Malik
(2/25/08)
Peter Molyneaux
did some
showcasing of Fable 2 at the GDC. While most of the information
he presented sounds like more of the same (vague hints of things and
talk of good and evil and the whole family thing), there was some
interesting stuff present.
For one, Molyneaux
is more focused on making evil the easy path while good is going to
require sacrifice and harsh realities. That's a cool idea that I can
get behind. Afterall, when you're a super powered
fighter/mage/whatever, it should be pretty easy to do down a path of
moral decline.
My question,
however, is "what about the grey area?" I mean good and evil are the
absolutes and they are easy to define, but what about a person who
wants to play a bit more realistically. For example, in the first
Fable, I liked to go the thieving route (made things more fun when
it was shopping time) and also to force higher rewards from people
for any situation. I was greedy. However, I avoided most murder
since that tended to leave things in a bad place (especially if you
get caught or kill a shopkeeper). So, is there going to be something
laid out for people who are greedy, but still have mainly good
intentions? Also, is theft going to still be worth too many damned
evil points when compared to murder's value?
If Molyneaux
really wants to see more people play the evil side, there's one
other point that must be considered; how people will react to you. I
played as evil a couple of times and good once...I liked good more.
Was it because I didn't like being morally f$#@ed up? No. It was
because no one liked me as an evil bastard. That included all
potential mates (wouldn't some be attracted to the "bad boy" type
that I was?). I just couldn't make friends, so I didn't want to skip
that entire side of the game. So, I want to see this evened out
some. Maybe some people in town could naturally be evil or at least
less good. These people should be more disgusted with good avatars
than evil. It would at least even out this one edge to the game.
There are a lot of
minor things mentioned by Molyneaux that could be overly analyzed in
this presentation, but I think it's better to skip that and only
look at what we really know. Molyneaux took a major beating in the
PR world for the promises that failed to materialize with Fable...I
don't see him making the same mistake (even if I thought Fable was
still an amazing, even if it was short, game).
So, I'll just say
I love and fully agree with his quote; "It's you Americans, you've
got something against nipples." That is sadly too damned true.
Afterall, if the game is rated M, why not include some fake nipples,
nudity, or whatnot. If a movie is supposed to have the equivalent
rating as a M rated game with an R rating, then why does the M not
allow anything present in an R? It's because too many people still
see movies as a medium for all while games are a kids-only
medium...which is bull shit. Just ask Lost Odyssey players.
Speaking of things
that broke the sex in game barrier,
EA has been trying to take over Take Two. At the same time, Take
Two's executives have
called the offer insulting...or that should properly be
"undervalued". Despite the semantics or whatever, it looks like EA
has set their sights on Take Two and that this will most likely end
the same way that things always end when EA has it's mind made up;
Take Two will most
likely be part of the EA family inside this year. I hate to see it
when EA has been known to neuter companies once they are brought
under the EA umbrella. However, at least the latest version of EA
(which is to say the latest CEO's reign) has included some good
changes from the past. There is some additional creativity and
freedom being granted to the teams on the inside. However, it's
still a crap shoot for how long this trend will last before it's
back to EA being a soulless corporation.
At least
Activision has taken the lead of being the next real successor to
EA's past ideals (look at Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and any other
recent Activision properties). So, as long as Take Two is not
crammed into the Activision brand, some hope can remain. I just hate
to see GTA being turned into a cash cow franchise any more than it
has already become.
Also, I see this
as true doom for sports fans. Afterall, EA is the number one maker
of sports titles (Madden, NBA 0X, NHL 0X, MLB 0X, Tiger Woods, etc.)
and Take Two has the 2K label, which is the only true competition
for sports titles. If this whole deal goes through, the two games
per sport rule that we known would dry up in a hurry. It would be
like what happened to football after EA got the NFL exclusive
license...but with all sports. The competition would be over and
there would be no option beyond buying the same damned game each
year, only with another feature cut out from the previous
incarnation. Makes me glad that I'd rather watch sports on TV or go
outside and play something than pop in Madden.
Malik |
Malik
(2/26/08)
My posts this week
will probably be erratic at best. I missed out on posting yesterday
and will maybe miss a couple of other days this week as my day job
becomes a nice little nightmare. I will not go into details, since
that's not the point of this web site (otherwise I'd have to call
this a "blog" and I like to avoid that realm), but I'll just say
that moving a scientific lab is not anyone's idea of simple fun.
The Nine Inch
Nails pack came out yesterday and I will be skipping it. On one
hand, I like to play guitar more than anything else, and these are
not guitar songs. If anything, these are songs for anyone except the
guitarist. There's some steady bass lines, a constant level and flow
of vocals, and some insane drumming (including a tier 9 drum song).
As for the guitar...well, looking at the expert guitar youtube
videos of these tracks one thing becomes clear; Harmonix has pulled
a Neversoft.
My largest
complaint with Guitar Hero 3 was how Neversoft forced a false level
of challenge on the expert difficulty, and even to some extent they
did it with lower levels of difficulty. I want to play each note
that's presented by the original artist, but Neversoft forced in
some false notes (you strum when there is no new guitar sound being
made). I always took Harmonix to be above such pseudo-rocking.
Afterall, Harmonix kept three note chords for where they would be
appropriate, they have you play only the real guitar notes on songs,
and they tried to make the best representation of a guitar track as
possible with only five frets.
That's why the NIN
pack fails horribly in both guitar and in keeping my solid respect
in Harmonix. I'll spoil things by saying two of these songs include
piano. That's fine, since there's keyboard in some songs like Won't
Get Fooled Again. However, on the classic The Who song, you don't
have the guitarist playing these keyboard notes. On two of the NIN
songs, the guitar line/track is so empty (these really are poor
guitar songs) that Harmonix tried to make up for it by having the
guitarist play the piano line. That's a big "WTF?" in my eyes.
I hope this is not
going to be repeated any since I like to pride myself on respecting
Harmonix for doing their job correctly. Until a piano pedal is made
for a guitar (which just will not happen in the world of rock), the
guitar is not going to sound like the end of The Collector. It just
will not happen.
Harmonix, I
implore you...I ask you...no...I beg you; knock it off with trying
to be Neversoft. You are above that level of shit. You can and have
done better that to fake the challenge of the guitar. Please, keep
up the good work with constant DLC, but don't soil such a good thing
with this false bullshit. If you want piano in this type of game,
then make a keyboard controller. However, until that happens, I
expect to not see anymore piano being charted on some other
instrument.
Malik |
Malik
(2/27/08)
I guess a new day
is starting to dawn on Rock Band DLC. That is, there are now
patched versions of some DLC songs. In particular, the Police
Pack 01 (and all of it's songs), Brass in Pocket (Pretenders), and
Limelight (Rush) are all now patched. To get them updated, if you
previously downloaded the songs, you need to delete your DLC of
these songs from you HDD (or MU), and then download again. Of
course, like with any downloads on Live, the second time (and all
times beyond the first) is at no cost. So, there' no harm in
downloading them again.
Well, there's
almost no harm. I've heard some people have been unable to find the
songs on Live (especially the Police Pack 01 songs and whole pack)
after deleting them. It sounds like this problem has been fixed, but
it's still good to check their availability before deleting the old
version. It only takes an extra minute, and this investigating can
be worth it if you need to play the songs right now.
As for what the
patched songs have that the originals didn't...it's a little less
than clear. Supposedly there were some sound issues and they have
been fixed in the patched versions. I'm not sure if all of them have
the same issue, but I know one or more of these tracks would not
turn off the vocal track when the singer selected to turn the vocal
track down to zero volume. So, if you like to sing, or play with a
vocalist, then this can make things more fun for you.
Also, the songs
don't effect anything with online play or leader boards. That is,
there is no difference in score, timing, note scales, drum beats,
vocal paths, or anything important. All that's different is the
aesthetics/sound quality and controls of the song. So, there's no
harm in keeping the old versions if you're just too damned lazy to
download the new patched version.
Anyway, on a
different note, I'm now on disk 4 (of 4) on Lost Odyssey. I'm also
now taking my time to re-explore all of the old places (mainly
cities) that I have access to at the start of disk 4. Each citie has
at least a few bonus things to check out (be it treasure locations,
items, or dreams). In particular, Uhra is well worth a second full
investigation after you finish disk 4 and have the freedom to check
it out. New dungeon (with enemies who love to give your fresh out of
disk 3 party a lot of levels in a hurry), new plot, new items
(including what I'd call the second best accessory in the game...at
least for your immortals), and new access to the Cubic Music Score
game.
I've explored all
of the major cities again, so I think I'm now ready to resume the
game in the intended path. However, I can easily spend another 10
hours just hitting the old places for more free shit. Afterall, I
actually got to disk 4 about (on the in game clock) 7 hours ago and
I have not even gone to any new locations yet.
Malik |
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