Totally opinionated piece below.
Something that gets on my nerves every once in a while is a small game company that comes from a grass roots background and makes some great games and then they turn into assholes.
Enter Valve, Bungie, Epic and Jonathan Blow.
I know it's a personal opinion thing, but if I see one more review or story spouting the genius of Valve or Bungie I'm going to blow something up. Watching interview videos with developers is painful to me because it seems to be less about the game and more about theirs egos of making "the greatest game everz!"
Valve is a studio that has fallen greatly in my mind. They've made some awesome games and somewhere between Half Life 2 and L4D2 they just became turds. L4D was amazing and while rushing out a sequel for quick cash they forgot to keep the fun in L4D2. Portal was a lot of fun, but has ZERO replayability and isn't the greatest thing of all time like some seem to think it is. It was originally some college kids game project that Valve picked up.
As far as Portal 2 goes didn't Gabe Newell spend the last 2 years bashing the hell out of the PS3 and now out of E3 I'm reading that the best version of Portal 2 will be on the PS3 because of Steam and Sony not holding their online community upside down by their balls and letting them get stuff every once in a while.
Where the hell is Episode 3 of Half Life? Wasn't the point of episodic content to get games to the players faster? I did hear an unconfirmed rumor that every fat joke made about Gabe Newell pushes back Episode 3 another two weeks.
Bungie struck gold with HALO: CE and every game since has been considerably worse than the last. I can't wait till they stop with the HALO crap altogether. This probably has me loving my PS3 more than anything else lately.
Cliffy B is just a turd. He's a small man with small penis syndrome and that's why all of his games are busting at the seems with "MEN!" and even more "MANLY MEN!" that have chainsaws on guns! I honestly respect his game making abilities cause the GoW game campaigns are tons of fun, but he just needs to chill out.
Jonathan Blow....read anything that guy has written or talked about and you'll see he's clearly an asshole and full of himself.
Phenomenal game makers that I respect that are still just making great games without all the hype or drama inbetween games? 2K Marin, Bioware, id, Bethesda and as of late Guerilla Games, Insomniac and especially Naughty Dog.
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I like Valve's company model a lot, but they do need to get a jump on some of these games. I know it's optimistic, but I'm hoping for a full Half-Life 3 at the rate episode 3 is coming out, much less, getting announced. In any case, something I like about Valve is how they almost seem less like a game company and more like a formalized part of the playing community. these guys came from the community, they play in the community, and they're plugged into their community. Steam alone probably keeps them busy enough, I'm impressed we're even getting a second swing at Portal.
ReplyDeleteI understand the annoyance with Bungie, but I'm still not getting that "asshole" vibe thing. No better MP fun was had than Halo CE in college for me, and it's definitely taken some steps backwards over the years, but I still feel like they're pretty plugged into their community.
You are right about Jonathan Blow, though. That guy has no real friends, and if his game development process is anything like Braid's, he's probably only got one colleague. I did love Braid though... easily in my top 5 360 games (although it is available on other platforms now)
Bioware isn't totally innocent on the whole process. Where's the details on the KOTOR MMO? We got an announcement trailer and... ?
There's a whole TON of details on The Old Republic at Gamespot. Not sure if those aren't the details you've been looking for. Or did you mean console details? Cuz that coverage might be all PC coverage... MMOs are a huge time-sink and I do my best to avoid them, even Star Wars ones...
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, where the FRICK is Episode 3!?!? It is pretty annoying to have these 5 hour expansion packs... that NEVER get released... come on...
Portal has some great replayability, but only if you get the PC version. You can get challenge maps as well as user-created maps, and they just added achievements to it and a cool ARG type thing that led up to the announcement that Valve was going to announce something at E3. Yes, an announcement of an announcement.
ReplyDeleteMazen: I've seen some cool user created stuff and it would be great, but seeing as to how the consoles don't get dick.....I'll be stuck with the same chunk of maps forever.
ReplyDeleteSame goes for the 1st L4D. I love the hell out of that game and have seen some amazing maps. The whole first level of Resident Evil 2 or the castle and the whole first level of Super Mario 64....jealous.
So disappointed. Here I thought this post was going to be about your Titanic-sized ego that is fuel by a blind, unhealthy obsession to get as many acheivements/trophies as possible. Ill let you get back to buying (trading?) all your previously owned 360 games for the PS3 so you can make sure to have a bigger penis... I mean gamerscore than everyone else.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone wanna play Uncharted 2 sometime? It's been here, since I got my PS3, but haven't played the multi yet. I heard it's a blast.
ReplyDeleteUC2... always up for a game.
ReplyDeletebrjahu's on fire!!!
ReplyDelete