Innovation, screw you.

While I've been burying my head into various books and files I am sure you faithful "Shinty Club" followers ( all 3 of you) have been awaiting my return, and that I have.

I have returned on the back end of what has been an exciting seven days. The Microsoft Gamers Day in San Francisco showed MS essentially diversifying their portfolio, and with a really nice looking Banjo game announced and more Gears of War 2 screenshots released, 2008 is shaping up to be a really nice year for me and my 360.

When the Gears of War trailer was released last Friday, I must admit I was a tad dissapointed. I don't know what I was expecting; some massive overhaul in gameplay. No. Some great change in art style. No. Yet I did feel as though it lacked the surge of adrenaline that I got the first time I played Gears on my 360.

However on deeper thought I was happy, as long as they make little changes I would not mind if Gears of War 2 was simply refined. I felt that Gears of War needed more immersive gameplay, with maybe more large scale battles, and an improvement in the storyline; all of which seems to be being delivered. On the multiplayer front as long as it has a coherent party system I'm more than content.

The announcement of this game brought something up for me that crops up in all mediums, the fact that people expect and want constant innvoation .The thing that annoys me is innovation for innovation sake. I know for example that when I watch Iron Man it will not do something I won't have seen before and that is not a bad thing, when people complain that "its the same game" or "Game X 1.5" it really hits a nerve.

Why should something change? Yes innovation in areas where its needed but refinement is a greater art, how to refine a game without making it repetitive takes more skill than to simply introduce a new aspect that, rather than being fresh or introducing a new aspect to a genre, is there simply to be another bullet point on the feature list.

The developers of LOTR : Conquest. IGN reccently interviewed the developers and they had no problem with saying

"The high-level pitch is this is basically fantasy Battlefront."

This is the first line of the interview with IGN, and I'm not complaining LOTR:"Battlefront" seems an excellent idea for a game and I believe this sort of fan service is exactly what the industry needs sometimes.

People reaction's to innovation vary. The industry has seen mass market success wtih the Wii, which had a creative inital concept ( ie. executing motion controlling) yet as really failed to innovate since, with only a hand full of games doing something useful with the remote rather than using it as a gimmick.

I feel that even sports games such as Pro Evolution Soccer have lost there sheen as the developers simply add something new to sell a new copy, rather than actually catering to what the fans what. The feel of the game was perfected in Pro Evolution Soccer 5, yet three years on we still don't have fully licensed teams.

This all stems from the fact that people demand innovation, and developers automatically go for it, sometimes a game doesn't have to be a piece of art or wholly different, sometimes it's better off just taking a mechanic and putting different (see: Middle Earth) textures.

You tried Ed, you tried.

MK8 - Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe - Trailer

Uploaded by paulcdf

As you can probably see in the post below, the announcement of Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe is one of epic proportions, and as you can probably se below I soon realized that it was too good to be true.

Since then a teaser trailer and interview with creator Ed Boon has come out, and as much as I want to like it, I can't and here's why.

• Art Style : Simply the art style they've employed seems too abstract, too saturday morning TV. I appreciate MK for it's funny yet mature stylings, yet the way that Batman looks is very old-school 1960 and maybe with the stylings of McFarlane (see long, flowing cape), and to see a Batman with a very different art style is disheartening.

• Power Explanation - Rather surprisingly I like the way Boon and co. have tackled this hurdle, rather than have a storyline that actually attempts to make sense, he left us with the simple :
  

"A cataclysmic event causes the DCU and MK universe to start merging"

However I was less than impressed with how there is going to be an explanation that Superman can't fly, heat ray etc. Something about Superman's abilities having been paired down. Now why would they even meddle with DC canon, simply put you either give him full abilities, or paired down ones yet there is no need for a justification for this, I personally see this as an assault on the character.

It's not all doom and gloom however, reports that there would be "little or no blood" seem to be unfounded, as seen below.

I know it's bad to judge this so early however I feel that even though I love both of the univeresi that it could be amazing. However I still have alot of faith in Ed Boon who seems really animated and enthusiastic about the project that I just hope it turns out good.

Orgasmic Mash-ups.

The counter over at noob.com is finally down to 00:00:00 and I was extremely dissapointed to find that no new info was released. The site is ran by Mortal Kombat producer Ed Boon so speculation was that a new MK game would be announced.

However, my dissapointment was short lived, no sooner had the timer ran out that GiantBomb.com released some rumour and speculation, that Microsoft would most definitley not comment on.

But there’s already a healthy amount of speculation out there about the next MK, with most of the juiciest rumors pegging the game as Mortal Kombat vs. DC Comics. Apparently GamesRadar ran (and quickly removed) some sort of header image on its site called “MKDC blog–article_image” and it has a silhouette in it that looks very Superman-like.

Now Jeff Gerstmann's super sleuthing has got me very excited, if not a tad wary. the mere concept of two amazing things coming together to be one is absolutely mindblowing, however upon deeper thought and put within context of a game it all falls to pieces.

First of all, where does the camera sit. Now I am one of the belief that if superheroes are going to fight it should be in a War of the Monsters fashion, a mass, all-out, city-encompassing affair; after all these people are superheroes. This however would be totally impossible with Mortal Kombat characters. How could Liu Kang travel at the rate of Superman, a man who can bicycle-kick against a man "who can leap building in a single bound".

Now I think common sense would dictate for Mortal Kombat to go either the Street Fighter "3D but not really" look or the Virtua Fighter "total 3D" look. This of course presents another problem, how do you explain that a man who can fly, or a man who can can shapeshift is staying confined to one arena.

Another problem is roster selection, I would hope that all of the Mortal Kombat classics characters would remain; as for DC would they go as far as choosing Vertigo characters such as Hellblazer, they have to choose both marketable characters and stay away from some DC's *ahem* less than stellar personas.

So, I suppose my initial excitement may be wearing off, but I still think it's cool that sometime in the next two years Batman will be fighting Raiden; unless Boon pulls a UMK3 on us.

PS: DC ths is how it's done.

Marvel vs capcom 2 Ryu Vicks
Uploaded by Makoto_Shishio

Altogether now; PROTON CANNON

4 -year-old football management sims for the win?

Recently, my life has been taken over by the supreme Championship Manager 4. I have now been sacked from Liverpool and am currently scouting teams such as Port Vale and Ipswich for a job. Sims aren't really my thing, like RTS' their something I absolutely adore the idea of but the simple thing is my shot attention span cannot host these games for long. CM4 is totally different though, it's so engaging and becuase it's four years old you see players who are famous now starting out.

I saw Dawn Of The Dead (2004) and I was really impressed, it didn't take itself too seriously whilst still being serious enough to laugh at ( I have never seen Ving Rhames excel at anything than playing such a stereotypical badass). Even though there completely different genres it gives me hope for the Watchmen movie. Here are some shots below:



These are pretty cool, but still kind of boring. However the set shots from The Spirit are absolutely enthralling. Have you ever seen Samuel L. look cooler.




On that note I leave you.

PS. Red Dragons are murdering me on Ninja Gaiden

He's got jungle fever; they've got GTA fever

So as GTA fever grips the internet, I feel, well I feel unamazed. Don't get me wrong, the game looks amazing, the multiplayer wll surely grip Xbox Live and PSN like a gorilla does a banana, yet as the final trailer hit I got a great yearning for GTA:San Andreas.

Grand Theft Auto 4 (IV): TRAILER 4 VOSTFR
Uploaded by WORLD-STUNT-GTA

The last, last-gen installment of the franchise, was no where near my favourite, but all of a sudden I remembered the casinos, the pool, the altogether cartoonish touch that made it my most played game on the Playstation 2. The way the new GTA is shaping out is great, I am sure it will be perfectly cinematic; the Scarface-esque storyline seems interesting, as do the stereotypical characters such as the eccentric, gangster black guy.

However I feel that there is a gap in the market for that all out fun, kooky open world experience; Crackdown was close to getting it right, yet it lacked a certain amount of polish, maybe Saint's Row 2 can fill the void.

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I heard the most ridiculous rumour today; a rumour so absolutely enraging that I'm struggling to write these very sentences.

Hayden Christensen:


Is being touted to play Superman in the Justice League film.

The cast for this movie was never going to be amazing, but I thought that Adam Brody as the Flash was good, btu I feel that this is such a delicate project one that needs perfect execution for it to even be mediocre, that this would be an omen from the start; thankfully it's just a rumour at the moment, but as I've said above, a Justice League movie has to be done just right, and having an actor who looked annoying even next to Jar-Jar Binks is not a good sign.

Gt5 Prologue came out 2 days ago; I've seen a few videos, and a GamerTv special, and I think the graphics look amazing, but the city environments aren't the best I've seen,nevertheless GT is an amazing series and although Prologue does look like GT4 with this gen graphics, I'm going to try and get a hands on, check out the AI et al.

Finally Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 has come out with few improvements, it's still bloody amazing though.

Desktop Tower Defense: The Casual RTS

Although I should really be gearing up for other important aspects of my life (most notably public examinations) alot of my spare time has been taken up by Desktop Tower Defense; a flash game on the PC.

This game is, as said above, simply put a casual RTS, you have bugs that come across your screen, and by placing different weapons ( with different amounts of power and speed) you destroy said bugs. Like most flash games it's simple but addictive, and reminds me of another favourite Space Giraffe. There is a clip of Desktop below.

Other tidbits:

• Gametrailers TV is expected to announce that Iron Man will have a cameo in the Incredible Hulk game.

• An Xbox.com update has been rolled out, and it looks like this:

This is one of the things I love about Xbox Live, I mean everyone knows about MyGamercard.net but I just love the idea of having a quick tag and an interface to synergise your Xbox and your PC and I think it really capitalises o the Facebook/Net2.0 idea.

• Also GamerTM have a Splinter Cell Conviction preview up; I;ve never been a fan of Splinter Cell, I don;t have the patience, but they definitely seem to be shaking it up this time round and adapting it to a post-Bourne era, so I will keep an eye on it.

• Vivendi have also released the first screenshot of the new 50 Cent game; "50 Cent:Blood on the Sand".

Finally, I;m hoping to go see 10,000BC this weekend, can anybody tell me what it's like? And depending on how tired I feel I may, just may rent out The Condemned (a.k.a Stone Cold Steve Austin kicks ass)

The Condemned - Trailer
Uploaded by Lionsgate
Adios

The Hedgehog is Unleashed Again

Hey, this video has been leaked and apparently refers to a Sonic Game (maybe titles "unleashed") that is being developed by Sonic team as well as devs from Europe and America. Check it out:

Sonic Unleashed - Debut Trailer
Uploaded by Link-Garou

It looks pretty cools, there did seem to be a distinct lack of enemies, and although I love the Sonic games ( in my opinion they trump Mario several times over) I feel that it's going to be very hard to make achieving such speed attainable without making it frustrating.

However this teaser has deinitely got me interested.