I wasn’t at E3 this year so I learned about what was going on the same way that most of you did. I read the major gaming news sites, kept an eye on my favorite forums and kept checking Gametab for anything new.
E3 has become such a huge press event that it puts the week before and after into a nether region of press coverage. Before E3 it’s all about “What we are looking forward to E3?”. After the event, it is all “Whither E3?” and “Ten cool things we saw at E3.”
Meanwhile, I am still waiting for reviews of Supreme Ruler 2010 and Imperial Glory – two strategy titles that show a lot of promise in this dead zone of game releases. I depend on reviews to guide my purchases (I am not a first day buyer i most cases) so the lack of coverage of recent game releases really cuts into my routine.
And, my most reliable source – word of mouth – is further limited because nobody is hearing about these games through game site coverage.
It’s not like there was a lot of surprising news coming out of E3. New consoles were launched with the specs that had leaked a few days before. Few new games were unveiled. The only uniformly positive buzz is about Spore. And everyone says that there are too many people there who don’t belong there.
I say leave a few people at home to man the store and keep the review updates going. Both Imperial Glory and Supreme Ruler have been out for a couple of weeks now, and Gamespy and Gamespot likely got advance copies. I want to know what their reviewers think. I need to buy another game. Help me.
I was just reading some Imperial Glory chatter over on the Gamers With Jobs forums.
I’ve got both of these titles on my “check me out” list but, as you observed, E3 sucks the gaming universe into a powerful gravity well. In my case it also tailspins my work AND my largly unstatainable gaming diet. I’m spending my extended weekend catching up by trying to finish Jade Empire, play enough God of War to honestly say I played it, and to spend time with my current passion – Forza. Damn. I’m probably losing all sorts of points with the fist-shaking grognards in this pool. :) I’ll have to bust out my copy of Advanced 3rd Reich or Panzer Blitz (damn I love that game) to restore my strategy karma pool.
“I was just reading some Imperial Glory chatter over on the Gamers With Jobs forums.”
So spill. Should I bother? Or will this fall into the ‘one developer shall not speak ill of another’ chasm?
The chat seemed positive. It seemed to confirm my existing thought – that it’s a game that I should put on my list to check out. But the criteria to make my list may differ from yours. Honestly, I have a long list.
As for a code, no answer I’m going to give here will be truly satisfactory. I’m not a bad-ass maverick who is going to “tell it like it is” without a care for what my co-workers and community members think. That approach can be just as dishonest as the shill who is only going to say good things about self-serving topics. I’m just a guy who loves the hell out of games and happens to be lucky enough to be in a position to be making them. It’s great when my situation can provide something useful to the general conversation. It’s also great when other people’s thoughts adds to my understanding of games, game culture, or just the nature of fun. Opening doors to conversation seems superior to closing them. But you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s not like I’m operating from a code of conduct any more well-considered than my gut reaction. You never know when I might change my tune and launch into a rant about God of War, lament the fire arrows in B4ME (I heard these might be fixed by now), or just take a run at the general state of turn-based gaming. But when I do those things I’ll hopefully have a context and something that makes the effort worthwhile.
Besides, I come here for YOUR posts. If I’m going to start spending karma for the thrill of slinging mud I’m going to do it in the accepted way – from my own weblog. Why should I give you all the traffic? Getting fired for ripping the wrong person is gold on the weblog scene. :)
I was just kidding about the Game Developer Code. ;) As a professional myself, I understand how important certain things are.
Nice to hear that the chatter on Imp Glory is mostly positive. It has been on my short list for a while.
I got your tone. I didn’t mean to make it seem that I was defensive about it. Quite the contrary – it’s a good issue and one that is worth engaging on. Knowing where somebody is coming from is important to the conversation.
Besides that it was late and I tend to ramble on. Not a great combination. :)