Sorcery

[Arwin]

You can now also try the Fight: Lights Out dummy demo, which is pretty good I think (it appears in the training DLC also, so I've had contact with it). I love The Fight to bits. Even just the target practice training mode was worth the price of admission for me.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I did try Lights Out while I was on CFW, I know its illegal to play a pirated copy, but I couldn't find any friend who had it and I wanted to try it out. Well, it does feel strange as I punch very hard and the onscreen avatar hardly even touches the opponent, but once the dirty moves were unlocked, and gesture based moves were unlocked then it was fun and "winnable' ! I liked it for the few days I was on CFW, but that was because of the sheer emotion that brews up inside me when I punch the other guy. I don't know why Move doesn't show my punches correctly, though, maybe due to the stupid parameters attached to the character, maybe he is just not allowed to translate my movements 1:1 by the game untill you level him up or so.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, you need to train up your character. He's unfit at the beginning. He will track your movement closely when you level up enough. I think it's a design flaw because people will be frustrated or confused by the "inaccuracy", but it is what it is.

I remember Sports Champions got a patch to tone down its "hand holding" in Bronze Cup.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Yeah, you need to train up your character. He's unfit at the beginning. He will track your movement closely when you level up enough. I think it's a design flaw because people will be frustrated or confused by the "inaccuracy", but it is what it is.

I remember Sports Champions got a patch to tone down its "hand holding" in Bronze Cup.

Exactly the whole point. I didn't get that angry over it as, well, I hadn't paid for it, but the whole point of holding a move in ur hand in a punching game is to have your punch replicated correctly and the character doesn't respond with 1:1 movement accuracy ! I think they should not have made those RPG attributes affect the actual punching, they should have left that stuff for cosmetic changes and made the fights tougher as you go to provide progression. Right now there's nothing in the game to tell you that its not the fault of ur controller/tech but a bad decision by the design team.

 

[patsu]

PlayStation 3's Sorcery Isn't Dead
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1212441p1.html

The PlayStation Team here at IGN gets a lot of questions from readers. A lot. One of the more common ones is about the PlayStation 3 game Sorcery. Originally shown at E3 2010 as a promising title utilizing PlayStation Move, all has been quiet about Sorcery ever since. Is the game still coming? Is it stuck in development hell? Or -- worse yet -- was it outright cancelled?

...

Sorcery will be fully playable at Sony's Holiday Showcase in New York City this December, where we'll be able to provide you with our very first hands-on impressions.

Aiight, let's see the goods.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Okay !! So, its finally back ! Lets see it now, cos they said it has changed dramatically since the first showing. I am hoping it changed to become super awesome !

 

[patsu]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011...asts-a-spell-on-playstation-move-this-spring/

Sorcery is running on a heavily modified version of the Unreal engine, and the art direction has progressed by leaps and bounds since its last showing. The game now skews a bit older, with nastier monster designs and edgier spellcasting combat. Watch the video, read our full Q&A, then let us know what you think of Sorcery in the comments!

I saw a few previews from the press. Will read them later.

 

[patsu]

New trailer:

It would be boring if it plays like a shooter constantly. Should show some elaborate actions (if available) in some scenes.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Still looks like unimaginative crap I'm afraid.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I think what they needed to do is not try to make it look "older" or "more mature" but give it a more unique "personality".

The Sorcery that i imagined had towns and villages, with intelligent puzzle solving, platforming and an engaging story.

They showed it at E3 and everyone was taken by the mechanics and how well they seemed to work. It's like they just focussed on the spell casting mechanics and forgot that they actually need to make the rest of the game to go with it. Sorcery should be more than just a tech demo to show off what can be done with MOVE. I do hope that the producers at SSM, and the developers themselves understand this, and if the actual game is not yet there they should take it back to the drawing board and start again to ensure that when they reveal the game the next time, it's obvious to we the consumers that the game is indeed there and it's solid and engaging.

I don't mind the game's new aesthetic. I think it's good that they tried to move it away from the generic "harry potter"-esque look. However now that they have this new look and identity, they need to sell it to us gamers by revealing more about the story, characters and world that you'll explore throughtout the course of the game. We've already seen all the spell casting mechanics, so its useless showing those to us again. I just think that the people in charge of these game reveals have no sense at all. Thinking they can sell a game like Sorcery to the core audience through a short list of bullet-points about the combat/spell-casting mechanics... it's just not the way to sell a game.

I'm quite disappointed really, however i hope that they both have much much more of the game to show and that they do indeed do so in a way to rekindle my hype. As the silly "hey gais, look how i can flick my Move wand to shoot different coloured bolts at gremlins in a weird-looking psuedo-fanstasy setting" marketing message for this reveal actually stank and made the game appear worse than its original reveal.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I think what they needed to do is not try to make it look "older" or "more mature" but give it a more unique "personality".

The Sorcery that i imagined had towns and villages, with intelligent puzzle solving, platforming and an engaging story.

They showed it at E3 and everyone was taken by the mechanics and how well they seemed to work. It's like they just focussed on the spell casting mechanics and forgot that they actually need to make the rest of the game to go with it. Sorcery should be more than just a tech demo to show off what can be done with MOVE. I do hope that the producers at SSM, and the developers themselves understand this, and if the actual game is not yet there they should take it back to the drawing board and start again to ensure that when they reveal the game the next time, it's obvious to we the consumers that the game is indeed there and it's solid and engaging.

I don't mind the game's new aesthetic. I think it's good that they tried to move it away from the generic "harry potter"-esque look. However now that they have this new look and identity, they need to sell it to us gamers by revealing more about the story, characters and world that you'll explore throughtout the course of the game. We've already seen all the spell casting mechanics, so its useless showing those to us again. I just think that the people in charge of these game reveals have no sense at all. Thinking they can sell a game like Sorcery to the core audience through a short list of bullet-points about the combat/spell-casting mechanics... it's just not the way to sell a game.

I'm quite disappointed really, however i hope that they both have much much more of the game to show and that they do indeed do so in a way to rekindle my hype. As the silly "hey gais, look how i can flick my Move wand to shoot different coloured bolts at gremlins in a weird-looking psuedo-fanstasy setting" marketing message for this reveal actually stank and made the game appear worse than its original reveal.

My thoughts exaclty. In fact the earlier reveal, though Harry Potter-ish , had a sense of a dense world of the game. The new showing lack personality ! It has started looking less like a new fantasy game and more like something akin to Move Heroes.

 

[patsu]

Yes, it looks like they focus too much on the scale. The enemies are so far away and slow/stationary, the world looks spacious but there's not much to do.

In the original demo, you seem to have more things to do (e.g., silence the noisy bird), and the enemies appeared more lively. The demo level might be small but it looked more mysterious. The gestures were also refreshing/new at that time.

They should learn from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls level and enemy designs. ^_^

 

[Arwin]

Looks pretty good. Won't be like a shooter simply because of the magic abilities. It will all depend on how well the Move controls are implemented.

 

[patsu]

I think if they vary the camera angle in the trailer (e.g., cut from different viewpoints), it would make the game more interesting.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Looks pretty good. Won't be like a shooter simply because of the magic abilities. It will all depend on how well the Move controls are implemented.

I'm not convinced about that. How is waggling your controller any different to pressing a button in any other shooter. A controller also has more than enough buttons to cast a whirlwind without having to flail your arms around like an idiot. Same with chugging a health potion. You are using gestures to trigger simple, canned reactions when you could just as easily cause them with a button press instead. Unfortunately these sort of ambitious control methods have a long history of being little more than inconvenient, error-prone and laggy.

Skyward Sword's sword fighting mechanics are really the only exception where motion controls actually added something to the game, simply because the stuff you are doing would be impossible to pull off with a controller, or at the very least incredibly cumbersome.

 

[Arwin]

I'm not convinced about that. How is waggling your controller any different to pressing a button in any other shooter. A controller also has more than enough buttons to cast a whirlwind without having to flail your arms around like an idiot. Same with chugging a health potion. You are using gestures to trigger simple, canned reactions when you could just as easily cause them with a button press instead. Unfortunately these sort of ambitious control methods have a long history of being little more than inconvenient, error-prone and laggy.

Also, they have a history of not being implemented with good motion controllers. For what this game wants, there's no better controller than the Move. What is the fun of waving a wand and having actual magic spells happen you ask? That says enough in itself. Easier isn't always more fun.

Skyward Sword's sword fighting mechanics are really the only exception where motion controls actually added something to the game, simply because the stuff you are doing would be impossible to pull off with a controller, or at the very least incredibly cumbersome.

Some of the things I'm seeing is drawing a line of fire on the ground. There's certainly opportunity to do interesting stuff with that kind of mechanic. We'll see how it shapes up, but from what I'm seeing now it has some good potential. I also like the idea of throwing stuff in an arc and such. I agree that there's a risk of it becoming too much like a regular shooter, but it doesn't have to be depending on how much choice you have. We'll see.

What I agree on though is that currently there's too little known to judge, other than that they've clearly upped the budget on the game.

 

[2real4tv]

How generic can they get, was looking forward to this, enemy variety does not look great either.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Also, they have a history of not being implemented with good motion controllers. For what this game wants, there's no better controller than the Move. What is the fun of waving a wand and having actual magic spells happen you ask? That says enough in itself. Easier isn't always more fun.

Some of the things I'm seeing is drawing a line of fire on the ground. There's certainly opportunity to do interesting stuff with that kind of mechanic. We'll see how it shapes up, but from what I'm seeing now it has some good potential. I also like the idea of throwing stuff in an arc and such. I agree that there's a risk of it becoming too much like a regular shooter, but it doesn't have to be depending on how much choice you have. We'll see.

What I agree on though is that currently there's too little known to judge, other than that they've clearly upped the budget on the game.

I admire your optimism Arwin, and for the most part I agree with you that the game oozes potential. It's basically all down to how they deal with the Move implimentation and how they design the levels and game around it.

I was just not impressed at all by this reveal, and i wish they had either shown more footage of the different parts of the game, or shown more varied environments/skills/activities in the small amount of footage they did show. I hope that this current showing is more a case of incompetant marketers not knowing how to showcase the game in a way so as to drive gamer excitement, rather than the game itself being bland and thus there wasn't much there to show in the first place. I very very very much hope it's the former, and that The Workshop and their collusions with SSM and their dev magic will ensure that this game when finally released meets and exceeds all expectations rather than dissappointing us.

I just sooo want Sony to pump enough love & resources into this one, because of all the titles in their publishing portfolio, this one has some of the greatest potential to be the most refreshingly innovative and enjoyable title to be released at this point in the gen for years.

 

[Prophecy2k]

My thoughts exaclty. In fact the earlier reveal, though Harry Potter-ish , had a sense of a dense world of the game. The new showing lack personality ! It has started looking less like a new fantasy game and more like something akin to Move Heroes.

I share the exact same sentiment RenegadeRocks. The original style looked eerie and appealing to me. The lighting, colours and artstyle reminded me of the old point & click adventure "Simon the Sorcerer", and brought back all the warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings that go along with my memories of those games (ahh the good ol' days). I don't mind the new aesthetic too much but it just looks strange and i'd have liked for them to give us some clue to the game's narrative and story so as to give our minds some context with which to process the unfamiliar visual style.

I'll give them the benift of the doubt for now, however i do hope like RenegadeRocks that it doesn't just turn out to be another mishmash poor quality Move Heroes-like game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To me this looks like a trailer designed to attract a different audience on top of the existing one. Everything we've heard to date has described a game with reasonably varied gameplay, mixing the spells and building bridges and stuff. Everyone following that is either interested already or not. So to appeal to those who thought Sorcery looked kiddie and who would rather play some shooter, this trailer was released to show them Sorcery is an action adventure. Maybe. Still, it'd be wrong to think this one, limited trailer shows the game has been massivelt dumbed down.

I'm not convinced about that. How is waggling your controller any different to pressing a button in any other shooter.

Because it feels better. A tennis game can be played with a button to swing the racquet, but actually swinging your arms gives a more visceral experience. That's the whole point of motion gaming - not that it can do things you can't do on controller or mouse, but the things you do feel more natural and/or more involving.