New Games |
- The Question: Is it time to retire the term 'RPG'?
- Kickstarted Second Quest comic tells very Zelda-ish tale
- brentalfloss and Dj CUTMAN's ode to Slender Man
- Live show: Escaping the shadow of a Hangover
- Have a cherished memory of yours placed in Remember Me
- The Daily Hotness: Bounce music off walls to level it up
| The Question: Is it time to retire the term 'RPG'? Posted: 27 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT [Every Friday (or whenever), Destructoid will pose topical a question to the community. Answer it if you want!] Semantics! As someone that writes and speaks for an audience of thousands on a regular basis, I spend more time thinking about semantics than your average bear. In my time here at Destructoid, I've learned time and time again that the difference between being understood and leaving your readers feeling mislead or confused can lie in the tiniest of details. This issue comes up a lot in the discussion of videogames. With a medium that is constantly growing and changing, it can be hard for conventional language to keep up. For example, when the term "Role Playing Game" was first introduced to the world of videogames, it was meant to define a genre that serves to simulate the experience of playing Dungeons and Dragons. Turn based combat, character creation, experience point collection, and dungeon crawling were all prerequisites. Back then, it didn't matter if you were talking about something like A Bard's Tale, Final Fantasy, Ultima, or Dragon Warrior/Quest, when you heard that a game was an RPG, you knew almost exactly what to expect. The same can't be said today. Due to changes in game design allowed by modern technology, the term RPG could mean almost anything. Some think that an RPG is any game that focuses "playing a role" among a group of characters in an adventure story. Others think it's any game that involves exploring a large fantasy setting. Still others think it's any game that involves building up your stats by collecting some form of in-game currency and/or equipment. Over the years, I've heard everything from Mass Effect 3 (a story-focused third person shooter), Rage (a non-story focused first person shooter), The Last Story (a story-focused third person hack and slash with third person shooter elements) and The Denpa Men (a non-story focused, turn-based, third person dungeon crawler) referred to as a "RPG", though these games have very little in common. Whew! What a mouthful! Can't we find a more succinct way to categories the games we play? Seeing as "RPG" can be tacked on to so many types of games, maybe it make more sense to only use the term as an adjective and not as a genre. Stating that a game has "RPG elements" clearly expresses that it has some form of stat-building system, without making promises about what the player is going to do or how they are going to feel while playing. Still, wouldn't it be less misleading to just say a game has "SBE" (stat-building elements) than to shackle it to a term that carries so many other potential associations? In a world where everything from Dead Rising to Call of Duty to Farmville involves stat building in one form or another, the term "RPG" feels like it could do more harm than good. It's a relic of a bygone era, one that simultaneously means too much and too little, depending on who you ask. So that's my perspective. What's your's? Do you think the term "RPG" still has worth, or are there ways to express the same idea that have less potential for misunderstanding?
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| Kickstarted Second Quest comic tells very Zelda-ish tale Posted: 27 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT
For some folks, Skyward Sword was the pinnacle of the Zelda franchise, while for others, it was the culmination of everything wrong with the series' direction over the past decade and a half. Even though I personally enjoyed the game, I too felt like I was being guided through a carefully curated gallery of set pieces rather than being allowed to explore the world on my own terms. Writer Tevis Thompson felt so strongly about Zelda's missteps that he wrote a very in-depth essay, "Saving Zelda," earlier this year. The essay struck a chord with artist David Hellman, best known for his work on Braid, and the two began discussing a project that could both tell the kind of open-ended tale that they crave and serve as subtle criticism of modern videogame narrative structure. That project is Second Quest. Second Quest is a 50-page color comic that draws heavy inspiration from Skyward Sword and the rest of the Zelda mythos yet presents an original world with original characters. It's about a curious girl living on a peaceful floating island who discovers that the legends she's heard may not be true. While the art is vibrant, the aim of the book is not to deliver all the answers, only possibilities up to your own interpretation. Tevis and David are holding a Kickstarter that will end on November 16, but already they are less than $9000 away from their $50K goal. For your donations, you can receive a digital copy of the finished work, a hard copy courtesy of Fangamer, or original art pieces. Whether or not you agree with their Zelda criticisms or with their ability to tell a "game" story in a completely different medium, you ought to admit that the project shows incredible promise. Second Quest by David Hellman & Tevis Thompson [Kickstarter via NeoGAF] |
| brentalfloss and Dj CUTMAN's ode to Slender Man Posted: 27 Oct 2012 07:00 AM PDT
brentalfloss and Dj CUTMAN have each been playing the collaboration game recently, and now their journey has brought them into each other's arms. With Brent on lyrical duties and CUTMAN on sound production, the duo are here to give you a fright this Halloween. "The Slender Man Song" is of course based on this year's freaky Slender: The Eight Pages, but the tune is a parody of "The Candy Man" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Because I totally want my cherished memories of the Gene Wilder classic to be tainted by distilled nightmare fuel. That's just dandy. The Slender Man Song [YoutTube] |
| Live show: Escaping the shadow of a Hangover Posted: 27 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT It's time once again for another edition of Saturday Morning Hangover. This week, as ever, Jordan Devore and I will be playing the week's Xbox Live Indie Games demos for your viewing pleasure. Sadly (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), there just aren't a lot of new games on the service this week. Don't be bummed. Think of this as an opportunity. An opportunity to then convince me that ICO is worth the effort it takes to play it. I've tried several times to get into it and have had absolutely no success. Maybe, with your help, the tide might be turned this morning. It's all happening over on Dtoid.tv! |
| Have a cherished memory of yours placed in Remember Me Posted: 26 Oct 2012 10:00 PM PDT Some of you may already be aware of the ongoing "Ads in 2084" competition for upcoming third-person action game Remember Me in which fans submit billboard-style advertisements for companies that would exist in Neo-Paris (some entries that the game's Facebook page has been showing off look incredible, by the way), but now Capcom has decided to launched another one. This promotion, I find, is a little more unique; Capcom is asking you to submit pictures of your "most cherished memories" along with why they mean so much to you. According to Capcom, they will then randomly select a bunch of the images and have them placed in the game where they will make appearances during a Memory Overload sequence. You can post your submissions over on the game's Facebook page; it'll be interesting to see what people decide to submit, but I can't shake the feeling that a lot of them are going to be wedding photos. |
| The Daily Hotness: Bounce music off walls to level it up Posted: 26 Oct 2012 04:59 PM PDT
That's the secret subtitle of Make Music, Throw Music: A Yoshi's Island Tribute, as far as I'm concerned. Why nobody thought to take Yoshi's Island's sounds and compose original music with them before is beyond me. This should have happened years ago. Come on, artists! I will accept this free album as payment for your negligence. If free Yoshi's Island-inspired music isn't your bag, Destructoid brought you a preview of the intriguing Borderlands Legends, Flixist put out a review for Silent Hill: Revelations 3D, and so much more happened on this fine Friday. Destructoid Original: News: |
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