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I'm a recent Master's graduate from Caltech with a degree in Chemistry. I'm currently living in Pasadena, CA, with a degree I don't want to use, trying to break into the game industry. I've been reading Destructoid since June of 2006. I'm a huge Nintendo fanboy, though I spend most of my gaming time on the 360 these days. I've got far too many posts on the forum.
I play all types of games except realistic sports games and real-time strategy games. The former because I think they're boring and the latter because I utterly suck at them.
I've got an Examiner page. That place pays based on hits, comments, and subscriptions, so if you like my stuff, go check that out. If you don't like my stuff, go tell me how awful I am over there!
Games I'm currently playing:
Burnout Paradise (360)
Left 4 Dead 2 (360)
Lego Rock Band (360)
Mass Effect (360)
Modern Warfare 2 (360)
ModNation Racers (PS3)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
Games that are on the back burner:
BioShock (360, need to go back and get the Achievements I missed)
Crush (PSP, I never really think to play my PSP)
Culdcept SAGA (360, the battles just take way too long)
Grand Theft Auto IV (360, it just didn't draw me in like the old games)
Mario Kart Wii (Wii, I just never feel like playing its single player)
Rock Band 2 (360, Just missing one Achievement: Endless Setlist without pausing or failing)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, need to complete with Luigi)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, same issue as with Mario Kart)
Games I haven't even touched yet:
Crackdown (360)
de Blob (Wii)
God of War (PS2)
MadWorld (Wii)
Metal Gear Solid 1-3 (PS1, PS2)
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Xbox)
Okami (PS2)
Persona 3: FES (PS2)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (360)
Quantum of Solace (360)
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
Games I have finished 100% during this console generation:
1 vs. 100 (XBLA)
Aegis Wing (XBLA)
Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA)
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (XBLA)
Bomberman Live (XBLA)
Borderlands (360)
Call of Duty 2 (360)
Call of Duty 4 (360)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (XBLA)
Halo 3 (360)
Fable II: Pub Games (XBLA)
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (DS)
Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (XBLA)
Modern Warfare 2 (360)
NEVES (DS)
Omega Five (XBLA)
Pac-Man C.E. (XBLA)
Peggle (XBLA)
Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 (XBLA)
Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 2 (XBLA)
Picross DS (DS)
Picross 3D (DS)
Professor Layton & the Curious Village (DS)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PSN)
Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (XBLA)
Shadow Complex (XBLA)
skate. (360)
Uno (XBLA)
Worms (XBLA)
Promoted Blogs:
The start of the affair: Earthbound
True stories from Destructoid's E3 Intern Bitch 2008
The FEAR: The Red Ring of Death
Untapped potential: motion control
Checking out Halo 3: ODST through the ODST tour
Improving game communities: gaming together
The wrong thing: the procrastinating protagonist
What will be the last game you ever play?
Teh Bias: The Evolution of Dexter's Bias
I play all types of games except realistic sports games and real-time strategy games. The former because I think they're boring and the latter because I utterly suck at them.
I've got an Examiner page. That place pays based on hits, comments, and subscriptions, so if you like my stuff, go check that out. If you don't like my stuff, go tell me how awful I am over there!
Games I'm currently playing:
Burnout Paradise (360)
Left 4 Dead 2 (360)
Lego Rock Band (360)
Mass Effect (360)
Modern Warfare 2 (360)
ModNation Racers (PS3)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
Games that are on the back burner:
BioShock (360, need to go back and get the Achievements I missed)
Crush (PSP, I never really think to play my PSP)
Culdcept SAGA (360, the battles just take way too long)
Grand Theft Auto IV (360, it just didn't draw me in like the old games)
Mario Kart Wii (Wii, I just never feel like playing its single player)
Rock Band 2 (360, Just missing one Achievement: Endless Setlist without pausing or failing)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, need to complete with Luigi)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, same issue as with Mario Kart)
Games I haven't even touched yet:
Crackdown (360)
de Blob (Wii)
God of War (PS2)
MadWorld (Wii)
Metal Gear Solid 1-3 (PS1, PS2)
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Xbox)
Okami (PS2)
Persona 3: FES (PS2)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (360)
Quantum of Solace (360)
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii)
Games I have finished 100% during this console generation:
1 vs. 100 (XBLA)
Aegis Wing (XBLA)
Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA)
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (XBLA)
Bomberman Live (XBLA)
Borderlands (360)
Call of Duty 2 (360)
Call of Duty 4 (360)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (XBLA)
Halo 3 (360)
Fable II: Pub Games (XBLA)
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (DS)
Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (XBLA)
Modern Warfare 2 (360)
NEVES (DS)
Omega Five (XBLA)
Pac-Man C.E. (XBLA)
Peggle (XBLA)
Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 (XBLA)
Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 2 (XBLA)
Picross DS (DS)
Picross 3D (DS)
Professor Layton & the Curious Village (DS)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PSN)
Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (XBLA)
Shadow Complex (XBLA)
skate. (360)
Uno (XBLA)
Worms (XBLA)
Promoted Blogs:
The start of the affair: Earthbound
True stories from Destructoid's E3 Intern Bitch 2008
The FEAR: The Red Ring of Death
Untapped potential: motion control
Checking out Halo 3: ODST through the ODST tour
Improving game communities: gaming together
The wrong thing: the procrastinating protagonist
What will be the last game you ever play?
Teh Bias: The Evolution of Dexter's Bias
Gamer Profile
3DS friend code:
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profil
Battle:
PSN: Dexter345
Mii: 1257 7687 3747 6405
Gamertag: Dexter345
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profil
Battle:
PSN: Dexter345
Mii: 1257 7687 3747 6405
Gamertag: Dexter345
Following (80)
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Yesterday, Grim posted an article about Black Rock Studios saying that the racing genre is dying. I don't disagree, but I can offer an idea as to one of the possible reasons behind it. See that image above? Four different racing games, developed by three different studios. One features ATVs. One revolves around rally racing. One has more traditional street racing. One has not been released yet. The problem? I had to look up all of that information, because off the top of my head, they are all indistinguishable from one another. Somebody, somewhere though it'd be a good idea to give a racing game a curt, four letter title. It's short, it's uncomplicated, and it'll stick in the consumers' minds. Unless, I don't know, all the other racing games out there do the exact same thing. What's worse is that most of them don't really imply racing, and half of them don't really make sense at all. Fuel, I'll concede, makes some sense. It takes fuel to drive a car. Got it. DiRT makes sense if you already know the game is about rally racing, and the box art conveys that just fine, but the title itself could easily be on an ant simulator. But Pure? Pure what? Pure could mean anything. Grid might actually be the worst of the bunch; as it conjures an image of a slow-paced strategy game, rather than the street racing actually involved. When I think of non-Mario Kart racing games, the two that come to mind first are Project Gotham Racing and Forza Motorsport. Now, I can't say much for how much sense either of those two titles make (Project Gotham had me thinking I'd be driving the Batmobile and I don't even know what a Forza is), but at least they let me know what I'm getting into. Racing. Motorsports. All right, got it. And more importantly, the titles can't be confused with one another, or with anything else. So my message to racing game developers is this: please stop with the single-word four-letter titles for your games. I have already ignored these four and I lump them all together in my brain despite that they are all presumably different from one another. What about you guys, have you gotten any of these confused?
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Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Living the dream since March 16, 2006
Dirt, Grid AND Fuel are ALL developed and published by Codemasters. So they might have tried to build up some brand identity by making the covers similar, with striking, short and easy to remember titles. Also, Grid and Dirt both sold very well. Pure was Disney interactive, and like I said, while I didn't play it, it looked fun. And as for Fuel, which is being developed by Asobo Studios, its being PUBLISHED by Codemasters, so this probably goes along with their motif in their own lineup of racing games. Sorry, and please don't be too offended by this post, but you basically just admitted to being ignorant.
Also, for the record, the British name for Grid is Race Driver: Grid, with Grid referring to the lineup of race cars in a race. Now, the racing genre isn't dying, it's just more of a niche genre. With the exception of PGR, are either simulations, or off road arcade-styled games. I wonder what the sales figures really are, and no amount of corporate/developer head speak will make me believe that the genre is dying. Im pretty sure Midnight Club: LA sold pretty well, despite the relative weak sales of Need For Speed: Undercover. Im also pretty sure Gran Turismo was just listed on the top 10 best selling games of all time. Forza 2 did great. Burnout Paradise is a great title and is constantly being lauded for it's innovations in both DLC, pricing structure and fanservice. I played Wipeout HD to death. Hell, even Mario Kart for the Wii is one of the best games on the system.
TL:DR - You didn't do your research, Codemasters is trying to build a psuedo-franchise, and your ignorance caused you to miss out on three, possibly four great games. Seriously, this could have been an interesting argument, instead, you judged a book by it's cover, and missed out on some amazing titles
What a dumb complaint "Well the racing genre is dying cause the boxes are to similar", yea I'm sure TONS of people where pissed when they bought pure and expected a 2 fast 2 furious type game.
Dirt implies rally, PURE is an odd name but the box art means its ATV's, Grid has ton of sponsors on the car in the box ergo it must be a straight racing game.
I'm not a huge racing game fan, but I do enjoy Project Gotham, Forza, and Gran Turismo now and again. I can say I'm guilty of ignoring these games because of their "budget-game" titles.
I understand that if you're really into the racing genre, you're not going to ignore a game based off of how it's marketed. If you're not, you likely will.
Marketing and design is very important kids.
I thought the same thing o_o
MONSTER TRUCKS PEOPLE. Also good point Dexter things need to CHANGE.
thanks for reminding me about that
think I'll pop it in tonight...
Do it.