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Just read news that Mirror's edge 2 has been cancelled in development. I couldn't believe it. I was looking forwadrd to a sequel. Especially since DICE has a new engine to show off. Full article here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/news/mirror-s-edge-2-cancelled/3006
Didn't like the first game. Don't really like first-person view.
That's sad news. Kind of saw this coming though.
okay tc here.. like a roll up the rim cup lip or 89% of att scratch & win cards
"sorry please try again"
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6298858.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B4
the cancellation was just the old rumormill down at destructoid working over time.. gameinformer and gamespot both agree its a delay.
I have yet to play the first one but it's always a bad thing when potentially good games get cancelled. Especially games or sequels to games that had atleast a breath of originality.
okay tc here.. like a roll up the rim cup lip or 89% of att scratch & win cards
"sorry please try again"
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6298858.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B4
the cancellation was just the old rumormill down at destructoid working over time.. gameinformer and gamespot both agree its a delay.
ionusX
I saw these afterwards, Im glad its just a delay and not a full on cancellation. But I wrote it like that because it was written like that in the link I provided
That's a pitty.
I was praising EA just yesterday for going with the ME sequel despite the poor sales of the first, and now EA's gone and done this.
I was praising EA just yesterday for going with the ME sequel despite the poor sales of the first, and now EA's gone and done this.
S0lidSnake
Mirror's Edge sold horribly. Why release a sequel to a game very, very few people were interested in? EA should be commended for funding a genuinely innovative first person game, even if they didn't fund a sequel.
IMHO, the mark of a good publisher isn't the willingness to throw good money after bad, butthe willingness to take chances on new ideas and make sequels which make meaningful improvements on the game they came before.
Mirror's Edge had a lot going for it, but it was majorly let down in two respects: The terrible decision to include gunplay, and the even worse decision to force you to takedown a group of heavily armed soliders numerous times, instead of just being able to run past them. I personally had great fun with the freerunning, parkour aspects of Mirror's Edge, but it got to a point where it was impossible to progress further because I was constantly dying in a hailstorm of bullets. Mirror's Edge 2 would have had to make some important changes to work past these issues.
Gotta make that money mang, gotta sellout, always inevitable, if only we had smaller studios who pick up and distribute games .X360PS3AMD05
Smaller publishers are at least as failure adverse as big publishers because one failure is all it takes to sink them.
[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]
I was praising EA just yesterday for going with the ME sequel despite the poor sales of the first, and now EA's gone and done this.
CarnageHeart
Mirror's Edge sold horribly. Why release a sequel to a game very, very few people were interested in? EA should be commended for funding a genuinely innovative first person game, even if they didn't fund a sequel.
IMHO, the mark of a good publisher isn't the willingness to throw good money after bad, butthe willingness to take chances on new ideas and make sequels which make meaningful improvements on the game they came before.
While I agree with you, I do believe that a Mirror's Edge sequel could've been something special. ME1 had some issues, but none that couldn't have been fixed in the sequel. U1 sold a little over 100K copies in its first month, sure it was a slow but steady seller but Sony greenlighted the sequel almost rightaway. Same with the Ratchet game that year, i remember it sold 79K copies in its first month but Insomniac and Sony saw potential and went ahead with the sequel.
For the record, Dead Space sold just as bad. so why do we get a Dead Space sequel and not Mirror's Edge? The only difference i see is the critical reception. DS had a 89 score on Metacrtic while ME has 79.
P.S I blame EA squarely for the way ME1 turned out. You cant release a 6 hour single player game with terrible production values (those Esurance cutscenes still give me nightmares) and no multiplayer for a full 60 bucks in Q4 and expect it to sell well. The cutscenes especially were a EA thing, they simply didnt believe in the game to budget some decent motion capture for the game.
The first game was meh... it wasn't bad, but it didn't hold my interest very long...
As for this cancellation... it was not a profitable franchise... thats what happens and sometimes it sucks(Xenoaga getting cut from 6 games to 3 for example)
My sources say it wasn't cancelled, rather put on hold since the early version they showed EA was rejected and to let dice work on Battlefield 3. After they're done with the obligatory cookie cutter shooter they can go back to work on the unique game we're waiting for. All is not lost
http://www.1up.com/news/mirrors-edge-2-development-stopped
Well its not for sure cancelled. I did enjoy the first one.
Mirror's Edge had a lot going for it, but it was majorly let down in two respects: The terrible decision to include gunplay, and the even worse decision to force you to takedown a group of heavily armed soliders numerous times, instead of just being able to run past them. I personally had great fun with the freerunning, parkour aspects of Mirror's Edge, but it got to a point where it was impossible to progress further because I was constantly dying in a hailstorm of bullets. Mirror's Edge 2 would have had to make some important changes to work past these issues.
gbrading
This was the main thing causing me to not have any interest in the game.
This is why I say devs know how to write gamecode, but they've forgotten how to game.:P
Oh EA.....:(
[QUOTE="gbrading"]
Mirror's Edge had a lot going for it, but it was majorly let down in two respects: The terrible decision to include gunplay, and the even worse decision to force you to takedown a group of heavily armed soliders numerous times, instead of just being able to run past them. I personally had great fun with the freerunning, parkour aspects of Mirror's Edge, but it got to a point where it was impossible to progress further because I was constantly dying in a hailstorm of bullets. Mirror's Edge 2 would have had to make some important changes to work past these issues.
topsemag55
This was the main thing causing me to not have any interest in the game.
This is why I say devs know how to write gamecode, but they've forgotten how to game.:P
That's not the game's fault. It was a challenge that you could overcome provided you grew skilled at the game. It's one of those zen-like moments where everything slows down and you're dodging and disarming with precision. It's a throw back to the old school gaming where we played hard parts over and over again until we got it right.
[QUOTE="topsemag55"][QUOTE="gbrading"]
Mirror's Edge had a lot going for it, but it was majorly let down in two respects: The terrible decision to include gunplay, and the even worse decision to force you to takedown a group of heavily armed soliders numerous times, instead of just being able to run past them. I personally had great fun with the freerunning, parkour aspects of Mirror's Edge, but it got to a point where it was impossible to progress further because I was constantly dying in a hailstorm of bullets. Mirror's Edge 2 would have had to make some important changes to work past these issues.
JustPlainLucas
This was the main thing causing me to not have any interest in the game.
This is why I say devs know how to write gamecode, but they've forgotten how to game.:P
That's not the game's fault. It was a challenge that you could overcome provided you grew skilled at the game. It's one of those zen-like moments where everything slows down and you're dodging and disarming with precision. It's a throw back to the old school gaming where we played hard parts over and over again until we got it right.I got a lot of what you said from the two Drakensang WRPGs. I finished the second at Level 11, because a lot of side-quests were puzzles that were short on description and much too time consuming. Trial-and-error becomes boring fast (especially if each try is taking away some of your health).:o
It took me 30 minutes of judicious tactics to survive the final boss battle.
That's not the game's fault. It was a challenge that you could overcome provided you grew skilled at the game. It's one of those zen-like moments where everything slows down and you're dodging and disarming with precision. It's a throw back to the old school gaming where we played hard parts over and over again until we got it right. JustPlainLucas
Gotta disagree. Game flaws were the problem, not lazy gamers.
Imo the main problem was that the developers went half in and half out when giving Faith the ability to elude her pursuers = she doesn't just run, she fights. But to prevent people from relying on fighting they gimped her ability to fight (very low health, one-use guns). They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Personally, I found that Faith's fragile state of health encouraged me to fight and use guns more than I normally would have because I got tired of her getting shot in the back so I would eventually resort to just killing/KO'ing all the guards in the area – which allowed me to get through, but ruined the pacing that the developers were trying to create in those area.
Getting through the choke points in the game definitely did not throw me into any zen like states. And this is from a person who loves trial and error games – one of my favorite PS2 games was Siren and I played through it 100%. Obviously, I can take a lot of frustration in my trial and error games. But when I played ME I often found myself wondering, is this challenging or just unnecessarily frustrating? Bottom line, Mirror's Edge was definitely a good game, but it was also definitely a flawed game.
Well, I disagree with your disagreement. :) I actually ended up beating the game on Hard, and if I died, it was because it was my fault for not being quick enough. Oh, and the only time I fired a gun was to see what it felt like. The game is actually better if you DON'T use the guns. And Faith isn't meant to take a barrage of bullets. She's not a fighter. She's a runner. The game cannot be more clear than that. You die quickly, because you're supposed to always be moving.Gotta disagree. Game flaws were the problem, not lazy gamers.
Imo the main problem was that the developers went half in and half out when giving Faith the ability to elude her pursuers = she doesn't just run, she fights. But to prevent people from relying on fighting they gimped her ability to fight (very low health, one-use guns). They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Personally, I found that Faith's fragile state of health encouraged me to fight and use guns more than I normally would have because I got tired of her getting shot in the back so I would eventually resort to just killing/KO'ing all the guards in the area – which allowed me to get through, but ruined the pacing that the developers were trying to create in those area.
Getting through the choke points in the game definitely did not throw me into any zen like states. And this is from a person who loves trial and error games – one of my favorite PS2 games was Siren and I played through it 100%. Obviously, I can take a lot of frustration in my trial and error games. But when I played ME I often found myself wondering, is this challenging or just unnecessarily frustrating? Bottom line, Mirror's Edge was definitely a good game, but it was also definitely a flawed game.
Solori
Oh thank Jaga. I was worried there for a while... tempted to rage and throw my netbook.okay tc here.. like a roll up the rim cup lip or 89% of att scratch & win cards
"sorry please try again"
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6298858.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B4
the cancellation was just the old rumormill down at destructoid working over time.. gameinformer and gamespot both agree its a delay.
ionusX
Well, I disagree with your disagreement. :) I actually ended up beating the game on Hard, and if I died, it was because it was my fault for not being quick enough. Oh, and the only time I fired a gun was to see what it felt like. The game is actually better if you DON'T use the guns. And Faith isn't meant to take a barrage of bullets. She's not a fighter. She's a runner. The game cannot be more clear than that. You die quickly, because you're supposed to always be moving. JustPlainLucas
[QUOTE="CarnageHeart"]
[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]
I was praising EA just yesterday for going with the ME sequel despite the poor sales of the first, and now EA's gone and done this.
S0lidSnake
Mirror's Edge sold horribly. Why release a sequel to a game very, very few people were interested in? EA should be commended for funding a genuinely innovative first person game, even if they didn't fund a sequel.
IMHO, the mark of a good publisher isn't the willingness to throw good money after bad, butthe willingness to take chances on new ideas and make sequels which make meaningful improvements on the game they came before.
While I agree with you, I do believe that a Mirror's Edge sequel could've been something special. ME1 had some issues, but none that couldn't have been fixed in the sequel. U1 sold a little over 100K copies in its first month, sure it was a slow but steady seller but Sony greenlighted the sequel almost rightaway. Same with the Ratchet game that year, i remember it sold 79K copies in its first month but Insomniac and Sony saw potential and went ahead with the sequel.
For the record, Dead Space sold just as bad. so why do we get a Dead Space sequel and not Mirror's Edge? The only difference i see is the critical reception. DS had a 89 score on Metacrtic while ME has 79.
P.S I blame EA squarely for the way ME1 turned out. You cant release a 6 hour single player game with terrible production values (those Esurance cutscenes still give me nightmares) and no multiplayer for a full 60 bucks in Q4 and expect it to sell well. The cutscenes especially were a EA thing, they simply didnt believe in the game to budget some decent motion capture for the game.
Its worth bearing in mind that as Sony (in response to a questions about why they didn't dissolve Team Ico after Ico's horrendous sales) first parties can focus on game sales a little less than third parties because they get a percentage of every game sold. Third parties live or die based on software sales alone.
*Shrugs* Perhaps the Metacritic score of ME did play a role (I know some publishers tie a team's bonuses to review ratings, which I personally think is horrible, but that's a discussion for another time) though its worth nothing that the strong sales of RE5 meant there could be little doubt about the existence of a market for gory action games, while due to the fact ME had no counterparts, it was still up in the air if there was a market for first person parkour games.
Also, I noticed in a prior thread you tend to blame publishers for game design decisions which you dislike, but IMHO most of the time those errors are made by designers, not publishers. On that note, in interviews the ME design team stated they went with the cutscenes they went with because they wanted their game to look different so it wasn't something forced upon the team by a publisher who sought to cut corners.
-------
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3843/the_philosophy_of_faith_a_.php?print=1
You were saying that the cutscenes are not in the engine.
NC: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's basically sort-of a 2D animated sequence -- cartoon animated, that's the easiest way to describe it. We released the trailers actually on the internet -- and again, it was to give a contrast.
The game is a lot about contrast, you know, contrast in the different levels, and it was really to make them stand out. We wanted people to take notice; we wanted people to look at the story, and understand the story, because that's very important to us. We feel that you have a much stronger experience if you understand why, as you progress, and things change, and there are twists and turns.
It's a sad day for me. I got all of the achievements from ME1 and love every single minute of it. IMO it's one of the top new IP of this generation.
Some of you write that she was too fragile, could used only one gun with extremely limited ammo. Well - she was designed to be a courier not a killing machine. Speed and agility were her advantages.
It's a VERY sad day. I was so looking forward to a next installment. They want to put more time into Battlefield 3. It's like they are copying Activision, they took down guitar hero to spend more money on COD. This just sucks. :(It's a sad day for me. I got all of the achievements from ME1 and love every single minute of it. IMO it's one of the top new IP of this generation.
Some of you write that she was too fragile, could used only one gun with extremely limited ammo. Well - she was designed to be a courier not a killing machine. Speed and agility were her advantages.
shinian
[QUOTE="Solori"]Well, I disagree with your disagreement. :) I actually ended up beating the game on Hard, and if I died, it was because it was my fault for not being quick enough. Oh, and the only time I fired a gun was to see what it felt like. The game is actually better if you DON'T use the guns. And Faith isn't meant to take a barrage of bullets. She's not a fighter. She's a runner. The game cannot be more clear than that. You die quickly, because you're supposed to always be moving.Gotta disagree. Game flaws were the problem, not lazy gamers.
Imo the main problem was that the developers went half in and half out when giving Faith the ability to elude her pursuers = she doesn't just run, she fights. But to prevent people from relying on fighting they gimped her ability to fight (very low health, one-use guns). They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Personally, I found that Faith's fragile state of health encouraged me to fight and use guns more than I normally would have because I got tired of her getting shot in the back so I would eventually resort to just killing/KO'ing all the guards in the area – which allowed me to get through, but ruined the pacing that the developers were trying to create in those area.
Getting through the choke points in the game definitely did not throw me into any zen like states. And this is from a person who loves trial and error games – one of my favorite PS2 games was Siren and I played through it 100%. Obviously, I can take a lot of frustration in my trial and error games. But when I played ME I often found myself wondering, is this challenging or just unnecessarily frustrating? Bottom line, Mirror's Edge was definitely a good game, but it was also definitely a flawed game.
JustPlainLucas
I can see your point, and there were numerous points where I tried to simply run, keep moving and avoid the soliders, but there were several levels where, in order to progress, I had to run towards a dozen heavily armed policemen. Simply running past them was impossible because I'd die faster than the speed of light. So I had no option but to try and melee them or disarm them and shoot them. And for me, this completely broke the flow of the game. As much as I wanted to run past, I knew that it would be impossible to get away unless I dealt with the bad guys.
I feel that this is a design flaw within the game, and not just my poor skill (although I admit, I'm not very good :P). For example, I don't feel the same thing about Super Meat Boy. That game was designed by the Devil yes, and damn it for it's impossible difficulty, but it's a game where the player is the only one who makes the mistakes. If you mess up, it was because you weren't fast enough. And for that reason, as much as I hate Super Meat Boy, I can't help but love it as well. :)
Mirror's Edge on the other hand I certainly admire for its innovation and how remarkably engaging the first-person platforming was, but I think it could have been a better game if combat was entirely eliminated.
I have yet to see any official statement saying it is "cancelled." It has always been merely a "brain-child" in the minds of a few DICE employees, it was never an official product being made for release.
I have confidence that it could still be made (and should be), even if it is EA. The potential for a hugely good game is there, as the first one was already hugely good despite its rough edges... and there has been nothing else like it this gen. The first game, I remember, sold enough to please EA (I recall seeing articles about them being happy with sales, and giving the green light to start thinking about a sequel) so I'm not sure where all this rumour-mill stuff is coming from.
EA probably want to release the game with a bald headed bulky guy who looks like he bench presses in 3 hour sessions every other evening and speaks in a "man on the edge" voice. The game will come out but disguised and it will be renamed something like "Gun runner!"
Edit: The white clean city will be replaced by shades of grey in a grotty urban setting.
Well, the odd thing to me is that the game became easier for me when I played it on hard because I knew how to handle those situations the second go around. It meant I got better, and I certainly don't view that as a design flaw. I actually enjoyed some of the forced combat (melees and disarms, not shooting mind you) because when you could do it, it flowed like water. It was an exhilarating experience.I can see your point, and there were numerous points where I tried to simply run, keep moving and avoid the soliders, but there were several levels where, in order to progress, I had to run towards a dozen heavily armed policemen. Simply running past them was impossible because I'd die faster than the speed of light. So I had no option but to try and melee them or disarm them and shoot them. And for me, this completely broke the flow of the game. As much as I wanted to run past, I knew that it would be impossible to get away unless I dealt with the bad guys.
I feel that this is a design flaw within the game, and not just my poor skill (although I admit, I'm not very good :P). For example, I don't feel the same thing about Super Meat Boy. That game was designed by the Devil yes, and damn it for it's impossible difficulty, but it's a game where the player is the only one who makes the mistakes. If you mess up, it was because you weren't fast enough. And for that reason, as much as I hate Super Meat Boy, I can't help but love it as well. :)
Mirror's Edge on the other hand I certainly admire for its innovation and how remarkably engaging the first-person platforming was, but I think it could have been a better game if combat was entirely eliminated.
gbrading
Well, I disagree with your disagreement. :) I actually ended up beating the game on Hard, and if I died, it was because it was my fault for not being quick enough. Oh, and the only time I fired a gun was to see what it felt like. The game is actually better if you DON'T use the guns. And Faith isn't meant to take a barrage of bullets. She's not a fighter. She's a runner. The game cannot be more clear than that. You die quickly, because you're supposed to always be moving. JustPlainLucas
I disagree with your disagreement of my disagreement. :)
I played the game a long time ago but I still remember one part in particular where Faith had to make her way up to scaffolding that was at the top of a large multi-leveled round open area and run across the room while being shot at from all sides/levels to escape the room. This was an area where it was impossible to take out all the guards because they spawned at various levels below faith when she reached certain points at the top of the room. The path that Faith had to take was very linear. The only thing that prevented Faith from reaching her goal was whether or not she was randomly shot in the back while running across the top of the room. This was dependent on small differences in where the AI spawned when they were triggered = luck not skill. When I got shot in the back I knew I had died a random death. When I made it across the room, I knew that I had just gotten lucky that the AI had not spawned in a one shot kill angle.
Definitely the game was better when you didn't use guns. That was the big design flaw here, the developers shouldn't have put in the gunplay. Obviously, they felt they needed to compete with the shooters out there by having shooting in their game. They should have focused only on the running instead of splitting their focus.
Anyway, its good to hear that the news of cancellation was wrong, and there is still a chance that a sequel will be made. Even though the game had its flaws, it was fun. I would love to see a sequel where they focused only on the running and just gave up on the gunplay.
Its worth bearing in mind that as Sony (in response to a questions about why they didn't dissolve Team Ico after Ico's horrendous sales) first parties can focus on game sales a little less than third parties because they get a percentage of every game sold. Third parties live or die based on software sales alone.
*Shrugs* Perhaps the Metacritic score of ME did play a role (I know some publishers tie a team's bonuses to review ratings, which I personally think is horrible, but that's a discussion for another time) though its worth nothing that the strong sales of RE5 meant there could be little doubt about the existence of a market for gory action games, while due to the fact ME had no counterparts, it was still up in the air if there was a market for first person parkour games.
Also, I noticed in a prior thread you tend to blame publishers for game design decisions which you dislike, but IMHO most of the time those errors are made by designers, not publishers. On that note, in interviews the ME design team stated they went with the cutscenes they went with because they wanted their game to look different so it wasn't something forced upon the team by a publisher who sought to cut corners.
-------
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3843/the_philosophy_of_faith_a_.php?print=1
You were saying that the cutscenes are not in the engine.
NC: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's basically sort-of a 2D animated sequence -- cartoon animated, that's the easiest way to describe it. We released the trailers actually on the internet -- and again, it was to give a contrast.
The game is a lot about contrast, you know, contrast in the different levels, and it was really to make them stand out. We wanted people to take notice; we wanted people to look at the story, and understand the story, because that's very important to us. We feel that you have a much stronger experience if you understand why, as you progress, and things change, and there are twists and turns.
CarnageHeart
I believe having cartoons instead of actual motion capture is a cheap way of doing things (financially speaking but in ME's case it was also a poor choice), and I figured (incorrectly as your link points out) that EA wouldnt give them a decent enough budget to make Uncharted or Heavenly Sword esque cutscenes.
The reason why I blame EA or Sony is not because they are just publishers, it's because they own these studios and are directly involved in at least the planning stages of the game. DICE is owned by EA, if EA doesnt front the bill, DICE cant make Mirror's Edge 2. Now something like Mass Effect is different. Here EA is just a publisher for a Bioware game, they have no say in the development.
A perfect example of a publisher interfering in the design/development process would be Sony mandating 3D and Move capability in Killzone 3. You can read the lead designer's interview on Eurogamer and he clearly says that they ran out of time and resources. It is obvious that some guy in a suit up in Sony headquarters decided its flagship franchise should have 3D and Move over online coop, and the developers had no choice but to do so.
I agree that it's easy for a first part publisher like Sony to suck up losses unlike EA, in retrospect, I shouldn't have made the Uncharted and Ratchet comparison.
Is Mirrors Edge really that good?? I have the game in my collection gave it a whirl for about 10 min and then put it down and played something else and have never touched the game again. The way you guys are talking about it i am thinking about giving it another shot
God I really hope we dont see anything like this. A good joke as long as it stays just that...a joke. I really want to see a sequel to this game and I hope it retains all that made the first one so great. I also guess im in the minority here who thought the combat system was perfect the way it was.EA probably want to release the game with a bald headed bulky guy who looks like he bench presses in 3 hour sessions every other evening and speaks in a "man on the edge" voice. The game will come out but disguised and it will be renamed something like "Gun runner!"
Edit: The white clean city will be replaced by shades of grey in a grotty urban setting.
Evil_Saluki
I remember all too well that particular segment, but I don't remember randomly spawning enemies. I also remember, though, passing that segment on my first try in Hard, so I'm inclined to think that once I knew how to get past that part, I was able to do it again with no problem. \I disagree with your disagreement of my disagreement. :)
I played the game a long time ago but I still remember one part in particular where Faith had to make her way up to scaffolding that was at the top of a large multi-leveled round open area and run across the room while being shot at from all sides/levels to escape the room. This was an area where it was impossible to take out all the guards because they spawned at various levels below faith when she reached certain points at the top of the room. The path that Faith had to take was very linear. The only thing that prevented Faith from reaching her goal was whether or not she was randomly shot in the back while running across the top of the room. This was dependent on small differences in where the AI spawned when they were triggered = luck not skill. When I got shot in the back I knew I had died a random death. When I made it across the room, I knew that I had just gotten lucky that the AI had not spawned in a one shot kill angle.
Definitely the game was better when you didn't use guns. That was the big design flaw here, the developers shouldn't have put in the gunplay. Obviously, they felt they needed to compete with the shooters out there by having shooting in their game. They should have focused only on the running instead of splitting their focus.
Anyway, its good to hear that the news of cancellation was wrong, and there is still a chance that a sequel will be made. Even though the game had its flaws, it was fun. I would love to see a sequel where they focused only on the running and just gave up on the gunplay.
Solori
Give it another go. Try not to play it as a shooter.Is Mirrors Edge really that good?? I have the game in my collection gave it a whirl for about 10 min and then put it down and played something else and have never touched the game again. The way you guys are talking about it i am thinking about giving it another shot
Jacen22
[QUOTE="CarnageHeart"]
Its worth bearing in mind that as Sony (in response to a questions about why they didn't dissolve Team Ico after Ico's horrendous sales) first parties can focus on game sales a little less than third parties because they get a percentage of every game sold. Third parties live or die based on software sales alone.
*Shrugs* Perhaps the Metacritic score of ME did play a role (I know some publishers tie a team's bonuses to review ratings, which I personally think is horrible, but that's a discussion for another time) though its worth nothing that the strong sales of RE5 meant there could be little doubt about the existence of a market for gory action games, while due to the fact ME had no counterparts, it was still up in the air if there was a market for first person parkour games.
Also, I noticed in a prior thread you tend to blame publishers for game design decisions which you dislike, but IMHO most of the time those errors are made by designers, not publishers. On that note, in interviews the ME design team stated they went with the cutscenes they went with because they wanted their game to look different so it wasn't something forced upon the team by a publisher who sought to cut corners.
-------
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3843/the_philosophy_of_faith_a_.php?print=1
You were saying that the cutscenes are not in the engine.
NC: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's basically sort-of a 2D animated sequence -- cartoon animated, that's the easiest way to describe it. We released the trailers actually on the internet -- and again, it was to give a contrast.
The game is a lot about contrast, you know, contrast in the different levels, and it was really to make them stand out. We wanted people to take notice; we wanted people to look at the story, and understand the story, because that's very important to us. We feel that you have a much stronger experience if you understand why, as you progress, and things change, and there are twists and turns.
S0lidSnake
I believe having cartoons instead of actual motion capture is a cheap way of doing things (financially speaking but in ME's case it was also a poor choice), and I figured (incorrectly as your link points out) that EA wouldnt give them a decent enough budget to make Uncharted or Heavenly Sword esque cutscenes.
The reason why I blame EA or Sony is not because they are just publishers, it's because they own these studios and are directly involved in at least the planning stages of the game. DICE is owned by EA, if EA doesnt front the bill, DICE cant make Mirror's Edge 2. Now something like Mass Effect is different. Here EA is just a publisher for a Bioware game, they have no say in the development.
A perfect example of a publisher interfering in the design/development process would be Sony mandating 3D and Move capability in Killzone 3. You can read the lead designer's interview on Eurogamer and he clearly says that they ran out of time and resources. It is obvious that some guy in a suit up in Sony headquarters decided its flagship franchise should have 3D and Move over online coop, and the developers had no choice but to do so.
I agree that it's easy for a first part publisher like Sony to suck up losses unlike EA, in retrospect, I shouldn't have made the Uncharted and Ratchet comparison.
You didn't provide a link, but the first Eurogamer KZ3 interview that came up on google indicated that 3D was the designer's choice and that they were kicking around Move support. I found two other interviews, but in none of them did Guerilla claim that 3D and Move weren't its idea.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/killzone-3-interview?page=2
Eurogamer: Was 3D always part of the plan?
Steven Ter Heide: Absolutely. The first thing we looked at was whether it was just a gimmick or if it would actually offer something different. So we implemented it and looked at it, and for me, I can't go back. We know it's not going to be for everyone, because not everyone's going to have a 3D set at the time, but I do think that in terms of gameplay it offers something different, something new, because you do have that sense of immersion, you're drawn into that world. You're able to read the gameplay a lot better, for FPS obviously the world is very detailed and there's lots going on so you can look around corners etc. But also for things like racing games, Motorstorm is coming out in 3D, you can read the road a lot better and, something that I never personally liked is being inside the car, but now I can actually inside the car and drive, so I think it really adds to the gameplay as well.
Eurogamer: So talking about immersion, can you tell us anything about Move? Will there be Move aspects to Killzone 3? Is it compatible?
Steven Ter Heide: We really like Move as a platform, but we're not talking about any of that stuff today
I'm not saying they are always on the side of the angels, but judging by most developer's comments Sony and in modern times EA are hands off publishers. That's not always a good thing (sometimes indisciplined developers like Yamaichi need a kick in the butt to keep thing moving along) but if one is working with skilled, disciplined developers, that's a good thing which results in high quality, innovative games rather than a bunch of cookie cutter games which all conform to the publisher's limited vision of good.
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