Sorry for the lack of posts this week- will hit you guys up in the next day or two. Work is super busy right now, so just not a lot of time.
Quick hits:
LEGO BATMAN=More of the same? Only 1 level in but without the Lucas licenses, I'm kind of bored. Really well made; like some of the ideas so far (Batman bomb suit is fun, like some of the puzzles). But the formula may be wearing thin for me and plus: It IS a kid's game and the power of the license was enough to see me thru in the past. Not a rabid Batman fan, so that must play a part. Now Lego Spidey? Fuck it, Lego MARVEL! Hells yeah, I'm playing that day one!
FORCE UNLEASHED- Got it, installed it, have not pressed start cause no time to play right now. Loved the demo tho. Weekend play maybe?
WIPEOUT HD- Out today! Sweet! Saw on GAF it's crashing tho? Is that happening all over? Anyone played it? Good stuff?
MCCAIN BAILS OUT OF DEBATE- Come the fuck on people. The man- who has admitted he knows little about economics- has to rush off and 'play' hero and 'save the country'? He can't take 3 hours out of his 'saving the country' schedule (which no one has said they need him to do) to, you know, FUCKING DEBATE so the country- which he claims to want to put first- can hear the differences between him and his opponent for the most powerful job in the world? And now he wants to suspend the VP debates as well? Come on...I know some Republicans/McCain supporters read this blog...are you guys/gals really buying this? It's a DEBATE! It's not a tour of duty! It's 3 hours out of this time. The economy will COLLAPSE if he takes 3 hours off to give the country a conversation it needs and deserves??!? And fuck, why can't Palin debate as scheduled? What, SHE is needed now too to save the country? You guys CAN NOT be buying this. You don't have to like or vote for Obama....you can still vote for McCain and be passionate about that choice...but you can't really think this is not bullshit...can you?!?!
REVENGE OF THE SITH- Jake Campbell- Scott's Son (my biz partner/co-owner of Eat Sleep Play and supremo game maker in general)- is always telling me the Star Wars prequels are good, better than the originals,etc. I always chalked up that insane, "you must consume copious amounts of crack' statement to the fact that Jake was a kid when the new trilogy came out and Lucas always says the new movies (and the old ones?!?!) are made for kids,etc. BUT the other nite I popped in REVENGE OF THE SITH and somehow was able- for the first time since it hit DVD- to get past 2-3 of the gut wrenchingly bad scenes that in the past had always had me ripping the movie out of my player and tossing it back on the shelf (the 'Padme combing her hair and talking about love being blind' scene is particularly difficult to stomach). But somehow- not sure why- I chose to endure and get past those scenes. And once I made it thru those horrific moments (and they are all toward the start), I was surprised and happy to find that- for me- it's a really good Star Wars movie. Like, one of the best. Like it goes: EMPIRE, STAR WARS, SITH.
As a directed film, it can't hold up to most film school festival entries...I mean, the prequels are really poorly directed movies. No drama to the visual storytelling AT all. That scene where Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatene get caught by the force field/beam of light? You'd think that would shot in a dramatic way, using a number of tense, close shots edited together in some sort of emotionally evocative way. But nah: Lucas just sets the camera down and we get a long shot of some people running and then stopping because they are now surrounded by some light. The movie is filled with missed opportunities to tell the story in a visual way. And it hurts the film tremendously.
But as a STORY, it's pretty darn good I think. Need to go back and re-watch Ep 1 and Ep 2 and see if my mind has changed on those. But on Revenge, I'm like: 'hey, this is actually pretty good...Jake is right!' ...now I'm watching all the docs on the Revenge disc and really digging those.
Ok, back to work- later ya'll!
David
If McCain supporters can't bring themselves to vote for Obama, can't they at least write-in Ron Paul?
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who said "I can't stand Obama, and Biden is even worse, but I can't vote for retarded."
Hopefully these latest antics will further reveal the retardation of the McCain/Palin ticket.
more teases for your coming game? keep'em coming.
ReplyDeleteyou are probably doing it but just to warn you from the whores, add trophy support to all your PS3 games.
now when are we going to get a post from Eat Sleep Play on PS Blog?
I can't believe you liked Sith. It goes: Empire, Star Wars, and Revenge.
ReplyDeleteany chance of you picking up Mega Man 9? would love to hear your thoughts on that game.
ReplyDeleteLetterman ripped him a new one on the late show the other night, the clips on youtube.
ReplyDeleteNo megaman for me. Love the idea, but I hear it's crazy hard and I have no interest in crazy hard. Shame...so many games out of Japan screw the pooch as they pander to hardcore only. Hardcore is great- put a mode in and toss in incentive to beat it and play on hard core- but why (with games like this and Contra) do they want to lose sales/interest from 95% of players?!?
ReplyDeleteBummed- I was really looking forward to MegaMan 9.
David
obama's going to, dude. everyone who's in the senate needs to be there. a debate can happen anytime, this can't.
ReplyDeletei can understand that. Mega Man 9 is a purchase for me. because it will be hard.
ReplyDeletewhat would you have done different on MM9 if you had full control?
Dude I'll take ya on later if we both manage to get a non crashy WipEout! That is if they release it in its current condition. Really been looking forward to that one.
ReplyDeleteI hear you about crazy hard games. Most of the games I buy these days tend to lean more towards the casual crowd simply because I don't have the time nor patience to stick with hard games that you have to memorize simply to beat.
ReplyDeleteI bought Megaman Advent ZX (or whatever it is called) because I loved the old megaman games (6 was the best for me) but it turned out to be astoundingly hard, so hard in fact I have only beat one boss and haven't picked it up again. A shame really because the art direction, for me, was fantastic.
One of the best games I have ever played, or rather one of the two best games I have ever played has been God of War and God of War 2. For me they had everything. Story telling, action, easy enough gameplay, solveable puzzles that made you feel proud when you figured them out, and best of all the games have an almost perfect balance between being hard and being frustrating.
That and Portal, which is a masterpiece by all accounts.
There are many times I have to intentionally limit myself to the games I buy simply because I know I won't ever beat them because they are too frustratingly difficult.
Truly Sad.
As per the SW prequels, what ruins them for me is the boat loads of horrendous acting. And I don't even really think it is the actors fault! As everyone one of those actors has been fantastic in one movie or another.
Natalie - V for Vendetta
Hayden - Jumper (that movie was pure fun)
Samuel - Pulp Fiction, Black Snake Moan, etc
Ewan - Moulin Rouge (man can he sing)
etc
Whoever (whether it be george or someone else) was directing them had no sense of what was good and what was bad.
Anyhow, live up to your company name with a slight variation,
Eat
Sleep
Work
:P
David,
ReplyDeleteThe Wipeout HD lockup problem is Network related..... There appears to be a few ways to get around it, if your affected at all. If you are affected, here is how others have gotten around the lockups until the inevitable patch comes out:
1)Sign out of PSN before you play. GTAIV all over again...lol
2)Delete some of your friends. GAF users are saying that it appears to crash if you are signed into PSN and have more than 50 friends on your friend list.
Oh, and you need to get Megaman 9....don't listen to the wussies saying its too hard. It's classic Mega Man goodness. The Mega Man games are all about remembering enemy placement, and boss patterns.
~Mike
Hey Jaffe, did you hear about Jack Thompson being disbarred? It finally happened. I know he's kind of irrelevant in comparison to 3 years ago but I think he finally got the comeuppance.
ReplyDeleteAlso, are you getting Resistance 2? I don't have a PS3 but I saw some gameplay at GameTrailers.com and holy hell, it looks intense.
To me, Sith wasn't really a good movie. All of the new trilogy weren't good movies. But they all did bring at least one cool new thing to Star Wars. The stories were interesting though. A gap in Star Wars that needed to be filled. It seems that no new Star Wars film could be able to stand on its own. I think 1-3 would work a lot better in a comic book so that you don't have to hear Haden speak (god that guy sucks).
ReplyDeleteThere are a few ways, in my opinion, to save Star Wars (as a film). Stop making films towards the kids. Clone Wars, was made for kids, and IT SUCKED! The new films were sort of a hybrid for kids and fans. The first trilogy was made simply to entertain everyone. There is nothing wrong with a family film, its just you have to hit that sweet spot that both children AND adults can enjoy. And acting is crucial. People don't notice acting until they find themselves paying for some jackass on a screen. Anyone agree with me?
Revenge of the Sith is DEFINTALY the better movie out of the first three. I appreciate the firt Star Wars films on a technical acheivement... but i need to watch them with the sound turned off! :)
ReplyDeleteI have to give Lucas a TON of credit... he practically pushed HD film making to the for-front. At the time he starting filming episodeI, there was little or no HD film technology... Lucas's reply was "well, i guess we will have to invent it!" That's amazing..
Palin can't be bothered with political debates... but she can see Russia from her house!! :)
Everytime I watch the prequels I always think that they couldn't have been as bad as I remember but they keep getting worse.
ReplyDeleteDave, Speaking of games you want to try, have you thought of Little Big Planet? It looks extremely fun and it's supposed to be for the hardcore and casual gamer audience. That and SackBoy is so cute, it's pretty cool how you can customize him anyway you want. They even had a Kratos SackBoy, so I thought it'd be cool to make a Sweet Tooth SackBoy.
ReplyDeletehttp://tmalliance.com/uploads/112022/Sweet_Toof_copy.jpg
The thing that grabs me, is that you can make your own levels,but it also comes with 11 hours of Single player. I'm picking this one up the day it comes out.
Cool. What happened to the video blog? I like those.
ReplyDeleteAnd what games are you looking forward to buying in october?
Revenge of the Sith was the best of the 3 prequels. The only cool thing about Episode 1 was Darth Maul he looked bad ass but it's not worth watching that boredom (and dealing with Jar Jar) just to see him bust some face then die. Episode 2 was only good for the Fett head scene and the Yoda CGI. The reason why the 3rd Episode is decent is cus of how it revolves around Darth Vader and it ends quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what Lucas has to do with the Batman license but I'll check out the game. I'm kinda a batman fan.
As for Megaman 9, I kinda agree with David. There should be "easy" modes for casuals or less hardcore but also hardcore modes so the hardcore's can brag. Mainly to not intimidate gamers from buying it. Side note: I don't get why gamers complain games are too easy when they play on easy modes and complain games are too hard when they play on hard modes? Could whiny gamers be affecting developers in deciding to just stick with 1 difficulty or lack of varying difficulties? Hmmm.
Jaffe did you even finish MGS4? Are you ever gonna give your updated impressions/thoughts?
ReplyDeleteHey-
ReplyDeletetotally jazzed for LBP-it's very interesting and the interface is smooth as butter. Eager to give it a go and make some levels!
-video blogs are not gone- I just don't do them all the time- especially when I post early in the am and have just woken up and look like ass....
-Lucas had nothing to do with Batman...I mean that the other 2 Lego games I played were Indy and Star Wars...without those licenses- or something like Marvel- I'm not all over it. A DC UNIVERSE lego would be great but I've always liked Batman but never gone ga-ga for the character.
All of the Star Wars prequels suck Jaffe. I worry you're coming down with something.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a huge supporter of Revenge of the Sith. I hate episode I and episode II, but III rules. I say Empire, Hope, Sith, Jedi. Those are real SW films.
ReplyDeleteYoda Vs. The Emperor to Duel of the Fates. What more do you want? Yeah, Anakin sucks and Padme sort of sucks too, but the thing that made III what it was, was Sidious coming out of hiding and beating the shit out of everyone. That made me extremely happy. The last hour of that movie is as good as any movie I've ever seen, if you take away the "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
-G.W.
Jaffe how far are you in MGS4, beat it yet? Im very intrested in what you thought about the game! :)
ReplyDeletehey jaffe, what you just said in the comments totally just made me realize something about LBP...
ReplyDelete..not only can amateurs make levels... already established level designers, like YOU, will be able to make levels for the game.
that is amazing.. i can't wait to see what you can do in the 2d platforming arena of design.
anyways... good luck with your game, hopefully you guys are having fun living the dream.
palin is sooo NULL:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg
are u Americans AWARE???... i cant understand how somebody like her could get this 'far'.
Hay Jaffe i total like the theme "Asturias"
ReplyDeletei like how Javier Navarrete compose it in this movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYYj_T7TSGw
sounds like something Twisted Metal might have or some other great game that comes from you but have another mix to the theme to keep it fresh ;)
to me the main keys of making a game is Story, Music, Environment, Characters and Game play
but i think some developers are forgetting some of them to make a quick project to compete the mass's and push out to the buyers and that why some games fall as others stand
also what do you think of this quote from this guy?
"A good game will stay with us all our lives.
A good game makes us long to play it again."
- Wolfgang Kramer
Hey Jaffe, In the Star Wars the Forced Unleashed demo, at the end when it goes into the quicktime event against the walker, do you think "man, this would not be in this game if it weren't for me?" Cause thats what I thought, your the man Jaffe... Also how do you feel about the Kratos Sackboy?
ReplyDeleteYou've gone mad. The Star Wars prequels were complete rubbish. Crap. Horrible. I cringe watching them when my daughter wants to watch 'em. The Phantom Menace was good the first time I saw it when it was released. But I was VERY stoned and was unable to recognize stale acting when it was right in front of me on a football field sized screen.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to mention it, the Special Editions he did were also bad. Thanks alot for raping my childhood Lucas!
HAN SHOOTS FIRST!!!!!!!