The Hotdog Laserhouse

I think it’s scary for a lot of the same reasons that Slender is scary. It’s kind of interesting to see game designers get down to the raw gameplay elements of what makes things scary, you know?

It’s the anticipation. It’s not some nebulous or hard-to-define concept like “setting the tone.” It’s very cut and dry, black and white. The pure essence of why something like Nightmare on Elm Street is scary. The game tells you that there is a monster, it is coming to get you, and you’re helpless to stop it. Either hide or die.

Slender would be nothing without its music cues. Every note you pick up, another layer gets added to the music. The intensity gets increased. And the louder the music gets, the more you know that any second now, you’re going to turn around and it’s going to be there waiting for you.

FNAF turns that concept on its head while still retaining its ldeals. Instead of not looking at the monster, it explicitly tells you to keep very, very close tabs on the monster, because if it gets too close to you, then you die. But then it very intentionally limits your ability to see the monster. Or, er, uh, monsters, as it were.

I also really dig the subtle back story stuff, but some of it feels a little too subtle, I guess. Again, it goes back to what I was saying when I was talking about J.J. Abrams – I don’t want to go digging too deep for your stuff. Don’t tease me with a story and then not tell me how it ends. FNAF kind of does that, especially as the games go on.

I will say that for as positive as I sound about the game, I don’t actually like it, really. I own the Android version of FNAF2 (which as I understand is missing some visual effects from the PC version), and I’ve never felt like making it past the second night. The original FNAF was probably a bit too simple for it to be much fun, so FNAF2 makes you juggle like 8 plates at the same time and that’s not fun either. And the scares definitely aren’t fun. Just loud. And sudden.

The whole game series is like waiting for a very annoying bomb to go off in your face, or something. Calling it a “jump scare simulator” is a bit reductive, but if we’re being honest, it’s not that reductive.

I think FNAF4 needs to be the last one. I think the market is reaching critical mass on how many of these games in such a short span of time can be supported. I mean, jeeze, it hasn’t even been a year since the first FNAF, has it? I’m all for striking while the iron is hot, but you can also hit it so much that the iron’s been stretched too thin to strike anymore, you know?

I was a Toonami kid growing up, so of course I’ve heard of it. It’s also a pretty popular thing as far as Osamu Tezuka works go!

…I’ve, uh, just never seen much of it. :p

What I really want is a good Vampire Hunter D game. Either by From Software or by Platinum.

I guess there was a VHD game for the PS1, but it doesn’t look great and does not seem to be fondly remembered.

When you remember that From Software made games like Otogi, combined with the modern Dark Souls sensibilities, could finally bring to pass the idea that From Software could make a REALLY AWESOME CASTLEVANIA GAME.

And Platinum because in a perfect world, Platinum makes every character-action game.

I’ve heard that the Vampire Hunter D manga has a LOT of stuff that was never even touched on in the movies, so hopefully a potential TV show would be pretty cool.

I think he was a big dumb idiot at a company with more money than sense.

A lot of people at Microsoft were taught a lesson for that. Some, like Adam Orth, Don Mattrick and Phil Harrison even straight up lost their jobs.

Actually, according to The Verge, most if not all of the original Xbox One launch team has left the company. The Microsoft of today is desperately trying to right the ship and steer it away from the sins that those guys committed. Look, you guys!! Backwards compatibility!!!!

And for some of them, it was a very public affair. I’d argue that Adam Orth was basically tarred and feathered (or as close as you can get on the internet) for what he said.

But some of that was going on two years ago. A lot of people have learned a lot of things from what they said and did.

I try not to hold grudges. I don’t suggest anyone else hold grudges, either.

But… well, he’s saying it’s inspired by that experience? Really? I admit, I don’t see the connection, outside of the navel-gazing concept of “Oh you are disconnected from the world, maaaan! Just like the Xbox One without an internet connection!”

I mean, guys in his situation usually try not to bring attention back to their dirty laundry. “Hey, remember when I said that really dumb thing? I’ve made a game that’s a tangential metaphor for that! That’ll be $14.99, please!”

And, like, looking up the LA Times article on Adr1ft…

Yet out of the ashes have come “Adr1ft,” a narrative-focused game that’s directly inspired by the social-media-driven disaster. “Adr1ft” is about loneliness, about the fear of messing up and the hope that one can emerge from a catastrophe stronger than before.

Why is there a numeral “1” in the title? “One is the loneliest number,” said Orth. After the blow-up, Orth become something of a recluse, and nearly every aspect of “Adr1ft” is in some way related to his experiences.

When talking about artsy stuff, I really try to avoid using the word “pretentious,” because it’s really easy to get yourself in to trouble when saying that. But the fact that that’s the big relation to him being a goon on Twitter? That’s just grasping-at-straws enough to be defined as pretentious in my book. The weight of an ego bears down upon me.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool looking game, but if he’s trying to push it as this big empowering thing, this great moment of triumph because he stuck his foot in his mouth….

I’m probably going to have more than a little trouble seeing past that.

Well, I mean, ultimately, detaching the game from the Sonic franchise would have also theoretically detached it from the deadline of launching with the TV show. The game would’ve also likely launched on PS4 and Xbone instead of getting forcibly squeezed down to fit on the Wii U at the last second.

Those two things were the biggest hurdles Big Red Button faced while developing Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and they were hurdles imposed upon them by Sega.

Take Sonic, and by extension Sega, out of that equation and that game has a much better chance of getting an appropriate amount of love, care and polish.

So…. yes, definitely.

If you mean would the game have fared better if it was exactly the same in every single way (bugs, slop and all), just with different characters… then… no, probably not. As bad as the sales of Rise of Lyric were, at least it had the Sonic brand name on it. If BRB launched a sloppy, buggy 3D platformer on the Wii U with an unproven IP, then sales would’ve been way, way worse.

I’d say the Crash Bandicoot reboot probably fits in to this category. I remember playing a demo of that first one… Crash of the Titans, I think? And thinking it wasn’t so bad. Obviously, it must not have been, because they went ahead and made a sequel in Crash: Mind Over Mutant.

And then that franchise died. And has stayed dead. RIP in Peace.