David Jaffe is a lot of things, but quiet isn’t one of them. Over the past few years my perception of Jaffe has really changed. At first I thought he was a pompous windbag — but the more he writes about the industry the more I agree with every word that man says. Case in point: his latest rant on the state of comic books adapted into games. He’s bang on right — the games neglect everything that makes comic books great (story, character development) and instead choose to focus on powers and costume changes;
The thing that made Stan and co’s comics so unique back in the 60’s is he was the first guy to say, “Hey, let’s treat these stories with some respect, let’s treat these characters with respect and in doing so, we’ll grow the audience well beyond 8 year old boys- who ONLY care about the powers”….and with that thinking, the entire medium of American comics was reinvented.
But then he has to go and say something like this;
“I also played the GHOST RIDER PSP game that was- I thought- pretty good and used a DMC structure. I liked that game; combat was really good/fun. But again, too combat centric. Hell, that’s ALL that game was.”
Yes, I get it. God of War has a story and it does move the game along well. But really — where in the fuck does Jaffe get off accusing somebone of developing a game that’s “too combat centric”? Isn’t that like Dom Deluise complaining there’s too much butter in the world? Look at that picture and tell me it’s not just a skinned God of War.
