Vanquish

[Kim]

So, the demo for Vanquish is out. Anybody check it out yet?

Mostly just standard Gears of War type shootery, but the upgrades, the boss fight actually being fun, and the powerslide set it apart. The powerslide is my absolute favorite thing about this game and I'd like to see it in other games because it's THAT AWESOME. Powersliding into a OHKO melee attack is also fantastic. I have some nitpicks but color me interested in this game.

[Kurosen]

I'm beyond tired of super suits and ultra tough too-cool-to-even-be-in-this-game hard asses and where'd that goddamn cigarette come from and is Steve Blum doing every voice or what?

But it's very fun :B

[Kim]

I'm beyond tired of super suits and ultra tough too-cool-to-even-be-in-this-game hard asses and where'd that goddamn cigarette come from and is Steve Blum doing every voice or what?

But it's very fun :B

Yeah, I mean, I pretty much groaned audibly when the huge guy who is too generic for me to remember his name said "I'm going to need a bigger gun", but as much as I want to hate that stuff, the actual gameplay more than makes up for it for me.

[mudah.swf]

Pro tip: Take cover and press the boost button to light up a smoke. When it gets thrown, enemies focus on it so you can boost past them.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Meh, not sure on this. Combat's fun enough, though one thing I did notice is that for a guy wearing power armour, you're awfully squishy. You seem to be able to only take 2-3 shots of sustained fire, and only 2 melee hits from lesser enemies. Also random set piece insta-deaths and 1 hit kill attacks from bosses are definately in, which is extremely unforgiving and annoying.

I also always seemed to be overheating and unable to use my abilities constantly too, probably because I was getting shot so much I ended up repeatedly going into that slow mo near death event which instantly drains your power bar.

Oh and the dialogue is terrible and the plot cliched and boring.

I thought the RUSE demo was better.

EDIT; Oh, no jump button either. What is this the dark ages??

[Aldurin]

Shit, I've got to download this soon. The trailer on the Playstation website gave the impression of a cross of Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank (but with more chrome) and a bit of that what-the-fuck-another-guy-in-a-spacesuit-first-outwars-then-halo-then-all-sorts-of-shit-and-then-this sort of feeling.

But it looks fun.

[bluestarultor]

I really don't get what they're going for with that white power armor. I think based on the trailer that they're trying to go for an innocence thing, but that doesn't really jive with the whole counter-terrorism-space-station-killing-machine thing. Also, way to rip off Iron Man with donning the armor. Was that whole bit really necessary?

It just seems so generic and safe and quite frankly a bit schizophrenic just looking at it.

[Kim]

It's supposed to be safe. Shinji Mikami made GodHand, which was the best brawler ever, only nobody bought it, so he's trying to make a more marketable game this time around. Plot will be meh, generic, and forgettable, but gameplay is looking to be a blast.

[Living Bobbeh]

I wasn't super impressed by it. The whole demo just felt unwieldy. The rocket slide, while unbelievably cool, left me scraping the walls each time I used it. I found it unnecessarily difficult to actually put the crosshairs on to a guy, so ended up abusing the slow motion.

I wanted to like it, but the whole thing just felt slippery.

[mudah.swf]

The white power armour is a homage to Casshern, the anime show which Shinji Mikami was inspired by.

[bluestarultor]

It's supposed to be safe. Shinji Mikami made GodHand, which was the best brawler ever, only nobody bought it, so he's trying to make a more marketable game this time around. Plot will be meh, generic, and forgettable, but gameplay is looking to be a blast.

That isn't exactly a merit, buddy. ;)

There are ways of being marketable without being shy about it. Like if they wanted to play up the innocence angle. That really hasn't been done before. Haze put you in the shoes of a rookie, but I can't really think of a game that's done innocence in the sense of its value and longing for it like he seems to be doing in that field, trying to recapture the feeling of it. That would make for great characterization! Or if they went for a value of life angle, where the MC hates killing, but knows it's necessary to protect lives. That would mesh pretty well with the terrorism bit they have there.

Granted, this may or may not even enter our household depending on how things go with school, but maybe it'll surprise me either when we get it or enough that we will.

[Kim]

That isn't exactly a merit, buddy. ;)

No, but a lot of the most memorable games I've played sold like shit. Video games is a business. At this point I honestly can't get too mad at a developer for making something generic when games about Samus being put in her place by a man sell better than games that are actually worthwhile purchases simply because of the name attached.

Seeing the rest of your post, it is very clear you have no idea what sells well and is marketable. The majority of shooter fans would see what you're proposing and dismiss it as whiny Japanese bullshit. The majority of non-shooter fans would assume it's just another generic shooter. The game's sales would dip noticeably were they to do what you suggested.

Before you even begin to talk about what is and isn't marketable, I want you to go and play Halo, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Gears of War, and Killzone until your eyes bleed, and realize that that is how shooters sell. From a business perspective, deviating from this is a bad thing to do, and if you aren't happy with it, blame everyone who didn't buy the different/unique/memorable games, which I'm fairly certain includes yourself in many cases.