GameCritics.com Podcast Episode 34: UFC Undisputed 2010, Alan Wake and Listener Mailbag

As someone who has never been all that interested in most fighting games, Chi's description of Undisputed has sort of piqued my interest. I don't know the first thing about UFC, but the idea of a new type of fighting system is intriguing.

Also agree with Tim about manuals. And I myself don't care for discs much anymore :)

Most Alan Wake previews/reviews have compared it in some way to Twin Peaks, but other than the location I fail to see the connection. While playing Alan Wake, I didn't encounter any midgets in my dreams, No strange women talking to a log, No visits to One Eyed Jacks and very fortunately no David Duchovny in a dress. So guess I'm looking for some justification for the Twin Peaks references.

Why has story telling been at the forefront for developers the past wee while and why has it been so hard for any of them to nail it. Personally I quite like the story of Alan Wake & Heavy Rain, but they are nothing mind blowing. But my point is that Nintendo are on their 3000th version of the same old Mario (and Zelda) story line, but nobody seems to care because the gameplay completely overshadows everything else in the game.

As for the question of games being better in the 16bit era, I would have to say yes. Games these days almost walk you through the entire game with the story being told through lengthy cut scenes (Metal Gear, FFXIII, Alan Wake, etc...). Whereas games on the SNES and MegaDrive couln't rely on that as a means of telling the story, so for most parts it is incorporated into the gameplay. Good examples are Flashback, Another World, Soleil (Crusader of Centy), Illusion of Time. Gameplay was generally alot simpler before certain fighting game went over-board with 14 button combos, even the like of 1080 snowboarding on the N64 was a real pain in the arse, having to turn the stick three times with the correct button combination all in the same movement.

With regards to old games i share Brad's views. I mostly look forward to what's coming out or what has been out in recent years than retro gaming.

What i am nostalgic about though are the old game manuals. Microprose was my favourite company when i was a teenager as it had the best manuals by far. I spent hours and hours reading them. They contained actual historical information apart from the gaming instructions. Awesome stuff. Civilization, F15 Strike Eagle, M1 Tank Platoon. Those were indeed legendary.

I buy a lot of collectors' editions but its very rare to find anything near the quality of those manuals nowdays.

Hey GF666,
Just to quickly respond to your question about Twin Peaks, there were a number of things that struck me.

Primarily, like you said, the remote rural Pacific Northwest is the first thing that they have in common, and the same small-town atmosphere.

I found that the lady with the lights in AW was a pretty comparable parallel to the Log Lady from TP, and also the general "nothing ever gets fully explained" mood is very similar.

Beyond all that, I think that the tone of both works is very similar, although I don't think that Twin Peaks was the only inspiration. It seemed like Lynch’s piece was the start, but there was also quite a bit of Alone in the Dark, Stephen King, and even Uncharted, but in terms of the most simple comparison for aesthetics and style, I do think that Twin Peaks is probably the biggest piece.