From the official Mass Effect Staff tips, #72:
“If you’re playing this game in your office, try not to scream like a girl. It disturbs people’s work environment.”
Word.
Whether you are following Game industry related news or not, chances are you have heard about the never-ending controversy around the “Manhunt” franchise of Rockstar Games, one of my former employers.
Jurie, an ex-coworker at Rockstar Vienna blogged about the latest unfortunate “chapter” – the fact that Rockstar Vienna employees who worked for over 2 years on Manhunt 2, the sequel to the game developed by Rockstar North, were not mentioned in the game’s credits. For the record, having worked there myself, I fully agree and support Jurie’s statements.
A lot of online media jumped onto it and quoted his post, but only some of them (like Austrian national broadcaster ORF) actually raised an issue that I find interesting: The game industry keeps comparing itself with the film industry, and Rockstar in particular never got tired telling everybody that they are the ones pushing the envelope, getting games accepted as a form of contempary art, etc. I vividly remember one evening with Sam Houser in a New York City Restaurant, where he explained me (and the others on our table) his view on how to change this society to take notice and respect “us”. Ahem.
But at the same time, most companies in that field fail to accept responsibility and the standards coming from other creative industries, see no priority in providing professional working conditions, and serious project management. Oh, and taking financial and social responsibility. I have yet to see so many instances of incompetence, ego, mismanagement, burned cash and burned-out employees in multi million dollar budget projects in other industries.
… well, at least according to Kotaku:
Because let’s face it: Gears of War is a great game, but playing it won’t get you laid by an intellectual chick
I’ve been playing “Phoenix Wright – Ace Attorney” on my DS throughout my 3 week vacation – and to my surprise, I finished it. It’s been ages that I had the time and will to finish a game.
It’s funny because this game in particular is so untypical for this platform. Basically, it’s an interactive novel about a defense attorney learning the ropes through 5 different cases (stories). You have to interview people, collect evidence, find contradictions, and then cross examine witnesses statements, present the right evidence to reveal contradictions…
All in all pretty linear, but very well written (and funny) – although it’s more or less ignoring the DS’ technical capabilities, mainly because the first 4 of the 5 episodes are ports from the GBA version; only the 5th case introduces some pretty nice touchscreen-features.
I don’t know whether I want to play through the next game in the series (also because it seems to be a 100% GBA port, and people were complaining that the features that were introduced in the 5th DS-only case of the first game are completely missing again) – but there’s a third one already in the making and should be released later this year.