Just got an email inviting me to an interview which if successful would result in me moving to America. It’s a long shot and I doubt I’d get it but it would be amazing if I can pull this off.

Just got an email inviting me back for a final interview at the end of the month as the first went well.

My parents were in America while the 2016 Olympics was on and my dad said that when he watched it on TV out there you wouldn’t have known any county other than America was competing. Here on the BBC they seemed more interested in Usain Bolt then any of the British runners.

It seems like when it comes to something competitive Americans only seem to care about how well ‘they’ do and not the competition itself. Football seems to have only got bigger there since the US have started doing better in the last few World Cup’s (Not this one lol). Rather then support their local MLS side they seem to support teams here in England just because they’re better or support a MLS side and an English side which shouldn’t be allowed and should result in the death penalty. I laugh at people from London who support Liverpool or Manchester United let alone someone from Arizona.

I’ve enjoyed the last two Tomb Raider games but while playing the last one it really dawned on me why I much prefer the Uncharted series. It’s more ‘fun’. Everything in these Tomb Raider games is far too serious and every conversation is done so straight that it feels boring. I’ve enjoyed the gameplay but I couldn’t tell you anything about the characters and their motivations.

As David Sylvian recently put it, the sporting analogy of winners/losers, as if life’s a game, is sick. We all are simply coping as best we can in life. Judging people like you just did is a form of self-definition showing a primitive, binary approach to life.

David Sylvian is actually my 2nd cousin, not even making that up.

He’d think you’re insufferable.

I imagine we will get a metacritic score in the high 60’s to low 70’s if all that’s changed is what we know so far.

People have to review the product based on what it is today and not it’s place in history despite most Shenmue fans wanting people to focus on the later. Things like the bad voice acting, load times every time you enter a shop and the blocky graphics will not go down well in reviews. Even Shenmue II when it came out for the Xbox 15 years ago had reviewers saying certain things hadn’t aged well and that was in 2002.

The only way this would be reviewed well (as in score above 85 on metacritic) is if it was a full blown remake Shadow of the Colossus style. If the game was made with character models as good as modern games, an open world just being open and not require being split up and half decent voice acting it would be a different story but this product never has or would be that. I still don’t think Sega is confident about the Shenmue series as this seems to be done with a view of just getting it out as there will never be a better time and once a game is on Steam now you make it once and make money on it forever.

Personally I’m happy to just have the port but I imagine this will be viewed as quite a lazy port by the general public, not much has been done outside of some UI updates and the resolution being HD which are the bare minimum expected for this kind of product. I think the most important thing will be the new controls, if they aren’t good knock my prediction down to high 50’s/low 60’s.

Sega are releasing a Yakuza game 28th August so if we’re getting it in the summer I’d say the beginning of August is the latest we’ll get it. Anything after that and it’s going to have to compete with the big AAA games like Call of Duty, Red Dead 2, Tomb Raider and Spider-man. Sure the fans will still pick it up but you want to also catch people who are walking into GameStop bored in July because they have nothing new to play and not much is coming out.

Looking at what games have release dates the smart choice would be between June-August. If Shenmue III is planning to have a big E3 presence having it come out a week after E3 while people are hyped would be a smart idea.

Announcing the release date at another date gives you another chance to be trending on twitter and the top story on websites, casting a wider net for people to see news about this game and becoming interested. If they announced everything about the game straight away the game wouldn’t be talked about much until it’s realeased as there would be nothing to discuss.

The only way Sega will want to be involved in the future of the series is if Shenmue III sells well. Sure the Kickstarter raised a lot of money but so far SIII has only sold 75k copies which would be seen as a massive flop, people thinking the game is a success based on the Kickstarter is jumping the gun quite abit. I did some rough maths before as there is at least 3-4 different companies investing their money into this game looking to make a profit and the game is being made in a country where development is expensive, I estimated for the game to be seen as a success it would have to sell around 1.5-2 million copies.

I think that could be a big ask and the marketing for the game such as the Kickstarter campaign and trailers so far have been a joke and hurt the game a lot. I’m hoping Deep Silver taking over that side will help.

The average wage in Prague where the game was made is just under $14,000 year for an employee. In Japan where YsNet is based it’s around $50,000 a year.

Meaning that their money is able to go a lot further then it will for Shenmue III. People seem to think you just push money into a PC like a vending machine and the graphics get better each time you do. The reality is that games like the Witcher can be made a lot cheaper because they make them in counties with cheap labour.

To anyone that’s unhappy with how the faces look, don’t worry. They’ll be changed again next time we see it in a few months. Then those ones will also be changed the time we see it after that.

At this point I think YsNet will update the game every couple of months after it’s released and just change the faces every time.

I know I made a joke about how the models keep changing but I find it hard too see how you people can care so much when it’s changing constantly. Honestly I think that they’ve been silly to show some stuff in teasers, trailers or screenshots when it looks so rough but they’ve shown that they’re going to keep changing it. Any other game if a model looks weird in a trailer it’s probably going to look weird when it’s released but it’s been clear for awhile now that nothing is final until the game is shipped.

All people seem to do is complain about a model or face for 3 months then complain about the new one when that’s shown. I can understand saying this is bad marketing constantly showing rough footage and I’d argue every time they do this they’re hurting potential sales (See Mass Effect Andromina). But I’m just at the point where I don’t care as I’ve got the game preordered and we most likely won’t see the final models until reviewers post footage up for their video reviews at this point.