The International House of Mojo

Interesting fallout from the trailer. I have no problem with the direction, as it's a fertile ground to make jokes. As for the action gameplay - let's see if they can make it right. Costume Quest and Stacking had way more issues with their interactive part than either of the two big titles that preceded them. Whereas I consider Psychonauts to be quite great (despite constant claims to the contrary by fans of Ratchet & Clank, which in my opinion controls worse than Psychonauts on PC did...), even Brütal Legend had issues with repetition and padding. The sheer number of similar, uninteresting encounters in CQ (that really never ever had anything to do with what costumes you wore, since every costume played the same with cosmetic alterations) makes me wonder if we're going to get a sub-par shooter or if we're in for a treat.

For someone who is quite critical of Stacking and Costume Quest, this one is still a day one purchase. Fanboy pride, I guess, but I'll support them until they make it clear they are no longer trying.

Well. The game's superficial core concept (as well as the propaganda theme of the trailer) is definitely pretty Starship Troopers-ish, but I don't see any reason not to at least be optimistic. The monster designs are really fun and interesting, even just in this small amount of footage, and the idea of the (Armored Core-ish) walking tanks was presented in such a silly way that it doesn't shout out "mainstream" to me.

I think it'd be somewhat self-limiting for DF to stick to doing "weird" and "wacky" ideas, especially since Trenched seems so far to be more an exercise in fun gameplay design than in mind-blowing high concept. That said, while it isn't the most original concept in the world, this game still looks plenty "wacky" to me. At least it isn't taking itself too seriously.

I suspect that this title will continue the "not really a RTS" gameplay

Yipeee! Starship Troopers!

Yeah, I know. I'm just being fairly grumpy today, though the trailer showed little of ye olde Double Fine.

WHAAAAT WHERE IS THE ORIGINALITY?! WHERE IS THE HEART?! GO TO HELL TIM SCHAFER!!!!

But seriously, when I first saw this, I would never have thought it was a Double Fine game. Anyway, as long as it has the storytelling and humor of previous DF games, I'll buy it. I mean, each of Double Fine's games are different than the rest, so I think they deserve to have one with a more conventional approach.

Still, the DF Ron Gilbert game had better be fantastic.

Oh, and as for the game itself, I'm actually looking forward to see Double Fine put there mark on more conventional subject matter. I mean, it would be simplistic of us to expect them to come up with a really weird concept every single time they make a game, and starting from a fairly well-worn premise of alien invasion doesn't mean that they stop being... well, Double Fine at what they do.

Not wanting to bring up (again) that we never have this problem at Nukezilla.com because we use a tips e-mailer that everyone sees and takes stories from, but...

I have a thread in the admin forum to prevent this kind of shit...

Goddammit, I hate it when we post the exact same thing at the exact same time. What happened to Mojoites being lazy?

I agree with you though. This does seem remarkably... mainstream (that's the nicest word I could think of to describe it). The Xbox Live exclusive thing is also a bit unusual, unless Microsoft themselves are publishing.

I guess you guys can tell I've been having a lousy day.