Weekend Update

Time for the weekend post.

For some reason, the two games I'm currently playing are Devil May Cry 3 and Ninja Gaiden. I'm not sure why I'm punishing myself with two brutal action games at once, but it does mean that I can see how these two rivals stack up next to each other. In fact, I think I'll make some sort of duel/head-to-head thing about them after I finish both. Regardless of who wins, they are two very interesting ways of creating an action game...

If you read Penny-Arcade (which I'm sure you do :) ) you have probably read this snippet by Mark Ecko in an interview of his new game, Getting Up:

I would say there are gamers that have a predisposition to have a bug up their ass for anything urban. The fact that there was a black character on the cover of this game, right away there was a dismissiveness that this was just another “GTA: San Andreas,” that’s number one. Number two, this is the end of a console cycle when there is a law of diminishing returns. The code is as polished as you can make it on a no-hard-drive console like the PS2. So, there are technical limitations that people just can’t understand. There are guys that have a predisposition to be slaves to the code, rather than be slaves to the branding, products or experience. At the end of the day, it’s going to be the consumer who decides and not whether the camera makes a difference.

Anyone know what that means? Anyone? Is he trying to deny the game's apparent bugs because the "code is polished" and its a hardware limitation? Is he actually saying its better to be a slave to a brand than to be a slave to the code (what does that even mean?) And the camera? Seriously, that's not even from left field. We all know the man doesn't know a thing about game development, but now it seems like he's not even trying to hide it. And this is the man that 1up's Kimi Matsuzaki thinks is a genius , though to be fair, if I bought every game that Kimi hyped up after attending some publisher's wild party or event, I'd have a stack of crap that even EB wouldn't take.

I know the news broke a while ago, but I really hope the further delay of the next Zelda game is justified. While this is still my favorite series ever, that last few games haven't rubbed off too well on me. Wind Waker, while being a beautiful and charming game, was a bit too formulaic and repetitive for my tastes, while the Minish Cap wasn't able to hook me after the first half hour of play. If Twilight Princess turns out to be another Ocarina of Time, then I'll be more than glad for all of the delays. Otherwise they'll be releasing a costly game on a (soon to be) dead system to an audience that has become very impatient. I suppose we'll see in just a few months.