Development troubles and some thoughts on news

Okay, so....new n4g member/poster.....Hi everyone my name is Sam and I am a gamer.

K so there's a lot of fanboys out there and there's a lot of useless banter that goes through sites like these as a result and one topic came up that I wanted to blog about. This is the topic of differing development on the current consoles. I own all three consoles (well, the 360's my brothers) and I currently mainly play the 360 and my ps3.

I've played a lot of games on both consoles and own a lot as well and I find it perplexing how bad some developers can screw up some times. Not that it's really my place as a lowly peon to criticise the high and mighty of game development but I've noticed a few discrepancies here and there.......

firstly, multi-platform games......while the problem seems to be dissapating (slow as it may be) there's still a tendency for single-console players that I've talked to to believe that multi-platform games will always be better on one system. But the only way that could be is really from word-of-mouth bashing of an opposing console's player or internet sites such as this one having multitudes of articles from gaming sites doing comparisons which really don't do much other than fuel the console-fighting fires about the blues looking insignificantly better in a specific version >.> <.< and half of the time people don't even seem to know which games are on which console! there was a video from CES recently where someone was filming a game being played and CoD4 came up in conversation but the guy started saying that it's only on the 360 and I sit here looking at my ps3 copy and start questioning my own existence for god's sake! It's almost as if the people who buy one console never actually look to the other side of the game store and see the other console's layout........*sigh* so maybe unwillful ignorance is one of the many problems there are with gamers

The second part of my ire goes towards the way that most developers are getting somewhat lazy, no offense to anyone directly but with new consoles the development should get harder because the tech is more advanced and complex. But still we see so many games with bad ports or horrible issues with the game mechanics, graphics, sound etc. Even console exclusives seem to have bad QA done on them or at least bad development. I mean how hard is it to see when a game is not ready to be released? it's just a waste of resources really...Sure the idea's there but they really can't realize the true vision without any real skill with the tech or maybe they need better tech but are just looking in the wrong place. There's a possibility that this isn't a bad thing though, in some ways this is a chance to weed out the bad developers in favour for the cream of the crop. With an unstable economy at this time the worse developers will get pushed aside because they won't make the sales necessary and it's up to the top of the pile to make great games for everyone. Maybe it won't mean the death of bad games - like most of the "casual games" that have come out recently - but maybe, just maybe we'll get some real perspective on what gaming is as a form of expression, as a form of escape, and as a form of experience. Then we can really move forward.



back to comparisons.....this and a number of other factors have really made about 3/4 of the "news" that comes through here and other sites a lot of stale overzealous blog posts being touted as news by contributers. After taking the guidelines test during the registration I'm insulted, to be frank, that there is seemingly so little done about the lack of real news. It's almost appalling how much is just hype and old news being used as a conduit for sites to get hits. And don't even get me started on the "journalists" who spend hours of their day in flame wars over something they wrote (which is really just their glorified opinion masquerading as a news article) If we're ever going to be taken seriously as a medium then we need to lighten up and take some maturity pills or something becuase gamers as a nation are weighed down by these "console crusaders"

a last note on hype if I may, while it can be a game sales booster it can also be something that ruins a game (at least for some individuals) personally, the experiences on GTA IV and LoZ: Twilight Princess were both somwhat ruined becuase of all the anticipation and hype, it's not that I don't like the games because I do still play them regularly (I'm on my 4th play through of GTA IV and I'm going no HUD, no radar, and relying completely on my own knowledge of the streets and the voice gps thing which is starting to be really annoying)......but anticipation on a large scale can only lead to a certain amount of disappointment. A good example is KZ2 which everyone is talking about. I did play the first and I did like it for the most part but it seems to plod along in terms of pace but that was probably because the frame-rate wasn't too great, but the new one looks like it lives up to the first's potential. And I was part of the beta so I already know that it's the only fps multiplayer I've ever liked (not to say any other ones are worse, I've just found my niche) As I said though I do believe I'll be disappointed with some parts......I loved the story/script writing, the locales and the majority of the voice-acting in the first and so far the only part of the story and voicing I like is Sev but he doesn't seem to be very talkative though. On a lighter note there's always a chance, and besides....the graphics, gameplay, locales, atmosphere, music, sound-effects and over all polished, meaty, realistic experience of the game has already sold me

k, so I've got more to blog about if anyone wants to read more, but I'll wait to do the next one

Thanks