9/17/2010

Sony's biggest mistake with Move...

Well first things first. I have gotten a few hours in with Halo: Reach. Arguably the biggest improvement is that while previous games were mostly corridor shooters with a few open levels, Reach is mostly open and has a tad more variety to it. The much touted space combat isn't anything special, though and it's a pretty brief affair.The A.I., at leaston normal (I'm honestly barely good enough to play on Normal, no way I'm playing Heroic or Legendary) is vastly improved, with teammates actually being helpful and enemies actually employing tactics (though I think enemy A.I. being able to use armor lock is pretty goddamned cheap). It is an overall improvement, but if you are still playing Halo 3 (and a lot of people are) it's hard to imagine paying full price for this game (although with all the special offers going on this week with most places offering some kind of $20-25 gift card/coupon, that may be enough incentive for anybody on the fence). Ultimately, Reach lives or dies by its multi-player, and while that may be the huge incentive for some, I'm pretty much in the same boat as Penny Arcade guys:


And frankly since match-setting like that don't really exist, that doesn't really do it for me. However, I did just renew my Xbox live gold membership since they had it on sale for only $30 this week, so I may have something down the line to really take advanatage of that. Hell, it may even be Reach if there's a good sale on it.

Would you buy a movie made up entirely of game cut scenes? CEO of Activision and Gordon Gecko wannabe Bobby Kotick certainly believes so. And granted, this isn't actually a new idea, but usually it's something released as a bonus feature or something you can get for about $10 rather than the $20-30 Kotick is looking to charge. I don't think it's an evil thing, as seems to be the kneejerk reaction from the internet, but Kotick seems to be forgetting that pretty much 99% of story and acting in gaming still makes Michael Bay films look like oscar-worthy material. Until that changes, I seriously doubt many would pay to watch these kinds of films.

Finally, yes Move is out. And the reviews kind of speak to what I've already been talking about. It's impressive enough tech, but not really any compelling software. Sports Champions is a weak Wii Sports wannabe, and not one of the launch titles is impressive. Arguably most important, to really get the full use out of Move is pretty costly. At minimum (assuming you already have a PS3) you are spending a minimum of a $170 (for the bundle and 1 extra set of controllers). If you don't have a PS3, that bumps it up to a whopping $470. That a lot of money for HD waggle. Granted, if Sony actually really sticks with Move, we may see some amazing stuff come out, but that's probably going to be next year at the earliest, and most companies (and gamers) probably won't wait that long.

That's all for today. I leave you with the FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: My First Quantum Translocator

2 comments:

KK said...

The place where I work has "Reach" for roughly $50 after a $5 coupon. One of the managers was contemplating a purchase, but could not justify the cost in the end. The Halo games don't ever seem to go on sale, though. We are discontinuing Halo 3, and it's *still* $50+. Crazy.

Eric Chrisman said...

Really? Most places I know of sell it for $30 these days, hell you can download it for that much.