I have been comfortably Agnostic for years, but my departure from Christianity hasn't erased the experience of having practiced it. I couldn't deny the influence my time within the church has had on me, and wouldn't; to do so would be to deny a fundamental piece of myself. From this perspective, I can't help but wonder if Western developers are doing themselves, gamers, and culture as a whole a disservice by continually minimizing and ignoring the role of religion in Western society.
Now that E3 is a few weeks cold, I'd like to write a little about my personal game of the show, and the man behind it, Vander Caballero, who is inextricable from his pet project. I didn't go into the convention thinking about winners and losers, but Minority Inc.'s Papo & Yo was a definite winner for me, one that has stayed on my mind continuously since the show's end.
For the final leg of my E3 adventures, I made my way back to the Square-Enix booth to watch a guided demo of the new Tomb Raider. Some have brought up issues with this new presentation of Lara Croft, where she is shown as vulnerable and inexperienced, but I think this is quite a different thing than games like Metroid: Other M and The Third Birthday.
And so the second day of E3 begins! I had some scheduled events to hit up with fellow GameCritic Brandon Bales that day, so I tried to keep things light until it was time to hit up the Bethesda demonstrations.
My first year of E3 had a slow start. Not knowing how early I should get there to pick up my press pass, I found myself in the L.A. Convention Center at 8 o'clock. The process of getting my badge took three minutes at the most, so I had about four hours to kill before the main show floors were open to the media.
HIGH Configuring my Orbment to get access to a powerful area-effect spell in the first chapter of the game.
LOW At least half of the game's playtime is spent with only two party members of a potential four.
WTF The budding relationship between Estelle and her adopted brother Joshua is weird enough, but was it necessary for nearly every NPC to peer-pressure them into it?
HIGH Starting the first stage and being greeted by a screen full of faceless baddies and an earful of cheesy, pulse-pounding electronic music.
LOW The hour-long final stage.
WTF Do we really need to see the same unskippable cut-scene every time a spell is cast?
HIGH The eureka moment, not in discovering the solution to a puzzle, but in discovering the solution to approaching the game itself.
LOW The early hours with the game, where each uneventful hour felt like an eternity.
WTF I still can't figure out how to say "this game feels like a 10 dollar downloadable" without it coming off like an insult.
HIGH Ping-ponging a room full of enemies with a combination of spell and scythe, and watching them all meet their grisly fate simultaneously, tangled in the vines of Mag Mell's Rose.
LOW Getting knocked down a hole after failing a boss QTE 20 times.
WTF For being upset at having to execute all of her sisters, Gretchen sure seems to love making a graphic display of their demise.
HIGH Pinning down a hostile invader with a small army of machine gun equipped robo-monkeys.
LOW Having to take out entire waves of enemies solo because my entourage was intent on trying to shoot through walls.
WTF Businessmen with machine guns, construction workers with sniper rifles; apparently Mindjack takes place in an NRA wet dream.