After the tragic loss of the original Jumping the Shark #129 and the subsequent (and awesome) Cackowski-Schnell One-Man Jam that replaced it, the gang gets back on track this week by reminiscing about the week that was at E3. We talk games. We talk fashion. We talk fine dining. And we talk who would win in a battle royale between dinosaurs and plankton. (At least two of these things are true.) As this posts I’ll literally be on a plane bound for Vegas, so I leave you in the steady hands of the writers here who actually -you know- write stuff. Have a wonderful week everyone. Hopefully I make it home without being destitute and hooked on crack. No promises.
Past Episodes
Edit Type: Skype
Man, I think you really oversold Gravity Rush. It’s a nice game with a pretty fun movement mechanic but that’s about it. I’m finishing up Chapter 10 right now, so I think I’m about 2/3 of the way through it and so far battles are pretty much identical to what they were in the demo. Sure there are some special moves you can do that are basically just “hit triangle to win” and there is a janky throwing mechanic but those are fairly minor. Traverse to spot x, clear the area, traverse to spot y, repeat. The payoff for those is actually pretty fun in that the boss battles are somewhat diverse and always interesting (at least as interesting as “shoot the glowy bits” can be)
I definitely do not think this would have sold systems. Had this released at launch it would have been totally and completely overlooked. The story is garbage, the camera is garbage, the characters (outside of Kat) is garbage. The combat is mediocre and repetitive. The boss battles are great and the style and sound are also top notch but I don’t think that’s enough to sell a $300 system by any means.
It’s reminiscent in a lot of ways to Infamous (which I loved) and I’m hoping that if they do keep building on this character and world (which it seems like they will based on what I’ve read of the ending) that they can find a way to add some diversity to the gameplay.
It’s a fine game but it certainly isn’t sucking me in like I had hoped it would. If it weren’t on the Vita I would have given up on it after chapter 8 or so. However I need a break from HSG and The Show so I suppose I’ll trudge through the monotony.
Bill I think your tee-shirt swag collection would make a fine quilt. The wife of an old friend did something like that with a buch of his old running tee-shirts and it turned out pretty cool. I’ve got a bunch of bike industry swag tee-shirts from conventions in a closet and sometimes rummage through them and look at all the companies that no longer exist, kind of like a history lesson.
Those Oswald ears are pretty new at Disney. So they probably didn’t sell well because people still don’t know who Oswald is so they dumped them all on you guys at E3.
😀
Since my E3 question got so much airtime in both this, and last, episode I feel I should perhaps explain a bit more why I felt the way I did about E3.
First off a large section of my disappointment can be traced to what kind of gamer I am. I play almost exclusively PC and iOS games. Mostly strategy, with some action games (Batman, Assassin’s Creed) thrown in. Turn based strategy is my bread and butter. So while there were a few things I liked (Xcom, Playdek) it was largely drowned out by the shoot shoot, bang bang crowd.
Further there was trends I really hate that seemed to be amplified and focused on. The Warren Spector thing on hyperviolence rang truer for me because I want more subtlety, nuance, intelligence, and creativity in my games. I do not want BroShoot 3,4,5,6 or 7. With games like Dead Space 3 and Halo getting vast amounts of coverage I saw E3 as a waste. The games I play, and the ways I buy them, were not represented well. So to me E3 was largely irrelevant (with notable exceptions for Xcom and Summoner Wars).
It was also insulting with the pandering to the lowest common denominator with violence and T&A.
Now obviously you guys saw different sides to E3. It’s just that your coverage was of mixed interest for me, while almost all other coverage was useless or insulting to me. I’m glad you guys saw things at E3 that were worthwhile and interesting, they just weren’t covered elsewhere. That said I’m glad to be proven wrong, hoping that things like Watch Dogs and Last of us don’t fall into the generic action/ shooter style so prevalent now.