So, I’ve released an album of TV Themes and talk about my motivations in a podcats. If you’re not interested in the why’s and wherefore’s then maybe you should skip this podcats.
The next ‘cats will be about games. I swear.
So this is what I’ve been up to for a large part of the last year and a bit. It’s been put aside for a few days here and there, making way for other projects, but it’s out.
Retro Crowd (a nom de musique) TV Classics. 20 of my favourite TV Themes (yes, most of those Themes of the Week posts on the controller1 twitter feed).
I like certain old TV shows that have character that survived them even when they become horribly dated. Also, having a great theme tune helps.
I’ll put out a podcats this week to discuss the album and why it is the way it is. It is vaguely game related in its origins.
It’s on the controller1 label, distributed by CDBaby and available there, Amazon MP3 and iTunes
Buy Blade Kitten Original Game Soundtrack
So, this was a game I made music for. It’s now available on CDBaby and iTunes, coming to most other digital music stores (such as Amazon mp3) and music streaming services soon enough.
I’m damn proud of the work in this game (and of the game in general).
Yes, a free track from the Christmas Reboot Album
Joy to the World by controller1.com from the Christmas Reboot album
Controller1.com has released its first album, a seasonal roundup of Christmas Carols recorded by Jacques Poutine and his Retro band in a retro-inspired fashion. It’s available on most digital vendors (or will be) and subscription services but it’s available now on our distributor’s website, cdbaby. It may even be cheaper through cdbaby at US$4.99.
Click here to see Christmas Reboot
Yes, I’m looking at 2010 and thinking, Hmm. GOTY coming up.
Leaving out the few 2009 stragglers I played this year (The Saboteur, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II and Left 4 Dead 2), I’m going to see how I still feel about the games I played throughout the year. This isn’t a final list since I have yet to start AC:Brotherhood, Fable III, God of War III, Donkey Kong, Goldeneye but its more a personal look at how things panned out in the Games Room
Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)
First big release and one of my more anticipated titles. Great adventure game with RPG elements, slowed down only by the incredibly boring scanning of planets (the one thing that will make me think twice about ever replaying the game). It’s also missing the kick-ass soundtrack of the first game.
Bioshock 2 (Xbox 360)
A sequel no one expected to work but it did, no one expected to like but they did and no one expected to buy but only some did. I doesn’t fell like a total retread, it did some interesting things with the story and fixed a large number of gameplay issues with the first title. It doesn’t have the twist of the original title but then it would feel like M Night Shyamalan’s current films to have a twist for a twist’s sake. Like Chubby Checker’s career.
Heavy Rain (PS3)
A bold new paradigm of watching a woman have a shower naked. For every bold storytelling move, it was let down by “Jason!” For every exciting action sequence, it was let down by Jayden’s Matrix goggles. For every mature adult situation, it was an excuse to strip Madison down to her undies and ogle her. Also- when you made the characters go to the toilet, there’s no option to wash their hands. Formidable!
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC)
The only other military PC shooter that’s gained traction since the ascendancy of Call of Duty has been Battlefield’s Bad Company offshoot. Apart form the single player, I can’t see what they did all that different on the multiplayer front from Battlefield 2 apart from make it 10 times better. Both BC games really make the Battlefield formula sing. It’s Rush mode that does it for me. I would be a happy man if I never played Conquest ever again.
Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360)
Short and sweet its probably the only SC game I’ve ever thought about replaying (it has so much less trial and error than earlier games). SC is the equivalent of 24, you can only have so many conspiracies high up before it starts to get silly. Hopefully Ubisoft keeps metering our SC games so that we don’t become oversaturated like we have with Rainbow 6, Ghost Recon, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, HAWX, Just Dance, Imagine, Rabbids, etc
Just Cause 2 (PC)
The only open world game I’ve played in the last year or so that I didn’t immediately love (apart from Far Cry 2 which I despise more than a bunny-crushing teen. PS- add Far Cry to the list above). I eventually fell in-like with it it and may even go back to it at some stage. It was one of those games I later wished I had bought on Xbox. The PC version is pretty but this is a ‘couch’ game for me
Alan Wake (Xbox 360)
As a fan of Max Payne, I was ken on seeing what Remedy could do with a different genre. Though I’m not a fan of Stephen King and his ilk, I did fall in love with this game and its bordering on meandering and possibly even slightly pretentious storytelling. Yes, there are a few slight design shortcomings and anachronisms, but overall a quality game and I look forward to Alan Wake 2. Also- More missions like Episode 5, guys.
Read Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)
This kind owned the middle of the year from a sales perspective, and although I completed it, I just felt this wasn’t as much fun to play as some other open world games. It has its good and bad but for the most part it’s fun, which is what matters. I found the side missions so much filler that I ignored a good healthy chunk of them.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
I am surprised I liked this enough. I had always been a Mario fan but I haven’t finished a Mario game since Sunshine. I also hated New Super Mario Brothers (well, that one boss that wasn’t that hard, but I just couldn’t get past it. This just clicked for me. It got it right. How right? When I got super frustrated at dying, I kept trying. That’s the mark of a good game.
Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360)
A by the numbers quickie expansion pack but God it was good to have it back. The ODST of the Crackdown world
Plants Vs Zombies HD (iPad)
I actually played lots of games on iOS devices such as Poker Smash, Monster Dash, Canabalt, Tetris, Monkey Island, etc. But this is the one I spent the most time playing. I loved PvZ. It’s the perfect title for the iPad.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (XBLA)
A Tomb Raider game that’s not called Tomb Raider, but features Lara Croft and is more fun than any actual Tomb Raider game. That’s what this is.
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (XBLA)
Bought it opened it played for five minutes and closed it. It seemed OK.
Halo Reach (Xbox 360)
Wow, this was one of the best single player FPS’s I have played in a long time. When you really think of it, who is actually doing single player in a first person shooter right these days? CoD is all about the experience rather than the gameplay, Medal of Honor and Battlefield have a generic campaign bolted on and everyone else has given up trying. Reach nailed it in ways that make you think Halo 2 and Halo 3 were made by someone other than Bungie
Super Scribblenauts (DS)
Why the hell did I buy this?
Enslaved (Xbox 360)
Why the hell did I buy this? I love the story of Monkey and the word of mouth was positive. But really?
Fallout New Vegas (PC)
Why the hell didn’t I buy this sooner? This has been the only game I’ve managed to invest serious time in over the last month or so. It’s just exactly what I needed right now- bugs aside
Medal of Honor (Xbox 360)
Why the hell did I buy this twice? I will get to it. I have enjoyed what I’ve played of it so far but it’s timing is lousy (my copy arrived the day after Black Ops was released)
Call of Duty Black Ops (PC)
I’m still digesting this. I don’t seem to have the time to play this more than 30 minutes every second day. I like it but I need time to devote to it once these projects of mine are finished
Won’t be playing- Blur, Split Second, Gran Turismo 5, Need for Speed, Kirby, Starcraft II, WoW
So far I’m thinking my top 3 are Reach, New Vegas and Galaxy 2. Hopefully I will have made a decision of some sort later in the month.
How about you guys? What did you enjoy this year?
Some freeform thoughts. Feel free to ignore.
So it’s the fourth quarter. “Enchanting,” you think to yourself. In years gone by, you’d have three or so big name first-party titles from both Microsoft and Sony, another from Nintendo, maybe a PC exclusive here and there and a whole bunch of AAA multiplatform titles from EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Take 2, etc. Last year, with the Modern Warfare 2 juggernaut approaching (hey, no juggs hax, n00b!), almost every major AAA game suddenly slipped from 4th quarter 2009 to first quarter 2010 to make room for CoD. So that means you weren’t as spoiled for choice when the holidays came around.
Last year, you could have had Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and New Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. The only major new IPs that turned up were Dragon Age, Borderlands and Brutal Legend, and that last one was considered a bit of a flop by some, and while the first two were somewhat successful, they paled in comparison to the sequels. You had to wait till early the following year to get titles such as Bayonetta, Mass Effect 2, Army of Two Two, Dante’s Inferno, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, God of War III et al. How many of those would have actually used the extra time for polish rather than sit on warehouse shelves for a few months?
Extra work means extra costs to the game but very few games can do with more polish time. One of the saviours for developers this generation has been the Day One patch, decried by many gamers (particularly if you’re on PS3 with it’s languid updates), but Title Updates allow developers to use the time a game takes to be manufactured and shipped to stores to fix a lot of bugs so that you hopefully have a short update at the time of booting up for the first time to a much less buggy experience. That’s the theory.
Most people actually seem to like having games spread out a little more. I used to get frustrated by having a huge pile of games waiting for my attention, only to see some of them drop in price before I’d even unwrapped the packaging (Hi there EA, Ubisoft). But I also feel a little scammed. We aren’t getting full sequels with new engines, we’re getting massive expansion packs reusing and repacking (quite successfully in most cases) existing tech and assets- Fallout New Vegas, Call of Duty Black Ops, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Rock Band 3, possibly Fable III all built on the hard work of an earlier iteration. Gran Turismo 5 is all new tech (if you don’t count GT5 Prologue). This is good for fans of those series (since they get more of what they like) and the developers (since they can leverage previous assets). So what if most of this year’s big games are just skin jobs?
Just as TV and the Movies seems to be about remaking everything (let’s see, Star Trek, GI Joe, Get Smart, Transformers, The A Team, Fame and soon Buffy on the big screen; Knight Rider, V, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Day of the Triffids, Survivors. The point is, for the most part, they seem to be dissappointing audiences more than they delight them (Star Trek, Doctor Who and Galactica being the exceptions) etc on the small screen, so games are in their comfort zone. Licenses games seem to be out of favour, replaced by game sequels as the sure bet to making money. Making money keeps developers employed. They’re just not letting them out of the cage at this time of the year.
We are overlooking the big Move and Kinect pushes, which have brought new franchises to the table, but with the exception of Dance Central, none seem to have made any contribution to lasting gaming experiences. There’s Goldeneye, Kirby and Donkey Kong for Wii owners this year (who also have the option to get Black Ops) but then all new versions of older favourites.
So for someone who tends to put more sequels on their shopping list, I’m starting to look for something new to throw into the mix.
So…
In a nutshell. C1 will continue, at least for another year.
In less of a nutshell, the last year has been tumultous. For years, we’ve operated under a vow of silence, stretching back to 2006 in our previous incarnation. This was because our (now former) employers, didn’t like the idea of being associated with a podcast that expressed sentiments such as Fuck Atari. In the end that turned out to be a little ironic.
Clint was let go late last year, Cam and I stayed on through three rounds of redundancies in a year (even though we turned out to be more redundant than the great guys and gals who were let go) when finally there was no one left. There are a few guys left to finish up what work we had but the place is in ICU with a feint pulse and little hope of recovery. It’s been gutshot. From 400 employees last October to, at best 20, today, it’s quite a spectacular fail but I’m not going into that here. Cam and I were there when the place more or less closed down.
One project is going to keep going, funded by another company, which will keep Cam off the streets for a bit. At this stage, I’m looking to go overseas as opportunities in sound design in Australia are quite limited. I’ve been talking to some places, mainly in Europe, casting my net wide, etc. I’m confident 11 years hasn’t been a waste, despite the occasional lacklustre and poorly received title. Metacritic was rarely kind to my former employer and I hope that the talented people I worked with aren’t held back from doing what they did best- making games.
Controller1.com will continue for the foreseeable future. I hope to get back into the habit of two updates a week- one text or video and one podcats. Unfortunately, it will be harder for Cam and I to coordinate our schedules to record together but we will try. At the very least, you can listen to my solo podcats. They might sound more like lectures than a discussion but hopefully we can keep them interesting. One thing I’d like to do is run through the games I’ve made over the last decade (probably in a multi-part show since there were so many) and chances are you may have played one of them. Or at least played a demo. I’m credited on every game the company made and I did at least breath over the sound portion of every one of them.
We recorded the podcats there during our lunch breaks, and everyone you heard on the shows worked there at some point. Shell left the company, which is why she left the show. Tina worked there and said “hey kids, I’d love to do a podcats, though I’ve never heard the show” and we caved and don’t we wish we hadn’t. We kept going through the transitions to Focus Test style shows through to Controller1 to now where we are at a kind of a crossroads.
The Podcats is at one stroke, the most popular aspect of the site, and became the simplest to record and prep. And it’s now the trickiest to keep going as you knew it. But we’ll try.
George
