God, do I love The Office. The American version I mean, not that British knockoff.
Yeah I know the British Office came first, but I dislike it strongly, and belittle it whenever I can.
That aside, welcome to Hey! Look! Listen! I’m your host Oliver “Riddles” Motok, and I STILL have not finished Dead Space: Extraction. I plan to do that, and then move on to Modern Warfare, which is my chosen backlog game to finish this week. The campaign is supposed to be super-short, so it shouldn’t take long; especially since I’ve already put a few hours into it.
On to the main event! Bit of an offbeat setlist of news today, actually.
FTC Ruling Might Affect Video Game Reviews?
The Federal Trade Commission has recently issued a ruling that may affect the way news outlets review video games.
The ruling states that “material connections” between “advertisers and endorsers” must be disclosed. Material connections being money or free products, presumably.
Speaking frankly, I really doubt this will have any effect on the way video games are reviewed. Why? Because I’m pretty sure a critical review isn’t considered an “endorsement.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
But let’s say reviews were endorsements. In that case, “material connections” might refer to free review copies of games, and perhaps even money earned from advertising.
But again, I don’t think it will have an effect. I just figured I should report it, since every other news outlet is jumping all over the story. (GamePolitics).
Citizen Samus.
Metroid Prime Compared to Citizen Kane
ABC recently aired a segment that featured IGN’s Michael Thomsen comparing the classic film Citizen Kane to the critically acclaimed Metroid Prime series.
Yeah, no, I’m serious.
A bit strange, to say the least. I mean, as much as I like seeing video games given mainstream coverage, comparing Metroid Prime to Citizen Kane seems a bit over-the-top, to say nothing of… entirely superfluous. It was hard enough for me to take the report seriously; I can only wonder how non-gamers reacted to it. Check out the video yourself here
I'm failing at captions today.
Interesting Note: Activision Didn’t Want Modern Warfare
It’s true! Activision was convinced that Infinity Ward’s concept for a modernized FPS was not financially viable. This is according to Vince Zampella, head of Infinity Ward, in a recent interview with PlayStation Magazine.
“Activision also did not want Modern Warfare.” Zampella said. “They thought working on a modern game was risky and ‘Oh my God you can’t do that, it’s crazy!’ They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time.”
Well there ya go. 14 million copies later, I’m pretty sure the big shots at Activision have experienced a collective change of heart. (Kotaku).
On That Note: Apparently a Call of Duty Movie is Happening
This isn’t officially official, as it’s all based off of a few Tweets from Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward’s creative strategist. He mentions having lunch with the Hitman movie director, Xavier Gens. Presumably during said lunch, he tweeted “talking game films.”
Bah, bah, and bah. I’ll concede that Hitman was actually a notch above most game-to-film adpatations. But it wasn’t good enough to make me think that Call of Duty would be anything more than a generic war film shamelessly hoping to profit from its name alone. (1UP).
Yes, This is for Real
And it's awesome.
As seen on Wine.Woot
That’s all I got. By the way, do you like the big shiny banner/logo up top? I think it looks pretty nice, myself.
Tags: Call of Duty, Citizen Kane, Federal Trade Commission, Fine? Wine, Game-to-Film Adaptations, Hey! Look! Listen!, Metroid Prime, Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, that's a lot of tags
-Certainly catches the eye.
-*Facepalm* if you were going to compare a game with Citizen Kane you would hope that it’s narrative at least shared the same orbit as CK (if not ball park), not bloody Metroid.
Man…Mike Thomsen’s not back for like a week, and he’s already going on TV to make wild accusations. Although, Riddles, I actually think that non-gamers would be less offended watching that because they’ve never played the game, and so can’t really contend Mike’s points. I’m not saying I agree with him. Whether or not Mike had the same experience with CK and the Metroid series, I highly doubt it was the developer’s intention to give anybody that experience.
Although I can understand where Mike is coming from in one aspect, SN. I don’t think a game’s strong point in story-telling is always traditional narrative through cut-scenes in an attempt to mimic movies, and Mike is arguing for story through implication, mood, and gameplay. However, I’ve seen Citizen Kane, and from what I remember of the Metroid series, I don’t agree at all. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.
The way I see it, non-gamers will probably view the comparison as ridiculous on principle, since they wouldn’t know anything about Metroid Prime, and the brief snippets of footage they show make it look like every other shooter that gets advertised on TV.
And regardless of HOW Metroid tells its story, comparing it to the narrative of Citizen Kane is just a little ridiculous any way you slice it.
Yeah, like I said: playing devil’s advocate. But I DO for-real advocate arguing for non-traditional story-telling in games.
Like Ocarina of Time. That plot is paper thin, and maybe even outright shitty. But I would argue that it tells a fantastic story in a way that a movie couldn’t with the same plot.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Final Fantasy, and I’m looking forward to the 8923759328 hours of cutscenes XIII will bring, but I don’t think a game can truly excel in story with cut-scenes as the story-telling backbone.
I agree, but I still think comparing it to Citizen Kane is way over the top.
I’m happy with both implicit or explicit story telling, Bioshock or FF, SotC or MGS, different methods work for different genres.
…But comparing Metroid to Citizen Kane is just going to alienate gamers and non-gamers alike. There are plenty of great game narratives out there, why not choose on of them?
I’m not informed enough on the Metroid series to make a case for it, although I didn’t think it was known for story explicit OR implicit.
I’m not mocking Metroid, just saying it isn’t the best choice for a comparisson with CK.