Topic: GDC 2005 - Geist Interview with Jeff Kalles

[TheYoungerPlumber]

You can discuss the Geist interview  with Jeff Kalles here.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Rock on.

Rock on.

[Hostile Creation]

Awesome.  I'm really looking forward to what this game has to offer, great interview.  I'm now pretty psyched for this game

[Don'tHate742]

Interesting.....I thought it was a FPS that from time to time had adventure conspects intertwined, but it's the complete opposite. I'm not sold, but I'm interested......I'll see what metacritic has to say first.

[PaLaDiN]

You should have asked them the million-dollar question...

How can we trust a developer of Olsen Twins games?

Regardless, this could be amazing if done right... the potential is definitely there.

[Plugabugz]

Nintendo wouldn't have snapped up the game if they thought it wasn't good or had potential to deliver a new experience. I like the fact it isn't an FPS, a little effort will mean all my FPS-loving friends will hate it and be the only one to buy it because it actually requires brain power.

*Patiently waits until 2006 when Nintendo Europe may get around to giving us one copy for all of Europe to share*

[Caillan]

Quote
Nintendo wouldn't have snapped up the game if they thought it wasn't good or had potential to deliver a new experience.

I'm looking foward to Geist too. It's a great idea and the sort of thing I like to see Nintendo invest in. I think working with a famous developer like Miyamoto must be extremely good for morale, especially in an industry you join for passion, not for cash.

I'm worried about its quality because it's been delayed for so long and becasue it's never mentioned by people like Reggie. I guess the same thing happened with Eternal Darkness, whch turned out fine as a game.

[KDR_11k]

You find that there's a lot of people who like to steal good ideas in this industry.

Word on that.

[RickPowers]

Good artists borrow.  Great artists steal.  Paraphrasing Picasso, of course, but it's never been more true.  Everyone gets inspiration from somewhere.

[PaLaDiN]

And Messiah reminds me of a mature Kid Icarus.

[K-RPG]

The Interviewer should have asked if they were going to fix the touchy aiming system?! Thats the only question, I really need answers too.  

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Yeah, I should have asked about the sensitive controls up in hindsight, but I wanted to tread lightly on criticisms after the graphics question didn't turn out as I expected.  I had hoped he'd address this in my control options question, but since it isn't adjustable, he didn't.

[Ian Sane]

So according to the interview Geist is a first person adventure.  That's very odd.  There are already two Metroid Prime games on the Cube to fill in the "looks like a first person shooter but isn't" genre.  However the Cube does not have an exclusive first person shooter.  So why make another first person adventure?  When I first saw Geist I assumed that this was Nintendo's way of "making up" for Halo.  Sure it's cool to break from the tried and true but the thing is we don't even have the tried and true for the Cube.  Perfect Dark and Goldeneye were two of my favourite N64 games yet Nintendo has made no effort to make up for their absence on the Cube.  I don't have a problem with Geist being a first person adventure.  It's a neat concept and obviously the developers wanted to try something new.  I just find it very odd that Nintendo felt that making another game in a genre the Cube already has down pat was more important than filling a very major genre gap.  It's like when Rare debuted Banjo-Kazooie.  Sure it was a great game but at the time I was thinking "when there are so many genre gaps in the N64 lineup do we really need another Mario 64?"

[vudu]

From the sounds of it, the game has a typical duel-analog control scheme, so it probably will play out much more like a regular FPS than Metroid.  I wouldn't be too worried.

[KnowsNothing]

I really hope that what he means by "first person adventure" is more like a more sophisticated FPS than likw what Prime turned out to be.  Ideally there would be typical FPS fighting and gunplay, but now you have to think in order to progress.  He stressed the fact that you need to creativley use your powers in order to solve puzzles, so I'm really hoping that there's a happy medium between FPS aspects and adventure aspects.  Only time will tell.  I have a feeling that this will turn out to be a better-than-average game, but nothing spectacular.  I also expect a lackluster multiplayer, but that's not saying much because I find EVERY FPS multiplayer lackluster (sorry TS2...)

[RickPowers]

I think the trick is that as gamers, we need to let go of our preconceived notions of what a first-person perspective means in terms of game mechanics.  The perspective should NEVER dictate the game mechanics, but more often than not, developers cater to the gamer and compromise the design of the game in order to meet gamer expectations.  I was even told in no uncertain terms by at least one game designer that he considered Metroid Prime a "failure" because the controls didn't meet with gamer expectations.  I personally think that it's the exact opposite.  We're never going to be able to innovate in game design if we can't get gamers to open their minds and learn to adapt.

As for the interview, I've known Jeff for quite some time now, and he's a great guy ... he definitely knows his stuff.  And while he might not have been more open about the questions asked (and unasked), I'm positive that he's aware of the issues.  Jeff is very loyal to Nintendo, but he's definitely a gamer, and I have no doubt that he'll do everything he can to help make the game a success.

[Bill Aurion]

After finally seeing a video of the recent build in motion, the visuals are just fine for me...I look forward to seeing just what possessions lie in wait for us...

[Hostile Creation]

Also, while I haven't played many first person shooters (compared to some people, at least, I play them fairly regularly), I must say that the level design in this game looks absolutely awesome.  I mean, I'm just looking at the levels and this building and thinking about how much fun it would be to play this game there.  I think that indicates a lot of potential, based on the screenshots and movies, if nothing else
I'm getting more and more interesting in this game.  Originally I was fairly apathetic toward it, but now it has my attention.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Nintendo and n-Space care about making this game good.  To some extent I believe n-Space is fighting its own technical limitations--after all, this is really the first 3D game they've made that should even bother to have really good graphics.

The demo at GDC was too short for me to get a good feel for the level design, but I agree that with the game's more linear style and Geist mechanics, level design will be the make-or-break aspect of Geist.

They're calling this a FPA, but as Jeff explained, Geist is really more of a "thinking man's FPS."  the FPA label was fairly successful for Metroid Prime and its sequel, so I can see why Nintendo would use it again when marketing to its current GC userbase.  The fact that it will have a wide variety of multiplayer modes should be enough to convince gamers that it is a FPS at heart.