Welcome to another edition of the Game Ranter Banter. Five of our writers take a few minutes out of their busy schedules to give their opinions on some of the most compelling and controversial recent news stories of the game industry. This week, the Game Rant team discusses the problems of current 3D gaming, Nathan Drake's obsession with sandwiches, motion controls in SSX, the potential of Fall of Cybertron, and new creatures in Minecraft.
Our readers are as knowledgeable and opinionated as our own writers, so here is the place for all of you to discuss these stories as well as any others that may have piqued your interest throughout the week.
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Tyler Schirado
3D GO AWAY!
Enough is enough! We have had 3D shoved in our faces for the past year and a half in theaters, all while the trend slowly moves into the video game industry. After the recent Playr2.com survey on the future of 3D console gaming, I was surprised to see how closely the results were when it came down to those who were in favor of the format and those who were not.
Based off the comments section of our post, one would assume that more than 51% of gamers would be against 3D consoles. I for one find it more of a hassle than an opportunity to enhance my experience while gaming. Adding a third dimension to gaming is overly redundant and just unnecessary. If you really wanted to enhance your experience and get a real world taste of what it is like to be in a video game than you should probably support the creation of the Virtusphere (virtual reality in a hamster bubble).
Not only do I believe 3D will be a wasted effort by developers, but I also think that it would be a complete waste of your money. Just look at the cost of a 3D television these days! How many people do you know actually have a 3D television set? And would you really want to deal with having to wear 3D glasses constantly while trying to kick back and relax? With such little content available to utilize a 3DTV right now, how long do expect the networks and cable channels that provide 3D content to keep it up if they don't see an increase of sales of 3DTVs in the future?
My prediction: 3DTVs are just a fad and this whole mess will go the way of the dinosaurs fairly soon.
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Vivasvat Kaul
Nathan Drake in... The Curse of the Five-Dollar Footlong
I'm really happy that Naughty Dog decided to release the multiplayer content of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception a month early so that people could play and have their progress carry over to the final game. But the partnership with Subway has me really bothered. On the one hand, the demo is rife with product placement which is something that I vehemently despise. You can't enter into an online match without some dude wanting to show off his Custom Hero or Villain's sweet Subway gear, and 'Footlong' taunt.
The loot drop rates for Subway related items are also ridiculously high. So high, in fact, that it's actually dissuading me from picking up treasures dropped when I kill someone as I've been getting a lot of duplicate pick-ups. Worst of all is the precedent that it sets for other publishers and developers. From Subway's standpoint, they couldn't care less. The only reason the company is even running this is to compete with McDonald's Monopoly tie-in.
The upside to all of this is that there are worse fast food places that could have been chosen for this promotion (at least from a nutritional standpoint anyway), and it is giving Uncharted fans something really fun to do that isn't just some dumb Facebook or web game. But don't be surprised when other companies jump on this bandwagon and this promotion begins to look more like the tip of a Titanic-sized iceberg.
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Dwayne Holder
No Motion Controls on the Mountain
I have to admit that I never played a SSX game before SSX Blur on the Wii. While I wasn’t too keen on the motion controls of the Wii, I had fun time overall with the game, though I really wanted to play the game on an HD console. This winter I’ll get my chance.
With most of the SSX details being released this week for the new game, I was thinking about my time with SSX Blur and realized that no plans for motion controls were announced for SSX – not yet anyway. The more I thought about it the more I realized why they haven’t announced it and why it may not come to be.
Personally I could care less about motion controls, but there are those people who do enjoy them and SSX is a game that could benefit from the control schemes of the PlayStation Move and Kinect. The Move controller will most likely function similarly to how SSX Blur handled on the Wii. Let’s just hope the don’t make you draw shapes to pull off tricks. With the Kinect players could perform different poses to pull off specific stunts.
Given the fact that EA Sports will have to design the game for two separate motion control schemes on top of all the features they already have in the game, makes me think this might not happen. It’s not impossible, just unlikely. Regardless, SSX is going to be cooler than cool when it hits in January.
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Anthony Taormina
Don't Rush Me
With the release of Spider-Man: Edge of Time and news of a War for Cybertron sequel in the works, I can’t help but think about how developers who find a certain tone and style with their first adaptation of a popular property can’t seem to deliver that same impact with their sophomore effort.
Both Beenox and High Moon just couldn’t quite find what gamers enjoyed in their first titles, and instead lost their way. Edge of Time and Dark of the Moon failed to capture that same magic, and instead were critically panned and went wholly untouched.
For High Moon, Fall of Cybertron is a chance to get it right — to wipe the stink of Dark of the Moon from their resume. But will they succeed where Beenox failed? Sometimes a clever interpretation is simply that, and nothing more. It doesn’t carry the gravitas that a new IP might, and it certainly can’t keep a fan base satisfied.
I hope that Fall of Cybertron is great, and I hope that Beenox gets another stab at Spider-Man, but, from this point forward, I have my reservations.
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Jacob Siegal
Pot Shots at the Elder Scrolls
This past week, Notch posted pictures on Twitter of the new creature type that will be making its way to Minecraft: dragons. As the updates have become more frequent, it is clear that Minecraft is becoming quite the little RPG, with potions, dungeons, and experience points. Of course, another necessary ingredient for any RPG is the dragon, and it looks like these flying monstrosities will make even the Endermen less terrifying.
This news of the dragons comes dangerously close to more heated tweets from Notch about his difficulties with Bethesda over the 'Scrolls' lawsuit. Things are still uncertain despite what might seem like a ridiculous claim (or is it?) from Bethesda, but Mojang has to push forward to polish the game for release in November. Notch likely envisioned dragons for the game long before the suit, but the timing is pretty perfect.
Dragons are a very important focus of Skyrim - this is no coincidence. Hopefully all this nonsense will end sooner rather than later so we can just go back to enjoying the games of these two fantastic companies without the drama.
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What are your thoughts on the news this week? Share with us in the comments, on Twitter @GameRant and Facebook.com/GameRant.