PUBLIC MARKS from mrongos with tag gaming

Rockstar has a new game, LA Noire, headed for the PS3 and it looks mighty interesting. “L.A. Noire blends action, detection and complex storytelling and draws players into an open-ended challenge to solve a series of gruesome murders. Set in a perfectly recreated Los Angeles before freeways, with a post-war backdrop of corruption, drugs and jazz, L.A. Noire will truly blend cinema and gaming.”

According to Michael Denny, VP of SCE Worldwide Studios Europe, the ability to personalize, customize, and download extra game content is an essential part of next-gen gaming success. To quote, “We face more than just a console generation transition. An 18-year-old today has never known a world without broadband, mobile phones, or MP3s.” That’s stretching it. This blogger is older than 18, but only by a few years and he can easily recall life without any of those devices. Heck, before 56k even. Life was nice and ignorant. Another interesting quote: “Today’s games are competing for time share even more than cash.” This is actually pretty true. When I, personally, plan on what games to buy, I limit myself to a certain number because of the time they’ll take to beat, not because of their cost. So much time passes that sometimes entire games will go unpurchased because of the length of time put into other games. If anyone watched South Park last night, you’d see that World of Warcraft is pretty much the lord of “time share”, game wise. Finally, “Today’s gamer wants to customise their games to fit their own personality and style and [wants] games to be more interactive than ever before. Today millions of ordinary people have the tools and the role models to become amateur producers… It is the desire to participate and create that becomes the enduring entertainment experience itself.” So there’s another hint at Sony’s home-brew campaign — if only we knew anything about the dang online service! Still, the thought of finally upping those RPG Maker 2003 games for others to enjoy… bliss. Also mentioned was the ability to alter actual games… the best way to think of that is probably The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. Making your own towns, dungeons, etc, and upping them for others to download and enjoy. Good stuff.