Ik reageer een beetje laat op deze thread, maar ik vond de Nintendo E3 presentatie aardiger dan van de rest. Al staat Nintendo Land niet hoog op mijn verlanglijst, het laat wel zien hoe je lol kan hebben met een spel.
Kijk je vervolgens naar de andere presentaties, zoals van die van Microsoft, Sony, EA of Ubisoft, dan word je bijna onpasselijk van de hoeveelheid bloed en geweld. Ik ben niet kinderachtig, maar dit liep echt de spuigaten uit. Een site heeft zitten turfen van wat er allemaal langs kwam.
Roughly 78 throatstabs, 63 snapped vertebrae, 57 exploded heads, 27 shattered knee caps, a brace of disembowelings and, courtesy of Far Cry 3, a couple of immolated jungle cats.
De nodige F-words moest ik aanhoren en bij elke ‘kill’ (liefst in slow-mo) steeg het gejuich op in de zaal, alsof de Romeinse tijden werden herbeleefd. Het dieptepunt voor mij was de nieuwe Tomb Raider. Grafisch prachtig maar volstrekt inhoudloos. Het viel ook niet mee om een dikke tien minuten dat gehijg, gesteun en gekreun aan te horen.
Nintendo krijgt altijd de kritiek, dat het kinderachtig is en niets heeft voor de ‘hardcore’ gamer. Maar als de belangstelling van deze gamer alleen gewekt kan worden door exxessief geweld, dan blijf ik liever ‘casual’. Ook Warren Spector (van Epic Mickey) had kritiek op het hele E3 gebeuren.
“This is the year where there were two things that stood out for me. One was: The ultraviolence has to stop. We have to stop loving it. I just don’t believe in the effects argument at all, but I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste. Ultimately I think it will cause us trouble.”
“I left Eidos in 2004 because I looked around at E3 and saw the new Hitman game where you get to kill with a meat hook, and 25 to Life, the game about kids killing cops, and Crash & Burn the racing game where the idea is to create the fieriest, most amazing explosions, not to win the race… I looked around my own booth and realized I just had one of those ‘which thing is not like the other’ moments. I thought it was bad then, and now I think it’s just beyond bad.”
“We’ve gone too far. The slow-motion blood spurts, the impalement by deadly assassins, the knives, shoulders, elbows to the throat. You know, Deus Ex had its moments of violence, but they were designed – whether they succeeded or not I can’t say – but they were designed to make you uncomfortable, and I don’t see that happening now. I think we’re just appealing to an adolescent mindset and calling it mature. It’s time to stop. I’m just glad I work for a company like Disney, where not only is that not something that’s encouraged, you can’t even do it, and I’m fine with it.”
Tot slot maakte hij een kritische opmerking, waar ik het volledig mee eens ben.
“The second thing I noticed was that the most interesting part of the press conferences had nothing to do with games. When the games are the least interesting part, there’s a problem.”
“When did the game conference become about interfacing with Netflix? I just worry a little bit.
“The thing that’s ironic is that I feel like we really are in a golden age, in a weird sort of way. Nobody knows what the future of games is. Nobody. At a time like that Notch can come along and do Minecraft, and Chris Hecker can finally do his incredible party spy game, and Jon Blow can do Braid, and I can do a triple-A Mickey Mouse game - anything is possible.
“Is the future… indie games distributed digitally made by four guys in a garage? Is it 800 people working on a triple-A game for Disney? Is it a social game on Facebook? Is it a mobile game on iOS and Android? Nobody knows. What that means is, if you have an idea you can reach an audience with it.
“Pretty much all I saw at E3 was, ‘Well, we’re going to do what we always did, but bigger and bloodier! And we’re gonna talk about Netflix!’ I just don’t get it.”
Hoe hebben jullie tegen deze E3 aangekeken?
