Fight to the Death: Evolution Vs. Revolution

A quaint little article over there on Next-Gen.biz caught my eye earlier today. It’s an interview with Rod Ferguson, the producer on Gears of War, at the GO3 conference where he stated that he felt a little upset that most critics thought Gears of War didn’t bring any originality to the shooter genre, and that it was a negative aspect for the game. He goes on to say that a developer should always focus on making a game fun first, and not just innovative for innovation’s sake.

Even though Gears of War was severely lacking in the innovation department, I do agree with his insightful commentary. We don’t always need to have something new in our games to have fun with them. Even though I’ve been known to poo-poo Twilight Princess for being a nicer-looking Ocarina of Time, I still had a lot of fun with that game, as well as Gears of War. →  Read the rest

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 3.30.07

PS3 sells well in Europe
Is this a sign that Sony is turning a corner? I recently noticed that the PS3 has a lot more well-reviewed titles and fewer games the critics hate than the Wii. Surely that’s a sign things will start picking up for Sony.

But then there’s the recent news that Devil May Cry 4 is going to be on both the PS3 and 360. A lot of smart people have said stupid things about this generation not being about console exclusives. Considering the Wii will have Nintendo first party titles and the 360 already has a number of good exclusives, I wonder if the sentiment that exclusives are dead is really just a nice way of saying, “Exclusives still matter but it’s depressing to think about how many Sony is losing.” →  Read the rest

Quick GTA IV Impressions

For those of you that were living under a rock this week, Rockstar and TakeTwo released the very first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, the next installment of their so-called prostitute-slapping, murder simulator (or so I’ve heard from those nutty politicians). I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, as the Intranets nearly exploded when the trailer was first released. You can check it out again at GameTrailers.com.

But there was one thing that got me thinking. A comment on one of the Digg articles brought up the issue of flying planes into buildings. You can see all throughout the trailer that Rockstar has faithfully recreated New York City, with glimpses of the Statue of Liberty, Times Square and the Empire State building. It maybe called Liberty City, but it’s basically NYC with a new name. →  Read the rest