Tag Archives: Activision

The necessity of Lara’s reboot

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When a franchise of any sort becomes a little stale, there are usually two choices. The first is to take the Activision route; cancel it or ‘put it on hold’. Another option is to wipe the slate clean and start again with a potentially life-saving reboot. For Crystal Dynamics, the only real decision for one of their biggest IPs was the latter and that’s why the next Tomb Raider is being receiving a complete overhaul of ideas rather than letting a once mighty star fall deeper into the bargain bin.

In a conversation with Edge magazine, CD studio head Darrell Gallagher spoke of the necessity to make a serious reboot: “Lara had hit her apex in how she was before, and we didn’t really feel we could take that any farther. It was a chance to look at everything again, bring new people in who had been interested in the franchise before but didn’t feel like Lara was modern enough.” It’s interesting that he suggested Lara wasn’t modern enough. The over-sexualised female lead is fast becoming a joke for games with more realistic characters like Faith from Mirror’s Edge and Portal‘s Chell being championed as the way forward. There’s a common debate over Bayonetta who is often portrayed as a sex object yet her dialog in-game alludes to her being the one in charge of her sexuality. Regardless of my obvious tangent, as a character and the incredibly dated use of look-a-like models, Lara is old and people are noticing.

That being said, changing her completely wouldn’t be right either and although all aspects of Ms Croft were analysed, the important thing for Gallagher was keeping the essential familiarities “We left no stones unturned as we were going through the concept, and then kept the right stones. The crucial thing is that it feels like her, even though it’s completely different.” I’m all for change and admit I came to the Tomb Raider series relatively late but if the new Lara was missing some of her attitude and spirit shall we say, the danger would be her loyal audience being alienated.

When Crystal Dynamics first was given the franchise in 2003, the games which followed were often thought of as reboots by the media yet the developer didn’t view them that way. They just put their own spin on it. But this spin received a lot of criticism for being too easy, neutering the exploration element and not pushing the boundaries enough compared to other similar franchises. Over the years the games got better but still lagged behind the new kings and queens of third-person action adventures. The hope of Crystal Dynamics and fans of tomb raiding is that making a prequel where a young Lara is shipwrecked on a Japanese island and must learn to survive, will not only be a great game but one that wins back come credit for the developers too.

Your definitive way to play

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In an effort to boost their status within the gaming community, Apple have hired two key members from Nintendo and Activision to help promote the iOS as the definitive gaming platform. Robert Saunders, who is currently working for Nintendo UK, is leaving to join Apple at the end of April for a PR position specifically created to focus on Apps while Activision’s PR director Nick Grange will look after iPad hardware (via Appleinsider).

The creation of both positions and head-hunting of two traditional video game veterans shows Apple’s dedication to iOS and the devices it’s found on. But they’re going to have a hard time convincing the sternest of critics that iPads and iPhones have become the definitive way to play games. It’s true, iOS games are vast in quantity with more and more people using them for entertainment purposes however that doesn’t necessarily make them replacements for console and PCs just yet. If such a claim is to be based on the sheer number of players, Facebook would surely be on top with Farmville and Cityville leading the way. Regardless of semantics, we still have a clear divide between the casual and hardcore audiences because of the kinds of experiences that appeal to each demographic. An overwhelming majority of iOS games are of a shorter bite-sized nature and even the grander ones work better when split up this way. Controls have become a big issue too with mechanics and gameplay being scaled down to make up for a lack of precision.

I’m not against this type of game, far from it if you see some of the games covered in my review section but everything has its place within the industry. In a report from the end of last year, Smartphone gaming has risen 43.8 percent whereas those found on DS and PSP fell 13 percent. Great news for Apple and Android for that matter but being mobile phones, it’s a hell of a lot easier to get into hands than it is for systems that predominately focus on video games. They are a threat, no doubt about it just as is the iPad with a recent survey showing 84 percent of owners using the tablet for gaming. Whether or not those games are comparable to ones found on traditional platforms is still to be understood but the potential market is growing seemingly everyday. I’m yet to be convinced that the iOS can be considered definitive but I’m keen to see how Saunders and Grange try and prove that it is. Who knows, they may just win me over forcing me to eat my words good and proper. To be honest I’d rather that and have more quality gaming experiences than the alternative.

Bungie cracks us all up

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Knock knock, why did the chicken cross the road and other such dreadful jokes have got themselves a new friend, that Bungie are making an MMO for Activision. I know, it’s barely even funny but according the the official site, comments by lead network engineer David Aldridge were taking out of context and where nothing more than a joke.

On one of the slides Aldridge used in his presentation at GDC, there was a line about Bungie hiring for an MMO but after the internet blew up with apparent confirmations of the studio’s next game, this was posted on Bungie.net: “An industrious journalist noticed the final slide from David’s GDC deck which apparently proclaimed that we were hiring for a ‘massively…multiplayer action game.’ Ruh oh. Now, in rehearsal Aldridge was convinced that everybody got the joke. It was all in the delivery, he assured us, and he was certain it was clear that he was playfully riffing off of the recent rumors. Unfortunately, most people can’t figure David out – they can’t process him. And we don’t expect them to.”

Surely if you don’t think a comment like that would be understood for being a humorous stab at rumours then it’s a little odd to include it in the first place. Especially now that it’s causes even more whispering and speculations amongst the gaming media. It should be noted that neither Bungie or Activision have gone on record denying an MMO is in the works, just that they’re not announcing anything right now. And that everything you’ve heard so far is purely intended to make us laugh. It didn’t.

The year of Assassins

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With all the fuss last week about the discontinuation of Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk, you’d have thought publishers would be more cautious with their IPs and not allow them to suffer the same fate. But Ubisoft are riding high on the success of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood which, so far has sold a whopping 6.5 million units. Sales like that mean a PC version is on the way soon and CEO Yves Guillemot revealed yesterday (via IGN) at an earnings call that 2011 will see a fourth game in the franchise, kick starting the series into becoming a yearly production. Guillemot specifically used the words “packaged title,” so it’ll either be a Brotherhood 2 or simply Assassin’s Creed 3, depending on how Ubisoft wish to continue the story, rather than a DLC offering. Guillemot refused to give any other details until May so you’ve got a few months of speculating to fill.

Back in November last year, Guillemot spoke of his interest in giving the game an annual release schedule but his latest comments have made it official. Good news for fans of the series but if anything can be learnt from the demise of Activision’s once lofty titles it’s that nothing lasts forever. It happened to Madden, it happened to FIFA and, as absurd as it may sound now, it’ll happen to Call of Duty too if Activision isn’t careful. All publishers who try and repeat their success over a relatively short timescale will find it harder and harder to do so. Assassin’s Creed is still young and evidently extremely popular but I’d hate to see it become a tired cash cow instead of the great franchise it is today.

Guitar Zero

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It’s odd to think that in such a short time, a series like Guitar Hero went from being the darling of music games to a struggling shadow of its former self. Today Activision put an end to its misery and announced in a financial report (via Gamespot) that it was discontinuing Guitar Hero along with DJ Hero, a game that had a lot of promise but came out too late and too expensive for it to succeed as a profitable franchise. Current players of both will still be serviced via downloadable tracks but for the foreseeable future Activision is out of the music genre.

Another name to be affected was Tony Hawk whose games have been put on hold. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said “no new music or skateboarding games [are coming] in 2011,” which is a very different view from only a couple of months ago where he gave his full support to the skating star saying that the latest Tony Hawk game, Shred, still had life in it despite an incredibly poor first week of sales – just 3,000. Clearly sales didn’t pick up at all forcing the publisher to have such a sudden change of heart.

Lastly, True Crime: Hong Kong has also been cancelled before it was even released with Hirshberg saying “To be blunt, it just wasn’t going to be good enough.” He believed it didn’t have the quality to be a triple A game and those are the only things that can survive in today’s market.

A very blinkered view on an industry whose core audience is always crying out for original and innovative ideas that take rewarding risks. But said audience are quickly becoming eclipsed by those only out for the top-tier releases with a growing divide between what’s seen as an 8/10 game and a 10/10. It’s something Activision have used to their advantage and one thing they’re very good at is taking an idea, adding to that ever so slightly each year, making you want games you probably already played. It’s evident that the longer this goes on for, the less and less desirable a product becomes. Some franchises have a greater longevity than others but when two series that were once so big they started new trends and pioneered genres are killed off in one announcement, it’s more than just a sign of the times.

The next generation in portables

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Big news! Sony have announced the PSP2 is in development! But then we already knew that since for months, information has leaked about its existence and features. Today, or last night in America, Sony held a press conference in Tokyo to officially reveal their successor to the ill-fated PSP and the rumours where right; Wifi and 3G connectivity, dual analog stick, OLED touchscreen, tilt controls, touch sensitive back, flash memory for games and two cameras – one on the front and the other on the back of a machine larger than its competition. For now, Sony are calling it the NGP or Next Generation Portable which fits amply with their marketing techniques of latter years. Remember when the PS3 was launching and they said the next generation doesn’t start until they say so? It’s a similar deal with the PSP2 whose specs are sounding like a considerable leap into the next generation. Sony are claiming it’s capable of producing PS3 quality games and before attendees at the conference could scoff at such claims, they showed it doing just that. Hideo Kojima proudly displayed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots which used direct art assets from the PS3 game and looked almost as good. Backwards compatibility is included so original PSP and PS1 games are via download (probably have to buy them again then) and a whole host of Sony franchises will also be headed to the portable. Such as:

Uncharted
LittleBigPlanet
Resistance
Killzone
WipeOut
Hustle Kings
Hot Shot Golf

With third party support from the likes of Konami, Activision and Capcom including:

Metal Gear Solid 4
Lost Planet
Yakuza 4
Call Of Duty

The next generation in portables? Where have we heard that before? The Nintendo 3DS. So who will win, who’ll be the next king of portables? Nintendo, Sony? From the type of games shown by both parties it looks like they’re again going after different audiences with some overlap to keep things interesting. Nintendo still have the family gamer in their sights with more hardcore titles backing up those aimed at a wider market. With the Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil there remains Nintendogs + Cats and Pilotwings Resort. Deals with movie studios have so far been focused on family film though of course, other 3D-centric flicks will no doubt be coming.

From the list of games revealed by Sony, the PSP2 looks to be, like its predecessor, all about the traditional gamer with experiences potentially found on home consoles. That may not have worked too well for the original PSP but then the PSP2 has something gamers have been begging for; a second analog stick. With it, titles won’t only look like those on the PS3 but play like them too. I can’t see the touchscreen being used for a great deal of things when the way you hold the PSP2 seems designed for two hands either side of it but its inclusion means nothing gets left out of the second PSP and all options are open to developers.

What is a little troubling is the way games appear to be distributed. It sounds like they’ll be download only with Sony saying “NGP adopts a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles. Taking advantage of the flash memory feature, this innovative card can store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card.” The concern is what kind of marketplace this would create. Less deals and no preowned games is good news for publishers but not so much for the consumer. Who knows, we could be surprised yet and nothing has been confirmed on that side so no need to worry. Early reports are suggesting a battery life of around five hours max (as they are with the 3DS) but no price or date has been mentioned other than Winter in Japan. It’s great to see a handheld like this with such promise and one that looks to offer something different and complimentary to the others. Colour me interested!

UPDATE: More reports are coming in about the ‘new memory card’ feature of the NGP which suggests it’ll be more like the DS with cards sold in stores. The PlayStation Store will of course be present but hopefully won’t be the only way to obtain titles.

The real world of video games

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The topic of video games crossing the boundaries into poor taste is not one that can be easily settled. It’s based firmly on personal taste with far too many people settling on the idea that because games are fantasy, there isn’t such a thing as an inappropriate game. Creative director of Operation Flashpoint: Red River, Sion Lenton, disagrees. He believes video games surrounding real-world conflicts are simply bad taste: “I, personally, don’t want to focus on live conflict. I don’t think it’s appropriate and I don’t think it’s tasteful.” Before accusations of wussiness ensue, his strong feelings stem from something quite close to him: “One of the girls who works here, her nephew was killed by an improvised explosive device [IED] a couple of months ago. So when I hear that, I don’t want to be in a f*cking meeting bigging up my IED tech.” Fair point. But the situation Lenton mentions is quite unique to his company and therefore is easy for other developers not to notice. I wouldn’t necessarily point the finger of sin towards other studios for trying to recreate authentic real-world settings, after all, like other forms of media it’s just art imitating life.

Lenton gave these comments to Edge magazine (the full interview can be found in issue 223)after all the commotion caused by EA allowing gamers to play as the Taliban in multiplayer matches of Medal of Honor. A great deal of fuss was caused leading to the removal of the name and instead calling them Opposing Forces. Lenton’s next point does bring up some interesting leverage for anyone against using real-world conflicts. He and his team never once considered basing Red River in a controversial arena: “We are deliberately setting out not to court that controversy, we don’t want to go there and it’s not a conversation we ever wanted to get into,” he said. “At no point did we think that it would be cool to set the game in Helmand or Afghanistan, because there’s a war going on there and there are British soldiers dying. We’re still making a war game, and showing soldiers dying, but I guess [the fiction] is us playing safe. But I don’t have a problem with playing safe when it comes to this kind of thing.” The words he uses are particularly important. Making a game to be controversial just for the sake of it is frankly lame. People will get their kicks out of it as they do watching controversial movies but they cease to become mature vessels for storytelling at that point. If we want our medium to grow and are arguing that video games should be allowed to have a social commentary on real-world situations, surely it needs to be treated with respect and handled appropriately.

That being said, the games often mentioned like Call of Duty or indeed Medal of Honor, are still so removed from reality in terms of their handling and mechanics that I can’t see Activision or EA’s were ever intending for them to be viewed as anything other than fiction. Just as if they were set in a made-up world like Red River. Things becomes a little more serious when the games turn into simulators and you are modelling your kills on those happening to loved ones over seas. Bottom line is if a game, movie, book, magazine, piece of art is done to stoke the flames of controversy because it’s thought to be cool, that’s when, for me, boundaries of between good taste and bad become blurred. And I can think of quite a few movies that revolve around that ethos but can’t actually think of too many games which do. Lucky for us gamers eh?

Tony Hawk’s still got it. Just not his games

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Things aren’t going too well for Tony Hawk and the latest games from his once beloved franchise. Not only was Ride a critical failure but this year’s Shred, a game that was meant to save the series and give reason to owning a large plastic skateboard, only sold a measly 3,000 units in its first week of sales. Ouch. Luckily for the extreme sports philanthropist, Activision ceo of publishing Eric Hirshberg hasn’t lost faith in Hawk’s credibility. Speaking with Industry Gamers (via Gamespot), Hirshberg has his fingers crossed for things to pick up: “I think it’s early to close the book on Tony Hawk Shred, because we are marketing it to kids, and it is a great gift, and the gift-giving season has already begun. We’re going to keep the pedal to the metal on that and continue to market through the holiday and hopefully we’ll deliver some proponents.” The site proposed whether Mr Hawk was still relevant for today’s gamers and that got Hirshberg thining: “I think your evaluation is correct.” See? “The interesting thing is that I think the last game had some technical problems with the board, and lots of times when you innovate that happens. This game and the relationship between the game and the board is spectacular. It’s a whole different level from Tony Hawk: Ride. That might change things too. But at the same time, I think that you’re basically asking the same questions that I’m asking and that we’re asking about how to recapture the mass imagination surrounding this franchise.”

The ceo continued his musings: “The one question that I can answer, and remarkably so, is that Tony Hawk does really still have relevance and tremendous appeal for people. He is a lasting icon. He has that Michael Jordan-ish or Jordan-esque staying power, seemingly. And that doesn’t mean that other great skaters haven’t come up who are younger and more current, but he really is that kind of Mount Rushmore-level guy in that category, so that’s not the issue. I think we have to ask all the smart questions and make some smart moves in terms of innovation to see if we can recapture people’s imaginations.”

I don’t know whether the right questions are being asked from Activision’s side. They seem defiant on churning our games with chunky plastic peripherals and when the first games under performs, they think a sequel will help. But by then, trust in the name has already been lost. I think if the name of Tony Hawk has been muddied in the eyes of gamers, it’s because the market has been saturated with mediocre yearly releases and an initially glitchy peripheral. When the audience wanted more realistic skating games like EA’s Skate, the Tony Hawk games stuck with its arcade roots. Year after year. The early games were great but if the later ones lack innovation, they’re bound to fail. Whether or not Tony Hawk is an icon or not is irrelevant when the games can no longer back up the brand.

How do you kill a giant? Be better than it.

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John Riccitiello has a dream. Not one as lofty or famous as the dreams of other leaders but one that’s just as difficult to achieve. He, the boss of EA, believes that Activision’s Call of Duty franchise can be toppled from being the public’s number one FPS. His plan (via Kotaku) is simple: “Make a better game. And make a better game again.” Last year, Modern Warfare 2 broke all kinds of entertainment records and this year, Black Ops strode past those numbers with ease. Before any review was even read, Activision already had gamers queuing at midnight. So their brand is a seemingly infallible one but rather than battle it head on, Riccitiello would prefer his game – whatever it will be – to receive a higher Metacritic score. “If I had to pick the story I’d like to play out next year is we ship a 90[%] and they ship an 85[%].” He clearly considers the internet’s review hub as an acute indicator of a game’s quality. Riccitiello added: “What I’ve witnessed a couple of times in the games industry is the way you unseat a market leader is you make a better game a couple of times in a row. “ EA have indeed tried their best to do just that with Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor. The problem they had was how both games borrowed a couple of elements from Call of Duty (more so with Medal of Honor) and when your main focus is on toppling the competition, you don’t tend to have a 90% quality game.

Choosing to ignore Medal of Honor‘s combined score, Riccitiello cites Black Ops and Battlefield Bad Company 2‘s Metacritic average as a noteworthy comparison. He said he thought it was “interesting” that they both received 88%. But when BBC2 was reviewed by 75 critics and Blops had 84, the results aren’t exactly scientific. Still, Riccitiello thinks that DICE who developed the Battlefield games (and MoH‘s multiplayer) are the studio who can put an end to Activision’s rule: “We knew we were building on [the] Unreal [graphics technology] for Medal of Honor which wasn’t our foot-forward tact. We knew that going in. Our next game [Battlefield 3] is being built on the second generation of Frostbite which I think is at least in my opinion is a class act for FPS. I think we’re going to lift the game pretty dramatically in the first-person shooter category.” I hope so and was talking to a friend about this today, how FPSs are in need of something new.

EA performed pretty well this year with their shooters but as is the way with company bosses, Riccitiello wants more out of 2011 and again states DICE with the next Battlefield to be the ones that can deliver just that: “I have great expectations to do a lot better in 2011 than in 2010 on the strength of a couple of products like Bulletstorm and Crysis [2], but most importantly for us, Battlefield 3, which I feel incredibly good about.” He added : “Over time we can take the lead.” However, it’ll take both changes from Activision and EA to elicit a shift in dominance. The next Call of Duty game will have to be a sub-standard version of its former self and Battlefield 3 needs to best it in every way. That should sow the seeds of doubt in consumers’ minds and they may just start to believe their friend who always says how superior Battlefield is to CoD.  And of course EA are publishing the next game from Jason West and Vince Zampella, former key members of the Call of Duty series. All eyes will eagerly be on them to see if they can produce a golden egg for EA as they previously did for Activision.