Andy here with the first of many NEW episodes of GamerAndy Live!
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GamerAndy Live! is a weekly uncut, uncensored and unrated Podcast focusing on all things Videogames. From The Industry to God of War, from Barbie Horse Adventure to the Politik-ing of Hilary Clinton’s Hot Coffee - We bring you the best (seriously) in Gaming News and Commentary. Our hosts are regular gamers just like ya’ll out there, the only difference? We’ve got bigger mouths than you do and need to breath less - This makes it so we can talk nonstop for over 2 hours on the finer points of gaming, guff and geekery.
One more thing to note is that unlike the rest of the GearLive Network, GamerAndy Live! (GAL) is for MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY - Ultimately we are real people, and many an F-Bomb is dropped over the course of our meandering conversations. You’ve been warned.
So as some of you may know, GamerAndy Live! is currently in the middle of finding a couple new Co-Hosts - On episode 89 we debut two Co-Host hopefuls by the names of Elaine and Ryan.... Lets get to know them a little!
Ryan is a longtime listener of the show, is still in Highschool, and spends much of his free time bumming around the Call of Duty 4 Beta Lobby with our very own GamerAndy - He’s mostly an Xbox360 gamer but has been known to put in a good PC Gaming session now and again, especially for Company of Heroes. He also enjoys long walks on the beach and a good Barry Manilow album before a crackling fire.... He hails from the sunny town of The Internets.
Elaine on the other hand is an old hand at the Podcasting game, with her roots firmly planted over at 360 Arcadians, nothing much suprises her. She does most of her gaming on the 360 but dabbles in the PC realm and does in fact own a PS3. One day (she claims), she’ll buy WarHawk and feel justified in her purchase. She too enjoys long walks on the beach and Barry Manilow, but watch out boys! She’s taken! We hear the wedding is next month *eyebrow waggle*
So there you have it! Next week we’ll have two more potential hosts I’ll poorly describe to you, but for this week we’ve got a hellova show.
I just love how Andy says “Fair Enough” instead of “I don’t give a #### about this, let’s ####### move on.”.
Show is pretty good. Ryan is a little bit exciteable and I could do without the 1999 wrestling reference of “suck it”. Elaine is a good co-host, was buried quite a bit below Ryan and Andy.
Elaine was pretty good but I won’t get my hopes up since she has another podcast already. Ryan was very enthusiastic but his voice cracked a couple of times. He still was okay though. Honestly GA sounded like he was rejuvinated in this episode. Pretty solid episode and I could imagine the “dumbing down of the industry” argument picking up steam since GA was not letting that die down at all. I disagreed last week but you guys made some pretty good points this week.
The f-bomb just loses its kiloton hotness when you drop it every second—otherwise all fun and games as usual.
Also have to agree that sandbox games do not a fun time make most of the time.. I’ll just drop out dull bored of GTA or Dead Rising within hours. There’s no gameplay depth really—just a lot of surface level game systems that are nowhere near as complex as more directed games. Can’t blame them mind you, they just need to be shallow to allow for the general sandbox gameplay.
The Wii is dumbing the industry the #### down big time.
###### inaccurate controls ftw.
Yay for stupid people.
Now Maj, you’re a retard, and here is why:
Your logic is that the Wii is of course to blame because there is a crappy game on a different ####### console, that also features motion controls.
Now the Wii has a little know game that retard such as yourself might not be familiar with, Metroid Prime 3, which have superb motion controls. So your logic is still that; Crap game on PS3 = Wii’s Fault, Great game on Wii = lolwtfbbq thats besides the point.
Now, every time a crappy game hits a different console here, you fucktards go whine about “oh damn, another game ruined by the Wii”. How about blaming it on the ####### developers? Haters and fanboys, your all ####### alike, worthless.
I liked Elaine, but she seemed to fill a spot very similar to the female morning radio show co-host, who only comments occasionally and lets everyone else basically run the show. There was a lot more back-and-forth between Ryan and Andy than there was between anyone and Elaine.
The Wii is dumbing the industry the #### down big time.
###### inaccurate controls ftw.
Yay for stupid people.
Now Maj, you’re a retard, and here is why:
Your logic is that the Wii is of course to blame because there is a crappy game on a different ####### console, that also features motion controls.
Now the Wii has a little know game that retard such as yourself might not be familiar with, Metroid Prime 3, which have superb motion controls. So your logic is still that; Crap game on PS3 = Wii’s Fault, Great game on Wii = lolwtfbbq thats besides the point.
Now, every time a crappy game hits a different console here, you fucktards go whine about “oh damn, another game ruined by the Wii”. How about blaming it on the ####### developers? Haters and fanboys, your all ####### alike, worthless.
Steve,
I think what Maj was referring to was the “Me Too!” Phenomenon we’ve seen since the unexpected mainstream success of the Wii. The reality is: it’s very very profitable for Ubisoft or EA to spend 1/10th the money making “Carnival Games” instead of making the next Prince of Persia game. Or better yet, make the next prince of persia game have the same difficulty curve as Carnival games.
the Wii *IS* dumbing down the industry, not through motion controls, but through the “must appeal to the lowest common denominator” factor.
as to the accurate motion controls - Show me 3 other games that have very tight very well done motion controls in a wii release. I think you’ll have a real hard time doing that, while I can literally blindfold myself and toss a dart at the Wii library and find a game that has either
a) ###### motion controls that are either overly complex in the specificity of motions and therefore fail (Red Steel)
or b)###### motion controls where in an attempt to appeal to the largest amount of people, they make the controls so mind numbingly forgiving that the best way to play a game of tennis is to literally hump the controller while not looking at the screen (Rockstar’s Table Tennis according to Destructoid’s NamelessTed)
The reality is that quality games on the Wii at this point is overwhelmingly the exception, not the rule. The people who are declaring it the “winner” of the console wars are the financial institutions who see the new Hollywood finally hitting the mainstream public, and the VC firms seeing Wii dev houses as an incredibly good investment with a short turnaround time.
Its a scary time we live in for games. When Nintendo’s big e3 announcement is a scale and the rumored next “big thing” in games is the Wii hula-hoop.
I liked Elaine, but she seemed to fill a spot very similar to the female morning radio show co-host, who only comments occasionally and lets everyone else basically run the show. There was a lot more back-and-forth between Ryan and Andy than there was between anyone and Elaine.
Yes but Elaine provided good quality info (or punch) line every time she spoke. Ryan seemed like an attention whore and sorry but Andy is the attention whore of the show..... I mean it’s called “Gamer Andy Live” for a reason.
[ Edited: 12 September 2007 09:25 PM by Glitch720]
I liked Elaine, but she seemed to fill a spot very similar to the female morning radio show co-host, who only comments occasionally and lets everyone else basically run the show. There was a lot more back-and-forth between Ryan and Andy than there was between anyone and Elaine.
Yes but Elaine provided good quality info or punch line every time she spoke. Ryan seemed like an attention whore and sorry but Andy is the attention whore of the show..... I mean it’s called “Gamer Andy Live” for a reason.
b)###### motion controls where in an attempt to appeal to the largest amount of people, they make the controls so mind numbingly forgiving that the best way to play a game of tennis is to literally hump the controller while not looking at the screen
Speaking of, my friend beat other people at Wii boxing by putting the Wiimote and nun-chuck in his pockets and dancing around. Go figgure.
The Wii is dumbing the industry the #### down big time.
###### inaccurate controls ftw.
Yay for stupid people.
Now Maj, you’re a retard, and here is why:
Your logic is that the Wii is of course to blame because there is a crappy game on a different ####### console, that also features motion controls.
Now the Wii has a little know game that retard such as yourself might not be familiar with, Metroid Prime 3, which have superb motion controls. So your logic is still that; Crap game on PS3 = Wii’s Fault, Great game on Wii = lolwtfbbq thats besides the point.
Now, every time a crappy game hits a different console here, you fucktards go whine about “oh damn, another game ruined by the Wii”. How about blaming it on the ####### developers? Haters and fanboys, your all ####### alike, worthless.
Steve,
I think what Maj was referring to was the “Me Too!” Phenomenon we’ve seen since the unexpected mainstream success of the Wii. The reality is: it’s very very profitable for Ubisoft or EA to spend 1/10th the money making “Carnival Games” instead of making the next Prince of Persia game. Or better yet, make the next prince of persia game have the same difficulty curve as Carnival games.
the Wii *IS* dumbing down the industry, not through motion controls, but through the “must appeal to the lowest common denominator” factor.
as to the accurate motion controls - Show me 3 other games that have very tight very well done motion controls in a wii release. I think you’ll have a real hard time doing that, while I can literally blindfold myself and toss a dart at the Wii library and find a game that has either
a) ###### motion controls that are either overly complex in the specificity of motions and therefore fail (Red Steel)
or b)###### motion controls where in an attempt to appeal to the largest amount of people, they make the controls so mind numbingly forgiving that the best way to play a game of tennis is to literally hump the controller while not looking at the screen (Rockstar’s Table Tennis according to Destructoid’s NamelessTed)
The reality is that quality games on the Wii at this point is overwhelmingly the exception, not the rule. The people who are declaring it the “winner” of the console wars are the financial institutions who see the new Hollywood finally hitting the mainstream public, and the VC firms seeing Wii dev houses as an incredibly good investment with a short turnaround time.
Its a scary time we live in for games. When Nintendo’s big e3 announcement is a scale and the rumored next “big thing” in games is the Wii hula-hoop.
So watch who you call a fanboy
Thanks Andy, better response than the pissy one I would have written, but it mirrows my exact problem with the wii.
I have a Wii, bought it on launch day. I love Wii Sports, I love Rayman, I loved Warioware, Paper Mario was ok and Zelda is good too. However, everything else I have tried on the thing suffers from poor control.
You may love the motion control on Metroid prime. I rented the thing, played it for 10 minutes, hated it so much I threw it back in the mailer and shipped it home. While the controls were ok, I don’t like using the wii remote as a mouse. If I wanted to use something as a mouse on my screen, I would use a real mouse, its much more precise, reliable, ergonomic and efficient. If the thing could aim precisely where I pointed like a true lightgun where I didn’t need a cursor, THEN It would be great control. Alas the Wii control disappoints me. Prime also suffers from some oof the input sensitivity issues I have had. You pull or push the remote forwards and backwards, it does not interpret the motion 100% of the time.
I actually looked forward to carnival games, but the execution of the control scheme was extremely poor. It was not like Wii Bowling in its execution, it was just crap.
Wii developers are dumbing things down, it is very much intentional. The Wii is selling to the mainstream market, the mainstream market wants simple dumbed down games, not the games we as enthusiasts want.
####, look at the top selling DS title for proof of that. How many enthusiast gamers do you think played Hannah Montanna?
I also DO believe that the Wii is responsible for Lair having #### unuseable controls.... Indirrectly. Had the Wii not existed, Sony would not have felt compelled to make a stupid controller with crap unreliable motion detection to try to copy Nintendo. I don’t blame Nintendo for Lair being ####, I blame Sony (I don’t even blame Factor 5, I think they were forced into it.)
ps. Next time keep the personal insults of retard and fucktard to yourself. You don’t have to act like a baby when someone has a different opinion than you. You call people fanboys who have probably gamed on more devices than you personally have ever seen, yet do the typical Nintendo fanboy screams when anyone says a negative comment about the Wii. Look in your own mirror before you start labeling someone.
Nintendo isn’t a hardcore gamer company. They never have been. I’ve been preaching this since the Gamecube, where the expected response I would get was usually “Resident Evil 4 blah blah blah”. Now I get to sit here laughing because you are stuck with the natural evolution of the GC and griping about how it’s dumbing down the industry, and you couldn’t be more wrong. Consumers are dumbing down the industry. If there wasn’t a lucrative market for these games, nobody would make them. It’s simple economics; as demand goes up, supply responds. Consumers dictate the games being made.
Look at this way. Two drink stands open up side by side. One sells the best frozen lemonade in the world, award winning lemonade. The other sells very mediocre coffee. The problem is the street that they do business on is above the arctic circle line. It’s very cold. Even the best frozen lemonade in the world is not a booming business when it’s -15F outside. Hot coffee, however, sells like nobody business. Who do you think is likely to close shop first? The frozen lemonade guy who doesn’t sell enough to pay the bills or the coffee guy who can’t make latte’s fast enough to meet demand. What is likely to happen is the lemonade guy switches to coffee and sells a better coffee thereby making money by pulling customers away from Mediocre Coffee. Consumers dictated what the lemonade guy sold. Now, is it the coffee growers fault that nobody can get a good frozen lemonade anymore? No, the future mediocre coffee seller looked at the market and made his decision to sell what he thought would make money, even though there were already several coffee shops in the area.
You guys cry on about how a game is art and should be put on a pedestal and all this crap. A game is entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. Just like movies. Sure there are some movies that can be considered art, but they are the exception that makes the rule. Most of them are mental pablam that cater to the masses. The only way to pay the bills is to fill the seats and the only way to fill the seats is make movies that people want to see. Games are an entertainment business just like movies. 100% of the companies making games are in it to make money, and the fact is there is more money to be made in the non-hardcore market. Dev costs are less, and sales are higher. Why sell to a small market with a high budget game, when you can sell to a huge one with a smaller budget game?
The Wii has been out for as long as the PS3 and I still hear cries of “Wait for the good PS3 games”, but everybody expects Wii games to be brilliant and have perfect use of an unproven technology right out of the gate. People are screaming “it’s just a Gamecube with a fancy controller, what’s the problem?” The controller is the problem. Multi-axis user interface is something devs have never had to deal with before on this level. It’s still in its infancy. Remember that your gamepad only has to deal with 2 axes, and we’ve been using that exact control style for 30 years or so and still have games that suffer from control issues. Wiimote is dealing with 6 true axes and trying to make it the main control of the game.
Bottom line: Don’t like the dumbing down effect the Wii has? Don’t buy it. Encourage people not to buy it. But don’t blame it for doing it’s job, which was to get gaming to the masses. It does exactly what it was designed to do, and that makes it a bigger success than the “wait for the good games” PS3 and the “wait for MS to ship my console back to me” 360 right now. Blame the masses for buying them. Then when mainstream gaming goes away “hardcore gamers” can go back to being the pimple faced dorks hiding in the back room by themselves for hours, feasting on Slim Jim’s and Dr. Pepper, basking in the artificial glow of a CRT, desperately searching for other like minded individuals who won’t roll their eyes when you tell them you like to play video games.
[ Edited: 13 September 2007 07:48 AM by TwistedFate]
Bottom line: Don’t like the dumbing down effect the Wii has? Don’t buy it. Encourage people not to buy it. But don’t blame it for doing it’s job, which was to get gaming to the masses. It does exactly what it was designed to do, and that makes it a bigger success than the “wait for the good games” PS3 and the “wait for MS to ship my console back to me” 360 right now. Blame the masses for buying them. Then when mainstream gaming goes away “hardcore gamers” can go back to being the pimple faced dorks hiding in the back room by yourself for hours, feasting on Slim Jim’s and Dr. Pepper, basking in the artificial glow of a CRT, desperately searching for other like minded individuals who won’t roll their eyes when you tell them you like to play video games.
This is all true, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I plan on bitching about this whenever it makes sense, which is increasingly often. Luckily, you don’ t listen to GAL so it’ll have no impact on you.
As to games made for us
There’s always Introversion Software
Andy: Now Twisted explained pretty well that the Wii isn’t dumbing down the industry, its the developers, and the people that buy it thats doing it. The Wii CAN appeal to more than one audience but you are right, most of the games are casual games at this moment, but your wrong, the Wii isn’t dumbing down the industry, thats just the easy/stupid/ignorant thing to say when you are pointing the blame.
and 3 other games besides Metroid Prime with good controls that are precise? Excite Truck, Kororinpa(or Mercury Meltdown Revolution, take your pick), and WarioWare, pretty easy
Maj: If you even believe the Wii is indirectly responsible for the failure of Lair and the motion controls on the PS3, then I stand by what I said about you,
and if you want to go into an e-peeing constest about who has the most games for the most consoles you shouldn’t be too sure of yourself. Remember people in Norway are filthy rich and spoiled
This is all true, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I plan on bitching about this whenever it makes sense, which is increasingly often.
Good, bitch away, it’s how things get changed. Just be sure you absolutely want it changed. These crap games allow companies the money to take risks and build the next big thing.
The Wii is not responsible for mainstreaming gaming. The Wii is a response to mainstream gaming. Oblivion was “dumbed down” from Morrowind. The console Rainbow Six was dumbed down from the PC version. It’s been going on for years and it’s really because of the popularity of consoles that it is happening. Consoles are an easier entrance into gaming than PC gaming is, so they are found in more non-geek households than gaming rigs, leading to mainstreaming of games. You even give me examples to prove my point. Introversion games are PC games, not watered down console games. That also brings in another factor. Joe Blow can develop a PC game for $0 plus his time. Even using XNA costs $99 to get it to play on the 360. Cost to play XNA games on the PC? $0 It’s easy to take risks when beer money is all you need to recover. Putting out a full blown console game takes hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. If you want to blame a console for the state of the industry, blame them all since they all have had a part in it going all the way back to NES and SMS
Gamer Andy - 13 September 2007 07:50 AM
Luckily, you don’ t listen to GAL so it’ll have no impact on you.
Yeah, cause we all know this GAL thread is a figment of my imagination. Snark all you want, I’m not leaving til I’m ready. If you feel my opinions are any less valid cause I don’t piss myself waiting for your next words of wisdom than that’s your problem not mine. I will tell you this, though. I used to listen to GAL. I used to listen when all I could get was dial up and it would take me over twice as long to download it as it would take me to listen to it. GAL was the ONLY podcast I listened to. I quit because as they got longer it got harder for me to continually keep the line downloading for hours when I needed to use it for other things, like research papers for grad school. So keep on snarking and treating me like a second class citizen, it really makes me want to listen again now that I can. Maybe, just maybe I came back to the community to be a part of it again, and instead I get you still being an ass towards me.
its the developers, and the people that buy it thats doing it.
Whoops! So close. I don’t blame all developers. I blame publishers over developers. Many times devs get punished for putting out crap games, when it’s really the publishers pushing them to get them out the door. They have to take flak for bug ridden games that they wouldn’t have released if they had the time. Does anybody really think Factor 5 WANTED to develop a control scheme as bad as Lair has? Smaller start up groups often don’t get a choice in what they get to develop, either, until they get a proven track record.
