Gameplayer has a great interview with BioShock 2’s creative director Jordan Thomas that covers the storytelling strengths of one of last year’s best games.
With BioShock, “2K Boston and 2K Australia wanted to build an action-narrative epic that would show respect for the player’s intelligence without forcing them to think exactly like the design team in order to ‘win,’” said Thomas.
“BioShock plays well, I think, to some of the strengths of games as a medium. Most of the first game’s story is unmitigated, meaning you get to live through or discover it directly, in the manner of a forensic anthropologist, as opposed to ‘visiting storyland’ from time to time and then returning to the entirely unrelated game experience.” added Thomas.
“If anything, we’d like to deliver an even more consistently integrated experience with any future games in the series. We hope to maintain a rich narrative atmosphere while allowing for the player to author key aspects of his or her identity with a large degree of expressive freedom. To me, that’s what BioShock is all about.”
Thomas is heading production of BioShock 2 at 2k Marin, which took up the franchise from their sister studios 2k Boston/2k Australia. Some of the original BioShock team is working with Thomas on the sequel, but the first game’s creative director Ken Levine is notably absent from the helm.
Continue reading ‘‘BioShock 2′ Creative Director Sees Demand For ‘Challenging Material’’
Crysis made its name as a graphical powerhouse, with visuals beyond what current generation consoles and most supercomputers can generate. But there’s almost no depth behind this unarguably impressive presentation.
Story in Crysis is little more than an excuse for the big-budget action. The main character is a faceless soldier named Nomad, an elite commando with a futuristic nano-suit that allows superhuman abilities.
Nomad is part of a US special forces team investigating a tropical island where North Koreans have taken over an archaeological investigation of ancient ruins that turn out to be a buried alien spaceship. It follows a strict formula of War of the Worlds, Half-Life, and Halo, but lacks the depth and creativity of those three.
Scripted events and minimalistic dialog shoves the story forward, viewed in the first person Half-Life-style. The characters are all extreme testosterone to the max, the situations all cliche. It’s ridiculously generic and takes itself too seriously to be fun.
I almost lost it when the gruff general refused to listen to the pleas of the scientists pretty daughter not to nuke everything. “But we don’t know what will happen! It could make the aliens stronger!” “I’ve got my orders!”
Continue reading ‘REVIEW: ‘Crysis’ Pushes Graphics, Lacks Depth’
Lead Diablo 3 designer Jay Wilson addressed the concerns of some fans that the art style of Blizzard’s newest game deviates from its forebears, but refused to give into their demands.
“We’re very happy with how the art style is,” said Wilson in an interview with MTV Multiplayer’s Tracey John. “The art team’s happy. The company’s happy. We really like this art style, and we’re not changing it.”
Outspoken critics struck immediately after the Diablo 3 screenshots and trailer were revealed last month, complaining that the brighter colors made the game cartoony and violated the dark spirit of the franchise. Protests have not died down since and led to an online petition with over 54,000 signatures.
Some critics used Photoshop to edit Diablo 3 art into what they thought it should look like.
Continue reading ‘‘Diablo 3′ Designer Responds to Criticism’