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c7thetumbler · 7 years

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Life Update Notes: January 14th, 2017

What a week. Real emotional roller coaster for me, even excluding the game stuff. But then we had AGDQ which was and at this moment still is fucking awesome.... and then the Switch presentation. I might make a full post on my Switch impressions next week (incredibly mixed at best) but man will I be ranting today.

I did not get as much done on Lunos as I would’ve liked, but we’ll see where today ends up. I basically created lore for all the locations on the map and how the magic system works (and by extension some simple homebrew mechanics), but unfortunately I hate all the names I came up with and am pretty bad with making new ones so we’ll see where that ends up tomorrow.

Also, That Humble Overwhelmingly Positive Bundle is rad. I can recommend most the games in it whole-heartedly, so be sure to pick it up.

But let’s get this on the road!

Let’s Rant About Live Presentations

So ever since Nintendo actually started doing directs at E3, my opinion on when companies should or should not do a live presentation has drastically changed. I believe it was the 2013 E3 that they first stopped doing it and I was like “Huge mistake; they need their presence here more than ever!”

But then I saw their direct. No awkward pauses or moments. Not silence from the an audience that didn’t like a bad joke or reveal. No technical issues. Loads of characters, and way more production value. They got the message they needed to get across when they needed to get it across, and followed it up with days of the Nintendo Treehouse live testing every single game they showed off to prove they weren’t just showing prerecorded nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, regardless of their content, they figured out the pros and cons of presentations and nailed their format for years to come.

So what the fuck was that Switch Presentation about

I’m not going to say Live presentations have no place anywhere; they can be hype as fuck if the crowd is into it; just look at the more hype moments of AGDQ; chanting, cheering, and general hype around games is beautiful. But when you present the same controller that we’ve already seen slowly, 5 times in a row to a crowd of stoic faced, unrelenting Japanese Businessmen who show no reaction to anything whatsoever, and translators that clearly sound like the bilingual unpaid intern’s first time doing any sort of translation work, it tells me that you have absolutely no idea what the fuck a show is.

I mean really; This man is supposed to be acting out a quirky role they created in original Splatoon marketing with a shitton of excitement. Watch how hard it makes you cringe because of the translator’s performance.

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For god’s sake Nintendo; you’re a giant multi-national video game titan, not a fucking high school freshman who didn’t prep enough for their book report and just starts looking and listing off what he sees on the fucking controller.

It totally killed any interest in the content. Whatsoever. Mood is everything in an announcement, and the bit with NoA’s Reggie at the end had more character and Nintendo feel than all of the other parts of the presentation combined.

Hell, this Gif does the Switch more justice than any part of that godawful presentation.

https://i.imgur.com/4683KoW.gifv

That whole show was pitiful. Iwata came up with a brilliant way to convey information to fans, and in the face of a massive drought of content and information after his tragic passing, he’s probably rolling in his grave from his smart approach to sharing content being completely shat on.

Is that made in poor taste? Maybe. All I know is Iwata had it, and this new guy doesn’t. Nintendo’s back to completely disregarding input again.

But here’s the gist of it:

Live presentations generate hype if and only if the audience is into it and you have an announcer that can sustain it

For just conveying information, do a classy prerecorded presentation and follow it up with live demos instead.

So What Did I Play This Week?

Pony Island

Upon beating this game, I cannot recommend it enough. It’s clever, it’s funny, and it doesn’t over stay its welcome. Get it in the humble bundle today

Finding Teddy

This is your typical point and click. I only played like an hour or so of it. It’s got gorgeous spritework, but ultimately suffers from my problems with every point-and-click adventure game, and that that it’s pretty unforgiving in your solutions to problems. There’s no dialogue, which is an interesting choice and they convey the puzzle well enough without it, but ultimately I’m stuck clicking random music notes because I’m tone deaf (or so I’m told) and seeing if that can solve a puzzle.

You can skip it, unless you really like point and click adventure games. In which case... There are still better options. It’s not the worst option by far though.

Wrack

Saw this at a GDQ a year or so ago. For those who don’t know, the Three games I grew up with in my Childhood were Mario, Pokemon and DOOM. Wrack is very heavily influenced by DOOM but features its own style and mechanics. It’s pretty fun so far, but Jury’s still out. I’ll need more time with it.

That’s it for this week!

#Life Update #Game Impressions #Rant #switch presentation

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