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The X Button - Stretching Ahead

Which isn't enough to drive it's sales up to 18 million.

I imagine it will be remembered similarly to the Dreamcast. I imagine its lifespan will be short than the Wii's, but it will be good while it lasts.

It's been a while since a game stirred up rancor in the scandal-hungry mainstream news hellpit.

What used to bring gamers together was usually video games being attacked by the media like with Jack Thompson, but the last year saw the opposite, rather you had supporters for those kinds of people. Even when games like GTAV and Hatred were being pulled and censored away, people did not unite to stop it, but rather some celebrated it. Gaming is too mainstream now for it to truly be united on issues anymore, it's no longer marketed just for nerds and gamers, but all kinds of people with varying opinions and lifestyles. Virtually every game generates controversy these days within the community, where as back in the 90s and early 00s it was outside media forces that generated the controversy. Today, those outside media forces are now found within the community themselves.

Um, no, you're wrong... http://kotaku.com/nintendo-is-planning-a-future-for-both-2d-and-3d-metroi-1590142491
Though not confirmed to be in development, this is a lot more concrete than Miyamoto's recent comments on F-Zero, so they've hardly been 'silent' about their intentions...

Unless a company does something to really stir up ill-will (Microsoft's first unveiling of the Xbox One comes to mind), I never want to see a platform fail.

That is something that baffles me; people keep gushing about the PS4, saying how it's sold millions in its debut year. And my first thought is "what are people using it for?" because the releases for it have been pretty tepid or disappointing so I doubt it's for games.

Xbox One and PS4 (and I'll throw in not brandest newest PC's too. Yeah, I'll go there) are practically the same console at the moment, so it at least has that.

Honestley, I really enjoyed Lightning Returns. The gameplay was great and the whole costume customization was really fun (then again, I am a sucker for those kinda things in games) Never really got the totally overblown hatred for the XIII series. Oh well.

doctordoom85 wrote:

I imagine it will be remembered similarly to the Dreamcast. I imagine its lifespan will be short than the Wii's, but it will be good while it lasts.

I can't imagine it doing quite that poorly; I think at the very worst it will be another Gamecube, which I personally think deserves more love. 3DS everyone said was dead on arrival, met with the same criticism, but is now perfectly respectable. It may not be the same, but if it ends up like the GCN there are worse things to be. They've also been courting more third party support than then, so who knows. Off topic but I do need to pick up a Dreamcast at some point if just for Shenmu, and the Wii's library is too easily discounted. I agree on both points. I actually have pretty much equal numbers of Wii and PS3 games, so yeah. And the Vita does have a handful of games, but little that is "I have to play this and will spend hundreds to do so." What you listed I would like to have, but won't go rushing out to buy a vita to play. I'll probably get one eventually, I do want it, but it'll be a long while. As far as ports go, they have their place. I just personally usually would rather play it on the big screen at home and have an original title for when I'm on the go. How is One Piece Unlimited Adventure thus far?

I remember hearing about how the PS3 was quick out of the gate, but its sales were mainly going to home video theater fans who found the PS3 was, back then, the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market.

Considering I was hanging out with people at my university's film department back then, this was practically all I was hearing about the PS3.

When you pull a "twist" like that, you either end the story there and call it a tragedy, or continue the story within that game to find a way to explain and possibly solve the problem. You don't cash-grab at the last second when the story could have so easily been ended with barely any loose ends. How could anyone think it was a good idea?

Ultimatum wrote:

When you pull a "twist" like that, you either end the story there and call it a tragedy, or continue the story within that game to find a way to explain and possibly solve the problem. You don't cash-grab at the last second when the story could have so easily been ended with barely any loose ends. How could anyone think it was a good idea?

That's an interesting way of looking at things. Do you consider Fellowship of the Ring a cash grab because it ends with a main character dying and the heroes on the run? Is Empire Strikes Back a cashgrab because it ends with the heroes defeated and on the run? That's kind of how trilogies are, especially middle entries. They have no real beginnings and no real endings, they bridge the beginning part and the ending part. Just seems a bit odd to criticize the second entry in a trilogy for ending on a cliffhanger.

Wonder how many fans decided to pretend the last 3 minutes never happened and that the FF13 series ended there? I know I have.

Was it announced as a trilogy when it first came out, though? I don't know if it was or not, since I wasn't interested in FF news back then, but from what I've read about it after the fact (tvtropes, mainly, so not like it's a great source, but hey) it seems like a lot fans didn't really expect or need the sequel to FF13 in the first place.

Also, this is a JRPG, not a western novel series or movie series. I've never played a JRPG that ended with "to be continued" after something like that. Heck, I don't think I've played a game that ever ended like that.

Moreover, my main issue is in the way it was presented. It seemed like everything it great, everything is fine, and then they drop that sequel hook (in the last 3 minutes, as I've been saying) after what could have been a perfectly satisfying ending. It's not simply that it was a sequel hook--it's that it was a sequel hook when there was absolutely, positively, no reason to do so. It was a sequel hook when they took 40 hours of my time and could have easily ended it there. They didn't need another 40 hours to do this. The characters were fleshed out enough, the world had been exploited enough for the player to understand it (so no more worldbuilding needed) and the plot had been mainly resolved. And then you get the kind of twist that should be used to start off the act 3 plot or something, the typical spoiler["Nothing you did really mattered, things suck"] plot twist. It isn't original, it isn't trolling, and it isn't needed.

So, yeah, that's why it's different from Tolkien, at least--he needed thousands of pages to flesh out his world and characters. The story wasn't finished. My problem wasn't with spoiler[her death, though I was still pissed because I liked her as a character--I knew it was coming]. My problem is with how blatant and unneeded it was.