4 those who see(k) the art in games
Archive for January, 2008
Zero Punctuation: Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
04 years ago
by Void
in Entertaining
I have quite mixed feeling about the Resident Evil series. On one side from the first moment I saw the first one it felt like a quite cheap b-grade movie/horror, but then I played a bit and I was quite impressed but the mix of nice artwork portraying moods ranging from "haunted mansion" to "futuristic scientific conspiracy"… I wasn’t impressed by RE4 as much as everybody it seems: i think it’s a great production and warmly recomend it, but it with the extra action I felt it lacked a lot of the moooood. That being said though I do wish the series was more inteligent in dialogues and more complex human nature portrayal. Is Umbrella Chronicles on my TODO list? … not really. I wouldn’t mind another Resident Evil movie, though, if only it had the freshness of the first one. Love Yahtzee’s point about making stuff we can believe, corporations that actually make business sense are cool, just like powerful villains make the story more believable… unlike the usual cartoon villains which have that tendency to explain things… though come to think of it I didn’t find anything that wrong with Umbrella corporation, I’m quite fond of it actually. That image of high tech laboratories under luxurious old house from RE1 (the game) still sticks with me.
here’s to games with deeper themes and plots!
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An increase in casual games…
0
I was reading Gamasutra’s An Uncertain Future For The Core Gamer? … it’s something that I’ve been worrying a lot about for many years too.. but thing is, it’s not only in recent years. My opinion is that unlike what people keep saying people don’t really change that much. For me, I’ve discovered there’s like 1 game a year that I like a lot (Oblivion for the last year, I believe), and one every 4 years that I really reeaaally reeaaaly like and I wish all games were like that (I’m guessing that would have to be Bloodlines for me). I believe that right now is simply a time of transition for the industry. 360/ps3 are still too expensive, pc gaming is continuing to fade and so the focus on cheaper platforms and products has resulted in an increase in casual titles.
But I try not to dispair: I’m hoping there will always be very geeky geeks out there creating complex stuff like Planescape and the kind… Worst case scenario: with all the development money going towards more casual lower budget titles these will build a technology basis so that the niche stuff that I desire will actually become cheaper to develop with premade engines and stuff like that: and that’s no problem, I don’t care about my beloved phylosophical stories like Soul Reaver coming on an older engine with older graphics: I’m not into them because they push the envelope, I love them for their content.
I do wish there were more titles that would capture my imagination and excitement. I wish that that 1-in-4-years title would come every month, the title that gets me so excited I can’t even go to sleep and wake up excited to continue… but it’s just not realistic. It’s the same even with the now quite mature movie industry: those are few and far between… it sucks lowering my standards when I know exactly what I would like, but there just isn’t enough great content to go around, even in quite old industries like books or movies it’s hard work finding the next masterpiece. So what do I do? I diversify? While I search for my next Fallout 2 buzz I’m also searching for my next Pratchett, my next Herbert… I mustn’t despari but instead continue searching… who knows when I’ll stumble upon my next big artistic treat!!! Sure, the path may be filled with frustration, ignoring 70 bad & average pieces, having to weed through 29 okay-ish titles before I find that one masterpiece, but until I find a better way I’ll continue doing it. This is a big reason for this community: maybe you’ve played the perfect game that I’ve overlooked, maybe you’ve read the masterpiece book, listened to the amazing band I don’t even know exists… please, pleeeasseee enlighten me! Any help is appreciated!
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