Shenmore Please: My Shenmue 3 Excitement

E3 was packed with various announcements that made me incredibly excited. So I thought over the next few days I’d do some focus pieces on the ones that really stood out and what better way to start than Shenmue.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten asked a lot “What’s the big deal about Shenmue?” While the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3 clearly shows that the game has a huge cult following that was willing to shell out millions for the next installment, there is a whole other group who have no idea why the rest of us are throwing millions at our screens. Let me explain, I’ve loved Shenmue since I was a tiny child. Shenmue came out on December 29, 1999 when I was nine. It was the first game that I waited in line for with my dad the day it released. It’s not just nostalgia that drives my love, but the fact that this game changed the way I perceived games.

This game was a huge deal to me because it was the first game of its type. Featuring some of the earliest instances of open world explorable environments, Shenmue’s creator Yu Suzuki set out to create a fully immersive real world experience for his players. He even coined a term for the nonlinear gameplay style that the game featured called “FREE” which stood for Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment. You felt like you were part of the world, and could react to anything within it. The game featured revolutionary variable weather systems that had never been seen before, and AI that had their own individual dialogue and schedules to maintain.While the graphics may seem dated by today’s magnificent standards, at the time they were gorgeous. This game managed to combine both a cinematic movie experience with immersive gameplay. I honestly don’t know if we would have the kind of games we do today if it wasn’t for its revolutionary gameplay. I definitely know I wouldn’t have the same taste in games if it wasn’t for Shenmue.

This was also one of the stories I have to credit with getting me into wanting to write professionally for video games. In case you’re unfamiliar here is a brief synopsis of what the game entails. It’s around 1986, and you play as Ryo Hazuki who witnessed his father’s death at the hands of Lan Di over something called the “Dragon Mirror”. Ryo quickly decides  to avenge his father’s death and goes on a quest to destroy the man who destroyed his life and find the Dragon Mirror. It’s a classic vengeance tale, but the game also teaches the consequences of being driven by vengeance.

The complexity of Ryo’s character as he progresses through the game is a thing of beauty to behold. Here’s a link to the intro to the game if you’re interested in checking out what the game looked like:

In order to track down your fathers killer you have to do everyday things, this was one of the glorious aspects of the game. You must maintain a forklift operator position, buy items at the store, and be home at a specific time. In between you interview suspects and infiltrate the “Mad Angel Gang” trying to illuminate more of the story. The mundanity that was prevalent throughout the story has been made fun of since the game’s release for instance in this Penny Arcade (Thanks to my friend Kevin for showing me this), but it was this blend of real world quotidian tasks that really drew me into the story and kept me there.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/06/22/you-had-to-be-there

However it wasn’t all petting cats and getting to work the morning shift fun, there were also quicktime events. This was one of the first games that I remember playing that heavily relied on the use of QTE to drive story. Overall it didn’t affect the enjoyment of the combat system, and was quite fun at the time but the overuse of QTE these days has probably destroyed some of that enjoyment nowadays.

As much as I’m a fan of the series the new Shenmue 3 trailer doesn’t seem like much, but I know they’re working on it. When this news went up at E3 I immediately donated and if you haven’t already, I highly recommend the series. It’s a good investment. They’ve already reached their main goal and marked off several stretch goals. Suzuki has promised that there will be an enhanced battle system and  a skill tree system that is of the same revolutionary nature as its predecessors. The game will also be built with the new Unreal 4 engine, which having some personal experience with the engine makes this wonderful news.

So if you want to donate feel free to follow this link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3
You can get more info on the new game and back the project! You won’t regret it!

I’m hoping to stream some gameplay soon of the classic and will keep you all posted as that develops.

Full Steam Ahead: How Steam is Becoming My One True Love

Ok, so I’ve never really been part of the PC Master Race. I tried it, but honestly I still prefer a good ol’ fashioned controller and console. So what does Steam decide to do? Come out with their own beautiful and extremely functional controller that I simply must have in my life immediately.

The controller is a really interesting design, almost looking like a flattened Xbox controller but with sleeker pads. I think that the description on the Steam store adequately says everything you need to know about the controller, it “is an innovative input device that allows you to play games from all genres, including traditional gamepad-style games as well as games usually reserved for play with a mouse and keyboard. The Controllers are wireless and completely configurable.”

The only sad thing is that the controller is in limited quantity, and won’t be out until this October 16th. That means that pre-ordering is essential at the moment and my wallet is screaming at me for taking anything out of it. Sad days, but that doesn’t mean it should stop you from grabbing one and letting me know how it is!

After that wonderful news I still had my reservations about getting into a serious relationship with  computer games only because it’s not just the controller that’s my problem. Don’t misunderstand me I love the enhanced graphics, the fact I’m already at my desktop anyway, the selection of games etc etc. But I hate the lack of refunds! Oh wait, you’re going to give me refunds too? Well shoot.

Steam just announced last week as well that they will be offering refunds. Now this comes with some stipulations that as yet haven’t been fully defined by the company. Mostly stating that if they catch users abusing the refund option than they would ban said user from refunds and other nasty affairs, but that refunds would be offered on all games up to two weeks after purchase. Not only that, but if you buy a game and it goes on sale you are eligible to get the sale price as a refund. Too much awesome to handle. But wait there is more…

Not only all of the above but their iconic Steam Summer Sale starts this June 11th. My wallet is officially going to hate me. Now I know that truly I’ll always be a console girl at heart and vocally but Steam is definitely making me cheat on my Playstation with my desktop this summer and fall.

Watch Dogs 2 Speculation

 

Let me start off by saying that Watch Dogs was by far my favorite game last year, and has made it to my favorite games of all time list. It was fresh, innovative, and fun. Unlike most people I thought the plot was good, and I enjoyed the hacking. I’ll admit there were problems, the driving controls were poor and police AI had weird detection systems at times, but it took a pretty overdone gritty thriller feel and turned it into a thought provoking look at how our constant attachment to social media has consequences. How by having the world in our hands we develop obsessions that can breed other more dangerous obsessions. It’s about loss, devotion, and interaction with technology. I love me some symbolism and it was rife with it. So when Julien Risse from Ubisoft put on his Linkedin profile that he was working on the sequel I squealed like a little girl, and did a Snoopy happy dance.

That was all before me reading the copious amounts of interview snippets from Lionel Raynaud who is vice president of the creative department at Ubisoft Montreal. His conversational snippets, since he has made no formal statements as yet, are the exact opposite of the above paragraph. He states how the game was “flawed” and sympathizes with those who complain that the game was over-hyped. This was not what disturbed me though, what disturbed me was simply this quote…”the way to tackle some of those flaws is going to be quite radical. There are parts of the game that will need to change.” Now this could go both ways, but with his pessimistic outlook on the overall game’s quality is certainly causing some distress in my heart region.
He also stated in a later conversation snippet that “this is quite a high ambition and will require us to develop technologies that we didn’t have for Watch Dogs, but this combined with fixing and refining what worked well is probably the way to go for Watch Dogs.” So I hope that this means Ubisoft will take an extremely evaluative eye to the many great aspects of the game they already had, and not try to rework it so much that they lose the great story in a flashy sandbox mess like the majority of the Assassin’s Creed games. Only time and hope will see, but I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on this as it develops.

Spiritual Successor to Banjo-Kazooie Announced

So first off let me start by apologizing for the deafening silence of my blogging. Between life, and graduating from undergrad I have been sorely absent from writing and I hope to rectify that immediately by bringing you some gaming news. Yooka-Laylee, otherwise known as the new form of Banjo-Kazooie exceeded its funding expectations by an astonishing amount last Friday. Starting at a goal of $240,041, Playtonic games had gotten over 1.5 million on Kickstarter by the next day. In other words people need their fix of awesome.
Playtonic games (might I just add I admire the title) were a series of Rare developers who left to pursue their own brand of gaming. Which apparently is still just Banjo-Kazooie, but nevertheless, I’m excited. Yooka-Laylee definitely looks like a cheaper version of Banjo, down even to some of the moves and attacks. You collect golden bounty and have a flying companion? Golden puzzle pieces and of course your friendly flyer from the original. The above gameplay video is still in production so I definitely want to reserve full judgment til we see a final hands on demo, but so far I’d definitely play it. Banjo’s 1 and 2 (we shall never acknowledge nuts and bolts) were one of the main reasons I owned Nintendo systems at all and a chance to relive some childhood happiness is welcome.
So watch the above video, enjoy, and we’ll talk soon!