Infinity-Tastic
By vidiot 6 Comments
I was really taken aback from the rather large positive response concerning my Yakuza 3 review. I was quite concerned that it might have rubbed certain individuals the wrong way, specifically over what I thought was too much editorial regarding the confusing straights that the Yakuza franchise is released in the west. I don't normally do reviews, but I think that might change. It took a while to write that review, but the pay-off was impressive. Whether the positive praise was spurred on because of Giant Bomb's quest system, I could care less. Thanks for the kind words.
I should be playing Final Fantasy XIII.
But I'm not.
I've been bouncing between the game, but in all honesty I'm actually looking forward in tackling Yakuza 3's ridiculous mini-game master trophy than jump back and continue playing XIII. It doesn't help that I recently picked up a little game called Resonance of Fate, and I've been, to use the a less technical impression: Enthralled with it. I don't hate or dislike Final Fantasy XIII, and it's been quite mind-numbing to continue to read thread after thread of individuals who have discovered that over twenty years of game development: There might be large general differences between Japanese RPG's and RPG's made in the west. It bothers me when an individual jumps on to the forum, generally believing that this is some sort of brand new revelation, unspoken by the masses. I don't know whether they're uninformed, trolls, idiots or all the above.
Don't get me wrong: Final Fantasy XIII has a multitude of problems, many of which are not acceptable for an over five year development cycle. It seems though, that once again, the topic of accepted critical conversation is not with things that immediately demand it. Although I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll write about my complicated relationship with Final Fantasy XIII later. I've played, and beaten, every entry in the main series and I don't intend to break that trend.
It goes without saying, but why SteamPunk isn't commonly used in games these days is a concept that is beyond me.
Which brings me to Infinity-Ward.
I have no segue, it's called a "Brain Dump" for a reason. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
Have you been following what's been going on at Infinity Ward? I have a follow up question to that: Do you really care?
Relationships with developers and publishers are usually rocky at best, at least that seems to be the general consensus with gaming blogs and news outlets. The business side of the gaming industry is just as cut-throat as any general entertainment industry, but there is...a naivety...(Struggling to find the right word here.) for a lot of people when it comes to the internal politics of these multi-million dollar companies that make their entertainment.
What's happened at Activision and Infinity Ward both interests me and at the same time perplexes me. Gamers crying foul that the Modern Warfare franchise will now flounder. Every new day it seems Kotaku is plastered with more news about what exactly happened. People being fired. People not getting paid. People suing each other. People counter-suing each other. It's pretty damn complicated at this point.
When Jeff was let go from Gamespot, it was pretty clear who the victim was. Not necessarily Jeff, but the Gamespot community as a large with multiple staff heads jumping ship. While I still like Gamespot, I rarely visit it these days as the fallout of the what transpired still flounder a bit. The site is simply is not what it used to be.
The heads at Infinity Ward jumped ship from the Medal of Honor franchise years ago, to venture out and expand their imaginations with...Call of Duty. Watching the decline of the MoH franchise, it's clear that they're influence was instrumental. There are different factors that are in play this time: Modern Warfare 2 is the most commercially successful thing since people printed money and stopped using rocks as usable bartering means. Perhaps I'm wrong: But I don't see this franchise biting the dust just yet.
This idea that a few individuals make up the creative vision of Modern Warfare is something I don't understand either, because I don't think Modern Warfare has creative vision.
Soul-less, would be the nicest way I could describe Modern Warfare 2's singleplayer campaign. The writing credits run like a laundry list of people's names, enforcing a concept that the game was written by committee. ("I WANNA HAVE A LEVEL IN WHICH YER ON SNOWMOBILES", "I WANNA DO A LEVEL WITH A TERRORIST ATTACK", "I SAW THE MOVIE RED DAWN CAN WE HAVE A LEVEL LIKE THAT?!", "HEY! I WANNA DO A LEVEL LIKE THAT AND THEN THERE WAS THIS ONE MOVIE I SAW".... etc, etc.) I think whatever future for Captain Price and Soap has will be bright, and equally confusing as the last outing.
While I'm upset that these talented guys were let go, I'm more concerned whether or not they were paid correctly like the initially stated they weren't versus anything happening to the franchise. I don't get the same feeling that, let's say Hideo Kojima leaving the Metal Gear series without any form of supervision. Or Sakaguhi's departure from Square. I'll be more concerned about what the level designers decide to do, or multiplayer designers....with their no dedicated servers, overpriced map packs and glitch-tastic multiplayer...or is that all Activision's fault?... I can't keep up with this.
It's just difficult for me to take sides, if any with this case. Given the money involved and my personal ambivalence to the last Modern Warfare, what's transpiring feels more like a slow moving car crash, versus anything overtly despicable. Were not going to know what actually happened until all this goes...or doesn't go to court, and until then it seems like every new news article seems to be piling on a generally bigger mess with no end in sight.
It's never a good thing when a publisher exploits it's developer. If the allegations are true, I hope the right thing will prevail. My best regards to the talented individuals who are leaving.