411 Games Fact or Fiction 7.27.09: Shadow Complex, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Left 4 Dead 2, More

Posted by Drew Robbins on 07.27.2009

This week in Fact or Fiction, Rod Oracheski and Drew Robbins discuss their most anticipated game from "Summer of Arcade," whether or not they believer Ubisoft's excuse for leaving Conviction off of the PS3, and Left 4 Dead 2 is worth the uproar it has caused.



Greetings, my faithful chumps and chumpettes, and welcome to another week of 411 Games Fact or Fiction. I've been kind enough to fade into the background for the past few weeks here, but this week I'll be battling off the only man on 411 who constantly defeats my arguments, Rod Oracheski.

Of course…I chose to jump in on a pretty lousy news week. Regardless, lets get this show on the road!

Drew Robbins - Yes, it's me, your wonderful host and guide through this crazy column known as Fact or Fiction. This is…pretty much all I do for the Games zone, outside of the occasional review contribution. My most recent reviews took a look at Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits and Grand Slam Tennis, one of these being fairly mediocre and the other being pretty good. However, this week (and next week?), I'll be taking over B3yond the Report while Mark is touring the world with Shaq.

Rod Oracheski - Remember that kid who always got all of the latest and greatest games/toys before everyone else in the class? Well that is the gist of Rod, a man who is already playing God of War 4 and thoroughly enjoying Final Fantasy XIII. Oh wait, who am I kidding, that game will never come out! When he isn't getting more free stuff then one could shake a stick at, he is putting together Achievement Unlocked, your weekly update on all things…well its mostly just about Xbox in general these days but you can't blame the man, achievements are becoming increasingly similar and generic.

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1.) Shadow Complex is your most anticipated game of Summer of Arcade.

Drew Robbins: FICTION - I'll admit, when I was sitting through Microsoft's E3 conference, Shadow Complex shocked the hell out of me. An experience like that, downloadable, and only $15? Sweet! But my heart belongs to another game on Live Arcade. No, it's not the awesomely named Splosion Man, nor is it Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is, as you have hopefully guessed by now, the Turtles in Time remake.

I'm not disillusioned enough to think that it will be a better game than Shadow Complex, but you must understand, this is the Ninja Turtles. A sacred brand that made my childhood awesome, and consistently delights me whenever I feel like pulling out the Genesis and playing some Hyperstone Heist. Honestly, they had me when I heard that Turtles in Time was coming to the service, so when they revealed that it was going to change things up graphically, that just sweetened the deal.

Rod Oracheski: FACT - I'm loving 'Splosion Man but there's no doubt Shadow Complex has the potential to be the best Arcade game released this year - even with the reservations I talked about in this week's Achievement Unlocked. I like the old school 'every room's a puzzle' sidescrollers, and if this one is done right it's going to suck up a lot of my time.

It's kind of funny, but the Turtles in Time remake is the only game (okay, maybe also the Trials HD one) that I think seems overpriced. That's killed my anticipation for it a lot, though I'll probably still get it.

Score: 0 for 1 Yeah, $15 is a bit much for TMNT, but I'm a fanboy for the old arcade beat-em-ups.

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2.) You buy Ubisoft's excuse for Splinter Cell: Conviction's exclusivity.

Drew Robbins: FICTION - It's been an interesting fallout from E3 to watch Ubisoft constantly defend why exactly Conviction will never see the light of day on the PS3. The reasoning has been that most people associate a game with a console, and that Splinter Cell has always been an Xbox experience. I buy that part, there are certainly some multi-platform games that I associate with a console. For example, the Call of Duty franchise. Even though it is released on every console, it just feels like an Xbox experience.

However, despite Bobby Kotick's recent statements, Call of Duty is still a franchise that releases each year on most systems. They don't choose to ignore an entire segment of their market in favor of one console that they believe most people associate it with. I think that there is reason to believe that money changed hands somewhere along the line, but I doubt we'll hear anything about it.

Rod Oracheski: FACT - I'd have said fiction if the sales of Splinter Cell had been anything but dismal on PlayStation hardware in the past. Double Agent didn't sell on the PS3, generating less than 250,000 sales. Okay, maybe that's the install base - but Chaos Theory didn't sell well on the PS2 either, and the install base there really wasn't an issue at all.

I don't doubt Microsoft and Ubisoft have some kind of deal here, whether timed or permanent, but the greater issue is always the 'would it be worth porting across?' conundrum - and PlayStation owners just aren't making that a tough question to answer. If Ubisoft was only counting on getting, for example, 500,000 sales on the PS3 and they believe a Microsoft-backed advertising push can get them that on the Xbox 360, without incurring costs to port the game, why wouldn't they go for that?

Score: 0 for 2

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3.) The Left 4 Dead 2 "controversy" is ridiculous and needs to fade out of existence, quickly!

Drew Robbins: FACT - You know what was great? Left 4 Dead. It was a game that was just plain fun, and seemingly everyone enjoyed it. Left 4 Dead 2? Its not out, but right now, a lot of people are saying that they refuse to enjoy it, simply because Valve is releasing it only a year separated from the original. These petitioners need to understand just exactly what they are getting here. Included in L4D2 is five new campaigns, a new multiplayer mode, melee weapons, and new infected. I can pretty safely assume that Valve wouldn't release that much content via DLC.

This whole scenario is like the obligatory "funny teacher" that you used to have in school. Everyone loves that guy, until he stops telling jokes and starts teaching you about algebra. I'm going to assume that everybody loves Valve (at the very least, you should) when they are releasing their games which come out few and far between, but when they make a logical decision to release a sequel based on the great success of the original game? Fuck that shit; let's go sign an online petition!

Rod Oracheski: FACT - I can't believe a great game is getting a sequel! HOW DARE THEY! I've talked about this in the past - whiny gamers that feel an overblown sense of entitlement need to get a reality check. This has shown exactly how fickle gamers are, though. Valve went from being the greatest developer on the planet to public enemy number one with just one game announcement.

All the guys on the 'Boycott L4D2' petition can join the 'Boycott Fallout 3' idiots in a third group - 'Missed Out On Great Games.'

Score: 1 for 3



Switch!

4.) You are very interested in Behemoth's (Castle Crashers, Alien Hominid) next game, appropriately titled "Game 3."

Rod Oracheski: FACT - I guess I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic. So far I'm 50/50 on their games - I really liked Castle Crashers, but not that fond of Alien Hominid. Maybe they'll continue to trend more towards my tastes and I'll be a huge fan of "Game 3" even though the early footage hasn't won me over. It doesn't help that the first comparison I heard about it was Super Smash Bros, but the game seems to play at a much more sedate pace - more like a competitive Bubble Bobble.

Drew Robbins: FICTION - Usually when I get my first glimpse of their games it elicits a fond reaction. When I first saw Castle Crashers, the only thing running through my mind was "heck yeah…this is awesome!" Same for Alien Hominid, being the huge Metal Slug fan I am. But when I watched the trailer for this, the feeling running through my mind was a resounding "ehhh."

Like Rod said, it's being compared to Smash Bros., which is one of my main beefs. I love Smash Bros. as much, if not more, than the next guy, but if I want to play a game like that, I want to play it with my favorite Nintendo characters. I don't want to be jumping around as tiny characters that look like they are from a flash game, I want to kick ass as Luigi. Of course, the game probably has a while left in development, and I'll hold my breath to see if the alternate game-types impress me.

Score: 1 for 4

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5.) It fills you with joy to see that the Monkey Island series is once again relevant.

Rod Oracheski: FACT - I think it's awesome to see these kind of classic games hit a new audience and hopefully Monkey Island does well enough to green-light some others. Space Quest? Maniac Mansion? Dare we dream...Day of the Tentacle? Maybe we could even see The Bard's Tale reappear once again. These are the perfect kind of games to bring back from the grave. Action games, adventure games, roleplaying games - none of them age particularly well. A funny point and click game though? Well-written humour translates across the years pretty well.

Drew Robbins: FACT - The world could use some more adventure games. Seeing Sam & Max and Strong Bad being generally successful as episodic adventures, it made me hopeful that adventure games of old could also capture success in this era. Of course, the only Monkey Island I've ever played was Escape from Monkey Island on the PS2, so this sudden resurgence for the series is a great chance for me to catch up on what I've missed out on.

Now that adventure games seem to be steering back towards relevancy, let's hold out hope that Grim Fandango finds its way to Steam soon. I've wanted to play that game for ages!

Score: 2 for 5

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6.) The spectacular sales of Battlefield 1943 is a sign of good things to come in gaming.

Rod Oracheski: FICTION - Yeah, maybe EA will have their crap together at the launch of their next highly-anticipated game so people can actually PLAY it. I won't hold my breath though.

More seriously, I'm glad 1943 has been popular as it's a fun little game, but I don't know that these kind of bite-sized games are really a sign of good things to come for gaming. Personally I'm a fan of more fleshed-out experiences and consider these kind of games more of a distraction until the Next Big Thing comes along.

One thing that concerns me about the future of 1943 is downloadable content (DLC). Any DLC additions would split the userbase up pretty quickly and there's always the fear that the nickel and diming is going to get taken to the extremes. EA has been pretty bad about it in their recent sports releases (NCAA and Tiger Woods, specifically) so the thought of them going nuts on it with a competitive game like 1943 is disconcerting.

Drew Robbins: FACT - Though I'm not a particularly huge fan of the Battlefield franchise, I was a big fan of the concept behind 1943. I mentioned it in the comments section before, but most games aren't worth that $60 price tag they carry so proudly. It brings me great pain to spend that kind of money on an FPS when for the most part I don't even bother with the single player. Paying $15 to get a multi-player only shooter? Sounds good to me!

With its impressive sales, I'd hope that more companies start releasing big-time games for bargain prices. I agree with Rod that these are usually just distractions to hold us over until the big releases, but I wouldn't mind seeing a few more "distractions" of this nature.

Score: 2 for 6

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Until next time…

So me and Rod finish with an exciting 2 for 6, setting the bar high for next week's slugfest between two 411 Games writers. I'm not going to make any promises, but this newbie named Lee Price put up an entire column dedicated to Banjo-Kazooie, so expect to see him here. Soon! And as I stated above, check out B3yond the Report tomorrow, I'll be taking over for Mark during Shaq's sweet reign of terror over Raw.