E3

[Thaldarin]

Let's put the consoles aside (who are all copying the tablet/controller thing Nintendo first announced last year and the exception of sony going with dumb interactive e-book technology which will not engage gamers at all and be a big flop).. what has E3 really done for the PC this year? I haven't seen anything new thus far, admittadly not watching the whole thing this year as opposed to last, and just seeing tweet updates.. but is there anything original or exciting?

Another littlebigplanet? Another CS? Another Gears? Another Halo? Another deadspace? Another Cod? Another sequel on to another game which has already outlived its either former short universal expansion or has already ran too long?

PC gaming, in fact even console gaming by the looks of it has hit another brick wall. Unoriginality due to the successful creation of such monsters such as WoW and CoD seem to be stagnating the market place. I think the only sequel I may be looking forward to is Borderlands 2, because that does have a bit of potential to expand in to something new, but who knows if they'll do it. I'm looking forward to next years Bioshock 3, although again that's a "same series", yet at least it's totally flipping different as opposed to its original and mediocre sequel.

I think the only saving grace from what I've seen so far is probably the price tag of Counter-Strike GO. $15... Just wow... $15... So I'm getting a rehash (4th reincarnation after 1.6, CZ and Source) for £10? As much as I'm moaning about rehashes right now and unoriginal games; even I can appreciate that I will buy that and play that because the price respects the consumer, even if not the developer time, as opposed to these £30-£40 rehashes and sequels we're being spoon fed rather than sat down to an entirely new meal.

/rant over. Although concurrently, the nintendo controller thing is a little bit exciting as it uses full graphics on it, as opposed to Microsofts 2D tablet switch. The Wii U almost makes me want one, if only nintendo didn't do 90% fun games and 10% real games.

Anyone else seen much of E3? Not to put a downer on it Although I'm just fed up that we have series like GTA and CoD that seem to never die, and original games which can develop in to series like Bioshock, Amnesia etc. struggle to expand their universe because people buy rubbish like CoD year in year out instead of picking and choosing the better ones.

Oh yeah and DOTA 2 was announced to be free, which for anyone who already got it from the beta over a year ago, you were told it would be and to keep it quiet ;D lol.

[Thaldarin]

I moaned on twitter about originality too, then a pal piped up with this



It looks fantastic, the gameplay is a bit hit and miss though. Original yes, although the action and the mission objectives look a bit scripted as if Ubisoft aren't asking you to play the game how you want to, but how they want to. Although, who knows, it might be more Hitman'y and leave it to our discretion for all I know. I like the tech idea of this game though, Hitman in the future.

[red_ned]

the most interesting games seem to be coming out of the steam indie games section.
Lots of pretty cheap games with unusual themes, look, game play and original ideas.
The trouble is though that they tend to be a little buggy and not very big (but what can you expect for 2-3 quid?).
PC games seem to be more and more ported from consoles so are limited in how good they look as consoles wont perform as well as PC's and why do it this way? well you can charge double the price for consolers as they tend to be a captive market, the games last as long as the dvd lasts in the console.
For my own opinion sequels have always been profitable due to already having a following and so involve less risk for the companies but also they are franchises and that means there needs to be lots of them to really make money.
The trouble is the PC gamers have been spoiled by Valve supplying long life games/engines with huge community modding for free extras.
Ok as a TFC fan and played it for 8 years i am biased and really TFC and CS were both bought in to the engine rather than made by Valve and also were back in the day only up against Quake and UT all other games just hung off the back of these central core engines and the console games were their own thing as they struggled to do much more than arcade style stuff.
The community of modders provided so much and Valve seemed to recognise them and encourage, the trouble now with console based engines is that they are static engines without the hooks required to make something else from them and even the new CS:GO seems to include all the modders areas already in them like Gun Game etc so maybe again the console build has prevented any modding and extensions to the game.
E3 and events like it have been steadily announcing sequels for a few years and unless someone really takes a chance on basing on PC and using new ideas and genuinely appreciating the role of a community and letting them play with the engine then i dont think we will see such a long lived game again - although we could look into mods like NS or Dragon Balls but they both need to be on the best platform and so you need loads of people who know what they are doing.

[Siege]

As ned said it's all about risk assessment, although the entertainment industry is resisting the recession no one wan't to take risks with big money. Small developers are stuck to self funding (small indie games for a few quid) and most of the big developers are stuck working a timetable for big publishers (EA Activision/Blizard Ubisoft etc.) who don't want to invest in a 'maybe' game when money is (relativally) tight.
So long as people keep throwing money at sequels they will keep making them. Works both ways though if you like a CoD or Battlefield etc. then atleast you know the £30/40 you spend will net you with something that should atleast emulate somthing you like rather than take a risk on something new and not play it atall.