...I was gonna say "Get your own TL", but I see you already did. Why not just link to that, or put it in your sig, instead of this?
Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
- Start date
- Status
Personally, I'd like to see Paper Mario still exist eventually. Or at least see a story of Peach being possessed or something.
On one hand, sad the Lakers didn't get a four peat. That said, Shaq, Iverson and Duncan still have the makings of a comeback.
Real happy to see Ken Griffey Jr live up to his potential, and earning his place as home run king.
As stated before, I hope they nail Michael Vick to the fucking cross for his dogfighting.
Don't make me post pictures of the family pit bull we rescued from him frowning at you.
Real happy to see Ken Griffey Jr live up to his potential, and earning his place as home run king.
As stated before, I hope they nail Michael Vick to the fucking cross for his dogfighting.
Don't make me post pictures of the family pit bull we rescued from him frowning at you.
Good. All the same, I would like to see Banjo-Kazooie still exist as it's own game series.
Spring 2007 (Part 11) - Valerian And Laureline
Valerian And Laureline
Valerian And Laureline is an action/shooter title made exclusively for the iTwin. It features a hybrid of cel shaded and 3-D graphics and takes its story both from the long-running French comic book series and the contemporary animated series that debuted in France a few months before the game's release, serving as both a companion to said series and a comic-based game. The game features dual protagonists, Valerian and Laureline, though it does not allow the player to choose between them, instead, players will control one of them in certain missions and the other one in the rest, ultimately controlling Valerian about 60 percent of the time and Laureline about 40 percent. The game plays like a typical third person action shooter game, taking gameplay cues from titles such as Squad Four: Upheaval, Oni, and Blackheart. However, not all of the game features action and shooting: there's plenty of exploration and character interaction, particularly in Laureline's missions, where she uses her wits and charm to decieve enemy characters and gain access to covert areas. However, Laureline can fight as well, and employs a more agile playstyle than Valerian, using ranged weapons and gadgets to incapacitate enemies. Valerian himself fights like a typical action protagonist, with blasters and melee, though he too can charm his way out of situations (he's not as adept at it as Laureline is). The game takes place across six different planets and features a total of 18 missions, some of which are almost purely combat while others involve long segments of exploration and infiltration. The game's mission structure is very much like a Squad Four game, though with a bit less freedom and smaller areas to explore, along with more objectives to complete. The game features plenty of voice acting and cutscenes, with lots of in-mission dialogue (with comic-book like boxes showing character faces and action scenes during missions). ITTL, the animated series is brought over to North America very soon after it releases in France, but the animated series features different voice actors from the game. In the animated series English dub, Valerian is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal and Laureline is voiced by Kari Wahlgren, but in the game, Valerian is voiced by Eric Stuart and Laureline is voiced by Carrie Keranen.
The plot of the game actually chronicles Valerian's first meeting with Laureline, who, like in the comics, is originally a peasant girl from medieval France who joins up with the time traveling future dweller Valerian after she discovers that he's a time traveler. Laureline becomes Valerian's partner and the two begin working together. The first few missions after the initial mission in which Laureline joins Valerian chronicle Laureline's training and her introduction to working with the Galaxity Spatio-Temporal Service. Laureline, being an extremely quick learner, rapidly becomes Valerian's equal in skill and competency, and the two are eventually given a mission to bust a ring of intergalactic drug dealers who push a substance that can enable a person to travel freely through dimensions, wreaking havoc and causing various spatial paradoxes. After one of the drug dealers, an unstable former intergalactic police officer named Hammond overdoses on the drug, he becomes a powerful god-like being capable of wreaking havoc throughout the multiverse, and a simple gangbusting mission becomes a quest to save all of humanity. However, Hammond himself doesn't initially want to destroy the multiverse, he instead uses his newfound abilities to point out the hypocrisies of humanity in the future, and Laureline starts to agree with him somewhat, causing tension between her and Valerian (who always follows Galaxity's orders, whether they be wrong or right). The conflict between the morals of Valerian, Laureline, and Hammond is what drives the plot in the second half of the game, with Laureline herself deliberately overdosing on the drug in one of the later missions. It seems like she's going to become an antagonist, but instead she uses her abilities to forcibly show Valerian the conflict between his own morals and the needs of the creatures of the multiverse, which reconciles both Valerian and Laureline's disagreements (and also definitively proves that Hammond is wrong in his morals, which drives him to seek to destroy the multiverse). In the final mission, Laureline (who has taken an antidote to the drug but still has lingering effects from it which cause her to fade in and out of reality) and Valerian must team up to stop Hammond before he combines the world of reality with the dream world inhabited by the civilians of Galaxity, which would cause a reality-destroying spatial paradox and wipe out everything. The final mission is a trippy battle across numerous realities as Valerian and Laureline race against time to stop Hammond's plans. In the end, Hammond is stopped, the multiverse is saved, and Valerian and Laureline declare their love for one another before racing off into another mission.
Though Valerian And Laureline wasn't a hugely known property in North America before the announcement of both the game and animated series, the game itself received a fair amount of hype since it was unveiled at the iTwin reveal, with Apple playing up the game's similarities to the more well known Squad Four and Blackheart. The game's unique art style and fast-paced gameplay also did a lot to hype it with fans. The game was released in North America on June 12, 2007, amidst a decent amount of other merchandise (including a remastered English version of the original comics and other related merch including action figures and the like, with the dubbed anime set to premiere on Toonami sometime in 2008). Reviews were quite good, praising the game's character design and fun missions, though a few critics would compare it unfavorably to its fellow action shooters, with Jeff Gerstmann calling it "Diet Squad Four" in a 7.0/10 review. Overall though, it would be received as one of the better iTwin exclusives of the year, and would be one of the top selling original games of June 2007. The game would do even better in France, becoming one of the top selling games of the year overall there, while it would also perform well in the rest of Europe and in Japan, eventually selling around two million total copies worldwide, more than enough to get at least one sequel.
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"Now we know who's going to be picking up Dark Horse's manga division, which was spun off from the company following its acquisition by Acclaim. Sega, the world's second largest toy company and former rival to Nintendo, will be acquiring the North American rights to all the manga formerly published by Dark Horse, folding it into the company's new Sega Comics division. In addition to publishing translated manga, Sega Comics will also be handling a number of original Japanese titles as well, and will be translating other non-manga international comic titles. They've already released several titles, including Valerian and Laureline, a long-running French sci-fi series which has been getting a remaster for English-speaking audiences since early this year. Sega Comics will also be splitting Sonic the Hedgehog publishing duties with Archie Comics: Archie will continue to publish more lighthearted, family friendly works, while Sega Comics will publish a new Sonic series aimed at older readers, and will also publish comics based on properties such as Virtua Fighter and Commander Keen. A Panzer Dragoon comic series, published as a companion piece to the upcoming Panzer Dragoon Zeta, will begin this November."
-from an article on Comic Book Resources, posted on July 27, 2007
Valerian And Laureline is an action/shooter title made exclusively for the iTwin. It features a hybrid of cel shaded and 3-D graphics and takes its story both from the long-running French comic book series and the contemporary animated series that debuted in France a few months before the game's release, serving as both a companion to said series and a comic-based game. The game features dual protagonists, Valerian and Laureline, though it does not allow the player to choose between them, instead, players will control one of them in certain missions and the other one in the rest, ultimately controlling Valerian about 60 percent of the time and Laureline about 40 percent. The game plays like a typical third person action shooter game, taking gameplay cues from titles such as Squad Four: Upheaval, Oni, and Blackheart. However, not all of the game features action and shooting: there's plenty of exploration and character interaction, particularly in Laureline's missions, where she uses her wits and charm to decieve enemy characters and gain access to covert areas. However, Laureline can fight as well, and employs a more agile playstyle than Valerian, using ranged weapons and gadgets to incapacitate enemies. Valerian himself fights like a typical action protagonist, with blasters and melee, though he too can charm his way out of situations (he's not as adept at it as Laureline is). The game takes place across six different planets and features a total of 18 missions, some of which are almost purely combat while others involve long segments of exploration and infiltration. The game's mission structure is very much like a Squad Four game, though with a bit less freedom and smaller areas to explore, along with more objectives to complete. The game features plenty of voice acting and cutscenes, with lots of in-mission dialogue (with comic-book like boxes showing character faces and action scenes during missions). ITTL, the animated series is brought over to North America very soon after it releases in France, but the animated series features different voice actors from the game. In the animated series English dub, Valerian is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal and Laureline is voiced by Kari Wahlgren, but in the game, Valerian is voiced by Eric Stuart and Laureline is voiced by Carrie Keranen.
The plot of the game actually chronicles Valerian's first meeting with Laureline, who, like in the comics, is originally a peasant girl from medieval France who joins up with the time traveling future dweller Valerian after she discovers that he's a time traveler. Laureline becomes Valerian's partner and the two begin working together. The first few missions after the initial mission in which Laureline joins Valerian chronicle Laureline's training and her introduction to working with the Galaxity Spatio-Temporal Service. Laureline, being an extremely quick learner, rapidly becomes Valerian's equal in skill and competency, and the two are eventually given a mission to bust a ring of intergalactic drug dealers who push a substance that can enable a person to travel freely through dimensions, wreaking havoc and causing various spatial paradoxes. After one of the drug dealers, an unstable former intergalactic police officer named Hammond overdoses on the drug, he becomes a powerful god-like being capable of wreaking havoc throughout the multiverse, and a simple gangbusting mission becomes a quest to save all of humanity. However, Hammond himself doesn't initially want to destroy the multiverse, he instead uses his newfound abilities to point out the hypocrisies of humanity in the future, and Laureline starts to agree with him somewhat, causing tension between her and Valerian (who always follows Galaxity's orders, whether they be wrong or right). The conflict between the morals of Valerian, Laureline, and Hammond is what drives the plot in the second half of the game, with Laureline herself deliberately overdosing on the drug in one of the later missions. It seems like she's going to become an antagonist, but instead she uses her abilities to forcibly show Valerian the conflict between his own morals and the needs of the creatures of the multiverse, which reconciles both Valerian and Laureline's disagreements (and also definitively proves that Hammond is wrong in his morals, which drives him to seek to destroy the multiverse). In the final mission, Laureline (who has taken an antidote to the drug but still has lingering effects from it which cause her to fade in and out of reality) and Valerian must team up to stop Hammond before he combines the world of reality with the dream world inhabited by the civilians of Galaxity, which would cause a reality-destroying spatial paradox and wipe out everything. The final mission is a trippy battle across numerous realities as Valerian and Laureline race against time to stop Hammond's plans. In the end, Hammond is stopped, the multiverse is saved, and Valerian and Laureline declare their love for one another before racing off into another mission.
Though Valerian And Laureline wasn't a hugely known property in North America before the announcement of both the game and animated series, the game itself received a fair amount of hype since it was unveiled at the iTwin reveal, with Apple playing up the game's similarities to the more well known Squad Four and Blackheart. The game's unique art style and fast-paced gameplay also did a lot to hype it with fans. The game was released in North America on June 12, 2007, amidst a decent amount of other merchandise (including a remastered English version of the original comics and other related merch including action figures and the like, with the dubbed anime set to premiere on Toonami sometime in 2008). Reviews were quite good, praising the game's character design and fun missions, though a few critics would compare it unfavorably to its fellow action shooters, with Jeff Gerstmann calling it "Diet Squad Four" in a 7.0/10 review. Overall though, it would be received as one of the better iTwin exclusives of the year, and would be one of the top selling original games of June 2007. The game would do even better in France, becoming one of the top selling games of the year overall there, while it would also perform well in the rest of Europe and in Japan, eventually selling around two million total copies worldwide, more than enough to get at least one sequel.
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"Now we know who's going to be picking up Dark Horse's manga division, which was spun off from the company following its acquisition by Acclaim. Sega, the world's second largest toy company and former rival to Nintendo, will be acquiring the North American rights to all the manga formerly published by Dark Horse, folding it into the company's new Sega Comics division. In addition to publishing translated manga, Sega Comics will also be handling a number of original Japanese titles as well, and will be translating other non-manga international comic titles. They've already released several titles, including Valerian and Laureline, a long-running French sci-fi series which has been getting a remaster for English-speaking audiences since early this year. Sega Comics will also be splitting Sonic the Hedgehog publishing duties with Archie Comics: Archie will continue to publish more lighthearted, family friendly works, while Sega Comics will publish a new Sonic series aimed at older readers, and will also publish comics based on properties such as Virtua Fighter and Commander Keen. A Panzer Dragoon comic series, published as a companion piece to the upcoming Panzer Dragoon Zeta, will begin this November."
-from an article on Comic Book Resources, posted on July 27, 2007
Oh, f**k the hell YES! Ok, I suddenly feel a lot better about DH Manga's split!
Being an American, I'd never heard of this franchise until the movie last year (or was it the year before?), I haven't seen the movie and have heard mixed things about it.
The write up for this makes the franchise sound awesome! Maybe it was just too much to try to shoehorn into a single movie IOTL, but I can see TTL me loving the hell out of this series (the games and the anime alike)!
I enjoyed the movie a lot, though it's not for everybody. You have to like Cara Delavigne, who is an EXTREMELY polarizing actress.
The OTL anime, Valerian And Laureline: Time Jam was released around this time, and I imagine TTL's anime would have some similarities with it. A big difference is that it'll run longer, at least 52 episodes. Thanks to the localization of the anime and the release of the iTwin game, it becomes a lot more popular ITTL than it is IOTL.
Valerian and Laureline are quite influencial . Maybe one of the most influencial BD in the world . For exemple, some scenes and technology in Star Wars are nearly copied from V&L
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Well, it doesn't look like I've actually seen any of her work, so I have no opinion one way or another of her yet.
So it's possible that an American audience might've seen the movie and thought "This Star Wars sequel is weird! Also I hate that actress so f**k this movie!"
That might explain it's mixed reaction, I'll probably watch it at some point out of curiosity; I'll make sure to look up the OTL Time Jam anime as well (add that to the list
).A Valerian franchise not ruined by terrible casting and a cliche script? Zoot alors!
Interesting to see a new Valérian franchise. It’s also interesting to see Sega taking over DH’s manga center and partnering with Archie Comics.
Spring 2007 (Part 12) - An Ogrekiller App?
Ogrekill
Ogrekill is a medieval/sci-fi first person shooter exclusive to the Xbox 2. Developed by id software, it plays somewhat similarly to the Quake series, but with larger, more open environments and a slightly smaller selection of enemies. The game centers around an ancient kingdom besieged by ogre attacks, lead by a powerful ogre warlord named Lagg'theth. The game's protagonist is a knight named Elden, who witnessed his hometown slaughtered by the ogres, and watched his wife get ripped apart. Vowing revenge, he goes to the court wizard and forces the wizard to help him slaughter the ogres. The wizard uses his magic to open a forbidden time portal, through which Elden enters a modern day weapons storage facility. Elden seizes all the guns and other equipment there and uses them to arm his fellow knights against the ogre army. The game thus consists of Elden leading his mighty army against an army of ogres using modern day firearms and technology. The ogres themselves are much physically stronger and have arrows and catapults, but Elden has modern automatic rifles, and uses them to great effectiveness against the ogres and their fellow pets and allied creatures. The game takes place across fourteen levels, with the main mission usually being to kill the ogre leader in each level, though there are sometimes other objectives, such as rescuing prisoners or breaking a siege on a castle or town. The game essentially blends the modern military motifs of a Tom Clancy or Battlefield game with the medieval terminology and world of an Elder Scrolls game. As Elden progresses through the levels, the ogres get stronger and more dangerous, and even begin to use firearms themselves, seized from dead knights or reverse engineered from captured weapons. Thus, the game slowly evolves into a more typical FPS, though with a fantasy setting. Elden himself is a fairly typical FPS hero, a ruthless soldier who desires to revenge and seeks retribution for the death of his true love. He shows no quarter to ogres and takes no prisoners, even the ogres who beg for their lives are ruthlessly slaughtered. Sometimes other characters do call Elden's motives into question, especially after Elden's knights wipe out a village of ogre civilians, but for the most part Elden continues to march forward on his mission of revenge. As Elden carves his way through the ogre armies, Lagg'theth becomes more and more frustrated with his subordinates for not being able to defeat this simple soldier. He's extremely intelligent, as intelligent as he is brutal, and frequently captures and interrogates the humans to learn the secrets of Elden's army. He's the one who has the idea to reverse engineer the weapons, and he himself becomes armed to the teeth by the end of the game. He also learns about the time portal, and seeks to create one himself, to perhaps invade the modern human world. In addition to ogres, the game features numerous other creatures, including mutated dogs, giant bears, and eventually large conglomerate monsters said to be created by ogres in various dark rituals. Lagg'theth himself rides a tank-like monster into battle, a monster that shoots spikes and breathes fire and is immune to most modern day firearms. There are also dragons in the game, some friendly and some not so much. The game features excellent graphics, comparable to Doom 3 on the PC, and a robust soundtrack mixing orchestral tunes with modern metal.
Ogrekill is released on June 12, 2007, the same day as Valerian And Laureline on the iTwin. The game, which was announced in early 2006 and previewed at E3 in both 2006 and 2007, is one of the most hyped games of the first half of 2007, mostly for its outstanding graphics and epic aesthetic, as well as the game being id Software's return to making original tentpole FPS titles for consoles. It would get more than 250,000 pre-order sales prior to its release, making it amongst the top five games thus far in 2007 in that category. It's expected to be one of the year's best games, but reviews are... not so kind.
"I hate to say this, but Ogrekill sucked. I have never been so damn disappointed in a game."
-Alex Stansfield, Games Over Matter (he wasn't the one to review the game, but he commented on it in a follow-up article to another GOM staffer's review of the game in which it got a 4.5/10)
"I've never been so bored playing something so epic."
-Adam Sessler, X-Play (as part of a 2.0/5 review)
"I would comment on the fact that there aren't any compelling female characters in Ogrekill, but after playing it I'm almost glad the ladies stayed out of this one. Now I know why Laureline hopped a time portal out of the Middle Ages."
-Morgan Webb, during the same review
"Fighting some of the big beasts in Ogrekill is probably the most fun you're going to have while playing, but fighting hundreds of ogres with the exact same attack patterns and idiotic AI is an exercise in monotony."
-from a 5.5/10 review in Electronic Gaming Monthly
"This game's flaws are not only glaring, they're inexcusable."
-from a 2/10 review in Edge magazine
"If you look up 'kusoge' in the dictionary, you will see a picture of Ogrekill."
-translated from Jun Miura's 1/10 review of Ogrekill in the September 2007 issue of Famitsu magazine
Among the litany of problems that critics find with the game are the repetitive levels which consist of mindless skirmishes with wave after wave of the same boring ogre enemies, awful AI, a wholly unlikable main character, rampant misogyny (fridging of the main character's wife in brutal fashion + most other women in the game consisting of busty servants when they show up at all), a soundtrack that starts out epic but soon becomes grating, horrible voice acting with Elden's voice ranging from flat to Nicolas Cage-level scene chewing, and even a ton of bugs and glitches, a couple that are game breaking. While the graphics do get praise, along with praise going toward Lagg'theth's character and voice acting, for the most part Ogrekill is seen as mediocre at absolute best and awful at worst. It's compared unfavorably to the later Arbiter Of Sin games, with one reviewer saying that it takes the worst parts of those games and tosses them together. Even the multiplayer is seen as somewhat of an afterthought, hastily slap-dashed together and completely boring compared to games like the Delta Force series and Call Of Duty. Sales for Ogrekill start out huge but fall off fairly quickly.
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Jeff Gerstmann: So we're midway through 2007.
Ryan Davis: Yeah, it's Tuesday, June 26, 2007.
Gerstmann: Xbox 2, iTwin, what are your thoughts, who's winning that right now?
Davis: In my opinion, or like overall, the sales for them?
Gerstmann: Well, I do have the sales numbers but overall-
Davis: Overall, the Xbox 2 I think is winning. It's got more quality games right now. The iTwin has that one big game, Pixelworld, and that is really huge, I mean that is the killer app. But, when you look at the Xbox 2 library, you've got Half-Life 2, you've got Dead City Beat, you've got Rogue's Story III, you've got Spider-Man: Hunted, right there those are four huge games, three of them exclusive to the Xbox 2 and the other one Half-Life 2 is exclusive on console, you can play it on PC but if you want to play it on console you've gotta get the Xbox 2. The iTwin, I think right now is still kinda spinning its wheels. Sonic Duo comes out in November and that's a big deal, and there are some decent games for it, Phantasy Star Online 2, Power, Valerian and Laureline that just came out is pretty good-
Gerstmann: It's Diet Squad Four.
Davis: It's a good game.
Gerstmann: It's good, yeah, but in its genre it's just mediocre.
Davis: Well that's my point, that's why I think Xbox 2 is better.
Gerstmann: Well, apart from Ogrekill which I think is a huge flop, Xbox 2 really has had more big solid good games. But, you have to remember, it's been around a few months longer. So that's to be expected. And it doesn't have anything as big as Pixelworld.
Davis: What if you don't want to play Pixelworld? Just hypothetically, because you and I, Jeff, we both love Pixelworld. BUT, if you don't want to play Pixelworld, what else is there?
Gerstmann: Sonic.
Davis: It's not out yet.
Gerstmann: It's coming out.
Davis: So's The Covenant 3.
Gerstmann: True.
Davis: But... at this point, I think Xbox 2 is winning but it's so early, and Nintendo's not even out yet. I think if you know you're going to get the Sapphire, then just wait. Wait on Nintendo.
Gerstmann: And that brings me to my next point because that seems to be what some people are doing. Because according to the latest sales figures, the Xbox 2 is trailing off a bit. Just a bit, but sales have been leveling out for the Xbox 2 and a bit slower than Microsoft projected. To be fair, iTwin sales are doing the same thing, BUT iTwin's been having supply shortages so that could also be the reason.
Davis: Well, what about Ebay, what's an iTwin going for on Ebay these days?
Gerstmann: Uh, let me check.
Davis: Yeah, because if it's-
Gerstmann: Okay, right now I'm seeing them around $475-$500.
Davis: That's...that's lower than it was a month ago.
Gerstmann: Yeah, a month ago it was like 700 bucks. So it is getting closer to MSRP.
Davis: So they're both slowing down.
Gerstmann: Well, I mean, it's so early. And people are waiting for the Sapphire, especially after that E3.
Davis: Sapphire has at LEAST two killer apps coming at launch. Mario and Metal Gear. And maybe that Parcels game.
Gerstmann: That game looks stupid.
-from the June 26, 2007 episode of the Gamespot Podcast With Jeff And Ryan
Ogrekill is a medieval/sci-fi first person shooter exclusive to the Xbox 2. Developed by id software, it plays somewhat similarly to the Quake series, but with larger, more open environments and a slightly smaller selection of enemies. The game centers around an ancient kingdom besieged by ogre attacks, lead by a powerful ogre warlord named Lagg'theth. The game's protagonist is a knight named Elden, who witnessed his hometown slaughtered by the ogres, and watched his wife get ripped apart. Vowing revenge, he goes to the court wizard and forces the wizard to help him slaughter the ogres. The wizard uses his magic to open a forbidden time portal, through which Elden enters a modern day weapons storage facility. Elden seizes all the guns and other equipment there and uses them to arm his fellow knights against the ogre army. The game thus consists of Elden leading his mighty army against an army of ogres using modern day firearms and technology. The ogres themselves are much physically stronger and have arrows and catapults, but Elden has modern automatic rifles, and uses them to great effectiveness against the ogres and their fellow pets and allied creatures. The game takes place across fourteen levels, with the main mission usually being to kill the ogre leader in each level, though there are sometimes other objectives, such as rescuing prisoners or breaking a siege on a castle or town. The game essentially blends the modern military motifs of a Tom Clancy or Battlefield game with the medieval terminology and world of an Elder Scrolls game. As Elden progresses through the levels, the ogres get stronger and more dangerous, and even begin to use firearms themselves, seized from dead knights or reverse engineered from captured weapons. Thus, the game slowly evolves into a more typical FPS, though with a fantasy setting. Elden himself is a fairly typical FPS hero, a ruthless soldier who desires to revenge and seeks retribution for the death of his true love. He shows no quarter to ogres and takes no prisoners, even the ogres who beg for their lives are ruthlessly slaughtered. Sometimes other characters do call Elden's motives into question, especially after Elden's knights wipe out a village of ogre civilians, but for the most part Elden continues to march forward on his mission of revenge. As Elden carves his way through the ogre armies, Lagg'theth becomes more and more frustrated with his subordinates for not being able to defeat this simple soldier. He's extremely intelligent, as intelligent as he is brutal, and frequently captures and interrogates the humans to learn the secrets of Elden's army. He's the one who has the idea to reverse engineer the weapons, and he himself becomes armed to the teeth by the end of the game. He also learns about the time portal, and seeks to create one himself, to perhaps invade the modern human world. In addition to ogres, the game features numerous other creatures, including mutated dogs, giant bears, and eventually large conglomerate monsters said to be created by ogres in various dark rituals. Lagg'theth himself rides a tank-like monster into battle, a monster that shoots spikes and breathes fire and is immune to most modern day firearms. There are also dragons in the game, some friendly and some not so much. The game features excellent graphics, comparable to Doom 3 on the PC, and a robust soundtrack mixing orchestral tunes with modern metal.
Ogrekill is released on June 12, 2007, the same day as Valerian And Laureline on the iTwin. The game, which was announced in early 2006 and previewed at E3 in both 2006 and 2007, is one of the most hyped games of the first half of 2007, mostly for its outstanding graphics and epic aesthetic, as well as the game being id Software's return to making original tentpole FPS titles for consoles. It would get more than 250,000 pre-order sales prior to its release, making it amongst the top five games thus far in 2007 in that category. It's expected to be one of the year's best games, but reviews are... not so kind.
"I hate to say this, but Ogrekill sucked. I have never been so damn disappointed in a game."
-Alex Stansfield, Games Over Matter (he wasn't the one to review the game, but he commented on it in a follow-up article to another GOM staffer's review of the game in which it got a 4.5/10)
"I've never been so bored playing something so epic."
-Adam Sessler, X-Play (as part of a 2.0/5 review)
"I would comment on the fact that there aren't any compelling female characters in Ogrekill, but after playing it I'm almost glad the ladies stayed out of this one. Now I know why Laureline hopped a time portal out of the Middle Ages."
-Morgan Webb, during the same review
"Fighting some of the big beasts in Ogrekill is probably the most fun you're going to have while playing, but fighting hundreds of ogres with the exact same attack patterns and idiotic AI is an exercise in monotony."
-from a 5.5/10 review in Electronic Gaming Monthly
"This game's flaws are not only glaring, they're inexcusable."
-from a 2/10 review in Edge magazine
"If you look up 'kusoge' in the dictionary, you will see a picture of Ogrekill."
-translated from Jun Miura's 1/10 review of Ogrekill in the September 2007 issue of Famitsu magazine
Among the litany of problems that critics find with the game are the repetitive levels which consist of mindless skirmishes with wave after wave of the same boring ogre enemies, awful AI, a wholly unlikable main character, rampant misogyny (fridging of the main character's wife in brutal fashion + most other women in the game consisting of busty servants when they show up at all), a soundtrack that starts out epic but soon becomes grating, horrible voice acting with Elden's voice ranging from flat to Nicolas Cage-level scene chewing, and even a ton of bugs and glitches, a couple that are game breaking. While the graphics do get praise, along with praise going toward Lagg'theth's character and voice acting, for the most part Ogrekill is seen as mediocre at absolute best and awful at worst. It's compared unfavorably to the later Arbiter Of Sin games, with one reviewer saying that it takes the worst parts of those games and tosses them together. Even the multiplayer is seen as somewhat of an afterthought, hastily slap-dashed together and completely boring compared to games like the Delta Force series and Call Of Duty. Sales for Ogrekill start out huge but fall off fairly quickly.
-
Jeff Gerstmann: So we're midway through 2007.
Ryan Davis: Yeah, it's Tuesday, June 26, 2007.
Gerstmann: Xbox 2, iTwin, what are your thoughts, who's winning that right now?
Davis: In my opinion, or like overall, the sales for them?
Gerstmann: Well, I do have the sales numbers but overall-
Davis: Overall, the Xbox 2 I think is winning. It's got more quality games right now. The iTwin has that one big game, Pixelworld, and that is really huge, I mean that is the killer app. But, when you look at the Xbox 2 library, you've got Half-Life 2, you've got Dead City Beat, you've got Rogue's Story III, you've got Spider-Man: Hunted, right there those are four huge games, three of them exclusive to the Xbox 2 and the other one Half-Life 2 is exclusive on console, you can play it on PC but if you want to play it on console you've gotta get the Xbox 2. The iTwin, I think right now is still kinda spinning its wheels. Sonic Duo comes out in November and that's a big deal, and there are some decent games for it, Phantasy Star Online 2, Power, Valerian and Laureline that just came out is pretty good-
Gerstmann: It's Diet Squad Four.
Davis: It's a good game.
Gerstmann: It's good, yeah, but in its genre it's just mediocre.
Davis: Well that's my point, that's why I think Xbox 2 is better.
Gerstmann: Well, apart from Ogrekill which I think is a huge flop, Xbox 2 really has had more big solid good games. But, you have to remember, it's been around a few months longer. So that's to be expected. And it doesn't have anything as big as Pixelworld.
Davis: What if you don't want to play Pixelworld? Just hypothetically, because you and I, Jeff, we both love Pixelworld. BUT, if you don't want to play Pixelworld, what else is there?
Gerstmann: Sonic.
Davis: It's not out yet.
Gerstmann: It's coming out.
Davis: So's The Covenant 3.
Gerstmann: True.
Davis: But... at this point, I think Xbox 2 is winning but it's so early, and Nintendo's not even out yet. I think if you know you're going to get the Sapphire, then just wait. Wait on Nintendo.
Gerstmann: And that brings me to my next point because that seems to be what some people are doing. Because according to the latest sales figures, the Xbox 2 is trailing off a bit. Just a bit, but sales have been leveling out for the Xbox 2 and a bit slower than Microsoft projected. To be fair, iTwin sales are doing the same thing, BUT iTwin's been having supply shortages so that could also be the reason.
Davis: Well, what about Ebay, what's an iTwin going for on Ebay these days?
Gerstmann: Uh, let me check.
Davis: Yeah, because if it's-
Gerstmann: Okay, right now I'm seeing them around $475-$500.
Davis: That's...that's lower than it was a month ago.
Gerstmann: Yeah, a month ago it was like 700 bucks. So it is getting closer to MSRP.
Davis: So they're both slowing down.
Gerstmann: Well, I mean, it's so early. And people are waiting for the Sapphire, especially after that E3.
Davis: Sapphire has at LEAST two killer apps coming at launch. Mario and Metal Gear. And maybe that Parcels game.
Gerstmann: That game looks stupid.
-from the June 26, 2007 episode of the Gamespot Podcast With Jeff And Ryan
2007 and misogyny is a huge criticism for the game. I really like how dudebroism still isn't as pervasive as it is OTL.
Given the cultural differences, I unfortunately don't think that's possible. I mean, the game is pure dudebro. If anything, Ogrekill would be even worse OTL.
Gears of War is what a lot of people would call "pure dudebro" and still one of the best shooters out there.
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