• 29Oct 09

  WWE extending deadline for decision concerning THQ contract extension

  Long rant incoming... :
  
  I was born in 1979, watched wrestling since I was 5 years old, but also started gaming around that time with a Collecovision and a Commodore 64...thanks to my uncles who had way too much free time.
  
  Now over the years, both my tastes in games and wrestling have evolved I would think. I can now say why I love a game and be honest about its flaws without acting like a PR employee working for them. Personally, my favorite wrestling games of all time were on PS1 : WWF Attitude and WWF Warzone to be precise. I'm going to list the features of that game that is over eleven years old now :
  
  1-One punch button, one kick button, one grab button and a run button. Add block to that and the mandatory utilitary "get in-the-ring/grab weapon" button.
  2-Fluid moves from a man running inside the ring to the outside floor.
  3-Hit Detection that behaved according to the in-game graphics, i.e. : if it looked like it hit, it probably did.
  4-A Create-A-Wrestler mode only rivaled by SDvsRaw 09-10 because eleven year old graphics just don't cut it no more.
  5-Move execution similar to SFII / MKII.
  6-You could assign the button inputs OF YOUR CHOICE for each move in your CAW setlist, mostly every move was available in every slot if you respected space.
  7-Women you could beat onto
  8-AI opponents would actually sell a 30 minute beating for a little while if you knew not to pull a move that would pop em right back up.
  9-Changing elevation (turnbuckle top, outside of ring, top of cage) would not revert your wrestler to the state of a mongoloid who cannot see the one man in front of him he has been beating on for twenty minutes or so suddenly, and just elbow drop away to his doom twelve feet beside target.
  10-Tag team moves. Yes, it's been done ELEVEN years ago, mostly in the same way, except you had fewer.
  
  As you can see a lot of things changed since those eleven years went by for me. The way wrestling games have always been played on my PS is that me and my friend would pick a guy we made, make two jobbers and beat on them mercilessly for hours, then redo it again.
  
  I mean this is a wrestling game. To play a wrestling game with real competitive intent would be too ironic for me. There are other fighting games for that competitive stuff, better engines and better suited to a real contest of skills. I liked those games because they let me tell a story, like a wannabe-wrestling match. I could make a ten minute highlight reel, and let the opponent take over etc...
  
  SD vs Raw has no bots online, so screw that scenario now, since my friend lives away now... The only option is to fight each other, which is kinda boring after the 15th match... Teaming up against strangers sucks too, because everyone plays this game competitively online it seems. The obstacles to recreating the hours of fun we had with those old games seems strangely connected to my other list :
  
  
  1-No bots online...Sucks...
  2-Women don't get used since they can't interact.
  3-Move execution is kindergarden-level skill wise (direction+button, 1-button finisher lol)
  4-It seems to be trying to be a serious competitive fighting game. The lag online makes sure this cannot happen.
  5-A wrestler will sell 48 consecutive moves that would kill a moose for about 8-10 seconds max then its back up to its feet. Whether you pressed a single button or not.
  6-Wrestlers going high risk on targets not directly in front of them often decide to hurt themselves instead.
  7-Wrestlers will bleed once. At the same spot. Everytime. No crimson mask. No spaghetti hair. No arm/leg cut.
  8-The weapon selection has been the same for what 5 years? Watch some tapes Yukes!
  9-Unless you are squarely standing on it (or want to do a crappy zoom-in move), tables exist on a different plane of reality where only the perfect moves will shatter them.
  10-The AI still cannot really compete with a gamer used to fighting games.
  
  Obviously the graphics are better than those days. But the fun you have in the end is what counts and for me its just not there like before. For instance the collision detection makes doing unique spots botch fests. On the other hand the CAW finally is getting somewhere, with all its inane restrictions and nonsenses still lurking at every corner. I was thrilled after making my first few CAWs, but after realizing I could only go against my friend without bots to team up against, I realized I could only use one of my CAWs at a time instead of two... But really it has a lot of potential. Also the sound clips this year don't get misused too much, they seem to trigger correctly for the apropriate wrestlers so you don't hear so many WTF calls from the "announcers" like some years ago. Unfortunately, the graphics still are not 1080p, and they still have a PS2 look from time to time. Meaning they don't use a lot of shaders & lighting like we are used to these days.
  
  Some areas of this game have been needing work for years, but still go ignored by the developers. But I think the direction is what is mostly at fault here. From the beginning, I wonder if these guys try to be a contender for Tekken and such, but they don't take into account the fact that this is supposed to be a game for people who like to watch "pretend" fights from time to time. Instead of letting you stay down and take an elbow from the top if you want to, they make you get up ridiculously fast and mess up any kind of "storytelling" you could try to achieve. They would reply that everyone deserves a chance because its a fair competition. But really, does anyone that has been taking a beating for half an hour deserves as much a chance to win than the one beating on him? Don't forget how silly it is that the pretext for this is in the hopes of attaining online "fairness" when one single lag-free match has yet to happen.
  
  The priority of making this game a serious competitive game instead of a fun one would probably inspire me to give another team a try if I was looking at this from a WWE office. But I'm not, I'm just a guy buying these things, and since the game hasn't changed much this year since last time I bought it before that (2006), they won't make a lot of money with me unfortunately. Because the message they send to me is : No need to buy the new game, the good old bugs, targeting and collision problems are still in there!

  • Posted Oct 29, 2009 5:46 pm GMT
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• 13Sep 09

  Fallout MMORPG // Interplay doesn't raise 30M... OMG!!!!!!!SHOCKING?????lol

  Basically Interplay paints themselves into a corner... They fail at getting the funds needed for the MMORPG, which was all but impossible at their present state, something bethesda was COUNTING on... See Bethesda wants complete reign over Fallout IP (understandable from a commercial PoV)...
  
  Quoted :"Previously, the company had only licensed the rights to make a game, while Interplay retained ownership of the Fallout IP.
  
  Under the terms of the agreement, Interplay will still be allowed to go ahead with its MMORPG game, although "all the rights, titles, and interest" to Fallout are now the sole property of Bethesda. So, in essence, now Interplay is licensing the Fallout MMOG rights from Bethesda. "
  
  Basically they gave Interplay just enough rope to hang themselves, because anyone familiar with Interplay understood that at that point there was no way in $%?%?&$ they would get their hands on 30 M so fast. A living-dead company like Interplay that went from major player to shell of its former self several years ago just wasn't about to pull that off in these hard economic times...
  
  What did Interplay do? Well what they always did since their turn for the worst : they did whatever they could to make dimes without caring for laws or remuneration of the people who made said product. They acted like the Beth deal never happenned and sold the old games like they still owned it...
  
  Don't get me wrong, F3 is a joke compared to the two originals, I hate what Bethesda did with it. I also hate that Beth is implying that Interplay is riding the coattails of F3 when it is Bethesda who is riding (not Interplay but) the original games' tails...
  
  But seriously here, Interplay signed a bat$#(* crazy agreement where they signed Fallout's entity away retaining only the MMORPG rights if they could somehow by miracle raise 30 M, talk about delusion... You don't like the terms, don't sign the deal... And certainly don't act like you still own Fallout...
  ...and of course Beth doesn't seek monetary reparation, didn't you see? "Interplay had $2.54 million in debt and only $16,000 in cash assets. " lol

  I hate both companies, I have no "loyalty" to any of them, but I did love the first two Fallout games... Seeing this very predictable turn of events doesn't inspire any positive reaction on my part, just a bunch of lawyers and execs milking the proud work of awesome game makers... But that's the way it has become now, the money goes to publicity, lawyers and the guys who sit behind their desk summoning BS instead of the people who create...

  • Posted Sep 13, 2009 11:58 am GMT
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• 18Oct 08

  LBP Delayed ?!?!

  Apparently 7 words from the Holy Qu'ran snuck into a song that MediaMolecule chose for a stage in LBP... which prompted a "supposedly" muslim gamer to ask for the retraction of that song from the game.

  And here we are, looking at a delay for LBP...

  MM says it will ship one week later, but how can they print enough BDVDs for worldwide release on such short notice?

  And what about http://www.ncsx.com/2008/101308/ncs1013f.htm who states that LBP is already sold out and has already shipped?

  Here's me hoping that my order at Amazon won't get delayed...

  And if you wonder why I didn't pre-order at EB or some other place where they offered pre-order nifty costumes, it's 45$ on Amazon with a -10$ coupon...

  Hope they don't get the delay-that-game email in time lol

  • Posted Oct 18, 2008 1:59 am GMT
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