Awesome Things You Should All Check Out

I haven't blogged in a few days and while this post isn't about anything topical, I wanted to get a post in before the end of the week. There are a few things I think you should all check out and see, mostly because they are amazing. I'd also like your opinion on most of the things I post.

The first thing is some fantastic Mass Effect art. While they were made by a fan, they are anything but "fan art". These picture are on a completely different level and quality than anything I've ever seen. As an example, here is the picture of Miranda.

You can check out the other three pictures here: http://garrettartlair.blogspot.com/

The next thing on my list is a video collaboration between Epic Meal Time and Freddiew. The video is really funny if you follow both YouTubers. If you don't, it's an excellent introduction video to both! CHECK. IT. OUT.

Lastly, you should all check out "About.Me". It's an awesome portfolio website where everyone can find all the websites and projects you're apart of. My profile is here. My tumblr, twitter, facebook, and blog links are all there.

You'll also notice my podcast is up here. You should all check it out! It's not done with any of the bloggers here, but other friends of mine. There are portions about video games, but it ranges from tech to entertainment business. Give it a listen if you're curious and leave some feedback! Link: The Way We Talk

You guys have anything awesome things you've encountered on the internet recently? If so, you should share them in my comments!

Studio Spotlight: Telltale Games

Telltale games was formed in 2004 by Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner, and Troy Molander. They were all former employees of LucasArts who were working on Sam and Max: Freelance Police. The project got canceled in March of 2004 and the trio moved out of LucasArts to form their own studio. From there on the studio has skyrocketed in popularity, being one the first studios to take on the development philosophy of episodic gaming.

Interestingly enough, their first game wasn't an episodic one at all. In 2005 they released Telltale Texas Hold'em. As the title states, it was a poker simulator and was mostly used as a way to test their in-house engine. Telltale went on to make several CSI games for Ubisoft that were composed of several episodes, but released exclusively as a complete retail game. There were also two games based on Jeff Smith's Bone series and more were planned, but the project was eventually canceled. The only other non-episodic title was the Poker Night at the Inventory released on November 22, 2010.

In 2005 Telltale then attempted to buy the rights to Sam and Max: Freelance Police from LucasArts but failed. Instead they went to creator Steve Purcell and received permission to develop new games using the series' characters. They went on to release Sam and Max: Season One in 2006 on a monthly schedule, popularizing episodic gaming. This method proved very successful for them financially and the series went on to produce two more seasons thus far, Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space in 2007 and Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse in 2010.

Telltale then released the very popular Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People based on the well known Homestar Runner license. It was originally released on the Wii and PC, but was recently released on the PlayStation 3 on December 21, 2010. Telltale continued to develop titles built on popular licenses. In early 2009 they released Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventure, and they remade the Tales of Monkey Island series right after.

In 2010 Telltale created the Pilot Games Program as a way to test new ways of storytelling and gameplay without having to incorporate episodic content. So far only two games have been released under this program: Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent - a "dark and twisted puzzler" - and Poker Night at the Inventory, a tie-in game with multiple characters from various popular franchises such as Team Fortress 2 and Penny Arcade.

In mid June Telltale announced that they had partnered with Universal to release games based on the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park series. So far only the first episode of the BTTF series has been released. Just recently Telltale also announced a deal to develop games based on The Walking Dead, Fables, and King's Quest franchises.

Telltale is seen by many as the one developer who knows how to do episodic gaming correctly. They're also seen by movie studios as a way to create proper movie tie-ins, citing close relationships with screenwriters and franchise creators as their way of creating a worthy experience.

While mostly a developer, Telltale also publishes their games. For the most part they release them digital download services such as Steam and Direct2Drive, only partnering with mainstream publishers down the road for a retail release.

According to the company itself, many of their games are extremely profitable. For most games they only need to sell one hundred thousand to break even and most of their games sell at least twice that. Steve Allison, the Senior Vice President of Marketing is quoted as saying the Back to the Future is their "most successful franchise to date". They anticipate that the new Fables and The Walking Dead series will be even more popular when released and that the company will grow as a result.

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So be honest with me readers, did you enjoy this feature? Do you want me to do more? Let me know in the comments!

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's... a Huge Problem...

As most of you know by now, the new Superman movie is on track. They've cast Henry Cavill (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0147147/) as Superman and Zack Snyder is set to direct. Christopher Nolan and his wife, Emma Thomas are producing the film. Everything points to this movie being amazing, doesn't it? Despite that, I'm worried. It has nothing to do with the talent involved, it has to do with the character involved.

Superman was once a very well respected movie superhero. Then they made Superman 3 & 4 and like Batman, the character disappeared for more than ten years. But unlike Batman when the character returned, it wasn't nearly as well received. Superman Returns was a decent film, but it had a lot working against it. For one, they used Lex Luthor as the villain once again (even though Kevin Spacey was a really good Lex Luthor). Second, they completely miscast Lois Lane. Giving her a husband and Superman a son was not a good idea.

The bigger problem with Superman though is that he's completely unrelatable. I've always said that Brandon Routh was a great Clark Kent, but he wasn't a very good Superman. It's a lot harder to connect with Superman than someone like Batman. Batman has very human qualities about him even when he's not Bruce Wayne. Superman's scenes only ever involve him in an action sequence or raging against Luthor. There's a large barrier between Superman and Clark Kent and even then, Clark Kent is hard to get to know because he has to keep his secret.

Superman needs to be given more human aspects. For starters, let someone in on the secret. It doesn't have to be Lois Lane, but perhaps Jimmy Olsen? That way Clark/Superman can talk to someone about his life as Superman. What if Superman has major guilt over the people he isn't able to save? Does he have a wall full of newspaper clippings of disasters he couldn't stop? How does he feel about Lois loving Superman, but not Clark Kent? (beyond a few looks of dismay here and there) Despite his human companions, does he still feel alone as the only one of his kind on earth? These are things we could never know about Clark's personality if he couldn't open up to someone.

Even in the TV show Smallville people know about Clark's powers. This allows them to explore a more emotional depth for Clark's character. I'm not saying that they need to tell a "grittier or darker" story with Superman, but they need to make Superman easier to connect with and understand. Despite being a being from another planet, he was raised a human so he needs to display human emotion.

The other problem is the villain. You can constantly use the same villain for every film. Lex Luthor was once a great villain, but now he's turned into a characterture of himself. Lex Luthor also has very little motivation as an antagonist. Why does he hate Superman so much? It just seems because he's so powerful. He's a very one dimensional character. There are plenty of other villains that - if done correctly - could be just as interesting as Luthor. A few examples are Braniac, General Zod, and Darkseid.

The biggest problem with Lex, besides his overuse, is the fact that Superman can't go toe-to-toe with him. How annoying is it that Superman always has to be gimped with kryptonite before Lex can "take him on". What we need is a knock down drag out fight between Superman and an equally strong villain.

Despite there being all these issues with the Superman franchise, with Nolan on board I'm definitely feeling more confident about the new movie. What are your thoughts on Superman. Do you agree with my thoughts above?

Marvel Flooding

On Thursday last week, Marvel released the first trailer to X-Men: First Class. This movie takes place in the 60's during the Cuban Missile Crisis and shows how the friendship between Magneto and Professor X fell apart. James McAvoy plays Charles Xavier while Michael Fassbender plays Erik Lehnsherr. Other cast members of note are January Jones as Emma Frost and Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw.

The trailer itself isn't half bad. Despite the stigma of the X-Men franchise at the moment due to the last two terrible movies (X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine), I am hopeful that First Class will return to the quality of the first two films. There's a lot that is, well, surprisingly interesting. First, it definitely seems like they're trying to tie this into the already established films. Second, the costumes don't look nearly as ridiculous as I thought they would. Despite the fact that they made fun of the yellow spandex in the older films, that's exactly what they've gone with for this movie. The look really works for the movie.

Unfortunately the trailer isn't very long and not much else is shown. There are some interesting scenes worthy of mention though. The first is a scene with Charles and Erik in some sort of brothel (which most are assuming to be the Hellfire Club) admiring a winged mutant. The second is what I'm assuming to be an assault on the mansion and Magneto fighting back. He forces that soldier to stab himself which was rather cool. The third and final scene is the "money shot" where Magneto lifts an entire submarine out of the ocean and is levitating it in the air. Bad. Ass.

X-Men: First Class releases on June 3rd, 2011 and will be the second Marvel film to be released this year. What's amazing to me is the fact that Marvel is releasing three films this year. There's Thor in May, X-Men in June as stated, and then Captain America in July. Marvel has been pumping these films out like no tomorrow. It's amazing that they're willing to put these films so close to each other as well. Granted, X-Men is being released so quickly because FOX would lose the rights otherwise, but even without it Thor and Cap would only be two months out from each other.

That's not even looking into the next year when The Avengers and Spider-man release. DC on the other hand, has only one film releasing this year and possibly two (but at least one) film releasing next year. Marvel in general has made more movies of their characters than DC has. For the longest time only Superman and Batman had films (and that terrible Catwoman film). Only now are they branching out with the Green Lantern film. The question is whether or not it will succeed. As Marvel must know, not all comic book characters are marketable.

According to Rotten Tomatoes many of their films rank below 50 percent. Films like Daredevil, Elektra, both Fantastic Four movies, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine all rank terribly. Other Marvel films like Spiderman 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand aren't much higher. Now that's not to say that DC hasn't screwed up in the past (the before mentioned Catwoman movie), but I feel like there's more reason to worry about a movie like Thor than something, say, The Dark Knight Rises. I may be comparing apples and oranges, but Marvel's whole Avengers plan hinges on these movies being a success.

What are your thoughts on how Marvel handles there movies compared to DC? How do you think Thor will handle both critically and financially? Which do you consider yourself a bigger fan of, movie-wise?

The Death of Rock and Roll

A lot happened today. D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit is going on right now and the D.I.C.E. awards will be going on tomorrow. It's basically the "Oscars" for video games and it's what the Spike TV Awards should be, but probably never will be. Either way I will be watching the awards, which are usually hosted by Jay Mohr, a host who actually knows what he's talking about. They're a much better watch than anything you'll see on TV.


But that's not the big news! Today during an earnings called Activision-Blizzard announced several things. First they're planning on releasing a new Spider-man game despite the mediocre sales of Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions. 


Secondly, they canceled True Crime: Hong Kong. Personally I have never played the True Crime games so this doesn't bother me. As for the people who were making the game, I believe they are now being re-purposed to another project. 



Lastly, and more importantly, they have shutdown the Guitar Hero series. For the first time in as long as any of us can remember, Activision has finally realized that releasing a game every single year could be bad for a series. After six years of constant releases - some years including more than one game - there will be no more Guitar Hero games. 

That doesn't mean the series is officially dead of course. They simply said that the series needs to be "re-assessed". What I'm hoping that means is that we won't be seeing a Guitar Hero game for a long time. The interesting thing is that Harmonix (the studio behind Rock Band) is now in prime position to "dominate" the music game market. Unfortunately though, no one knows what's truly going on with Harmonix right now (after being sold for $50 no less), so it may be some years before we see either type of music game. 

Activision-Blizzard also announced a new studio called "Beachhead" to head up some sort of new "platform" for future Call of Duty titles. So far there's no more information on what any of that could mean except that it will be the "premiere area for the best Call of Duty content.". 


Very interesting stuff. Maybe? You tell me. Were you a fan of the True Crime series? Are you sad to see Guitar Hero go? 

"Did You See That?!" Getting Recognized By the Game World

Endings in games are a funny thing. Depending on the game they could range from a thirty-second cutscene that's practically meaningless to a twenty-five minute short film with interactive sections. Most of the time though these endings roll right into the credits and then fade back to the main menu. Other games - most of them being Western RPGs - fade back into the game, allowing you to keep playing, finish up any side quests, and play DLC. I feel that this works against games more than it works for them.

I own a lot of the games that do this. Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 are the big ones. Oblivion, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and inFamous did it as well. One can assume that at some point Obsidian will release a DLC pack that will allow you to keep playing in New Vegas. Red Dead Redemption allowed you to keep playing as well, albeit as a different character. So this is obviously a very popular thing among game makers.

My problem is that it makes the world feel static. As if everything you've done hasn't effected anything in the grand scheme of things. Take Red Dead for example. It has the most glaring issues. You play as *SPOILERS* John Marston's son Jack Marston at the end of the game. Despite roughly twenty years passing the world is exactly the same. All the same uncompleted quests are available to you. Everything looks the same as it did when John Marston was alive. Did everything I just accomplished as John mean anything? In the story, sure it does. I've completed the great western tale of John Marston. But the world didn't move on. Time stood still.

I'm not saying Rockstar should have created a whole new world to accompany the shift in years. What I would have preferred them to just fade to black and return you to main menu. Either give us a new game + option or reload our save before the ending in case we wanted to complete extra side quests. That way my actions feel like they had some sort of lasting consequences.

This all ties into another issue I have with games, primarily ones like Fallout 3 or New Vegas which is that even before the credits roll, I'm never recognized for anything I've done in the game. Sure a quest giver will reward me with an item and some EXP, but other than that the rest of the world doesn't notice it. Hell, my companion who was standing right next to me didn't notice me shoot Ghouls into space. She just looked around as if nothing had happened and when I went to talk to her, I got the run of the mill responses that happen every time I talk to her. 


At the same time, Mass Effect 2 did a good job of handling the consequences of my actions. When returning to the Normandy, I could talk to my crew members and each of them would have something to say about what happened on the Collector ship. This helped me feel like what I'd just done meant something not only to the people around me, but in the overall world of the game. Of course that feeling doesn't last long, but it's something.
 

You're probably thinking I'm asking a lot. In truth, I am. I feel that if the developer can't think of some way for what I've done through their story to effect the overall world, then I should just go to the credits and end the game. The same goes for side quests. If no one else except the characters in that side story see or feel the effects of what's happening, what is the point? It's a nice story, but it feels weightless.

What are your thoughts on playing after the credits roll? Do you feel like side quests should have more of an overall effect on the game world?