Simpsons and Conan demo on Xbox Live

[-Young Buck-]

My thoughts.

Simpsons
i thought it was frustrating. Too many krusty dolls coming after you as you fight the boss. I got 2 of 3 panels smashed of the boss. The 3rd i could open but couldnt find a way to jump onto it. he was always too far away.

The graphics were a dissapointment, i thought it would look alot better. Wind Waker looked better and that was on Gamecube! I guess i was just expecting alot more smooth lines.

Camera kept jerking. Sometimes i would look in a direction with the camera and then it would reset to a default view. Which was annoying. Dissapointed in the simpsons demo so far. but ive only played it once.

Conan
just felt like a cheap rip off of the God of War series with a primitive looking Conan. Was he actually releasing Kratos from those wooden cells?

[benji]

Wind Waker looked better and that was on Gamecube!

Art design > technology.

[Glen]

^ i agree with benji, a good example of seamless art designing/directing was 2001's ICO and it's successor the shadow of colossus on the ps2... those two could still fairly hold up a candle against any modern games even though they had some years in them...

thanks for your impressions -Young Buck-, the simpsons always had least success on their video game iterations so i really was kinda expecting their current game to follow the same path... the last time i had fun with a game incorporated to them was the arcade game...

[benji]

YES. Ico = the hottness. Everything is pretty close to perfect with that game except for the US not getting the complete version.



The thing is, after GTA, Ico is probably the most influential game of the last generation. Kojima, Aonuma, both Jaffe and Balrog, the guy who relaunched Prince of Persia, all of them have been inspired by the game and it has shown.

That's enough thread hijacking for now.

[Donatello]

I remember having fun with Virtual Bart on SNES.

[Glen]

right on the money benji, they not only gave inspiration to other A list games but also spawned hordes and hordes of failed clones...

[benji]

Well, I think most of the good developers have used it to make their games better. God of War clearly uses Ico inspiration, so does the latest Zelda games, and they are better for it in terms of displaying grand epic views. Ico (and Colossus) have shown developers that sometimes "simple" gameplay can be the deepest and most rewarding. (Hmm...maybe I should make a different topic for this.)

This Simpsons game was sounding so great, the trailers have been fantastic. But everyone seems to be bashing the demo since it came out on PSN. Lots of people complaining about motion sickness because the cell shading and camera combo is a fail.

[Andrew]

I thought fighting Lard Lad was a bit more complicated than it needed to be. The first panel was simple but the second was a little difficult unless you managed to stop him close enough to a means of getting up high enough to reach the panel and the third was even tougher; the camera movements didn't make things much easier either. However, I like the concept and the fact that it's animated in a way that resembles the actual show; I haven't really cared for the 3D models in previous games.