Who did it first?
Anyone who watches the anime Erin The Beast Player/Kemono No Souja Erin can't deny Okami's heavy inlfuence on the anime in terms of art and presentation but one thing remains a puzzle. There's a striking resemblence in the story of Beast Player Erin and Team Ico's upcoming PS3 exlusive, The Last Guardian.
Both stories revolve around a human becoming attached to an animal of some sort and show the main characters as they interact with each other and overcome the hardships they face together. In addition to that, the design of both creatures is similar and there's a heavy emphasis on the setting and theme in both the videogame and the previously mentioned anime. Do you think it's coincidental?
The Beast Player Erin is an anime based on a novel that has the same title. It's written by Nahoko Uehashi who's best known for the popular novel and TV series Seirei No Moribito. The novel was published in year 2006 while Team Ico's The Last Guardian is yet to be released.
Judgement:
I think it's a pure coincedence. These kind of situations are very common among concept artists to a point that I would call it unavoidable. It's not surprising to spot out major similarities between art works that are done by various artists as chances that you have two people who are thinking of the same idea are high. Not to mention that it's very likely for ideas to be similar when the source of inspiration is one.
I'm a huge fan of Team Ico and a fan of Nahoko Uehashi and I welcome all sorts of good entertainment whether it's original or not. Enjoyment comes first.
Hello
My friend linked me to a video on Youtube which talks about why women are a minority in videogames industry and the reasons he or his guest think female gamers aren't attracted to "hard core" games. As a female and as a gamer, I was furious at the video for many reasons and one of them is the inaccuracy. The video was missing alot of facts and I could tell just by watching that the guy who made it hasn't touched a single game of the games he labelled as "games directed to the male audience" Just because those games had one or two women with little cloths on them.
First of all, we don't care... really. Who gives a damn about whether a game was made by a male or female or a mutant? As a gamer and as a female, I don't care if a game was made by a man or a woman as long as it's good. Now, a game being good or not has nothing to do with gender. A good example of this would be Assasin's Creed which is a game that was produced by a woman. I detested the game even though it was made by a woman.
Does the fact that a woman made that game made me like it? No.
Was the reason I bought it because it was made by a "fellow female"? Hell no! I bought it because its setting and concept.
Who actually thought of buying Assassin's Creed or any game made by a female just for the fact that they were made by a female here? Share your opinion with us.
Second, since the guy who made that video used Tomb Raider games as an example of games which are directed to males, as a fan of the series, allow me to explain where he sinned. Eidos/Core has never relied on sex to sell TR games all the time Core was making Tomb Raider games. The posters that included naked Lara were some of the many postersCore used to promote for the game. There were many posters with Lara doing things other than showing her assets to lure male gamers. That was for marketting, as for games, none of the six first games had a single scene with sexual themes or nudity so Lara Croft wasn't really a"sex symbol" in video games until Crystal Dynamics were made in charge for Tomb Raider series. As for the size of her boobs, when Lara was first made, the designers made her too manly, so, in order to make her more feminine, they enlraged the size of her breasts. They probably overdid it but the point is, she was never meant to look "sexy" Last, the story behind Toby Gard dreaming of creating a sexy, attractive, beautiful female protagonist in a game wasn't true. Toby Gard was inspired by his little sister who was playing with water pistols and had a long braid. Toby himself isn't happy with Crystal Dynamics' version of Tomb Raider. Here's the difference between the two:
I don't mean to come off as rude or anything but I really don't get why this genderissue matters. It's not like women in videogames industry will help increase the number of female gamers, let alone the fact that the gender of consumers is irrelevant to game companies because what matters to them the most is sales number and not the male to female ratio unless they plan to make games specifically for a group of people such as The Mother Game? Also, In fashion industry, the majority of fashion designers are males yet they make outfits which appeal to most women so hiring more "females" in the industry as an attempt to increase the number of females isn't really a solution. Women and girls not being attracted to games such as Halo or Prince of Persia *a big fan of prince or persia games here* isn't an issue either. It's all about preferences.
I have two brothers. My brothers are totally clueless when it comes to videogames and the only type of games they play is soccer games. I'm the one who buys consoles and play videogames religiously at home. None of my brothers bought a videogame and sat for hours to play it only because it had a naked woman in it. I find the notion of men willing to buy videogames with naked women and vice versa so offensive because it shows how marketers/game designers ridicule the mentality of gamers.
Dear readers, is there a reason I should care about the number of women in the industry or the number of female gamers?
Hello!
Due to final examinations, I could only watch Sony's conference and a bit of Microsoft's. Both shows were good compared to last year's show. Microsoft wowed the audience with their latest technology NATAL which allows xbox 360 and NATAL device owners which is yet to have a name, to play various games without using controllers. The technology used in NATAL is the same as the one used in motion capturing only this time, 360 owners don't need to wear suits in order for the scanner to read their movements.
Another surprise thrown by Microsoft was Peter Molyneux' new project Milo which also makes use of MS's new project NATAL. Milo promises to push the boundaries behind NATAL's technology. It's a game where you fully interact with characters by using your own body. You can start conversations, ask them questions, explore in the world they live in and even give them objects! Even though it's still in the making, the conceptsounds very promising but would you take a word from MR. Molyneux?
Sony's conference started by showing a number of games available on PS2. I was surprised when I heard that they weren't going discontinue making PS2 as long as they announce games for it but the thing is, all I can see coming on PS2 is multi-platforms which not only look better on current generation consoles, they also play better.
Shortely after PS2 releases, Sony announced their new line of Playstation Portable, PSP Go.It might look like a normal PSP with a different design but the games it has are system sellers. The new PSP will launch with Metal Gear: Peace Walker, Resident Evil PSP and Gran Turismo PSP... Yes Gran Turismo on PSP along with other block buster titles such as Little Big Planet. Does it sound tempting now?
Moving on from PSP to PS3. All the time the show was on, I was waiting for Sony to announce new titles coming on their big shiny brick other than the ones we already know about and been waiting to hear updates on for the past few years. During the show, Sony did announce new exlusives coming on the PS3 such as Rockstar's Agent and Final Fantasy 14 which is going to be online. As well as new titles, Sony showed trailers of its biggest exlusives coming out this year including God of War III, Uncharted 2 andTrico which was named The Last Guardian. Popular multi-platforms were also shown such as Assassin's Creed which didn't look any different to me other than the setting which was breath taking by the way, but I doubt I'll buy it. Sony also announced that Square's most popular Final Fantasy game FFVII was available on PSN and that Home was coming very soon. I don't know how far do they mean by soon but it's coming!
Last but not least... Ok maybe it's the least interesting story I got for today, Sony introduced their new technology which is quite similar to Nintendo's Wiimote. Sony's magic wand allows gamers to play games differently by waving their wand. It is similar to the Wiimote and I fail to see the difference actually!.
Verdict: The show was better than last year's no doubt but E3 post current gen consoles was big. I wish for the show to regain its glory and become as big as it used to be and I wish more companies would work on new titles other than developing technologies. It's a good thing to work on creative ways for playing games but in E3, developers have the habit of... I wouldn't say talking big but showing something so small and so promising and releasing titles featuring those concepts without any addition to what we've already seen. E3 might be an important event for developers to share their plans with the audience but not keeping promises makes the event loses its credibility if that makes any sense. I don't want to watch misleading trailers because that alone won't make me buy the game, the final product will.
I'm not excited about Metal Gear Rising even though I'd love to play as Raiden again but I'm still pissed at Kojima after playing Metal Gear Solid 4. The title looks promising but I was sceptical as soon as I heard that Kojima wasn't the one who wrote the story nor directed it.
What was your impression on E3? My picks:
- Trico
- Uncharted 2
- Final Fantasy XIII
