Spike VGAs: resounding success or tragic failure?

[Split]

Who else watched it this year? For those who didn't:

Uncharted 3:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-uncharted-3/708329

Prototype 2:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-prototype-2/708352

Mass Effect 3:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-mass-effect/708363

Kratos MK character reveal:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-mortal-kombat/708350

SSX: Deadly Descents:

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/ssx-deadly-descents/14248

Resistance 3:

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/resistance-3/12539

Elder Scrolls V!!!!:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-elder-scrolls/708368

These aren't all of the reveals, just most of them

GOTY: Red Dead Redemption

Studio OTY: Bioware

Best Indie: Limbo

Best Male performance: Neil Patrick Harris...cough bullshit cough

Best Female performance: I forget...am I sexist?

Best Original Score: RDR

Best Original Song in a game: RDR

Best Music Game: Rock Band 3

Best Soundtrack: DJ Hero 2

Best Adapted Game: Scott Pilgrim

Most Anticipated: Portal 2...what a totally arbitrary award. Who the hell decides which game is most anticipated? My most anticipated game is Elder Scrolls V, I don't see that getting a damned award.

There were a lot more awards, but I can't remember them all, and in addition to some of them being utter trash (Why did NPH win best male performance when MARTIN freaking SHEEN's portrayal of Mass Effect's Illusive Man was a nomination), it was all about the stupid irrelevant skits and celebrity appearances. These filler shows would be way over-long and then they would just hurriedly montage through awards; only four or five out of a total of about thirty different awards really got the attention they deserved. Also, wayyyyyyyy too much totally unwarranted GUSHING over CoD Black Opss

If you devote two fucking minutes to each award, you get an hour long awards show. They don't even have a full hour to fill! Why is that so difficult to understand? Do they really think that they can throw Neil Patrick Harris on a piano to sing some stupid, unfunny, barely relevant to video games song or shove the cast of Always Sunny (an admittedly funny show) on stage to perform for a demographic that's totally not their own and doesn't particularly give a damn what they think? I died a little bit inside watching this.

As for the reveals, I'm finding myself anticipating The Elder Scrolls V, Mass Effect 3, and Uncharted 3, but it's not like they showed any goddamned gameplay for any of those titles (aside from a 5 second-ish montage for UC3). CG ISN'T IMPRESSIVE ANYMORE!!! Get us some actual footage of what the game is going to play like instead of throwing all of your resources into a minute of super high quality, incredibly detailed CG footage that probably isn't going to make it into the final game.

Also, the only original property revealed was Insane, which seems like it's going to suck based on a trailer full of tentacles and a human eye, a stupid, totally uncreative title for a horror game, and the fact that no matter what Del Toro says about him being "born with a controller in one hand," and someday wanting to create "the Citizen Kane of games" (despite the fact that he's never made one before), he will always be a stupid, pretentious asshole who directed Blade II, and never a game creator at all, much less a game creator on the level of Hideo Kojima or Gabe Newell, who are much, much closer to creating the aforementioned Citizen Kane game than he ever will be.

The rest were all sequels in some capacity.

Please, discuss

EDIT: added more awards and moderately profane commentary. Mods feel free to censor if deemed appropriate

EDIT2: Added Uncharted 3 reveal

[BIG OLAF]

I think my heart stopped when I watched TESV trailer.

EDIT: Yeah. Yeah, it did stop.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

ELDER SCROLLS V, AWESOMMMMMMMMMMMMMME

[McLaughlin]

Reveals were cool, awards were meh. The visual effects they had going on were pretty neat though. Kratos being in the PS3's MK game was kinda lulzy.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to mop up all this drool over the Mass Effect 3 reveal.

[Split]

I think my heart stopped when I watched TESV trailer.

EDIT: Yeah. Yeah, it did stop.It's okay. I know internet CPR

[Justyn_Darkcrest]

I stopped watching spikes VGA's after the second one since it was quite apparent that the whole show was an effing joke. They've only ever given awards to "popular" titles (tho they call them most wanted). True they do have some footage of coming attractions, but I've never seen anything on there you can't find on the internet anyway so I generally just wait for E3 when the real content is released.

[AC9breaker]

I think Neil Patrick Harris and the Jose Gonzalez Performance of Far Away where what made that awards watchable. I also agree too much gushing on CoD: BlOps. Neil Patrick Harris totally didn't deserve that award but that was so obvious as he pointed out. The biggest complaint I had was Blops winning best shooter, when Reach and Battlefield BC 2 where far superior. I was totally happy with their nomination of GOTY. It was my personal GOTY as well.

I think if they want to make the show a success, stop the bullshit shameless ad plugs, get some better writer cause some of those presenter lines where dry, and change that award because it looks stupid.

[Blue-Hawk]

One thing to say about the ES 5, since I read about it just now.

HOLY JUMPING JESUS ON A POGO STICK, BATMAN!

I am SO getting that when it comes out. Thank god I have a good pc for it now. :P

[Palle]

Goddamn, Max von Sydow. Almost makes it a day one buy for me, and I don't even care for fantasy stuff.

Also, I'm not even sure I want to play ME3, I just know I have to cos it's ME3.

[Kent]

The VGAs seem like they're intent on being just a joke - they get some random unknown person to host and desperately try to be funny (it was almost painful to watch).

The news of a new Elder Scrolls game is... unfortunate, at best. It's still a Bethesda product, so it's probably going to barely work in the first place, but considering that the two previous games in the series have been pretty terrible, I don't really have much hope for them turning it around with this one.

[BIG OLAF]

The news of a new Elder Scrolls game is... unfortunate, at best. It's still a Bethesda product, so it's probably going to barely work in the first place, but considering that the two previous games in the series have been pretty terrible, I don't really have much hope for them turning it around with this one.

^I've never heard anyone with that opinion before. I'm actually quite amazed. I don't even know what to say, to be honest. But, opinions are like buttcracks: everyone has one. I've just never, ever heard someone say Bethesda/TES was terrible.

[McLaughlin]

While I don't know many people who think Morrowind/Oblivion were garbage, I know several who hate how buggy their software is. The former is probably pretty subjective, the latter is just reality.

[BIG OLAF]

While I don't know many people who think Morrowind/Oblivion were garbage, I know several who hate how buggy their software is. The former is probably pretty subjective, the latter is just reality.

Oh, I'll admit that Bethesda's RPGs have a lot of bugs, but for me, that doesn't really diminish the fact that they're one of the best, if not the best (sorry folks, I like them better than Bioware) western-style RPG makers around.

[Split]

The VGAs seem like they're intent on being just a joke - they get some random unknown person to host and desperately try to be funny (it was almost painful to watch).

The news of a new Elder Scrolls game is... unfortunate, at best. It's still a Bethesda product, so it's probably going to barely work in the first place, but considering that the two previous games in the series have been pretty terrible, I don't really have much hope for them turning it around with this one.I have the same problem with the VGAs, and it's not like I care because they're a primary source of big video game news and reveals, because they're not. That's what E3/TGS/etc. are for. My issue is just that when they exist, and they're handled this way, it cheapens and subverts the entire medium in the eyes of the people who it so desperately wants to be taken seriously by.

The thing about The Elder Scrolls (I've only played Oblivion) and other Bethesda games that use that engine i.e. Fallout, is that they're all really immersive until you

A)Talk to any NPC at all and get that creepy stare where they never break eye contact and have weird expression changes hindered by the fact that all the character's proportions are clearly just randomly generated by the same character creator the player uses. Bethesda puts in a little too much effort to their game worlds, and then gets lazy/crunched for time and just makes all of the characters in the game, no matter gender, race, or role in the world, PC or NPC, from the same character editor and animation template

B)Realize that you can just teleport anywhere you've already been on the world map at any point in time.

C)Witness one of the many glitches concerning the NPC AI and physics

D)Realize that there are only like 10 different male voice actors and 10 different female ones in the entire games, which is especially hilarious when you hear two NPCs with the same voice engaged in conversation, each saying the same lines

E)Zoom out to third person and watch your own character's ridiculously stiff animations.

That said, I'm still looking forward to ESV, assuming that they upgrade the engine drastically and make it a LOT tighter than it is. It's problem is that it's always been way too free-form and dynamic, a problem most games have in reverse...When you have NPCs walking up to dogs and stiffly greeting them with "good morning!" you know you're engine is a little too automated for its own good and maybe shouldn't be micromanaging themselves. This should be like the transition between Splinter Cell Double Agent and SC: Conviction or Halo 3 and Halo Reach where they finally completely retool the engine instead of just marginally upgrading the polygon count of the old one.

[joefro]

The VGAs seem like they're intent on being just a joke - they get some random unknown person to host and desperately try to be funny (it was almost painful to watch).

The news of a new Elder Scrolls game is... unfortunate, at best. It's still a Bethesda product, so it's probably going to barely work in the first place, but considering that the two previous games in the series have been pretty terrible, I don't really have much hope for them turning it around with this one.

I'll agree that the VGAs are a giant joke, but Neil Patrick Harris is very well known and a pretty mainstream Actor. He's not a comedian so of course his jokes won't be funny.

Skyrim is heavily rumored to use id Tech 5 which is the engine that Rage runs on. Rage runs really well on PS3/360/PC which are always Bethesda's platforms.

[Shattered_weasel]

Serious lack of Batman.

[PIT]

Best Female performance: I forget...am I sexist?





We'd like to congratulate VGA 2010 winner Tricia Helfer in the category of Best Performance by a Human Female, for her role as Sarah Kerrigan in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty!

I hope this answers the question.

[Rashiid]

Oh, she was EDI's voice in Mass Effect 2. I Google Image'd her and can't say I'm disappointed. Now I'll always look at EDI as some topless white chick >__________>

[bns1991]

Guillermo del Toro's new game "Insane" looks like it will be insane! Cant wait. The introduction of Kratos to Mortal Combat was awesome. I was sort of surprised that Red Dead Redemption was the game of the year, but I loved the game......I think I'm gonna go play it now........

[Outrider]

^I've never heard anyone with that opinion before. I'm actually quite amazed. I don't even know what to say, to be honest. But, opinions are like buttcracks: everyone has one. I've just never, ever heard someone say Bethesda/TES was terrible.

I'm definitely part of that camp. They always just feel like the designers keep adding more and more content and features, without stopping to make sure they're polished in any way or even consider if they're fun.

(They also have some of the worst character design this side of Team Ninja.)

Although, Oblivion certainly has pretty environments and though I didn't play much of Fallout 3, I did watch my brother play for a number of hours and the general setting and story seemed much better than their usual fare.

If I could just jump back to the whole "Best Male Performance" - if we needed any other signs of how much of a joke the VGAs are, Nathan Fillion was nominated for "Best Male Performance" for his work on Halo: Reach.

I think Fillion's a fine actor, but he's not a main character in Reach. He's a minor cameo that shows up once in single player and you can use his voice in Firefight, but he has a total of like 5-10 lines in the entire game, most of which are generic battle lines.

So, yeah.

If you take a look at the nominations, Spike basically does things specifically to get as many celebrity names on the ticket (in the hopes that they'll show up to the awards show and get the VGAs some more coverage.) Beyond that, the games are pretty much the general safe picks gathered from whatever sold the best on the NPD rankings. It's completely a farce, and I really wish somebody would put together a legitimate awards show that got the same coverage (if only something like the AIAS awards were more prominent.)

[Split]

http://twitter.com/Bethblog/statuses/14010984884604929

Well, this got me pumped...

[BIG OLAF]

http://twitter.com/Bethblog/statuses/14010984884604929

Well, this got me pumped...

Hail The Nine.

[Zarode]

TES5 ughhhhh


http://i.imgur.com/nAtLA.jpg


While I don't know many people who think Morrowind/Oblivion were garbage, I know severalhttp://i.imgur.com/nAtLA.jpg who hate how buggy their software is. The former is probably pretty subjective, the latter is just reality.


Oh, I'll admit that Bethesda's RPGs have a lot of bugs, but for me, that doesn't really diminish the fact that they'rehttp://i.imgur.com/nAtLA.jpg one of the best, if not the best (sorry folks, I like them better than Bioware) western-style RPG makers around.

Right, so. I'm in with the bandwagon of TES suchttp://i.imgur.com/nAtLA.jpg

[BIG OLAF]

^ You could've just said that you don't like the TES games. No reason to be so obnoxious and childish about it...

..but, alas, this is the internet.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity: to all of you that don't like TES games, what do you all consider to be "good" Western-style RPGs, then?

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

I'm definitely part of that camp. They always just feel like the designers keep adding more and more content and features, without stopping to make sure they're polished in any way or even consider if they're fun.

(They also have some of the worst character design this side of Team Ninja.)

Although, Oblivion certainly has pretty environments and though I didn't play much of Fallout 3, I did watch my brother play for a number of hours and the general setting and story seemed much better than their usual fare.

If I could just jump back to the whole "Best Male Performance" - if we needed any other signs of how much of a joke the VGAs are, Nathan Fillion was nominated for "Best Male Performance" for his work on Halo: Reach.

I think Fillion's a fine actor, but he's not a main character in Reach. He's a minor cameo that shows up once in single player and you can use his voice in Firefight, but he has a total of like 5-10 lines in the entire game, most of which are generic battle lines.

So, yeah.

If you take a look at the nominations, Spike basically does things specifically to get as many celebrity names on the ticket (in the hopes that they'll show up to the awards show and get the VGAs some more coverage.) Beyond that, the games are pretty much the general safe picks gathered from whatever sold the best on the NPD rankings. It's completely a farce, and I really wish somebody would put together a legitimate awards show that got the same coverage (if only something like the AIAS awards were more prominent.)

well, Nathan Fillion is pretty incredible, the voice acting is part of what made ODST my favorite Halo, but i guess you;re right since he didnt atually do much in this game

[Kent]

Oh, I'll admit that Bethesda's RPGs have a lot of bugs, but for me, that doesn't really diminish the fact that they're one of the best, if not the best (sorry folks, I like them better than Bioware) western-style RPG makers around.
I don't mean to sound sarcastic or anything, but Elder Scrolls (at least as of Morrowind - haven't played any before that) is basically the Call of Duty of the RPG world. It's common and mainstream, so it gets a lot of exposure, but it really falls flat in the opinions of people of discerning taste, who expect their games to both work and be of high quality standards.


Just out of curiosity: to all of you that don't like TES games, what do you all consider to be "good" Western-style RPGs, then?
I'm very unimpressed with western-style RPGs - partly because they forego any storytelling for the sake of "choice," and partly because games don't work in sandboxes. I stopped playing them after I experienced exactly how terrible BioWare is at writing stories (as evidenced in NWN and its second expansion - the first expansion was actually good on its own, but also not made by BioWare) and how utterly incompetent they are at checking for bugs (Carth glitch).

Elder Scrolls is a sandbox - and this is a fundamental flaw, because the game treats and presents itself as a toy rather than a game; there is no intention of wanting you to pursue your goals, and you're free to do whatever you want, and it's of no consequence whether or not you actually do anything at all with the story, the moment you set out into the world. It's one thing to design a game around the player finding his own way to the end, but it's something else entirely to do nothing at all to encourage the player to pursue progress.

[Kyrith_Ranger_Pso]

The fact that Oblivion is so open ended it partially what makes me like it, certainly i also enjoy deep storylines with only slight variation sometimes more, but oblivion is just fun, and has a lot to keep you playing.

[BIG OLAF]

Elder Scrolls is a sandbox - and this is a fundamental flaw, because the game treats and presents itself as a toy rather than a game; there is no intention of wanting you to pursue your goals, and you're free to do whatever you want, and it's of no consequence whether or not you actually do anything at all with the story, the moment you set out into the world. It's one thing to design a game around the player finding his own way to the end, but it's something else entirely to do nothing at all to encourage the player to pursue progress.

Well, being a sandbox game may be a flaw to some, but to me, it's one of the reasons I play the games. I love being able to just do whatever I want, and go wherever I want, in a completely non-linear way, in completely non-linear environments (which is one of the reasons I don't like Bioware as much; Dragon Age and Mass Effect are very linear in their areas and stories, though their areas and stories are quite well-done).

I also like the choice of being able to pursue the storyline or not, though I'll admit that sometimes I wish there was at least a little sense of urgency. I mean, who would tell your character that the gates of hell were about to open, and you should be prepared for battle....after you go run around for a few hours?

When it comes to RPGs, I'd rather have a monstrous, free-roam map that is only semi-based on story (and TES stories are always a little interesting, at least to me), then to have some -mostly- linear, completely story-driven kind of game. If that makes me some kind of unintelligent monkey to other people, I don't care.

EDIT: Also, this:
oblivion is just fun, and has a lot to keep you playing.

[amtalx]

TES games require a certain amount of curiosity and imagination on the part of the player. The story is there, but it's not the main attraction. It's usually the last thing I complete , if at all. The real value comes from all of the places to find and things to do. If you're the type of gamer that needs to be constantly rewarded or pushed along a funneled narrative, TES is the wrong place to be.

[joefro]

TES games require a certain amount of curiosity and imagination on the part of the player. The story is there, but it's not the main attraction. It's usually the last thing I complete , if at all. The real value comes from all of the places to find and things to do. If you're the type of gamer that needs to be constantly rewarded or pushed along a funneled narrative, TES is the wrong place to be.

That's basically the way I play TES games. I don't think I beat the main quest on Oblivion until I was around 200 hours into the game. Doing little side quests and robbing people's houses are just too much fun.

***

Of course I could see how someone would rather a game that pushed you along a single track and made sparkly sounds when you leveled up. Those stories about the little s/he boy who is the only hero left are really amazing too

[McLaughlin]

The issue I have with TES (and most sandbox games really) is that, for me, it suffers from the same thing Fable II/III did; there's a lot of stuff you can do, but why do it?

I can appreciate that some people want to do everything to get a better understanding of the world they're in, but I very often found myself in Oblivion wondering why I was doing whatever I was doing at the time. There were some interesting/funny things for sure (one of the guild quests that has you go get a ring from a well, where the ring weighed like 1000 units and drowned you was pretty funny), but most everything in the game can be summed up as "Talk to this guy, go get/kill this thing, come back," and that gets boring to me quickly, especially when every character thanks me with one of five dialogue lines and you could pick two random people out of anyone in a city and you'd stand a good chance of hearing the same voice actor voicing both of them. None of that really helps to draw me into a game.

The combat was hilarious broken for melee characters as well, but that's a different kind of issue.

I can't say I like many Western RPGs as far as sandbox games go. I don't really think Mass Effect fits into that category, but if it does there's at least one.

[SpikeOtacon]

I don't mean to sound sarcastic or anything, but Elder Scrolls (at least as of Morrowind - haven't played any before that) is basically the Call of Duty of the RPG world. It's common and mainstream, so it gets a lot of exposure, but it really falls flat in the opinions of people of discerning taste, who expect their games to both work and be of high quality standards.

Actually, those people of so called 'discerning' taste just mod the game a bit and enjoy themselves quite a lot.



I'm very unimpressed with western-style RPGs - partly because they forego any storytelling for the sake of "choice," and partly because games don't work in sandboxes. I stopped playing them after I experienced exactly how terrible BioWare is at writing stories (as evidenced in NWN and its second expansion - the first expansion was actually good on its own, but also not made by BioWare) and how utterly incompetent they are at checking for bugs (Carth glitch).

Elder Scrolls is a sandbox - and this is a fundamental flaw, because the game treats and presents itself as a toy rather than a game; there is no intention of wanting you to pursue your goals, and you're free to do whatever you want, and it's of no consequence whether or not you actually do anything at all with the story, the moment you set out into the world. It's one thing to design a game around the player finding his own way to the end, but it's something else entirely to do nothing at all to encourage the player to pursue progress.Saying that games don't work in a sandbox is completely opinion, not fact. Sandboxes don't work for you, but it appears that many sandbox games are held in extremely high regards not just by reviewers from magazines and online publications, but by gamers in general. GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption, Morrowind/Oblivion, Fallout 3/New Vegas, etc. Sure, people complain about the aging and thankfully dead gamebryo engine but that's just one engine of many dedicated to doing that sort of thing. Even S.T.A.L.K.E.R., as painfully hard as it is at the beginning, is seen as one of the most intense experiences in a sandbox world once you get your wheel going.

The problem here lies within purely your personal taste. You need some sort of motivation to reach an endgame it seems. That's just not what most of these games are about. They leave the world open for those who want a playground, aka, a sandbox. They're more about the world and the people/places/things within them than a definitive, singular narrative. They are for people who want to explore and discover, not have cutscenes babyfed to them after 3 rooms of combat. In fact, Oblivion is far from being a cinematic game or casual, so your comparison to Call of Duty is pretty poor. The game scales in difficulty and never lets up, and because it hardly holds hands it does not catch on as a "mainstream" RPG in the slightest. If I mention the words RPG in a conversation, I can almost guarantee that the words "Final Fantasy" will come up before anything even remotely related to a Bethesda game.

Glitch wise you and I are in agreement, they tend to be glitchy turds. But at the same time, sandbox games have millions of dependencies that need to be checked for and it is a QA nightmare to assure that each and every glitch no longer exists. This is how I see it, so I am a bit more lenient in being mad at glitches that occur in these games. However, I do wish that Bioware/Bethesda were better at post-game fixing of showstopper glitches.

Onto the Bioware critism, I'd suggest you take a look at Bioware's most loved title Baldur's Gate 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate_II:_Shadows_of_Amn) as evidence that they are not as horrible at storytelling as you suggest. You may not find their style of writing up to par and at times i've even cringed at an incredibly obvious piece of fanservice in their games that they throw in and make it sound like a fanfiction writer took over. But having played pretty much every Bioware game since NWN (with the exception of Jade Empire) and noticing that they've used a similar setup in each and every single one of those games, I love the characters and writing that Bioware brings to the table. I eagerly await Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. These are my opinions and feelings of course.

And more onto that, thanks to Bioware's outstanding toolset for NWN, tons of RPG fans all over have been able to create gripping and unique experiences for people to play. And there are persistent worlds, yes, full MMORPG worlds that are free to access that rival many commercial MMOs in terms of story and world quality that use the NWN game as a backend. For an RPG that is 8 years old and still have such a dedicated community, they have to be doing something right.

I of course, do enjoy JRPGs as well. Only a specific handful but I do have a few that stay with me as favorites. Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite RPGs, if not games, of all time. I've been recently going back and visiting Persona 3 PSP and Persona 4, and I find a lot to love there as well. But I prefer western RPGs more, even if RPGs aren't my preferred genre to begin with.

[Zarode]

^ You could've just said that you don't like the TES games. No reason to be so obnoxious and childish about it...

..but, alas, this is the internet.


Puh-lease... Spouting your opinions of ~*~your video games~*~ the way you are during this thread is not childish or obnoxious? Coming from my point of view (haw!), you're the one acting worse.

Oh well, all I did in Oblivion was explore mountains, stole items, murdered people, and God forbid I get near a road. STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM. Tea-bagged every single one of those guards.

TES games are boring to the average consumer because most of us, go figure, don't have aspergers. There is no creativity or flaunting of imagination. It was an open, boring world with nothing to do besides terrorizing the countryside, that the villains couldn't even keep up with. The hell? Did Oblivion mean it was really me?

No Zarode, you are the Oblivion: and then he became a stupid game to sell a game-engine.

[Zyrusticae]

You ask me, Oblivion was more fun for the constant modding and messing about with things than the actual game itself.

But the kicking and screaming caused by the constant and irritating instability kinda detracts from the appeal.

That being said, the news that Skyrim is getting a new engine is all kinds of Sweet! and I really hope to see some good out of it.

[BIG OLAF]

Puh-lease... Spouting your opinions of ~*~your video games~*~ the way you are during this thread is not childish or obnoxious? Coming from my point of view (haw!), you're the one acting worse.

No, I wasn't childish or obnoxious, because I didn't post anything ridiculous or absurd, like the picture of the Imperial Guard over other people's posts. But, feel free to have "your point of view". I won't stop you. Now, how about we stop this little altercation and get back to actually discussing the game(s) in question, yes?

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, I don't have Aspergers. I don't think Split or any other TES fans here have it, either.

[Split]

Sandbox games definitely aren't inherently flawed, but they need to be structured the way GTAIV and AssCreed 2 both were. Their worlds are free roaming, but are constructed around the missions and story after they've both been planned, as opposed to trying to design the missions around an already created world. That way, you can go anywhere and screw around with anything outside of the missions, but when you start one, the player is subtly directed towards buildings and certain areas that, while normally seamlessly blended with the environment, are designed with the mission in mind and become cleverly sectioned off to take the player through on a linear path with the scripted explosiveness of a good FPS campaign level and the developers don't have to worry too much about the adaptability of the NPCs' pathing AI when said missions unfold the same way every time.

Admittedly, I had a lot of fun with Oblivion, but beyond the absurd character development, it wasn't organized enough to be a deeply satisfying experience, mostly because it wasn't structured in the way I mentioned above. It felt like they created the environment and threw towns and buildings onto it before they even started writing the story, which always has made for a sloppy experience, and will continue to make for one until AI tech and in-game physics tech has reached some pretty astounding levels.

[amtalx]

Bethesda just confirmed that TES V will have a new engine, and not use the abortion that is Gamebryo. I'm so happy I could cry.

[Shattered_weasel]

Shut up about opinions.

BATMAN!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlXy7mKX1Iw

[Mike]

I just watched the TES trailer online and it gave me shivers. Dragons, really? I'll have to go back and see what Daggerfall said about dragons. On the topic of bugs, the Elder Scrolls games, as far as I know them, have always been full of bugs. I do not expect the new one to be different but that's what patches are for. Modding too. I never got around to modding in Oblivion but I loved just fooling around modding in Morrowind.

[Kent]

TES games require a certain amount of curiosity and imagination on the part of the player. The story is there, but it's not the main attraction. It's usually the last thing I complete , if at all. The real value comes from all of the places to find and things to do. If you're the type of gamer that needs to be constantly rewarded or pushed along a funneled narrative, TES is the wrong place to be.
Thing is though, I'm not exactly running short on either curiosity or imagination - in fact, exploring is one of the things I love most about playing games... It's just that both of the Elder Scrolls games I've played, have been dreadfully uninteresting, on top of the whole deal about having severe cases of poorly-designed mechanics and, of course, more bugs than a run-down apartment complex.

Metroidvania and dungeon-crawlers are two of my favorite types of games to play - they emphasize exploration above all else, while still giving you a goal or objective that you actually care about completing. It's not about constantly getting little rewards to make you look forward to the next carrot-on-a-stick (though that's not to say they can't help), so much as it is providing a reason to actually accomplish anything at all, even if that reason is "you'll get more game to play once you get this done."

Saying that games don't work in a sandbox is completely opinion, not fact.
It's probably not a good idea to assume that anyone who states an opinion automatically thinks that it's a fact. I'm well-aware that my opinion is my opinion, thanks.

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

BATMAN!
GG.

Was just going to enter the other new games topic without knowing any games being released in the next year, to simply post:

BATMAN

[SpikeOtacon]

It's probably not a good idea to assume that anyone who states an opinion automatically thinks that it's a fact. I'm well-aware that my opinion is my opinion, thanks.

I just have to make sure you're aware, sweety. :kisses:I mean what, with your condescending tone through the rest of the post ("those of discerning taste"? Seriously?) and your "matter-of-fact" style of posting there.

[Nitro Vordex]

I mean what, with your condescending tone through the rest of the post ("those of discerning taste"? Seriously?) and your "matter-of-fact" style of posting there.
I can never read those posts, mostly because I feel like I have to crane my neck to listen to him on his pedestal.

[Waki Miko Syamemaru!]

The only thing I watched the VGA for was the unveiling of Mass Effect 3 and Uncharted 3. Everything else was horrible and made me wanna sell my 360 and PS3 out of disgust. The jokes and pre-presentation dialog was about as funny as a David Tanny song. Monotone and painful.

[Shattered_weasel]

I can never read those posts, mostly because I feel like I have to crane my neck to listen to him on his pedestal.

Finally someone says it.

[Split]

I have to say, Jimmy Fallon's really gained my respect with his recent focus on and vigorous support of the video game industry. Check out some pretty awesome looking gameplay for Uncharted 3 on his show after the jump (the NBC.com video below the youtube embed of the VGA, for challenged people):

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/12/13/jimmy-fallon-plays-uncharted-3.aspx

[Akaimizu]

Can't wait for the next Elder Scrolls. Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion was one of my favorite times in videogames. Just based on Shivering Isles alone, Oblivion ruled. Best expansion, and best reward for playing the expansion ever. By far. I don't think I've gotten a better reveal and background story detailing a Daedric Prince and the world they live in, than that. If you've followed the big arc picture of the Elder Scrolls series, you can tell they put a whole lot of love into that.

[Sinue_v2]

I'm very unimpressed with western-style RPGs - partly because they forego any storytelling for the sake of "choice," and partly because games don't work in sandboxes. I stopped playing them after I experienced exactly how terrible BioWare is at writing stories (as evidenced in NWN and its second expansion - the first expansion was actually good on its own, but also not made by BioWare) and how utterly incompetent they are at checking for bugs (Carth glitch).

After having recently slogged through Infinite Undiscovery, Final Fantasy XIII, Star Ocean:TLH, and in the middle of Arc Rise Fantasia... I have absolutely no sympathy for your position. Further, you have no grounds by which to criticize Bioware/Bethesda/Obsidian for their storytelling talent if JPRGs are you standard. By literary standards, yeah... their stories are shallow, juvenile, and poorly structured. But we're not comparing them to Dostoevsky's The Idiot here... and if we were, then the typical JRPG falls even further behind the curve - and that's just counting the ones that don't become totally incomprehensible a quarter of the way in and never even try to come close to making sense thereafter. Even those JRPGs which aspire to and borrow concepts of great works of literature and philosophy tend to just lift general themes, run their own direction with them rather than exploring the topic in a new setting, and loose all meaning and merit they could have drawn from the original work. Xenosaga's bastardization of Nietzsche (if you can even call it that, since I didn't see much at all of the works the games are titled after reflected in the game story) rings an immediate bell.

Western RPGs have their share of problems, no doubt, but they are infinitely preferable to generic anime dross with a Excel spreadsheet interface and a rigidly linear plot that has you watching more cutscenes than actually playing the damned game at best... and at worst, (FFXIII) extends into restricting the actual game world in similar fashion - to the point of being more of a corridor fest than fucking DOOM was.

----------------------

OT: Nothing really mindblowing here. Glad to see ESV and ME3 getting confirmation, but I'm not sold on pre-rendered clips of shit that's either too ambiguous to really get excited over, or events which I already knew were coming. Seeing the new Elder Scrolls game engine in action would have been nice. Also, Skyrim as a setting for ESV is a bit of a disappointment. Given the end of the Third Age and the end of the Septim line of Emperors which underscored the previous titles, ESV would have been a nice breaking point to explore other lands and continents in the game world - such as Akavir.

[Akaimizu]

Akavir isn't bad. I'm still waiting for Argonia. I'd love to see how they could do a story arc about that place. Not sure how limiting it would be, but I could imagine they could make it dynamic enough that we'd learn a whole lot of new things about the place.