want Zelda in the hands of a company that couldn't pull off a third-person game in the first place, and did such a piss-poor job of it, they had to cancel every other game they were working on.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
AniHawk said:
And yet it somehow managed to be completely unappealing.
Dragona Akehi
Retired
AniHawk said:
If only we were, it would make life much easier and we wouldn't even be aware of the deficit.
Door2Dawn said:
I am very much me, yes.
Zoramon089
Banned
AniHawk said:
You seem like a hater...I mean you hate TP and PH despite them being good games...
Not quite true. In a third person title you *ought* to:bluemax said:
Build the gameplay to take into account the increased FOV.
Deal with rendering a player character plausibly in an environment when they can travel almost anywhere in it.
A player character in a third person title has to be high-detail, as well - it's a permanent fixture of the game and it needs to be attractive to the player if they're going to be looking at it for upwards of ten hours. The environment designers need to take into account the extra render cost of those polygons.
Do note that the Morph Ball sequences, the third-person elements of Metroid Prime, neatly take these issues into account:
The gameplay is already inherently different at those points
Rendering a ball on an environment is comparatively simple; you don't need to ensure that feet match the slope of the ground, for instance.
The ball render is actually quite simple. Most of the bits that make the morph ball look good are clever lighting and texturing effects rather than model detail. Also, ball sequences are sporadic, the ball is not always on screen, but instead breaks up periods of first-person gameplay.
It's quite possible to make a third-person title just by taking a first-person title and pulling the camera back. However, to make a *good* third-person title, you have to take things such as these into account.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
I'm going to punch you in the jeans.GrotesqueBeauty said:You mean shoehorned into a 1st person perspective because the dev team can't figure out how to get a 3rd person engine running properly?
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
it's good to see some love for Twilight Princess, there was a while there where it seemed like everyone hated my favourite Zelda game
Jocchan said:
Indeed. I expect a massive outcry when the next console Zelda is unveiled. While I had a problem with the pacing of the story in TP (which, to me, kept it from being the best ever), I always thought it was a good game. It's nice to see other people appreciate it.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Good luck, I don't wear jeans! Seriously though, I think Metroid Prime is a very well designed game (one of the best last gen even), but what it gets right as a Metroid game it does in spite of being first person, not because it's first person.Rez said:
I keep hearing this theory on various Zelda games, but I don't lend it much credence honestly. I think more can be attributed to simply hearing different people's views at different times rather than the same people who had complaints changing their minds. The same issues I had with WW, TP, and PH are the same issues I run into every time I try to play them, and similarly the things I think they each do well are the same things I credited them for to begin with. People who were "just hating" and later "came around" are the exception, not the rule. Actually, "they're" probably mostly abstract constructs, cobbled together by people trying to reinforce their own preconceived notion of some imaginary cycle, which in reality is just a mish mash of disparate responses to the game rather than any one coherant opinion of a specific message board user.Jocchan said:
That was a mouthful.
evilromero
Member
Twilight Princess is great- possibly one of the best behind LttP and LA. It has some of the best dungeons, well THE best, a beautiful and inspirational overworld and great GREAT pacing. The only console Zelda game I've played through three times in such a short span.
mclem said:
Eh, you're pushing it too hard.... I agree with you on the gameplay parts, other than it is still not an engine thing, but oh so many mods give you the ability to be in third-person when the original game is in first... It's really not that amazing to be able to render characters, in even in high detail, just imagine if the game has a multiplayer component, then the "character plausibly rendered' argument is moot. As for the highly detailed character, look at Wind Waker, all you need is an attractive character, not a highly detailed one...
So on the gameplay side, you would most definitely change your game design around the fact that you're in third person, but from a engine point of view, not really...
Last argument : Gears of War/UT3
This is true. I know that there was a new PS3/360 Road Rash game being developed about 3 years ago. My brother was working in QA at EA Chertsey at the time and he said they had it in for about two weeks and then it got taken away again. He left EA a few weeks later so doesn't know what ever happened to it, but as we've never heard anymore about a new Road Rash it must have been cancelled.
infinityBCRT
Member
What was that companion blog that surfer girl had? I think its still up, no?
infinityBCRT
Member
They butchered the franchise so badly after the first few games that I don't think they remember what made Road Rash so good. It was all about the underdog starting from scratch and going up the ranks and getting the girl. The music, the look of the racers, the art style, the track layouts were just perfect in the first Road Rash game. I'd honestly just want them to port the first Road Rash to XBLA/PSN and perhaps dress it up with 3D graphics but still use the same physics/hitboxes that the first game used.satriales said: