Gears of War is a hot game. One morning I read about it.. the title of the game and the screenshot, and I said to myself: What The Fuck ?!
Tough war-scared marines, killing monsters. That’s the latest video gaming experience ? Wow..
I suppose I would like the game if I played it, but it’s sort of stupid, do we really need to constantly simulate killings ?
Technically it supposed to be great. The graphics, it’s great alright, great ugly monster rendering !
In my career as a graphics programmer I often got my monitor to display ugly things. It doesn’t take much skills, a bug, lower resolution, and you’re set for for your ugly experience !
I’m definitely not a Wii person. But isn’t it a bit stupid that so many top selling titles are about simulating war ? Craving for war, when we could instead go join real ones.
Next time you go buy Gears of War, or Deference, Defance (what’s the name of the PS3 war title ? Ahh Resistance !), Rainbow Six, Spersmackfackkill.. I don’t really know the titles. What’s that, Counter Strike.
Next time you go about buying one of those games, try to feel a little bit stupid, because one it’s got to be a bit stupid craving so much for realistic killing experiences.
And if you don’t feel stupid, try enroll in the military and ask to get sent to Iraq. Don’t worry, there is still time left to get training and be shipped over. I’m sure there are a plenty of disillusioned marines over there willing to exchange with you.. you killing machine you !!
Fuck those games already !!!
P.S. I’m not linking the official Gears of War site because it’s a Flash, browser-facking kind experience.
Posted by Davide Pasca as Society, Videogames at 6:04 PM EST
13 Comments »
On the web I can only read bad critics about PlayStation 3. Everyone seems to hate it. Hate the price, hate the fact that it doesn’t come out with many games. Everyone loves the Wii though.
Clearly preconceptions are just that. Wii is not out and very few people will have a PS3 for a while, so it’s not possible to have an objective opinion. Is this Wii really that much fun ?
As I mentioned before. As a programmer that likes 3D graphics, I hate the fact that Wii’s hardware is so underpowered. But this affects me also as someone that has passion for great visuals in games. I like realism, I like special effects. People love great graphics, otherwise they wouldn’t go watch so many CG movies or so many movies with special effects in them.
To me the price is not an issue, but perhaps I’m privileged. I suspect that most people that criticize the PS3 are just going with the flow. Echoing strong wise opinions about value of the money and playability over graphics. So much wisdom, but how many of those that hate this whole PS3 deal aren’t really secretly hoping to get one ?
I think that Americans basically culturally love Nintendo, dislike Sony as a corporate and are pretty happy with the XBox 360.
Personally I don’t have that much time to play. I also don’t like to stand in line just to get a toy.
If I get a Wii, it will be to used for social events.. for casual gaming when there are women around.
The PS3 would be for serious gaming. That is if I will be able to buy one easily and if there is a game for it that I must buy (most people actually decide based on the game).
The killer application for me is probably Armored Core 4 . Provided that the controls are improved since the last version I bought for PS2. Also, I’ll have to see how it compares graphically between the XBox 360 and the PS3. I’m definitely not buying two versions of the same game !
I guess I pretty much don’t give a shit about cute games. I like my giant robot and racing games. Variety is good, but giant robots are better 8)
Posted by Davide Pasca as Society, Diary, USA, Videogames at 5:10 AM EST
9 Comments »
Two days ago an XBox 360 prototype (actually a beta devkit) died on me. I was definitely not pushing the limit. Certainly my office isn’t freezing cold.. however those things are to be expected with prototypes.
When I was working at Squaresoft, around the time when PS2 was announced, there was a rumor in the company that in the offices in Japan a PS2 prototype caught on fire 8) ..eheheh
Today I worked until about 9:30 PM.. there is definitely a lot of work to do and, most importantly, much of the work is of unknown nature. Basically new consoles always bring new things. This time around MS is really pushing the Live (online playing) feature. Every game has to have it. Although the documentation is all there, there is still quite a bit of work to do, to understand and implement everything. Making a game to run online is no joke. It’s surely very appealing to the player (and to MS, which can bill gamers 8), but the burden added to the developer is substantial.
So, while this generation of consoles is much easier to program on the graphics level (it’s either DirectX or OpenGL), these kind of added features are enough to keep the developer busy. It quite possibly may require an extra person to work on the whole network thing.. especially for the first kind of such titles.. where completely new code has to be written.
I’m also not quite sure how things work with the usual real-time game data communication. My experience is that lag and various Internet data transfer uncertainties can keep a developer pretty busy playing around with parameters and techniques to get the thing running reliably.
It’s not fun to have to deal with all these issues while on a schedule. It’s already too early to predict how much time it will all take. Once I’ll have a clearer idea.. is when I’ll have to start working until late in the evening..
Ummmmmmm !!!
Posted by Davide Pasca as work, Videogames at 1:09 AM EDT
3 Comments »
