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All the reviews I've seen of it have been positive and I know a few people who haven't seen the first two Bourne films that loved Ultimatum. I definitely plan on seeing it at some point.
Hmm, I don't really have the free time to get into 15 games enough to never part with them. I guess the only games I own that I would never sell are:
World of Warcraft
PES6
Football Manager 2007
Deus Ex
I have tons of other games I own that I have no intention of selling at the moment, but the above four are the ones I would definitely keep as long as possible (until PES6 & FM2007 are replaced by PES7 & FM2008 of course!)
In no particular order:
Gunstar Heroes
Thunderforce IV
Super Mario World
Wario Ware Inc
Deus Ex
World of Warcraft
Pro Evolution Soccer 3
Championship Manager 2001/02
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Streets of Rage 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Theme Hospital
Wii Sports
Fallout
Unreal Tournament
I agree 100% with Kougar. The only way you can tell what a new game will play like is to play a demo rather than believe anything a publisher lets you just watch.
Trailers only let you see how good a game is audio-visually, the game could still have rubbish controls, an even worse plot and absolutely no depth to the experience whatsoever.
Trailers are great for other passive entertainment like movies and TV, but gaming is an interactive medium, and demos should be seen as the equivalent of trailers for games.
Have played the demo of this and wasn't really impressed. No doubt it continues the 'classic' C&C formula, but that formula is old as the hills now.
Dawn of War and Company of Heroes are so much better and more enjoyable to play. This just feels like Generals set in the main C&C universe, which is a shame as I really wanted C&C3 to be awesome.
The best example I can give of what I am talking about is best displayed with a situation that occured for me in Knights of the Old Republic II. Now, when given a choice between playing as a male and female character, I will always play through a game as a female first so I can totally disassociate myself from the game and play it for fun - if I play as a male, I will generally react to situations as I believe I would actually react in reality.
At one point in KotOR, you have to split your group of characters into two parties to complete seperate objectives. So, playing as a powerful female Jedi leading one party, I also placed another female Jedi, Visas, in charge of the other party. Once the two objectives have been completed, the two party leaders (one of which is always your main character) have a conversation with a female Jedi (name escapes me) who is acting as your mentor in the game.
When this cut-scene first occurred, I was amazed at a Star Wars game featuring 3 incredibly powerful female characters so prominently and was almost tempted to congratulate the developers for making a strong feminist statement until I realised that by playing as a female character and placing another woman in charge of the other party, I had 'created' this 'feminist' cut-scene and that a lot of people will have had this cut-scene featuring two men and just one woman.
During this cut scene, you also decide the dialogue in an effort to gain influence with the others involved making it even more interactive as well. If cut-scenes can maintain this level of quality and interactivity I will have no problem with them being in games at all.
Gaming is still only a young industry compared to film - give it around 60-70 years then you'll be able to compare games to the films of today!
The main reason the correct length and and number of cut-scenes in games is difficult to decide is the fact that gaming is an interactive medium, unlike film, and cut-scenes just move games further away from being interactive.
The main reason cut-scenes are of poor quality or are at inappropriate times is because a lot of game companies produce the script/plot/dialogue in-house and therefore a lot less enjoyable than if they had used a professional script-writer or the like (which some games companies do).
The main reason the Wii has been so successful so far is its complete interactivity and it is highly unlikely that games with many cut-scenes will be making their way onto that console as I doubt people who are now used to being physically involved in games are going to be ok with sitting around waiting for a cut-scene to finish.
It's also telling that some of the most successful games recently have been the likes of Wii Sports, Brain Training, The Sims, Nintendogs etc - games which don't require cut-scenes and are simply about having fun and as a result have crossed age and gender boundaries to massive effect and huge profit for the likes of Nintendo.
Perhaps the best way to make cut scenes more enjoyable will be to make them interactive as well? ie, let players control the 'camera', or the dialogue or even simple QTE events like in Shenmue and Resident Evil 4.
Why is it Hollywood always seems to pick games that have very little in-game story? Examples of this are Tomb Raider, Mario Bros, Doom, Mortal Kombat and the like. Even Halo has been mooted, although this doesn't seem to be going ahead now - which might be a good thing considering it is essentially just a string of action sequences. Even the first Final Fantasy film was an entirely new story that simply used the series name.
A number of Tom Clancy's books have been made into films, so where is Splinter Cell: The Movie? Why can't Pixar make a big-screen version of Sam & Max or Grim Fandango? How about new Star Wars films covering the events of Knights of the Old Republic I & II or the new Indiana Jones film being based on Fate of Atlantis (albeit with Russians instead of Germans to allow for Ford's age)? Why not a gangster film based on Mafia? Or a Lord of the Rings styled Warcraft film?
Unfortunately, none of the above will probably ever happen (although I have heard a couple of whispers about a possible Warcraft film) as film companies seem to simply look at how popular a game is and think that the exact same number of people will go and see the film. Surely the best place to start would be with games with good stories that will make good films? Then, once people have realised that games can be a good source for movie material when used properly, maybe the studios will be willing to take more risks?
This is just a topic based on a couple of things I heard about a month or so ago now and I'm wondering what others think:
City of Heroes/Villains is stream-lining with practically every update to provide more and more single-player action and less so on events that require large numbers to participate in.
World of Warcraft's expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, is released at the start of 2007 and this too is stream-lining dungeons so it is no longer required for 40 people to take part and the vast majority of dungeons will require only a few players to be in a group.
I think it's interesting that since WoW became such a huge commercial hit and a lot of new MMORPGs are due in the next 12-18 months that the market these new games are aiming for doesn't actually exist, even now - which both CoH/V and WoW are now realising.
Could we see a lot of game companies losing large amounts of money here simply because they are so far behind the likes of Blizzard that they are going to have to learn the hard way that the people who want to play these games in the first place are going to want to play with just a small group of friends that they already know rather than use what should be an opportunity to become friends with strangers?
Mainly because Nintendo has the best first-party (and exclusive) titles of any of the systems. Plus, the majority of top 360 & PS3 games will more than likely be ported to PC eventually and will have the usual better sound and graphics, be cheaper and be far more stable.
