Here's a question for Jeff Bakalar: In those first two hours, are there any supernatural elements in the gameplay? You guys talked a lot about ludonarrative dissonance, but what ticked me off about the first game(besides the story being forgettable and the QTEs being annoying) was that the enemy variety is terrible. The first combat arena that I really loved was right at the end, when you were pit against what seemed like a hundred possessed samurai armors with clubs and spears. But that's like the very beginning of Resident Evil 4. So do you just fight russian dudes with guns for an entire game again or has some of that Lara Croft Guardian of Light/Tomb of Osiris T-Rex and Egyptian gods leaked over into the main series again? It would probably even solve that ludonarrative bullshit, because nobody feels bad about beating up a bunch of skeletons or giant spiders.
I mean, I guess this post seems pretty negative, but I did play through the whole thing and liked the way it controlled and looked a lot. I want the second one to be more of what I enjoyed and less of what I did not like.
The talk about "honesty" was a bit weird to me. Jonathan Blow is an indie developer. That segment of developers are expected, at least in my mind, to be more able to do whatever they like because they don't have a huge company or investors to answer to, and are made up of few people. They are the natural thing to compare himself to, not AAA video game developers or Hollywood studios. Was that whole segment him saying "I am an indie developer"? Or was it saying "By honesty I mean that I'm not saying what I want to say in common storytelling tropes, which lots of other independent developers do use"? I'm not certain that that's what "honesty" means, but I don't know what else I would call it. "Being original", maybe. He did say one of the goals was to create something you can't get in all of the other games flooding the market now.
For instance, I wouldn't say adventure game developers are "dishonest" for using mechanics from the old adventure games they liked, I would say they feel nostalgic and are unoriginal. And there are a number of these new breed of adventure games that are less about puzzles and more about telling a story. It hasn't died out. Vinny has videos of every one of them on this site. You guys just did video series on Life is Strange, Until Dawn and Contradiction. Telltale might have started that revival while everyone on the The Witness team were busy working I guess, but I feel like Austin should have told him that adventure games are well alive.
Fun interview, anyway. Time flew by and I got a lot to think about.
1 hour 7 mins in, feels like deja vu. Like they said word for word the exact same stuff in a different podcast.
Seriously. I had some time to kill and have been listening to these last podcasts in succession right now/ since four hours ago, and when Rorie says "people have orgasmic experiences with the Witcher 3" it triggers Jeff to say "Those are the same people that say the same thing about Witcher 2". It's only been a week.
I don't care if all or none of them go back and finish it, but I wish Brad wouldn't have said back when he put it down that "I'll wait for the patch" or whatever because he does not ever go back. Like, at least Dan tried when he said he would. It's a little annoying.
PS. Beyond Good & Evil had a single Zelda dungeon right at the start and then hovercar races, escape sequences and major stealth sequences for the entire rest of that relatively short game. I love Zelda and appreciate the effort to make more games like it, but I have no idea how people can look at that game and be so stoked for a sequel beyond them just ending the first one badly on a cliffhanger. Being a cult hit is what that game deserved, and I just wish they wrapped it up better so people don't have to wait forever on a real conclusion that will never come. Okami had the right idea.
@mub: Thanks, but I'm serious that I'd like some actual background information. Of course I know about gamergate, I was on the internet in the last year. But I haven't got a clue who these specific people are and I don't think I have ever heard the name of this festival or convention or whatever mentioned online by any of the gaming websites or youtube people I follow until this article.
You guys who love this, what did you think of the sense of humor in Borderlands 2? Because the only joke I laughed at was the TMNT side mission and practically every character annoyed me. Is this more of that style or is it something else?
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