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the new year is here and now seems like
as fine a time as any to answer a few
more questions from the Inbox
James what have you got alright so
what's with all the grey brown gritty
realism in games these days yes part of
the reason for this trend is that from
both a creative perspective and from a
tools perspective grit is easy if you
look at a vibrant game like Valkyria
Chronicles or a Team Fortress 2 you'll
find that they had to write a set of
shaders specifically for that game to
create that look whereas games like army
of 2 or Alpha Protocol can just use
out-of-the-box shaders from the Unreal
Engine but then another part of the
reason is that the industry has been
pushing to make more mature games
problem is we've only hit on an
adolescence idea of what mature looks
like everything stark and unrelentingly
grim it's silly but we'll get past it
eventually and I guess there might also
be a little bit of a because we can
mentality at play too and now that we
can achieve this level of graphical
fidelity
we've been stretching our realism
muscles and seeing how far we can push
it but I get the feeling that as
graphics slowly start to plateau having
the most realistic graphics ever will be
slightly less important I don't know
that's just my prediction we'll find out
eventually next why our game is based on
film license is always so bad there are
several reasons for this for one these
games are usually scheduled to be
released simultaneously with the film or
even before this means to hit the
release date developers often have less
than a year to finish the game that's a
really short timeframe when you consider
that most quality games take 2 to 5
years to make besides that the
developers are rarely given freedom with
the license property they pretty much
have to stick to the events of the film
it's very difficult to create a quality
game under these strict limitations ok
so why do all video game movies suck
kumbhak books have the same problem for
a long time
Hollywood just couldn't figure out how
to translate comic stories to film we
had to sit through a lot of drivel
before they started figuring things out
and look at him now some of the most
kick-ass films from the last five years
have been comic book movies the biggest
reason game movies are still sucking is
because Hollywood hasn't figured out the
formula for converting interactive
stories to a non interactive medium they
seem to focus only on a games cutscenes
and then try to build 90 minutes of film
around that very small very limited
portion of the game script completely
ignoring all the story that's being told
by the world and the
characters in the game play that and
they just don't seem to have been trying
very hard up to this point most of their
attempts have just been lazy cash ins on
popular licenses but don't worry
eventually someone's gonna prove that it
can be done right we just gotta wait for
that breakthrough
hang in there what are your thoughts on
games is sport you know eSports and
competitive gaming and whatnot good
question unfortunately unless
peer-to-peer services like virgin gaming
calm happened to take off I don't think
you're gonna see eSports having much of
an impact at least not in the US still
that would be kind of cool
what makes minecraft so awesome
simplicity minecraft is the
quintessential example of the simple but
deep mechanic it's got more ways to play
the game than the most complicated
strategy game or JRPG but it does it all
based on simple core principles rather
than trying to get you to learn a
million things it asks that you only
learn one thing and figure out
everything you can possibly do with it
I'm glad to see it doing as well as it
has if nothing else it proves the value
of compelling mechanics over graphics
what the hell happened to Sonic what
would it take to put him back on top
Sonic has just been milked to death it
all started with the move from 2d to 3d
gaming 3d did a sonic what sound it did
to Felix the Cat cartoons the
fundamental sonic game design moving
ridiculously fast didn't translate well
into 3d and rather than trying to fill
up a new design that did work in 3d they
just tried to copy what other 3d
platformers are doing when that didn't
work the sonic franchise was handed over
to successively worse teams and the
Hedgehog has been a slow-motion train
wreck ever since a couple of things are
gonna need to happen if Sonic is ever
going to recover first he needs to
disappear for a few years and give
people time to actually miss him you
know give us enough time that we can
actually be surprised and maybe even a
little excited when a sonic reboot is
announced second take the sonic
franchise out of the hands of the Sonic
Team I think it's pretty well proven by
this point that they aren't terribly
good at what they do and have no idea
what to do with the franchise give it to
someone else a group that really cares
about translating the essence of
old-school Sonic to a modern medium and
isn't afraid to throw out all the
clutter and bad ideas that have come
since it's a long shot but I think
there's hope for the Hedgehog yet have
you guys thought about doing a podcast
or a weekly column the idea has come up
but we don't really have time to do
either of them the videos take pretty
much all the time we got I'm not totally
ruling out the possibility but for the
foreseeable future I think we're just
gonna keep our focus on the show do you
mind if I reference one of these videos
are shown in class hey so long as it's
not being used for
in some way go for it we're happy the
videos can be useful we also appreciate
that so many have you took the time to
ask permission to very polite of you
wonder all those episodes you guys
promised coming yeah we got quite a few
of those piled up don't we well they are
all coming some sooner than others aside
from the fact that we can obviously only
talk about one per week we always try to
do our research to be sure we're
delivering the right information to you
guys which isn't to say we don't flip up
now and then but hey nobody's perfect
and for some of the more difficult
topics we really want to be sure we do
the job right but they are coming a lot
of the stuff you guys talk about are
things that consumers can't really do
anything to change how can I help to
impact or fix any of these things a very
good question I know it's kind of
frustrating to see all these problems in
gaming and feel like you don't have any
power to fix it yourself but there are
things you can do first off join up with
groups like the ECA and the video game
voters Network these groups are trying
to be a rallying point to give the
gaming community a common voice in
politics and the press it's something we
really need because gaming doesn't
really have much in the way of lobbyists
or representation in Washington that's
part of what makes our hobbies such an
easy political target aside from that
just try to represent the medium well on
your own time elevate gaming discussion
with your friends make smart game
purchasing decisions behave like a
decent human being both online and off
you know the basic stuff I know it
doesn't feel like that's gonna make much
of an impact but that's the thing what
we can't achieve as individuals we can't
achieve as a group the more of us there
are out there doing our small part the
greater a difference we make well that's
about it for this week thanks for the
emails guys and for watching us in the
first place keep the questions coming
and we'll see you next week
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