I have an Xbox 360. I want to buy more games. I mainly play sports (basketball and baseball) games and I have little interest in shooters with more guns, more blood and guts. I was perusing Amazon and I came to this conclusion: Jesus H there is nothing to buy. I thought Left 4 Dead would be fun but viewing the actual gameplay made it look like CounterStrike with a zombie skin (and since when do zombies leap like the Hulk?). And I didn’t think it’d be possible, but it might be worse than Dead Rising.
But luckily, there is reason to not be so pessimistic after I went to IndieCade’s exhibit/forum/workshop at Open Satellite in Bellevue, Washington yesterday. I went with my Little Broham which meant we weren’t there for very long (he forgot to have breakfast so he had little attention span or energy left after 90 minutes or so) but it was nice to check out some of the more artistic/innovative games that aren’t rehashes of stuff we’ve seen for years and years (because seriously, how many shooters and RPG games (new story!) can people make?) and aren’t meant to be The Game that you play for 80 hours. Merci Grace from GameLayers was there and she spoke about getting into the industry, securing funding and about her team’s upcoming game PMOG. It was interesting to hear about the creative process and how you don’t necessarily have to know all the code in the world (though it does help) to be a part of a creative team. I kinda wished I was still in college so I could maybe try and join in on the video game design fun.
This event/forum/exhibition was hosted by a volunteer that I work with and since it was a cool and kid/teen friendly environment, we mass emailed it out to all of our volunteer mentors. I didn’t stay for the entire thing and some might’ve gone to the later dates, but I was a little disappointed that we were the only match there. Specifically, I was hoping that a few Big Sister/Little Sister matches would’ve shown up because it would’ve been particularly great for them to see and talk to Grace because as we all know, kids (and society in general) still see video games and those behind them as a Boy’s Club.
I was at IndieCade on Saturday. It was cool to see all the different and innovative games.
I played through the entire demo of Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! All the playable characters are girls, and it’s a mix between an RPG and a board game, where you form a party and go out and get into adventures. It’s set in the 1920s, but the girls you play seem empowered but also constrained by the gender roles of the time. One of the tag lines for the game is “Win useful tools like dance cards, crowbars, boyfriends, and cigarette lighters.” It was a unique game and I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about how the game treats the role of girls and women, though I don’t think I’d be able to say for sure unless I played the full version.
Ya, the guy who made it was there and spoke to us for a bit. I didn’t get to play it as the computer it was on was all messed up. My first reaction was that the game would’ve been a little too sweet valley high especially on the heels of how popular Gossip Girl and such are. It didn’t help that when he explained why he chose to made the game, he said that his motivation was: money. He said he wanted something he knew would be popular with a large portion of society, specifically women and girls :/
NBA live 09 & NBA 2k9 just got released on the 360
Chances that will change? Close to zero. Sorry, but companies aren’t going to take the risk. Just look at the Wii and you can see why companies are scared to move away from their formulas. They have all these systems sold yet they aren’t really selling any games. Everything has failed on the Wii. Hard to say aim for something that is unique and untried when Halo and GTA are breaking entertainment records.
Have you considered Elder Scrolls Oblivion? It’s sandbox style. Midevil. It’s one of those games I can play for 10 hours a day and not get up for a smoke break…it’s not really shoot em up because your player uses swords lol.