Sometimes I get triple-A fatigue and I feel just a little tapped out. I find myself a little niche where the only gaming of note I do is on my DS. I can dump hundreds of hours into a Harvest Moon or Pokemon game and never look back -- in fact, I'm not even HeartGold or SoulSilver-ing yet because I'm just focusing on Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands. Yep, that's about it!
These phases lend themselves to being light on blogging -- at times like that, I'm glad I have my Twitter to toss quick thoughts and links out to you guys. Of course, I'm also busy as usual at Gamasutra. You know I love indie games that try to push or change the medium; I spent time with Jason Rohrer's Sleep is Death, my writing on which you might have read at Kotaku, so just a little bit later, I caught up with the fascinating, loquacious and giant-brained Eskil Steenberg at Gamasutra to talk about his work on the impressionist-art MMO (though he resists the word "MMO") LOVE.
We talk about how he suddenly decided to develop his own self-contained game engine and persistent multiplayer world without any significant design experience (truly, truly impressive), and why LOVE is, in his view, completely different than other games, most of which don't interest him much.
I went to see Crysis 2 unveiled in New York City late last week, and I talked to Crytek boss Cevat Yerli about why, in a world where crappy-looking Facebook games can pull millions of users in just a few weeks (as venture capitalists are I think over-fond of pointing out), AAA graphics still matter. Last night on Jimmy Fallon (Kotaku has video), Cliff Bleszinski answered "graphics" first of all when asked what makes a blockbuster -- because they "pull people in" initially, he qualified. Yerli and Bleszinski both work for companies with perhaps the largest footprints in the high-end development engine biz, so certainly they have an interest in that point of view.
Oh yeah, Bleszinski was premiering Gears 3's trailer, by the way. It has a lot of ashes and dust in it, kind of like Crysis 2's trailer. Ashes are so in for 2011! Seriously, it looks cool, though, and as Cliff says, it has female soldiers for the first time. He says that's thanks to fan feedback.
Most of my time yesterday, however, was spent covering the latest and greatest in the Activision-versus-Infinity Ward drama, which you know I have been following in some depth for some time. As I'm sure you've heard by now, exiled IW bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella now have their own studio in Respawn Entertainment, and surprise-surprise, they have EA's backing. Wedbush's Michael Pachter told me this is the 'ultimate screw-you' to Activision.
I would guess the 'ultimate screw-you' to Activision will happen when employees of not only Infinity Ward, but of certain other studios under its umbrella who are sick of being crunched to obscene, five-years-ago levels try to get out and send their resumes to what's likely to be a more comfortable situation. At Respawn, I would assume they put lights in the cubicles all the time, not just when the press is visiting.
But anyway, after writing about them for weeks on weeks now, it was neat to finally talk to Zampella, West and EA (read my interview!), even if just on the studio kickoff. Most people assume the two are going to lead some kind of Modern Warfare killer on EA's behalf, although they aren't yet willing to confirm anything whatsoever about their project. Theoretically, they could be making anything, although I'm not exactly expecting a cartoon platformer.
It'll be interesting to see how their product is positioned -- after all, anything that competes with Modern Warfare is going to compete with Battlefield, too. As Pachter said to me yesterday, the vertex of the market that would make the most sense for the pair is the future/sci-fi-ish genre, where their only major rival would be a little franchise called Halo (and maybe Killzone or something).
Shooter, shooter, shooter, shooter. Graphics, graphics, graphics, graphics. Bummer that the industry's top talent keeps making the same kind of games. Or maybe I'm not the market. If you're into this kinda thing, you must be going out of your head with this bounty of exciting news.
Now I return to Harvest Moon, where I will plant and pluck turnips over and over and over and over and over.
