Here, have a review of Devil May Cry 4. This was a game I felt I was enjoying the whole time I played it, and yet when I finished and thought about it, I could only focus on its flaws. Certainly a decent enough game, but not as good as its predecessor.
What's going on this week? Is everybody at GDC? They're certainly not blogging. My Google Reader is barren, except for the "news" coming out of the conference, like the shocking existence of a Gears of War 2. Sure, I'll look forward to playing that game in another nine months, but I don't see the point of working myself into a lather over it.
Same goes for most of the stuff coming out of the Game Developers Conference, although there's always interesting tidbits like Ken Levine's retrospective on the narrative of BioShock. But the news -- the hard news -- just couldn't interest me any less. Ninja Gaiden 2 release date? Great, remind me a week or two before it comes out. A new Red Faction? Sweet, that makes three Red Faction games I won't have played.
What interests me most about games is the experience of playing them. Events like GDC just build hype, which is something I try to avoid. Not that there's anything wrong with buzz, necessarily, but it helps to avoid it if I want to maintain objectivity. Nor do I think that anybody ought not to cover one of the biggest gaming news events around, just because of my proclivities.
I just get so lonely, is all.
3 comments:
Actually, I don't see what's wrong with asking why GDC has become a big marketing and press event. That certainly wasn't the intention of the original creators of the conference.
At least there are no booth babes -- yet.
If you believe the GDC is just hype, you have grossly mis-understood it; However, this is not to say its your fault. Its just when Joystiq reports on the conference, they most often discuss the hype-type stuff. However, that stuff is only the by-product of a reduced e3, not something that has taken over the gdc.
The game design discussions by Ken Rolston & Mark Nelson, the portal post-mortem and ken levine's talk all revealed a growing perspective on the role of stories within the game experience. I would highly suggest downloading them when they get posted on the gdc radio.
While much news may not be coming in on the interwebs, the discussion at the GDC is unparalleled; the industry really can unite and discuss the previous year of gaming, as well as what goals we need, as an industry, for the future.
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