man of steel / aliens of doom

I walked out of the Man of Steel FURIOUS that it wasn’t the Superman movie I wanted. (much like I was furious star trek into darkness ruined the idealism of star trek. and was… “slightly perturbed” that Iron Man 3 had Tony Stark fighting some uzi holding body guards at a florida drug fortress. each of these movies pushed their established tones into strange new places). But I’m coming around.
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WiiU : where’s the (magic) beef

For months now, everyone keeps noting that the WiiU is a disaster (1)(2)(3)(4) – and nobody can suggest how to fix it. Not that people have too many different ways to fix it, mind you. Nobody can suggest a single reasonable way for Nintendo to turn it around. As if it was an insurmountable problem. Instead of fixes, they offer up bizarre suicidal ideas like : suddenly launch a new console; stop bundling the costly gamepad (even though it’s the main innovation); sell those precious Nintendo franchise games on other people’s systems (and follow in sega’s footsteps to embarassing obscurity).

Well, I have a solution.

All Nintendo needs to offer is : the magic. Continue reading “WiiU : where’s the (magic) beef”

Motion Controls – why won’t you get it?

The grand Gabe Newell gave an interview with the Verge recently (which gamasutra covered here. I link to gamasutra because it has an intelligent commenting community), and several reporters I respect have claimed his words are important must reads. but. I really don’t agree. I don’t think he really says much that he hasn’t said before. and he embarrasses himself with regard to motion controls. so I wrote up a small rant, once again trying to explain the value of motion control… Continue reading “Motion Controls – why won’t you get it?”

controller based mobile gaming?

Brandon Sheffield offers a cool interview with Tim Sweeney at Gamasura. one bit struck me hard:

“when you take that device and broadcast that image to the TV, then suddenly you just have a big, flat mouse-like surface.”

– for some reason this got me excited about the exact opposite experience: controlling your mobile device(s) with your console’s controller.
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