The Gaming Lounge: Beyond

[Tron Bonne]

Just read that Adam Sessler is leaving the video game journalism industry. The funny thing is I'm glad, and could tell the past 2 years he wanted to leave. He even one time admitted he was not really a huge gamer back in the day, but got the job and kinda went from there. But as of late, you can just tell he does not care for gaming as much, and he has just had such a chip on his shoulder and at times been very unprofessional. It was just so unlike him I think he finally realized it was time to step away.

Woah, when was this? He always seemed very knowledgeable about the history of gaming, and even wrote a few of his own reviews on X-Play as well as some articles for the website. He was also pretty much the only person to stand up and actually debate Jack Thompson when he first appeared on the scene. None of that strikes me as the actions of someone is just there to be there.

 

[Solidus]

Woah, when was this? He always seemed very knowledgeable about the history of gaming, and even wrote a few of his own reviews on X-Play as well as some articles for the website. He was also pretty much the only person to stand up and actually debate Jack Thompson when he first appeared on the scene. None of that strikes me as the actions of someone is just there to be there.

I'm not denying his intelligence, and what knowledge he gained while he did it. I can't remember exactly when he said it, but I remember it was around E3 of 2004 or 2005, and talking to someone he said that he was not much of a gamer (prior) to working for Gamespot. He was not a "non-gamer" but it was never his main love. You could tell that in his final year, he was professional, and very very knowledgeable about his profession, but I don't think it's what his true passion was. And he said something like it long ago...it may have even been when he was still with Kate Botello back during Extended Play. I just remember it being something that stuck out to me back then. But it never took away from his knowledge.

 

[Iceman]

Amy Hennig (ex-creative director at Naughty Dog) is joining Visceral Games to be creative director on a new Star Wars game!
https://***********/amy_hennig/status/451770373894197249

The potential of Star Wars gaming went from so so to awesome in a very short space of time. Could be 3 awesome games even with the loss of 1313!

 

[Solidus]

The potential of Star Wars gaming went from so so to awesome in a very short space of time. Could be 3 awesome games even with the loss of 1313!

People need to get over 1313, people act like it was some great game made, that never came out. It was a jumbled mess of Duke Nuke Forever qualities, it was hardly finished, and they even said it was really just an over glorified Tech Demo by the time Disney came in.

So-so? Ehhh with Bioware making a SW game ,who has made the best SW game KOTOR. And a Battlefront game made by DICE. And Visceral is no slouch either. I actually have been pretty excited since last year of who they have working on the games.

 

[Soapy]

Agreed, I felt the same way. If anything the prospects have been better for Star Wars games than they have in many years. Hardly so-so.

 

[Benstamania]

Sad to see Sessler leave the gaming community. I always liked him.

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

People need to get over 1313, people act like it was some great game made, that never came out. It was a jumbled mess of Duke Nuke Forever qualities, it was hardly finished, and they even said it was really just an over glorified Tech Demo by the time Disney came in.

So-so? Ehhh with Bioware making a SW game (who has made the best SW game KOTOR. And a Battlefront game made by DICE. And Visceral is no slouch either. I actually have been pretty excited since last year of who they have working on the games?

Preeetty much.

 

[Iceman]

People need to get over 1313, people act like it was some great game made, that never came out. It was a jumbled mess of Duke Nuke Forever qualities, it was hardly finished, and they even said it was really just an over glorified Tech Demo by the time Disney came in.

So-so? Ehhh with Bioware making a SW game ,who has made the best SW game KOTOR. And a Battlefront game made by DICE. And Visceral is no slouch either. I actually have been pretty excited since last year of who they have working on the games.

1313 was only really a big loss while it was thought of as the only decent SW project in development. That's what I meant to say that the loss of 1313 doesn't really matter now that we know we have 3 Star Wars games in active development which all have a realistic chance of being great.

 

[Iceman]

Agreed, I felt the same way. If anything the prospects have been better for Star Wars games than they have in many years. Hardly so-so.

What? Lol. I meant they were so-so before these 3 games were announced and are great now. t:

 

[ProjectPat2280]

People need to get over 1313, people act like it was some great game made, that never came out. It was a jumbled mess of Duke Nuke Forever qualities, it was hardly finished, and they even said it was really just an over glorified Tech Demo by the time Disney came in.

So-so? Ehhh with Bioware making a SW game ,who has made the best SW game KOTOR. And a Battlefront game made by DICE. And Visceral is no slouch either. I actually have been pretty excited since last year of who they have working on the games.

Is there even any evidence that it was a mess? I don't think enough was shown for people to make that accusation. It seems people like to say that just so they can appear more intelligent on the subject. I also think the fact it was going to star the Fett man is another reason. Hating on Fett is kind of the "cool" thing forum posters do to seperate themselves from the rabid Fett fandom.

 

[Solidus]

Is there even any evidence that it was a mess? I don't think enough was shown for people to make that accusation. It seems people like to say that just so they can appear more intelligent on the subject. I also think the fact it was going to star the Fett man is another reason. Hating on Fett is kind of the "cool" thing forum posters do to seperate themselves from the rabid Fett fandom.

I love Fett so that is irrelevant.

There was an article from last year, that one of the devs was talking about how it was really just a tech demo, and really was a mess.

It just was what it was. If it was actually something good....I doubt Disney a business enterprise would throw away something that had great potential, with most of it done. It would have been easy money. They clearly looked at the project, and saw no value in it. They threw it away, because there was not much to it.

 

[ProjectPat2280]

It just was what it was. If it was actually something good....I doubt Disney a business enterprise would throw away something that had great potential, with most of it done. It would have been easy money. They clearly looked at the project, and saw no value in it. They threw it away, because there was not much to it.

I don't really buy that. Iv never heard anything stating the game was in trouble, outside of the fact the orig concept was reworked after the TV show failed to move ahead, i don't think they were far enough along with 1313 as we know it to even make that claim. The game stopped production when Disney bought Lucasfilm and at the time they wanted to refocus the games division to line up with the new sequels. According to Kotaku:

For weeks we've heard from multiple sources that the Disney purchase of LucasFilm (which includes LucasArts) has reoriented the company's gaming division. The focus is on the new trilogy, not on material that is unrelated to the planned JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars: Episode VII

Three unrelated sources familiar with game development at LucasArts have all told us that development on the game has been frozen or put on hold since the Disney company's November acquisition of Star Wars creator George Lucas' media empire

So no, im not buying that it was turning out to be a poor game. I don't think you can say one way or the other where it was headed. All evidence points to it being canceled because of the acquisition. Not because it didnt show promise.

 

[Havok83]

Gamespy is shutting down their servers. A ton of games will be affected
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/03/gamespy-multiplayer-shutting-down-hundreds-of-games-at-risk

http://www.poweredbygamespy.com/projects/2010-titles/

 

[Solidus]

I don't really buy that. Iv never heard anything stating the game was in trouble, outside of the fact the orig concept was reworked after the TV show failed to move ahead, i don't think they were far enough along with 1313 as we know it to even make that claim. The game stopped production when Disney bought Lucasfilm and at the time they wanted to refocus the games division to line up with the new sequels. According to Kotaku:



So no, im not buying that it was turning out to be a poor game. I don't think you can say one way or the other where it was headed. All evidence points to it being canceled because of the acquisition. Not because it didnt show promise.

No not all evidence points that way. Mainly because the EA head a few weeks ago said like the Arkham series they have confirmed that there will be no ties to Episode VII with the new games, or really the other films. They want the new games to stand on their own. So I think that has been scrapped to tie into the new films.

And no, we can't say one way or another with 100% certainty. But if there would have been such a great game there, they would have told them to continue. Because it would tie into Kasdan's project for the Boba Fett spin-off film they are working on. People love Boba.

And the other evidence for my view, is that LucasArts had not made a good in house game since the late 90's.

That and the Fall of an Empire piece Game Informer did, went into depth of the fall of LucasArts and had this to say about 1313 prior to Disney's buying of Lucasfilm.

In August 2012, Meegan stepped down as president, and Kevin Parker and Gio Corsi were brought in to co-lead the studio. Another assessment of the company’s business brought hiring freezes and internal strife. 1313’s development was crippled from the lack of new staff needed to hit milestones. LucasArts fell into silence.

Then, everything changed.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx

The everything changed part is referring to Disney coming in.

If the game really had potential I think Disney would have at least let them finish. They let Dave finish up TCW, which many thought would never happen. I think that there may have been some good ideas behind it but not enough, but let's not act like it was some awesome game that was going to bring Lucas Arts back, because I don't think it was going to. Which is why Disney decided (I'm thankful for it) that they need to lend it out to more capable companies and studios.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I'm not denying his intelligence, and what knowledge he gained while he did it. I can't remember exactly when he said it, but I remember it was around E3 of 2004 or 2005, and talking to someone he said that he was not much of a gamer (prior) to working for Gamespot. He was not a "non-gamer" but it was never his main love. You could tell that in his final year, he was professional, and very very knowledgeable about his profession, but I don't think it's what his true passion was. And he said something like it long ago...it may have even been when he was still with Kate Botello back during Extended Play. I just remember it being something that stuck out to me back then. But it never took away from his knowledge.

I wasn't just talking about his knowledge, but all of the other things he did. From writing articles, some of his own reviews during the X-Play years (something Morgan Webb, for instance, never did), having his own web series focused on gaming, debating, etc. Those actions really don't strike me as someone who didn't have passion for what he did.

 

[Solidus]

I wasn't just talking about his knowledge, but all of the other things he did. From writing articles, some of his own reviews during the X-Play years (something Morgan Webb, for instance, never did), having his own web series focused on gaming, debating, etc. Those actions really don't strike me as someone who didn't have passion for what he did.

Again I did not say he had no passion for it. He put it that he was not hardcore prior to being hired from GS. Then he got into it. But now...and if you watch Rev3 games in the past few years, he really has lost his passion. Every single genre he seemed to hate more and more. He just never seemed interested when they would have their round tables. And listening to him on his Address the Sess to me watching those every week you could tell he was not as into it. He complained about his job quite a bit in the end. I've never claimed he was just a talking puppet...hence if you look at my earlier posts I praised the man, and will always remember him for what he brought to us all those years ago. Compared to Jeff G and some of the others, I don't think his passion was at that level.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Oh well, I guess maybe I misread what you were saying? It seemed like you were saying he just kind of fell into it and is now finally getting sick of it. I feel like there was point were he was pretty passionate about the whole thing. I haven't followed him recently, so I don't know about his recent writings/videoing

EDIT: I see you edited that post, so I'm going to address something here: I never said anything about you saying he was a puppet or anything like that. You took what I said in an extreme way.

 

[Solidus]

Oh well, I guess maybe I misread what you were saying? It seemed like you were saying he just kind of fell into it and is now finally getting sick of it. I feel like there was point were he was pretty passionate about the whole thing. I haven't followed him recently, so I don't know about his recent writings/videoing

Of course he was passionate. I would never have loved him like I did back int he day if he was not. My point was (and I should have been more clear) is that he was not very "into it" prior to his job. But he did become very much so as years went on. But I think as he's gotten older, and for whatever reasons things have changed. In the past few years, there were moments of his passion that would rear up. But many times I could just tell he had lost his love for a lot of gaming.

He always seemed to say "Meh" towards so many things after a while, you could just tell that something like this might be coming. I think he will stay in the industry, he even said he would do a review or segment from time to time. But he does not want it to be his life anymore.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Yeah, probably so. I didn't follow him much after X-Play finally ended (I didn't really follow it much in the last year or so, because it became some sort of psuedo-news show and not the off kilter review show). I loved Sess's Soapbox during that time, though.

 

[jacobed]

Been playing Lego Hobbit. Man these games have started to go downhill since they introduced talking. The whole charm came from the mime work they did. This is painfully unfunny which is what Lego games should be. Lego Marvel was cringe worthy bad when it came to voice acting.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I prefer the addition of voice acting, the repetition of "HUH, HAHA" over and over is not charming in my opinion, I wish they made them complete mimes with no voices at all, not even screams of pain or disgruntles included

The inclusion of voice acting in LEGO Marvel is part of what make it fun to sit through, I'd hate to see what side quests would be like in both that game and Lord of the Rings without voice acting

 

[Tron Bonne]

Did Lego Batman 2 have voice acting?

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Yes, it's the first one with voice acting
At least the first LEGO game I played with voice acting

 

[jacobed]

Hate the voice acting. Lego Batman 2 at least had some funny lines. Lego Marvel was unbearable. So terrible. The game in general was not fun

 

[Iceman]

Gamespy is shutting down their servers. A ton of games will be affected
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/03/gamespy-multiplayer-shutting-down-hundreds-of-games-at-risk

http://www.poweredbygamespy.com/projects/2010-titles/

Bloody hell! I think I'm going to have to give up on some games in my backlog.