PAD #32: Pleasant Surprise

Checked-out Tomb Raider's multiplayer, and it honestly wasn't bad.  I was mostly just checking it out to see if it would be possible to still earn the achievements (I'm a major achievement whore), and was rather surprised to find that there's actually a decent number of people still playing.  Sure it's hardly into the numbers of something like CoD, but this is a game that mostly sells for it's single-player mode.  It's surprising to find anyone in there in the first place.  That's when I caught myself actually having a bit of fun with it; after I switched from the controller to the mouse, natch.  I used the controller during the single-player mode because I consider the game a platformer first and the shooty bits to be a secondary feature (the sluggishness of the enemy AI would tend to agree with me).  When playing against someone who can potentially kill you just as fast as you can kill him though?  You better be bringing your A-game, and an analog stick just doesn't compensate for your aim getting kicked around nearly as well as a mouse can.

Apparently Ubisoft is running damage control by boasting about the number of women that will be in Farcry 4.  "Packed to the gills" being the exact phrasing.  Between that and the way that they were quick to announce that the playable character isn't a white dude (though he is still a dude) makes it seem like Farcry 4 is just one big effort to snuff-out their current image of publishing games that are filled with white dudes.  It's to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if their next big game announcement features a female protagonist.  Not because it's a game they actually care about, but because they're concerned about shaking-off that image.  Not to say that it's a bad thing that they're adapting, just that I'd rather it not feel so token.  Still, Ubisoft announcing a game with a female protagonist.  Hm... I wonder if they have something sitting in the vaults that they could revive for just that occasion...

After long-last, EgoRaptor released a new Sequelitis, this time focusing on why he feels that Ocarina of Time was a very lackluster sequel when you really look at it.  He also used Skyward Sword as an extreme example of how homogenized the Zelda series has gotten.  Over-all, I rather agree with him.  While I never really disliked Ocarina of Time, I never considered it to be that great.  It was fair.  Passable.  It passed the time, with it's main redeeming feature being that it put an interesting twist on the story that was told in Link to the Past to put a little more emphasis on The Triforce than on The Master Sword.  One measure of a good game, in my opinion, is to ask yourself this question:  "What would I be left with if I stripped-out the franchise?"  In the case of Ocarina of Time, if you removed everything that made it Zelda and replaced it with original characters/items?  You'd have a bland adventure game that everyone would quickly forget about.  How do I know this?  Because I've played a lot of games that could easily have been a Zelda title if you just swapped-in the iconic characters and items, and most of them have been lost in the mix and basically forgotten.  I think it's part of why I never picked-up OoT for the 3DS, because deep down, I just didn't want to play it again.

Well, thanks for joining me on today's PAD.  Sorry that it had to end on a bit of a downer.  Hopefully the next one will be a bit more jovial.  Until then though, game well.

PAD #20: [Edit] Whoops, Forgot the Title Again

Looks like a big debate right now (or non-debate, depending on who you ask) is about framerates.  The debate comes about with games in the next gen still running in 30 FPS (Frames Per Second).  That, in and of itself, probably wouldn't have gotten too much controversy going, except that in response to people noticing this, some developers have started stepping-up to defend their choice to stay with 30 FPS by claiming that it's better.  In one case in particular, the studio insisted that they opted for 30 FPS because they wanted the game to have a "film-like" aesthetic.  My personal opinion?  They're doing the same style of backtracking that Bungie was doing when Halo only allowed for 2 weapons.  The only difference is that "tactical decision-making" has been replaced with "better aesthetics".  Don't get me wrong, I get it.  After all the hype of the "next generation" of gaming, it's only natural that people are going to be disappointed that we're still running on yesterday's framerates, so of course developers are going to start finding ways to justify the decision.

Looks like another hot debate was kicked-off by Ubisoft.  The short version is that responded to the question of a female playable character in the next Assassin's Creed by saying that it would be too much work to include.  They later replied to the controversy by pointing out that the narrative of the game would include strong female characters; they just wouldn't be playable.  Now, I will grant that adding an extra gender to a game definitely is more work.  If nothing else, there's the matter of a different character model.  The real meat of the controversy is whether or not adding extra animations and costumes is as much work as Ubisoft claimed.  Honestly, it feels to me like Ubisoft is getting caught in a lie.  Animators who have worked on games that feature both male and female playable characters have been chiming-in to say that it isn't as much work as Ubisoft makes it sound.  So it begs the question, were playable female characters ever a part of the plan?  If they were, then it's sounding like Ubisoft is mismanaging their resources if they really do feel that women were so much extra work that they just had to be cut.  Meanwhile if women were never on the agenda, then wouldn't it have been a better PR move to come up with something better that other studios couldn't call you out over?

Pulling my head out of the gaming'verse for a while, I watched How to Train Your Dragon today to get caught-up before seeing the sequel tomorrow.  I absolutely love that movie.  I'll be honest though, when I first heard about the movie I had my doubts.  The trailers didn't really do a good job of showing the human characters, so they looked kinda half-assed, and the plot wasn't really explained all that well.  Even the shots of Toothless in the commercials I saw didn't really do a good job of giving him that awesome/cute vibe he has going on.  It just seemed like a movie that was getting hastily slapped together for the sake of the easy "it doesn't have to be good because kids will make their parents see it anyway" cash grab, and that I would be obligated to hate it for somehow managing to make dragons look bad (something that should be illegal).  Thankfully, I decided to go see the movie anyway, if only because it was getting a lot praise from reviewers.  I absolutely feel in love with the movie.  The jokes were clever and generally worked, the story had great emotional weight, and the dragons (especially Toothless) were completely awesome.  Needless to say, when I saw a the teaser for it last year, there were no words to be had.  Just slack-jawed wonder.

I'll definitely be posting my thoughts on the movie when I come back on Monday.  Thanks for joining me on today's PAD, I'll see ya guys in a couple of days.  Until then, game well.