MoviePage

I love Jim Sterling. One of the top two or three gaming journalists working today. And yes, of course his over-the-top stuff is an act, but he's nearly always right on point with his message.

chess

I like Jim, even if I could live without the character he's playing. He consistently sides with consumers, and usually constructs sensible arguments. And I'm kind of with Decker in that I don't mind small (and usually inconsequential) incentives for a platform or a particular retailer in exchange for joint marketing. But full blown money hats are gross.

I love this quote from Phil Spencer posted above: "I'm a big fan of Uncharted and I wish we had an action adventure game of that ilk." Here's an idea for you Phil: fucking make one. Employ some devs who wouldn't otherwise be employed and add something to the industry and to your platform.

The saddest thing is that Tomb Raider, a cross generation game, is now going to get sucked into some direct comparisons with Uncharted 4, a dedicated next generation game from the developer with arguably the best production values in the business who are working with more powerful hardware and optimizing for a single platform. And on Xbone, it will be competing with Halo 5.

K&AJones

...well said. Shame TR has got caught in the cross fire of the Nex Gen "Exclusive" debate and shouldn't have. It's becoming more obvious that Spencer & Xbox went after TR with the sole intent to counter Uncharted 4. The real solution would've been as you said just make a an exclusive game for the XO just like Sony made Uncharted for the PS4 and leave TR out of the mess. Instead he's thrown gas on the fire and made it worse.

Dan

I think Jim just repeats all the usual talking points brought up by everyone else, and doesn't offer anything new or constructive to the conversation (other than, you know, his "personality" which is now just a parody of himself).

The discussion is great, but I don't feel like Sterling adds to it. He just feeds his minions on GAF.

And he's one of the main reasons I bought (and absolutely loved) Deadly Premonition. :/

redbill

probably been brought up, but it could be they didn't want to compete with UC4, so might as well grab some of that free MS cash and also release on PS4 when there is less competition.

Michael Corvin

Then they could just push the release date on all consoles if they didn't want to go head to head with Uncharted.

If the game truly sold over 6m physical copies (not counting digital) and they couldn't turn a profit it seems they might need a new money manager. Those aren't CoD numbers (what is?) but 6m is a big number compared to most games.

redbill

chuckd21

Console exclusives happen. All the time. Since gaming began. Nintendo does it. Sony does it. Sega did it. So did Mattel, Coleco and Atari. But Microsoft does it and it's evil. Microsoft said they were APPROACHED about it, and so they're evil.

"Hey Microsoft, want to help us finish this game and we'll give you a timed exclusive?"
"Why no! That's unfair to our bitter rival! How dare you suggest such a thing!"

I mean, come on.

chuckd21

A console exclusive at one time...

Dan

^AND, the eventual "director's cut" on PS3 was a piece of shit, so what does that tell us? Huh!? HUH!?!?!?

chuckd21

God it really was. 30fps/60fps, I don't care. But running at 15fps? How dare you pull that. That version was unplayable.

Dan

Glad I got the PC version as well, which can at least be run smoothly and unlocked if your hardware supports it. I only bought the PS3 version because I thought it would be playable. Silly consumer...

Groucho

I don't think anybody's mad at Microsoft here...it makes perfect sense from their POV. What makes this case special is that the last game was multi-console, but the sequel is a (timed) exclusive.

I'm pretty sure that Xbox One owners would have something to say if the next Call of Duty were delayed to June for that console only.

RichC2

I'm more taken back by how silly of a move it was for Square-Enix. They're trying to re-build a franchise, and instead of building it up, they cut off half of their audience for a paycheck right now.

Seems silly.

slop101

Oh yeah, the taxes! The finger thing means the taxes!

Michael Corvin

Exactly. It's like chuck's not even reading the thread. Good analogy too.

Forgot which video I was watching on YT about the news, but the comment section, as you can imagine was pure gold. There were analogies like, "this is like if Halo 5 were on the WiiU only!"

Adam Tyner

I'm annoyed more by the title than with timed exclusivity or whatever.

Hardly anything beginning with "Rise of..." has been worth a damn.

Gamewise, all of the following got lousy reviews:

• Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
• Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters
• Rise of the Argonauts
• Rise of the Triad (okay, the redux version, anyway)
• Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects
• Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (which I know isn't out yet, but let's be honest; we know the reviews will be brutal)
• Azurik: Rise of Perathia (which I forgot I owned!)
• Rise of the Kasai
• The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer
• Power Gig: Rise of the SixString
• Ben 10 Alien Force: The Rise of Hex

I know you have Rise of Nations as an outlier, but there are very few worthwhile games outside of that franchise with "Rise of..." in the title that are worth playing.

Then you have not-very-good "Rise of..." games to go with not-very-good "Rise of..." movies:

• Rise of the Guardians
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
• The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian

Stop it! No more "Rise of..."s, ever. Or, maybe I should just keep using it as a warning that whatever's using that title isn't going to be worth a look.

slop101

And that's to say nothing of all the porn with "Rise" in the title.

Supermallet

Sounds like this game has gotten a real rise out of Adam.

Dan

And he didn't even mention the worst offender... just... Ryse.

chuckd21

Oh hey, did someone say Ryse?

dugan

Hey, Rise of the Robots (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/rise-of-the-robots) got six stars out of five in Computer Gaming World. The next issue clarified that the six stars was a mistake, and they'd actually given it two stars.

RichC2

I always liked Rise of the Dragon, sure it didn't age well but it was a part of my childhood and that makes it amazing dammit (plus, a killer atmosphere.)

Do we get to include the Risen games in this discussion?

Decker

Rise of Kasai was awesome.

Ryse was not.

redbill

Theory invalidated: