Escapist Podcast: 116: Games Failing for the Right Reason

The Escapist Staff

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116: Games Failing for the Right Reason

This week, we talk about Blockbuster shutting its doors for good and Ubisoft's statement that a modern day Assassin's Creed is Mechanically Unfeasible. We also discuss EA CEO's comments on wanting games to fail for the right reasons.

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JonB

Don't Take Crap from Life
Sep 16, 2012
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inb4pedants: I did do an oops in this cast, and I hyperbolicly blurt out that Watch_Dogs and ACIV are on the "same engine" when I mean "same console" - didn't correct myself on-air to avoid slowing down the flow of conversation.

THE TRUTH IS NOT PEDANTRY, JON
 

Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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Just to let you guys know, there actually was a Reservoir Dogs game.

By all accounts it was very "meh". And the only original actor that played their character in the film was Mr. Blonde.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservoir_Dogs_(video_game)
 

saxman234

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Hmm, will Jim join the escapist podcast at some point? I guess he doesn't live in the north carolina area so he wouldn't be onscreen. It would be interesting to see him in podcast that primarily talks about videogames, or maybe his podtoid (dismal jesters) shenanigans would seep into the escapist podcast. Either way it would be fantastic.
 

Greg Tito

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Sep 29, 2005
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saxman234 said:
Hmm, will Jim join the escapist podcast at some point? I guess he doesn't live in the north carolina area so he wouldn't be onscreen. It would be interesting to see him in podcast that primarily talks about videogames, or maybe his podtoid (dismal jesters) shenanigans would seep into the escapist podcast. Either way it would be fantastic.
You know Jim will actually be in the Durham office next week. We must make this happen!

Greg
 

Remus

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Nov 24, 2012
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If there's going to be a game based on a property, it should be a Highlander videogame. I know there was an attempt at one a few years ago that fell through, but here's my pitch: it could be a Fable-style RPG with a reactive, changing world in which other immortals could be manipulating things around you, whether it be leading their roving bands of mercenaries and sacing cities or using hundreds of years of wisdom to gain political heft, so the order that you fight them in can be entirely random and based upon yours, and their, station in the world. In the meantime you can train with various fighting masters to increase stats and alter your move set as well as increasing your own wealth or position by doing jobs, occasionally changing your identity to not raise suspicion.

VHS copies of Star Wars do belong in a museum if they're the original trilogy untouched by Lucas and his re-edits. Palpatine was a lot creepier when it was "old woman in prosthetics" and he was always shrouded in shadow so you almost never saw his face.

Gotta give EA credit for one thing - Mirror's Edge failed for the right reasons. People loved the free running aspect but hated the combat. So now we're getting Mirror's Edge 2, with a full open world rather than individual levels. It can't come soon enough.
 

SquidVicious

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There actually was a Sopranos video game called The Sopranos: Road to Respect and it was awful. I don't blame anyone for not remembering it though because it came within the same few weeks as the Playstation 3 in North America.
 

Setch Dreskar

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They did a Resevoir Dogs and Sopranos games, I can't speak for Sopranos game and its quality, but Resevoir Dogs was okay, wasn't anything special but wasn't god awful just sort of a game that happened, ya that's about all that can be said for it.
 

Hazzard

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Just remembered, Assassins Creed 3 did have modern guns in it, there's those two levels.
The level where you climb scaffolding and you or someone else kills that old man who locked you up in the first game
To be fair, it didn't play well when they had guns, but melee was interesting.
 

Mr-Chose

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Didnt really piss me off, but "french light" is the equivalent of calling americans "english light", so yeah... French canadians or Québecois, thank you!
 

JonB

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Sep 16, 2012
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Mr-Chose said:
Didnt really piss me off, but "french light" is the equivalent of calling americans "english light", so yeah... French canadians or Québecois, thank you!
I win, other podcasters!
 

shadowxvii

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Also, not every day is Monday (that would be just plain horrible).

I would also like to point out that this is not the first time Ubisoft either has some intern communication problem or plain amnesia. When the first assassin's creed game was about to be released, Jade Raymond (Producer for the game at the time) was on a talk show in Quebec (Tout le monde en parle) and said something that I still remember today, something like Assassin's Creed being a totally new game, a game like nothing they ever did before. I guess I must be the only one seing similarities between Assassin's Creed and the Prince of Persia trilogy then.

Greg Tito said:
saxman234 said:
Hmm, will Jim join the escapist podcast at some point? I guess he doesn't live in the north carolina area so he wouldn't be onscreen. It would be interesting to see him in podcast that primarily talks about videogames, or maybe his podtoid (dismal jesters) shenanigans would seep into the escapist podcast. Either way it would be fantastic.
You know Jim will actually be in the Durham office next week. We must make this happen!

Greg

Woohoo, Jim !
 

Henriot

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So, in my mind, an Assassin's Creed game in present times WOULD be like Hitman, but less dressing up in costumes and more climbing. All that said, if things like cars and modern firearms are an issue for them they need to do some handwavey-gimmicky excuses in game for those elements not being in there.

For example, if they were to set one during the Russian Revolution (which would be awesome), have it that whoever was in charge has banned all motorised vehicle use in Petrograd. Or the only time you can nab a car is when you're travelling between cities (and have the roads mostly empty or a distinct zone so you can't drive it into a nearby farmhouse, you can only pull over because of the indestructable wooden fence the farmer has).

Hehe, if GTA can get away with having invincible trees and potplants but have steel street lights topple over when you nudge it with your car, I think Ubisoft can work their way around guns and cars.
 

Holythirteen

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Remus said:
Gotta give EA credit for one thing - Mirror's Edge failed for the right reasons. People loved the free running aspect but hated the combat. So now we're getting Mirror's Edge 2, with a full open world rather than individual levels. It can't come soon enough.
I think they meant that they plan on pulling more Simcity 2013 bullshit. But maybe I'm just a pessimist and you're one of those freaky optimists.
 

Fireaxe

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Russian Revolution era weapons were pretty bad (and pretty rare) and they didn't really have cars. Could work as an AC game.