Q&A: June 16th, 2021

The Great Leveler Asks
What are your favorites games that have been pretty much lost to time?

Lots of them have been mentioned in videos. FEAR, Max Payne 2, Burnout Revenge. It's honestly a little strange to even see those types of games be gone when they were so heavily discussed back upon release but that's life. I remember when Hitman and Splinter Cell fans were complaining about the exact same thing, who would've thought that Hitman would've ultimately been the brand that kept on going with high quality releases adored by fans?

Sandraincloud90 Asks
Are video games even well suited to be adapted to film?

Not really. They're often a minimum of three hours, feature a stoic lead character for the audience to project themselves onto, setup multiple plotlines for missions, and have really long 2nd acts for gameplay purposes.

However, lots of the challenges games have are not unlike Novels. The Audiobook version of Gone Girl is 19 hours, whereas the movie is 2 hours, yet the story was adapted expertly and effectively. The major difference of course is that what eats up novels in terms of length is description, they can't just set the scene with a single image, pictures really are worth a thousand words. Meanwhile gameplay's often long because of gameplay, not writing. Trimming down a scene in a novel is about establishing the meaning of a scene through imagery rather than words, whereas trimming down a scene from a game more often than not just means, cutting out a gameplay sequence.

I'll stop here for the sake of not turning this into a Randomly Mine but it's certainly a fascinating subject. The ultimate answer to your question is no, but then, I'd argue adaptations are never easy.

SkyGenz Asks
What’s your opinion on NFS:Most Wanted 2012?

It's a good game, but not a great Need for Speed game, nor is it a great successor to Burnout Paradise which is what it more closely resembles. Just like with Hot Pursuit (2010), the gameplay doesn't retain Need for Speed's unique style of grippy arcade handling, while also lacking the signature destruction of the Burnout franchise due to having licensed vehicles companies demand remain always being """"""""recognizable""""""".

I don't really blame Criterion honestly though, they were just trying to convert a project that wasn't going well, and they did a good job making a game that looked great, played well, and had a couple of notable features to make itself stand out, but as a result, it doesn't really feel like the game has any identity at all, which is likely why the game's so forgettable.

Holy Shift Asks
Obligatory question about E3 impressions?

I haven't really paid much attention to E3 this year, probably because it doesn't really feel like E3, not that I miss it, which many have probably guessed. However, my takeaways from what little I've seen is that Grappling Hooks are IN.

Which is never a bad thing.

Battlefield 2042 looks really good, and Halo: Infinite's strides were overt. Really goes to show how much an extra year can bring to the table.

Dim Asks
Is it fair to consider buggy as heck game launches (any obsidian game, Cyberpunk) in retrospectives of said games years after they’ve been presumably patched?

I'm not really sure I understand the question. Is it fair to judge the game after it's been patched? It's what I always do. The whole point of my Years Later videos is to judge the game's by todays standard irrespective of what they were at launch. However, it is always fair to criticize a developer/publisher how something was handled at launch, even if it's since been resolved, because millions of people paid a lot of money for a product the company deemed ready.

I really enjoyed Cyberpunk, but CDProject's handling of the situation was abysmal, and the leaders responsible should be ashamed of themselves for having the courtesy of giving their employees the time that was so obviously needed.

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