Quite an international effort! AKA Capcom’s other survival horror series, Clock Tower was never quite the big deal here as it was in Japan, where the franchise is a million-seller. There, the twin market crackers— brutal slasher violence and girls in school uniforms— overcome the dense and twisty trial-and-error, multiple-ending gameplay. Here, we care even less than the translators and voice actors that did the localizations.
But maybe that’s being a little harsh. The cutscenes do frequently pull off some good horror. Despite that, a movie isn’t really going to feel a whole lot like playing Clock Tower. It’s supposed to be about you finding hiding places to escape the killers, whose only weakness is thinking that there’s no way you’d be hiding in a closet in the room they just saw you go into. If you can ignore the gameplay contrivance, though, it can pull you in and be suspenseful. The music cues help a lot. Watching a person on a movie screen doing the same thing, however, will just encourage you to point out how dumb it is and the music will come off as hammy.
Regardless of what I think though, good luck to this Jorge Olguin fellow directing the movie, as I’ve never met a Jorge I didn’t like. You’ve got until production begins this fall to find a way to make it work.
June 21st, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: PS2, Clock Tower, Capcom
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EA’s purchase of Mythic went official today, though the amount of the sale is not yet public.
While there was no success with titles from MMO newb teams, like Motor City Online, The Sims Online and Earth & Beyond (I did have about a week of fun with my ol’ Terran Trader “10,000 Dollars Money”), EA has done all right keeping the proven formula of Ultima Online on a profitable glide path, so doomsayers step aside. Mythic isn’t going to immediately explode.
But will the EA cash machine help Mythic’s Warhammer Online be a strong Pepsi to World of Warcraft Coke? Metafuture says it can’t hurt. The timing is right— after a few months with the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion, there will be plenty of WoW veterans that wouldn’t mind taking a vacation. If the founders can keep their head in the game and forget that they’re now rich enough to retire, then they can make the serious effort needed to not be just another RC Cola.
June 20th, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: Dark Age Of Camelot, Warhammer Online, EA
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Right now, in terms of effort-to-pay ratio, it seems like the best job in the games industry is to be a lawyer for the Entertainment Software Association.
You get to go from state to state as each of them sign their Grand Theft Auto Is Bad bills into law, and point out that there’s no laws restricting the sales of Andrew Dice Clay CDs or DVDs to minors, and he’s not even funny. And then you’re done and you get lots of money, because lawyering is hard work. You’ll lose your job someday because eventually the ESRB will get its act together and word will get out to the politicians that there’s these new things called parents that are very good for making kids not see human-shaped collections of triangles have sex with and kill each other.
In the meantime, you got a steady docket of easy wins for the next few years, which is the only reason why you ESA lawyers win over the highly competitive effort-to-pay-wise, but much more time-limited job “George Broussard”. Well, maybe not the only reason— it’s possible that some of you don’t have to pay a woman to pretend you’re not a repellent bemulleted man-child.
But regardless, that’s why there’s no Jack Thompson says this or Oklahoma governor signs that on Metafuture. There’s no real story until the ESA lawyers lose one of these easy-peasy 1st Amendment challenges. “Mailman Delivers Mail” isn’t a headline.
June 19th, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: Editorial
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It must be hard being the CEO of a company when you can’t remember what you just wrote five seconds ago.
Bruno “Buh?” Bonnell had this to say when announcing that his company Infogrames Atari was posting a $67.1 million loss for the last fiscal year, as revenue declined nearly 50% from the year before to a paltry $218.7 million:
(With Metafuture emphasis)
The Atari brand has stood for innovation and pioneering spirit for more than 30 years. As Atari executes on its strategic objectives, we must recapture what made Atari an iconic brand. During fiscal 2007, we will focus our efforts on established franchises, new major motion picture licensed IP with significant marketing campaigns, online products and titles for portable devices.
June 16th, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: Atari
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Kotaku’s Harry Potter-fanfic-character-name-havin’ Florian Eckhardt has not the time for reading interviews, not when he has to battle the ten-headed quotabeast while all hopped up on postyjuice potion. He’ll just have to skim and decide what the interview says.
But I sort of skimmed the interview myself, so I’m not too sure if there really is a part where, as Fancy Florian points out, Randy says he was fired for pushing too hard to keep Thief 3 more like the first two. I’ll have to assume that it’s after the part where he says that’s absolutely not the reason he was fired, and having no idea where that rumor came from.
Not to say it didn’t happen. You can change your mind mid-interview. He just would have had to go back on that part, and the part before it where he said the idea to make the gameplay “support sophisticated interaction, planning, thinking, and slow pace, in addition to supporting more traditional action-y stuff” was a goal “that I agreed with and helped drive.”
I’m also looking for the part where Hufflepuff’s Flying Broom Wrangler Florian says Randy “bluntly points out that Deus Ex: Invisible War sucked.” Maybe I just can’t read between the lines here: “I actually have a lot of respect for the product they made. I played an early version and really enjoyed it - more than DX1, I’d say.”
I don’t think he can be sued for libel, mostly because our non-wizard laws don’t apply to him, but also it’s hard to libel someone when you link to the interview so people can read for themselves that it says pretty much the exact opposite of what you say it does. But I am not a lawyer.
Read - Why Thief 3 Sucked: Interview With Randy Smith [Kotaku via #1 Tipster Andrew]
June 15th, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: Blogbudsman
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I suppose if the upper-middle-aged comedian intelligentsia is too busy with A-list self-congratulatory freak magnet subcultures to get to ours, then this will be as good as it gets for now.
Honestly, just the fact that Christopher Guest comes to mind before, say, Pure Pwnage should be enough to make up for the caveat that this unimaginatively-titled movie hasn’t been picked up for even a tiny theatrical release.
If you’re like me and are the type that doesn’t mind that Jamiroquai is a Stevie Wonder ripoff because even Stevie Wonder isn’t ripping himself off enough, then click here to help pass a few more minutes waiting for For Your Consideration.
[Thanks, Destructoid]
June 15th, 2006 by MJG
Tagged: Gaming Lifestyle
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