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After fifteen years of seeing game demos and then the actual games that result, I can't help but be jaded a little wiser. I've learned to translate key phrases on the fly. I've figured out how to read between the bullet points. I can look through the carefully thrown-together canned sequences and sometimes get a glimpse of the actual game. In short, I've developed a sort of spider-sense.
After the jump are ten games from E3 that set my spider-sense tingling. I'm not saying they'll be bad, but I am putting them on hype probation until further notice.
10) Fracture
Could this be a bog-standard shooter set in an unremarkable world, leaning too heavily on an unproven gimmick? Can deformable terrain make up for generic sci-fi?
9) Red Faction: Guerilla
Could this be a bog-standard shooter set in an unremarkable world, leaning too heavily on an unproven gimmick? Can dynamic breakable buildings make up for a curiously featureless Martian landscape?
8) Bionic Commando
Could this be a bog-standard shooter set in an unremarkable world, leaning too heavily on an unproven gimmick? Can a grappling hook make up for a repetitive single city setting?
7) Wii Music
There's a reason Harmonix didn't include a free play mode in the original Guitar Hero. And the reason isn't that they didn't think of it. Instead, they experimented with it and discovered that most people sounded horrible when they were turned loose to free play. But the point of Guitar Hero (and Rock Band after it) is to make you feel like you're awesome. A free play mode often does the exact opposite. Has Wii Music not figured that out? Because I expect Wii Cacophony.
6) MAG
MAG stands for "massive action game". Aside from the name being really really bad, its main selling point – that 256 people can fight in the same match – is utterly irrelevant. A firefight in an action game is rarely about more than the fifteen to twenty players in the immediate vicinity. Unless the game somehow focuses all 256 people on a single point (unlikely), I don't see how a vast battlefield in MAG will play any differently from a game like Battlefield Bad Company, which has a player limit of 24, but focuses all of them on the same location.
5) Warhammer 40,000AD: Dawn of War 2
Relic's real time strategy game is going in a direction that may very well alienate a lot of its hardcore fans (such as me!). It doesn't help that they weren't willing to talk about multiplayer games or skirmishes, but what they showed of the campaign looks like it'll consist of heavily scripted missions that require lots of clicking (Where are unit stances? Is it really supposed to play that fast and actioney?), characters attribute graphs with pre-set skill unlocks (exactly like Mass Effect), lots of inventory fiddling (Health kits? Collecting dropped loot? Seriously?), and even battles against bosses with giant hit point bars sprawled across the top of the screen. In other words, far more RPG than the average RTS fan would expect.
4) Dead Space
This sci-fi horror game makes for a rousing demo, but there's little indication that it's going to be anything other than a Doom 3-style monster bash. It's clearly inviting comparison to System Shock and BioShock, but based on the bits you could play at E3, there's no sign it's attempting anything like those games' narratives, which is what made them memorable. Dead Space seems to be mostly icky critters. But icky critters were only one relatively small part of the "Shock" games, where the main point was the combination of narrative and gameplay.
3) Clone Wars
This is not the Wii lightsaber combat game you're looking for. It looks like a generic fighting game, but instead of button presses to do certain moves, you have to wave the Wiimote. I can already tell I'm probably going to be wishing I could just press the D-pad instead. The art style looks awfully cool, and it's nice to see dynamic character interaction based on who's fighting. But in terms of gameplay, I have four words: been there, done that. It was ten years ago and it was called Masters of Teras Kasi.
2) Tomb Raider: Underworld
Lara's latest seems to be erring on the side of spelunking. During the demo, creative director Eric Lindstrom implied Lara wouldn't be fighting any human opponents, but that her enemies would get more fantastical as she delved deeper in her latest adventure. But some of the best recent bits of the Tomb Raider series have had nothing to do with raiding tombs. Lara's been at her best breaking out of the staid spelunking model and into the mode of action movie heroine. Underworld seems not to agree.
1) Spore for the iPhone
Wait, so that's it? You play the cell stage of the game and swim around and eat stuff and upgrade a couple times and then you're done? There's no way to link to your full game of Spore, and there are only a few limited upgrades? Based on the demo, this is something you'll finish after five minutes. There are so many awesome ways Spore could interface with an iPhone, but this doesn't look like one of them.
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By roBurky at 6:44 AM ON 07/22/08
I think Dawn of War 2 sounds like its trying to be the thing most reasonable people wanted the first one to be: Ground Control 40k.
By aka at 10:04 AM ON 07/22/08
You sound like an ignorant 360 fanboy. Stop trying so hard kiddie.
1st, learn how to write an article. This was piss poorly written.
2nd, go watch the actual previews and indepth hands on showings first before sounding like a totally ignorant fuc kwad
By Your Poor at 10:15 AM ON 07/22/08
Congratulations, you can read feature lists and dissect demos. You are talented. Warhammer 40K - not Warhammer 40000AD you moron. You really don't sound like you have a friggin clue. Stick to your day job.
DoW II will be one of the best if not the best RTS of all time.
By Soloman at 11:35 AM ON 07/22/08
Yeah you sound like a flog!!
Badly written, no real objective comments.
Only s#$t that was meant to get comments like this
What a load of crap111
By Joshua at 12:09 PM ON 07/22/08
Isn't one of the generally acknowledged problems with the Tomb Raider series as time went on was that it went increasingly against tomb raiding into more ridiculous museums and story based nonsense and the like, culminating in the "Sonic 2006 before Sonic 2006" release of Angel of Darkness?
Maybe Core is just trying to play it very, very, VERY safe and avoid that temptation. Can you really blame them?
Still, it was a good and refreshing article that put some games in a different light, which is sorely needed. The coverage of E3 was abominable, like most journalists were too busy thinking of how badly it sucked instead of trying out some of these things.
By jdavidlove at 1:20 PM ON 07/22/08
I think he's probably right. It sounds like the other comments are from the makers of those "games". I could really use more of this in my reviews.
By lukejm at 3:05 PM ON 07/22/08
Tom, I liked your list! But, you totally ignorant fuc kawd, I think you've riled up the Warhammer fans! Shit, as long as they've been around, I'd hate to see their version of an NMA-style mobilization.
So did you hear anything about a 360 version of Warhammer 40,000 Anno Domini: Dawn of War 2? It appeared briefly on the X-box website last week. I ask because I assume that's what is influencing the game's new direction more than anything else. Warhammer 40000AD 2 looks like a glorified Action-RPG at this point, which would be imminently more controllable with a game pad than the typical Relic RTS. And using Games for Windows Live! for matchmaking is another potential step towards a 360 version.
What I really fear, in true tin foil hat fashion, is that Relic is neutering their upcoming RTS to shoehorn it onto the 360, and it'll be worse off for it.
By CitizenLand at 3:52 PM ON 07/22/08
AKA said: "You sound like an ignorant 360 fanboy. Stop trying so hard kiddie."
lol....Tom Chick is approaching 40 (or there already...*shrug*). he's been a game journo probably longer than you've been alive.
By Crazyman at 4:32 PM ON 07/22/08
ok so hes an old retard. most opinionated piece i've seen in years, why is he even allowed to goto E3? write some REAL reviews...
By Justin Fletcher at 5:18 PM ON 07/22/08
The tombs were the parts I liked about Tomb Raider. I'm definitely one of those people who subscribe to Joshua's view: Moving away from the spelunking is what ruined the game for me.
Not that I'm sold that Underworld will be a return to form.
By Tom Chick at 5:38 PM ON 07/22/08
The Tomb Raider thing is definitely a matter of taste. I just can't help but feel the tomb raiding is so played out. Watching the guy find a key and then pull levels during the demo seemed to me so hackneyed. "Safe" is a great way to put it, Joshua. Personally, I want to see Lara as an action hero, and not merely an avatar in a traditional adventure/puzzle game.
Luke, no mention of further console stuff from Relic (I liked their first attempt with The Outfit, which was sadly underappreciated), but it's obvious that Dawn of War 2 is being "streamlined" in such a way that it would be very console friendly. I hope I'm wrong about it, and that once they talk more about the skirmishing and multiplayer (my own personal preferences for how to play an RTS), it'll seem less like an action RPG.
By Brad Grenz at 6:43 PM ON 07/22/08
Crazyman said: "ok so hes an old retard. most opinionated piece i've seen in years, why is he even allowed to goto E3? write some REAL reviews..."
Most opinionated thing you've read in years? Are you only recently literate? He expressed a few reservations about a bunch of games. Perhaps you should read your own posts as they are exponentially more "opinionated" than what Tom wrote. But just so we're clear, there's nothing wrong with expressing an opinion. A "real review" is in essence an opinion piece, after all. And I'm pretty sure they let Tom go to E3 because he isn't an insufferable fanboy twat.
By malkav11 at 8:00 PM ON 07/22/08
I share many of your fears - particularly about Red Faction: Guerilla, since the environmental destruction business has apparently been little more than a gimmick in past titles in the series. But I disagree about Tomb Raider and Dawn of War 2. Tomb Raider-wise, the series' strength (and the main thing that makes it stand out from the third-person action pack, to me) is the tomb raiding. It *is* the name of the series, after all. I don't really see where moving the series towards more traditional third-person action would benefit anyone - there's plenty of games like that out there, and I dunno what Tomb Raider would have to offer over and above what those games do. And Dawn of War 2-wise...well, about the only thing that I'd like to see more than a 40K action-RPG is a direct computer translation of the board game complete with all the races and optional rules...without gouging me on a per figure basis. And there's no way in hell that's going to happen, so I'll settle for what Relic's giving me. I like action-RPGs much more than RTSes, even if I like RTSes as well.
By Aeon221 at 8:19 PM ON 07/22/08
Tom Chick is in the pocket of the proletariat!!!11!
Oh, and how could you hate on DoW2? Relic proved it could make a nice RTS with CoH and DoW1, and now they're going with a franchise reboot and trying something new for DoW2. Sounds like a great way for them to expand their repertoire to me.
Also, it are gonna be ballin'!
By snarks at 8:52 PM ON 07/22/08
"most opinionated piece i've seen in years"
I'm not sure you understand exactly what a blog is. It's a place where people give their opinions on things! For instance, Fidgit is a blog where people visit to get Tom Chick's opinions on video games!
By obonicus at 9:00 PM ON 07/22/08
This was pretty bad, though. Repeating the same concern three times is cute, but with no mention of actual gameplay it's about as helpful as your typical IGN humjob. Because, honestly, if a game has good gameplay we can tolerate bad setting/story.
By Tom Chick at 10:04 PM ON 07/22/08
"Repeating the same concern three times is cute, but with no mention of actual gameplay"
Fair point, obonicus, but I'd already written up each of the three games as part of my E3 coverage. I grant that I was probably expecting too much to assume everyone had read those three write-ups. But in case it wasn't clear, the bottom line is that all three shooters don't seen to have anything to recommend them beyond their respective gimmicks.
By Dooley at 11:39 PM ON 07/22/08
I'm eager for DoW because I like the theme, plus the RPG elements mixed in may inspire some folks and we'll end up with a game with a more polished set up.
By obonicus at 7:14 AM ON 07/23/08
But I did read them. They don't say much; in fact, you seem pretty positive about almost every game you mentioned. The only hint I'd have that Red Faction may not have been a great show is because the praise was far more faint that given to, say, Far Cry 2. Like I said, IGN.
By Qantravon at 5:16 PM ON 07/24/08
I think you've severely misinterpreted something. First off, as far as I can tell, Wii Music will not, by any means, be a free-play music creator. It will be "press buttons to play music", but you can't screw up. You're basically setting the beat.
Also, you may want to note that the next iteration of Guitar Hero will have a free-play music creator mode. How about that, eh?
By Tom Chick at 7:12 PM ON 07/25/08
Qant, thanks for the correction on Wii Music, but I stand by my guess that having multiple users setting their own beat could very well lead to an unholy cacophony. Ever hear a bad jazz band? :) Also, good point about the Guitar Hero World Tour music creation stuff. I'll be curious to see what comes of that. Harmonix seems to have lost interest in that aspect of music gaming.
By Justin Fletcher at 11:21 PM ON 07/25/08
I believe they way Harmonix is spinning it is that they don't want to do music creation in their games until they can do it *right*.
By Raven105X at 10:43 PM ON 08/03/08
This article should be placed in the humor section because quite frankly anyone with either an IQ of over 60 or a basic knowledge & understanding of gaming will have a good laugh from this. If you have both you'll just cry from realizing that people can be this retarded.
By afterdaeth at 1:17 AM ON 09/29/08
I think Tom Chick wrote a very simple review because the gaming industry has sank into a all time low of simple games. I mean you can only write so much about something that DOESN'T catch your attention, and so I don't get labeled as "old" i'm 18 and game quite a bit.
To sum up what I just said, theirs nothing new under the sun.
By hitman865 at 4:38 PM ON 10/22/08
They hated Dead Space so much they did a half hour special on it on Sci-Fi channel that is "powering" fidgit.