Sorry, Steve, I couldn't find a thread to post comments on your latest podcast, #33.
I finally got through this one on my way to work this morning. (I have a 45 min. commute, one-way, from home to office, so after a few trips, I can usually get through one of your podcasts)
I really learned a lot from this podcast with your discussion of the negative financial articles about Take Two, and the influence of Herb Greenberg has on how Take Two is perceived by the financial X-perts. Thanks for filling us in. I don't follow the stock side of the gaming industry at all.
I played the demo of Condemned and will pick this up when I finish the other titles I got at launch for the 360. Maybe I'll save a few $$s by waiting. Plus I'll need to have an EKG done to make sure my heart can take playing this game. Mega-scary, easily the scariest demo of a game I've ever played on any system. As I told some of my co-workers here, I was scared "shirtless".
I also really enjoyed listening to your analysis of the Japanese video game market. You touched on this more than once in your podcast, and as a long time gamer, it totally makes sense to me why Western markets (U.S. and Europe) are so different from the Japanese markets. I actually think U.S. game publishers will have a much easier time cracking the Chinese and Korean markets than they ever will with the Japanese market.
You "softened" your stance a little on no jumping in Perfect Dark being tied to the game being rushed. I agree this game was rushed to get it shipped at launch; too much evidence supporting this conjecture. But I disagree that no jumping is also tied to the game being rushed. My main argument is that if you look at the history of FPS games from this developer, Rare, you'll see that they don't put jump functionality in their games. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are two classic FPSes that Rare developed--guess what? No jumping in those games either. I also agree with you that level/map balancing becomes much easier without jumping, which may be why Rare doesn't like putting jumping in their FPSes. But something as critical as jumping is to basic gameplay, those decisions are made pretty early in the design process. Movement and combat for FPSes are designed early as they influence level design, enemy AI, enemy numbers, etc. later on in the design process.
Thanks for using some older video games as sources for your "Name That Game!" segment. I'm better at those than some of the late 80s/early 90s game sounds. (due to an assignment I had in the USAF at the time, I went a few years without being able to play many video games)
My earliest video game moment: Not sure of the exact year, 1973?, my Dad brought home a Magnavox Odyssey system. This was even before my brother and I had ever seen Pong or Space Wars, so we were in awe. Hitting a moving small square with two rectangles was a blast. Handball, hockey, wh
Within a few years, the local pool hall bought a Space Wars game. And then a Lunar Lander game. And I was hooked for life.
I didn't play my first game of Pong until I went to college in 1979. I remember my first thought was, wow, our Odyssey is better than this. :-D
