Headshots & Friendly Fire
08/23/2009 Written by Cameron Teague
Boom!! Head Shot!
- Optional QTE (Quick Time Events) – The only way I can stand to be in the same room as a QTE, is if I have the option to completely ignore it. Kojima used optional QTE’s in Metal gear Solid 4 to let you see flashbacks Snake was having about the current conversation. If i wanted to go in the next room and get a snack during the cutscene, I could and take my sweet time doing it. If i wanted to pay attention to what was going on in the cutscene, then the flashbacks helped me stay a little more focused on the cutscene. The upcoming game Heavy Rain, takes it a step further and actually gives you an incentive to fail the QTE’s. The incentive being, to see what the hell happens when you do die, or when you don’t prevent little Timmy from falling down that well. After watching Shiva fall to her death a couple dozen times in Resident Evil 5, I think I will really enjoy watching my characters die for not pushing X fast enough.
- NISA Does DLC – When an NISA published game says that it is going to have DLC, it means it! Between the release of Cross Edge and Disgaea 3, both for the PlayStation 3, we have seen a ton of new content hit the PS Store. Cross Edge currently has 42 pieces of content on the store while Disgaea 3 is following behind closely at 38. These have come in the form of new characters, items, and missions, such as the Raspberyl mission that adds 4 new story chapters and battle maps to Disgaea 3 for 11.99. Most of the DLC is free and the ones you pay for range from .99 cents to 3.99, with the one exception. This is a great way to extend the game and reap back development cost.
- EA Delivers What Capcom Cannot – A SCARY EXPERIENCE!!! I don’t know when Capcom decided that Resident Evil should be more of an action game but when they did, here came EA to save the day and give us all a great experience while leaving some of us huddled in the corner. With an up to date control scheme, some amazing sound work, and a very nice selection of weapons, Dead Space became a game for the ages and really renewed my love for the genre.
- PSP “Mini”s – This is what the PSP, and all handhelds, were made for. Remember that the purpose of a handheld is for gaming when your traveling around the city. The amount of time I spend on a bus, or at the DMV is too sporadic for me to get myself immersed into a nice 20 hour RPG. Im much more likely to play a 2D puzzle like Loco Roco, or a 2D action like Patapon. Seeing as how a lot of PSP “mini” developers also happen to be iPhone devs, i am almost guaranteed this will happen. So, you can keep your God of Wars and Gran Turismos on the PS3, and ill stick with my echoshift and Lumines.
Thank you for taking the time to read our little rants, join us next episode when we look at Sequels, Mature Games, and much more.
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15 Responses to “Headshots & Friendly Fire”
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Valid points!
I agree with the DLC market. Too much content is being held back that would normally be in the game (and in the case of many 360 games the content is already on the disc….you just pay to unlock it).
I understand that money makes the world go ’round…..I just don’t want it to be all of my money. I don’t mind supporting developers and buying the odd DLC, but when the final tally for your game is over $100 and most of that would have normally been included then something is wrong.
Now we are seeing games become shorter and shorter experiences for the same pricing…but here comes DLC to the rescue. Pay more and get access to the content we never gave you. Hey there is multiplayer to extend the fun, but if you don’t buy the latest map pack then good luck finding a game.
It should be a positive, but it is becoming a very strong negative. It is a purchase that you can not trade, sell or return.
DLC is far overpriced imo. I haven’t really purchased a single one DLC (only free ones). Especially Capcom’s DLC. $12 for Alternate Costume? give me a break! It’s already in the disc. Why don’t you serve your consumers with these stuff? I mean all games before include this. If its an additional character that is not on disc then its ok. But companies like Capcom are making a fool of gamers. I’m really disappointed on Capcom about RE5. It’s not RE anymore. Street Fighter 4 is a great game, but I feel there’s still some stuff missing.
Capcoms DLC was stupid..its been 10 years since the last street fighter (like a true sequel) the most they could do is GIVE you a brand new costume and DLC a newer version. Tying in your save file with the DLC ? what idiot does that? Capcom…… if you replace your HDD or file gets corrupted you have to do EVERYTHING over again. That sucks for people like me that never bought there DLC.
The reason Treyarch never released a demo was to pay less on the PSN everyone would download W@W and cost them in the long run.
I have no problems with DLC… Only IF they start talking about it before the games out.
Because of the DLC crap, I’m only buying games from Amazon at Reduced prices. That’s why i’m getting Batman Arkham Asylum at 48.99 that’s why I got Killzone 2 at 52.99, and that’s why I’m going to pre-order Uncharted for 51.99 dollars. (I has extra coupon)
For Disgaea 3 and Cross Edge I buy those kinds of games from Gamefly at even cheaper costs so that I can try the game, then keep it, then buy all the extra paid DLC. What I like about Cross Edge is that it even has a TON of FREE DLC.
I actually enjoy Day 1 Patches. Why? Because it let’s me know that they are working hard to get bugs that they couldn’t catch or fix earlier taken care of. Example is the online play for BlazBlue. I mean if it’s fixing the lag issues that they weren’t aware of early enough, then why does it matter? I personally just like patches. The more the better for me. lol I don’t mind waiting. I just want to be informed is all and have more than just “Various issues” or things like that. The LBP patch was released before launch and it was SOOOOoooo needed.
I love RE 5, I love RE 4, I never liked any other RE game so I am happy with Capcom. I just want the game a bit longer lol.
What i feel companies need to do though if they’re releasing a TON of DLC at high prices is to release at a lower price point. If you’re releasing 30+ dollars worth of DLC I don’t want to buy the game unless I get it like 20 dollars cheaper or so. Some games like LBP are the exception cause they’re outfits for fan service more or less. Same thing with how I feel about the Disgaea 3 DLC. If you never played Makai Kingdom you may not care to have a book and a really weird to use Oracle. If you never played La Pucelle Tactics or Rhapsody a Musical Adventure then you may not be attached to Priere and Majorly like I am. Besides the fans voted on most of these. Plus some of the DLC was so useful for getting trophies. THANKS HERO PRINNY!
On After the fact Demos, if you mean demos that come out a month after release, I’m fine with that. If you mean demos that come out like a year after the game is released just before hte next game… ya… they may not have wanted to wait so long and it makes me question how many people are still playing the game.
As far as the free demo’s, thousands of people buy a PS3 every day, and they obviously haven’t played any games on it before. I just got mine a couple months ago and have since purchased several games because of the demo’s – when you buy a console, you’re interested in the entire library of games available for it, not just what came out in the last few weeks.
As far as day one patches, I think it’s great. The developer could very easily just say the heck with it, the majority of people wouldn’t notice anyway. But instead they do the conscientious thing and keep testing it.
I agree about DLC though. It used to be a nice thing, where you could buy extra content for a game after it had been out for a while, adding to the value of it. But now greedy publishers think they can sell you half a game and charge you extra for the other half. And people keep buying it, so it will not only continue, but get worse.
And yes, QTE’s absolutely suck.
Sorry to be ignorant, but what does QTE stand for?
QTE = Quick Time Event. Think of the way God of War boss fights work (triangle, then circle, then etc until boss dies). I don’t hate them or like them; they just kindof exist and I deal with it.
Day one patches make sense because of the way the development and QA process works. Trust me: You want to embrace this, not hate it.
I’m mixed on DLC; if you give me a whole game but have to cut out a mission or two because you couldn’t get them QA’d for the gold master then I’m ok with that. $12 for a costume can kiss my a$$, however, especially if you have already delivered the content on the disk! That isn’t DLC – that is holding content for ransom.
There has been almost a carpet bombing on the topic of patches across the net lately. I don’t get it. Not specifically day 1 patches, but I would think that any patch in general should be welcomed. Yesterday, we just had to deal with glitches and broken code. With multiplayer being such a big part of gaming today, I am grateful that we have consistent connections to our consoles with consistent developer support.
I honestly love patches, it just feels odd to buy a game day one, put it in my PS3 and here is a patch.. already..
the arguement isn’t against patches in general just day 1 patches..
If there is some bug, that gets fixed on day one, then it should have been fixed before the game got released. Fixing something that should not have been a problem, and should have been fixed a long time ago, is not a good practice to fall into. Look at socom and how long it took them to fix that game. The reason that game has so many flaws when it came out was because of the “oh we can just patch it later” menatality. A responsible developer would make sure that all bugs are fixed, and the game is complete before it launches.
The 1.01 firmware patch promotes lazyness in developers. and if you don’t beleive me, just think back to 10 years ago, or 5 years ago. The big name games didn’t have bugs in them, even the mediocre games didn’t have bugs in them. But now that we have patches, a ton of games are being relased with bugs and lag, instead of the dev just making sure they weren’t there, like devs use to do on the PS2 or PS1, or NES for that matter.
l would haveto disagree with the pre DLC plans because as a consumer l want to know whether or not if the game l’m purchasing is going to have DLC. As for the QTE, the only game that has done it correctly is the God of War series.
@wtGp – see the thing is i want to hear how badass the game is, what all you are doing to make the game even better, not what you plan to do after the game is released because i myself could careless. I just want the initial product to be amazing and then any DLC after that fact is just a bonus.
Trexman, development on a game is finished a good while before it arrives on store shelves. That doesn’t mean that the programmers hide the code and never look at it again. If something is found before the game is available to buy, then a patch gets worked on expeditiously. It’s not like this happens often to begin with, but why complain about it anyway? I don’t understand it. It’s a one time thing, and it fixes a problem.
Its a problem because devs can become too dependent on the patching ability. As more and more devs have to do this, the more they get used to it and as you can already see, we as consumers can get too comfortable with it. This eventually will lead some devs to a “eh, we can just patch it later” practice which will ultimately trickle down to poorer quality products all around.
Patching games isn’t the evil, but a dependency on the patching ability is evil.