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Games Entertainment

In the Shadow of Greatness 53

Posted by Zonk from the no-shadow-things-but-still-cool dept.
1up.com has a piece on the making of Shadow of the Colossus, the sequel to Ico (arguably one of the first innovative titles for the PS2). From the article: "In the works for nearly four years now, Shadow of the Colossus is clearly the result of different thinking. While Western development teams try to one-up each other in terms of how big their guns are, how interactive their environments can be, how urban their attitude is, and how much their X-treme soundtracks rock, Ueda's studio is cutting its game from an entirely different cloth. One look at Shadow and you'll realize that this game carries the DNA of Ico, from its sun-soaked environments to its minimal cast of characters to its austere "level" design. But while the majority of Ico's discovery and puzzle-solving elements were confined within the walls of a finite space (in this instance, a castle), Shadow of the Colossus, shall we say, branches out."
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In the Shadow of Greatness More

In the Shadow of Greatness

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  • And really out of touch with reality here, from the summary:
    While Western development teams try to one-up each other in terms of how big their guns are, how interactive their environments can be, how urban their attitude is, and how much their X-treme soundtracks rock, Ueda's studio is cutting its game from an entirely different cloth.

    Um, first of all, there are many western companies making interesting and innovative games. Secondly, there are also Japanese companies that are churning out crap(as wel
    • Um, first of all, there are many western companies making interesting and innovative games.


      Who?

      • Re:Someone here is a Japanophile (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        What are you talking about? Halo is first person shooting EVOLVED and Splinter Cell is stealth action REDEFINED!!!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • A brief list of western developers with recent or upcoming innovative games:

        Introversion (Darwinia)
        Maxis (Spore, despite the best efforts of EA)
        Quantic Dream (Fahrenheit)
        Funcom (Dreamfall)
        Rockstar North (Bully)
        Neversoft (Gun)

        Innovative games by western developers are out there, as are plenty of unoriginal games by Japanese developers. Neither nationality has an advantage. Perhaps the only reason some people adore Japanese games is because a great deal of the crap (like dating games, text adventure
        • Introversion (Darwinia)
          Maxis (Spore, despite the best efforts of EA) - not out
          Quantic Dream (Fahrenheit)
          Funcom (Dreamfall) - not out
          Rockstar North (Bully) - not out
          Neversoft (Gun) - not out

          your example of innovated western design is 2 games and then 4 that the general public has not playen? Developers can say a lot about how innovative something is but in actual gameplay and execution it might be a baby step and hardly of merit.
          • I used examples of upcoming games because the article itself is about an innovative upcoming game. Your (very valid) criticism of my use of upcoming games as examples can be directly applied to Shadow of the Colossus, neatly negating this whole issue of which developers innovate more.
        • a great deal of the crap (like dating games, text adventures where choices are confined to minimal conversation options, ...

          It's not clear from your punctuation whether that comma is supposed to be marking a subordinate clause or separating items in a list. If the former, then you reveal a level of ignorance on a par with describing Grand Theft Auto as an FPS. If the latter, then you merely fall into one of two common traps - asserting that anything you don't like is crap, or assuming that something you h
          • First, I'm not American. Second, those were two distinct items in a list. I'm aware of the differences between visual novels and dating sims. The term "visual novel" momentarily eluded me, hence the clumsy "text adventure" description.

            I dislike the vast majority of dating sims because they tend to boil down to trial-and-error. You select a conversation option and see the character's reaction. Repeat until you find the appropriate ones to achieve your goal. I realize this description can be applied to adven
        • Step 1: Go to Japan
          Step 2: Go to Akihabara (call it "Akiba" if you want to be one of the cool kids)
          Step 3: Go to the first game store you see
          Step 4: Note the number of amazing, innovative titles (note: these are the same titles that are localized into English)
          Step 5: Look at how many titles in the store are unamazing, derivitive, poorly programmed crap. Compare this to the number of awesome, innovative games.
          Step 6: Return to the US
          Step 7: Laugh at fanboys who think Japanese games are intrinsicly bet
      • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of the best games I've played in years. Half-Life 2 - Sure, it's "just" an FPS, but there's nothing else like it out there. Fable - Like it or loathe it, there's nothing quite like it. Nothing noteworthy is comparable to the GTA series, and Rockstar isn't resting on its laurels either with games like Bully, and even the luke-warm received Manhunt attempting to deliver an experience that no other games do.

        And if you didn't play those games, then you've no right

        • Sands of Time, yes that was good... followed by a sucky sequel cashin on the "goth look".

          Half Life 2 I have refused to purchase due to steam, so I can't speak to that. (My computer is used for both gaming and my daily development: anything that looks and smells like spyware can bugger off.)

          Rockstar has one meme: push the limits of what is socially acceptable. I will grant the GTA series is good, but they haven't moved *since* that idea.

          And what is the jingoism/STFU comment all about? Did I deserve that swip
          • Related just to your steam comment, i don't think you should let that get in the way of playing half life 2. While steam can get a bit annoying, it's nowhere near as bad as many people make it out to be, and Valve is constantly improving it. You just open steam when you want to play, let it update half life 2, then close it when you are done. No spyware-like tendencies. The only problem i've had with it was that installation took longer than needed because it was the day hl2 came out and the update serv
    • EXAMPLES. I require good PS2 games.
    • That quote is from TFA.
  • This is one of the few games this year that i am REALLY looking forward to. And after reading this article my anticipation just quadrupled. Heck, thinking about the effects had on the character by slaughtering all of these innocent creatures just for one person is enough to excite me. Also, I found this very interesting in the interview with the director: OPM: Of your contemporaries, no one seems to be designing games remotely similar to yours. Are there any games out there that you particularly enjoy

  • Most anticipated game this fall by me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gigamex ( 758379 ) on Friday September 23, 2005 @10:34PM (#13635661)
    And sadly it still won't sell nearly as well as 90% of the rehashed crap on the market this Xmas. The American game market depresses me. The poor bastards should just sell out and make the hero a but-kicking hero in a cloak who runs around smashing crates for the goodies inside. That's what most people seem to want.
    • Ooh ooh ooh!

      Why not make it a first-person perspective! And replace his sword with a gun! And replace the plot and gameplay with graphics and thousands of ignorant bastards from all over the Internet who call you a "n00b"!

      Honestly, I am anticipating this game very much, and it's good to see people trying to make games enjoyable again, and not a matter of "my e-wang is bigger than yours" or "j00 not hardcore RPG players lol CS r00lz rofl!!!1!"2111"

  • Very nicely written article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Maserati ( 8679 ) on Friday September 23, 2005 @11:36PM (#13635931) Homepage Journal
    IGN gets pwned in the face, this guy can actually write. "Gossamer, gamine, and gaunt, the Ico experience expanded the notion of what you could expect from a videogame." It's a little purple, but the alliterative phrase is delightful.

  • NOT A SEQUEL (Score:4, Informative)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @10:09AM (#13637644)
    Unless they've gone back on what they said before, this is not a sequel to Ico. Yes it's made by the same devteam. Yes it's done in a similar style. However, this does not make it a sequel.

  • How is Ico Innovative? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:14AM (#13637928)
    Take almost useless character from point A to point B while protecting it (her) from low-level enemies and solving puzzles along the way. Done. I loved Ico, but its genre of gaming has been in video games for a long time - at least since early Final Fantasy - and is present within current-gen games like Metal Gear and Grand Theft Auto. Forms of it have even been in place in games from the Commodore-64 days, like Lemmings. So where is the innovation?

    The only innovation I can think of is the invented gibberish language spoken by the characters. But that wasn't really part of the gameplay and the effect of this invented language is no different in effect than using an actual language not spoken by the game player. Other games might have used invented language too. I know FF X did. Ico's contribution to gaming - beyond fun - was in its total, unmatched, artistic beauty. The graphics were solid, but the use of composition, color, tonal depth, contrast, scale, lighting, atmospherics, and such were unique within in-game play.

    -- and I'll say Rez was the first innovative game for the Playstation.
    • I was wondering about this too, especially after reading the West-bashing quote in the blurb. A game doesn't have to be innovative to be artistic.

      Rob
    • ### So where is the innovation?

      Comparing it to Lemmings is a bit of a stretch, but yes, it has been done before, namely in PrinceOfPersia and AnotherWorld/OutOfThisWorld, Ico just put a pretty similar gameplay into 3D. So Ico didn't actually invent anything totally new, but on the other side I have a very hard time finding a game beside AnotherWorld/OutofThisWorld that gets close to Ico, the complete lack of HUD, a story told without the use normal language, the extremly dense athmosphere, etc. It has been
    • games from the Commodore-64 days, like Lemmings.

      Lemmings is a mouse-based game. The C-64 was a pre-Macintosh computer, meaning it had no mouse.
      C-64: 1982
      Lemmings: 1991

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