Holy Moly News!
You should really check out this video.
Anything Peter Molyneux generally says is pretty amusing but this is like someone decided to film an episode of The Office at Lionhead Studios.
Watch it!
Watched it, now? Good.
The reason this video is even out is that Peter Molyneux is a Big Name in Games and he believes Games can do Big Things. And he tries to do them. The man has an OBE for doing it, for goodness' sake.
I don't really remember what happened to Fable. At one point, everyone seemed to be frothing at the mouth for it. Then it just sort of slipped off the radar. Certainly that's how it seemed to me. It came out and it was all right but the earth didn't shatter. The earth didn't even move.
And yet, Peter Molyneux is still a Big Name in Games. Maybe not a respected name... but a Big One nonetheless. And this is the sequel to Fable he's talking about. Could it actually deliver this time?
Well who knows. I'll tell you one thing that hasn't changed, though. Peter is still talking utter tripe.
Doesn't he realise that this has been done before a great deal of times. I mean, what about the animals in Harvest Moon?
Doesn't he realise is that he himself has pretty much done this before?
"You forgotten about me, Petey?"This dog thing seems to be the rehashing of an old idea. This time, though, he's taking away significant player control.
Awesome?
Well, lets examine his claims for a moment. When Peter takes his dog out for a walk, he says it just goes off and does its own thing. What, Peter? It goes, hangs around with all the bad dogs and starts smoking cigars behind the kennels? It plays chess with the cat from across the road? It opens its own Kosher meat business?
For one - the amount a dog can do on its own, aside from run around and get hit by traffic, is pretty limited.
For two - I don't think Peter walks out of his house and shouts, "Go, my canine friend! Be free!"
I imagine he has a leash and a series of vocal commands for his dog. Vocal commands: the real life dog buttons.
On top of that -and what is much, much worse about this pretentious bit of rubbish - the whole, "There's no dog button!" section strikes me as a little detached from the whole sequence of talking heads about love.
Lionhead's answer to "How should we engender emotional reactions from game players?" seems to be, "By having a cwute fwuffy puppy doggy that wuvs you vewy vewy much."
That's like a child saying to a parent, "What does love mean, daddy?" Just to have daddy throw them a slightly worn out teddy bear. In a way, its right. Yet, in another, more practical way, its woefully inadequate preparation for the big wide world.
What about the hard times you battle through because of love? What about the arguments and the disagreements and the compromises of two people completely at odds despite love? Indeed, what about the love of a person?
This is the best example they could give of how they're putting LOVE in the game for all of us losers who can only ever hope to experience such an emotion in virtual reality?
A fwuffy woofer, completely devoted to you?
Its a bit underwhelming.
Look at Alyx in Half Life 2 for another example of how a game's developer is trying to involve the player emotionally. She's the best thing about the game and she's still being improved upon now in the Episodic content. Valve aren't trying to make you love her, they're just trying to give you a proper companion. Not some big breasted woman who slyly winks at you when you behead dragons and says, "What a massive chopper you've got, Protagonist!" or a bunch of useless Russian conscripts who scramble about and get hit by artillery fire.
"There is no dogging button, eh, Freeman?"A companion, who is actually worth having along, with emotions and expressions and opinions. With character.
What do Lionhead have? Again, lets reiterate: A wittle doggy! Played Nintendogs much, Pete?
Surely, what a game like Fable needs are really, really deep NPCs who actually justify the name. Its all very well RPGs having miles of terrain to cover and a billion different quests and thousands of items to collect and XP points to earn - but whats the point, really, when everyone you meet is just a cipher?
"Kill rats for me Protagonist!"
"Make love to me Protagonist!"
Its all the same.
Why save a world full of plot but bereft of everything else?
The overriding impression I was given by this video is that Fable 2 is going to have a dog in it. I doubt the dog will be integral to the plot but I'm sure you'll be able take time out to play with him when you want to and teach him tricks. I'm also pretty sure he'll help you out when you're attacked (of his own freewill, of course) and may prove vital in a couple of the puzzles.
So, just like Black and White then.
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Jachap doesn't even want a dog.
3 comments:
While I agree that this is just an extension of Black and White's creatures, I think it's worth noticing that Molyneux's accepted that in the past. For my money, the dog idea's a good one, and one that should (hopefully) serve as compelling framing for an adventure in the grand sense, rather than the focus of it. That's if Molyneux pulls the finger out and gets working.
And those engine tests at the end were lush.
Oh, it may be well implemented but, at the end of the day, its just a gimmick though, isn't it, surely?
Why must Molyneux put a Tamigotchi in all his games?
Well, for that same reason, why's Alyx in Half-Life 2? She's just eye candy and a cardboard cutout spewing 'nice job!' messages between levels. In Episode One she becomes a really impressive facet of the game, but still she's just AI companionship. I reckon Fable 2's dog is following in a similar vein, giving a personal sense (and an element of responsibility, as discussed in his Tokyo Game Show speech) to a fake world.
Of course, hopefully the NPCs will have as much attention paid to their development as well, but at this stage, we can only wait and see.
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