To fans of games, it's rare to hear developers share honest opinions. In the very business-oriented climate of the industry, the individuals responisble for the development and promotion of games are all but required to describe their games as amazing, groundbreaking pieces of art. However, the wonders of E3 (and more importantly, alcohol) lossened the lips of some big names in the games business this past week. As such, I implore you all to give a listen to the following two podcasts. The first, at IGN, is an interview with Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning, which can be found
here (you don't need an Insider subscription to listen, FYI). The man is a tremendously slick speaker, and shares facts and history about both his games and the industry as a whole that will be of great interest to fans. Additionally, Lanning pries a silent admission out of the IGN editors interviewing him that, in order to appease publishers, they haven't been as critical of some games as they should have been.
The second podcast that I highly reccommend is the 3-hour long
1UP Yours E3 wrapup show. Though I haven't even finished listening myself, already it's featured talk of double-ended dildos at GDC, a great, honest interview with LittleBigPlanet's lead designer (who hints at a collaboration with Ico designed Fumido Ueda), and bonus rambling by Dennis Dyack. Though it's not as informative as the IGN podcast, it's certainly still interesting. Give them a listen, and tell me what you think.
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Lorne Lanning sounds like a really smart guy with a lot of great ideas, but it was uncomfortable how close he came to sounding like a union buster in regards to voice actors in games. He tried to explain it away by pointing out that the programmers aren't unionized, which is the real problem, not unionized voice actors. He also clearly hates professional talent on a person level, which is much more understandable.
The Little Big Planet interview was great, very interesting stuff. If they actually get some Team Ico action going in the game that would be amazing.
Dennis Dyack needs to shut the fuck up because he's starting to chip away at my love for Eternal Darkness. Whenever he talked about Too Human I couldn't help but think of an interview I read with John Romero when Daikatana came out. Only Dennis was whining more. Kind of pathetic how hard he's trying to convince people that it is actually good. But if his complaining is the price we have to pay for the halo-esque hype bubble surrounding another game that never looked interesting I can live with it.
And then N'gai Croal manages to actually say something I agree with while explaining (possibly back pedaling?) his criticisms of the original RE5 trailer. He still doesn't sound like he knows anything about video games, though.