Cliffy B doesn't understand Mirror's Edge, and later compares demos to bad sex

[Landslide]

So, I've spoken to Cliff a few times, both in professional circumstances and casual non-work-related ones. And I gotta tell you, the guy gets a bad rap. The first time I knew I was going to meet him, I honestly felt the same as a lot of people here. I was ready for a conversation with a grade A douchebag.

Was completely not the case. Instead, I found myself chatting with an insightful, humble guy who was more or less wallflowering at the party we were at. He's just a really nice guy, and laid back outside the office. He's extremely focused on his product in professional situations, which I think is where the arrogant perception comes from (that's where I felt it, initially). On a certain level, if he is arrogant about games, it's probably because all of the ones he's worked on have been wild successes. I won't say they're really my preferred game styles (I'm a sandbox dude at heart) - but objectively they've all been hits.

So, I just wanted to share this different perspective. It's hard to reserve judgments about people when all you've ever had to go on are chopped up quotes and PR stunts. Definitely an eye opener for me, and hopefully for some people here as well.

 

[Crunchy English]

Mirror's Edge makes a lot of people I know really excited, but I don't get it. Free roaming movement, well-animated, with bright clean colours in a parkour type style sounds like a good foundation for a game. But, can you make a game from just the movement? That sounds like a fantastic start. Is there a game here?

That's my question. And a demo seems like a perfect solution to my problem. I can really get a feel for the "game", instead of bunch of pretty pictures. Cliffy's distrust of demos doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

I don't care if you met him and he was like the pope, these quotes are words he actually said and what can you judge someone on other than what words come out of their mouth?

When I read some of his quotes I actually facepalmed in rl, if Cliffy B had designed Pacman he would be a badass yellow space marine with a rocket launcher shooting multi-coloured aliens, I think he should just stick to commenting and designing on easy fps games where as little creativity and thought is necessary.

 

[Good morning blues]

Cliffy B's problem is that he thinks that he is an artist the same way that guy who took a shit in a can, labeled it "Artist's Shit," and sold it for some obscene amount of money did. He's got his little niche and I guess he's pretty good at it, but for some reason he thinks that his little niche is the future of interactive entertainment, and based on his views of things like piracy and demos he's clearly pretty divorced from video game consumers.

 

[spazzattack]

How can you possibly judge this man. He can do whatever he wants. Need Proof?

 

[gamebrain89]

I found the controls for mirrors edge worked great after you get used to them. I was a little skeptical at first, but now I am looking for forward to it.

 

[Andraste]

How can you possibly judge this man. He can do whatever he wants. Need Proof?

You, sir, have my thanks for the day. I got a solid giggle from this.

 

[shadow skill]

Did he not play the demo? It's as if this guy is trying to become the white Itagaki, the sad thing is that the true Itagaki can at least say that his latest game belongs in the top three in it's particular genre. Gears really can't say that because all of it's core gameplay has been done before and better. Mirrors Edge has already made nearly every FP game out there look old in terms of player character animations save possibly FEAR (Only because FEAR devs were smart enough to give you feet.) with the demo!

 

[AceDiamond]

As I said in the newsroom thread regarding Cliffy, I am of the belief that his success has caused an overinflated ego that has caused him to permanently jam his head up his own ass.

He said that making a Gears of War 2 demo would push back release dates by 3 months. Uh...what?

 

[IankBailey]

nothing scary you just run to get away. Kinda like a first person video game version of black guys and police. They aint afraid of them they just dont wanna get caught. Thats pretty much mirrors edge in a nutshell.

(By the way dont start calling me a racist please. It's hard to be racist against your own kind.)

That's kind of a cop out, I can make equally derogatory statements about other races because behind my computer screen I'm blank race because I said so and you have no proof to the contrary.

 

[yonsito]

Cut him some slack. He's got a game out in a few days, so he's doing some publicity.
And as long as his games are good, he can talk all the crap he wants, for all that I care for.

 

[AceDiamond]

Cut him some slack. He's got a game out in a few days, so he's doing some publicity.
And as long as his games are good, he can talk all the crap he wants, for all that I care for.

So...he should...shut up then?

 

[Sennz0r]

I don't care if you met him and he was like the pope, these quotes are words he actually said and what can you judge someone on other than what words come out of their mouth?

When I read some of his quotes I actually facepalmed in rl, if Cliffy B had designed Pacman he would be a badass yellow space marine with a rocket launcher shooting multi-coloured aliens, I think he should just stick to commenting and designing on easy fps games where as little creativity and thought is necessary.

Haven't you ever said something and a few seconds later you think back and mentally headslap yourself ow utterly retarded that must sound? Well I bet everyone here has had this at least once, and some more than others so maybe when Cliff B gets overly excited about games he just messes up the point he tries to make. The only reason why you never got this thrown back in your face by tis because you didn't make pulse-pounding gunfests like he does.

Now I'm not defending the guy entirely because I think he should've waited 2 seconds before stating his demos = banging girl straight away and he might have realised it wouldn't be that well received, but you can't really judge an entire person on a couple of things they say. I know I said tons of stuff that insulted people initially and I slapped myself in the face after I did it but you can't really do that with all those people listening/watching/reading.

..He might also have been drunk.

 

[MercFox1]

Guns:
N4G has it right. A lot of posters here are going over the top to criticize this guy, too. And, guys, he's been working on Gears 2 for a while now, I think it's kind of unreasonable to think he's been following this game and knows as much about it as some of us do. Yeah, so he misses the point, but it's just because he hasn't read the developer interviews where they mention you can have guns, and they affect your momentum, and you cannot reload them, so they're just more of a side thing than the focus of the game. Look, when he buys the game like all of us and has a whole bunch of free-time to play it, then he makes comments like this, well, then you can fire at will.

Also, if any of you ever called Fallout 3 "Oblivion with Guns", well, I'm sensing some hot 'pot-kettle' action.

Demos:
No comment. Just sounds like he said something without thinking.

 

[Killerbunny001]

He's the creator of Gears of War, do you really expect any words coming out of his mouth to actually have quality, poise and decency?

Right on. Without any flame, Gears of War is text book game and doesn`t present ANY interest from a design point of view. It`s actually very easy to make providing you have a money printing machine like Microsoft has.

Conclusion : People shouldn`t really adore this guy as a designer just because he made Gears of War.

Never cared for Cliffy B. or Epic. I know UT99 / 2k4 were great games, but the company behind them is pretty questionable. Personally I have more respect for id Software.

Right. Epic is in my opinion a great company as it houses a lot of very talented people.
There are books on the UT engine by those guys that you can beat to death a goat with.You have to respect them for trying to help others.

 

[Caliostro]

Cliffy B is mentally challenged. I thought we knew that.

 

[jamesworkshop]

The incentive for movemnet is being shot at however they do seem somewhat reluctent to shoot up close

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Wait, were is CliffyB lacking in understanding of Mirror's Edge? From what I read it seems as though he is expressing his belief that the game needs enemies. I agree, after all, how much fun would Assassin's Creed be without all the imbedding of blades in people? Like Cliff said; "even Mario had Goombas."

And his opinion on demos is just that, opinion. It also has some sensible context: Gears really doesn't need a demo as it's a hugely high profile release and rather traditional. Mirror's Edge needs a demo because it's sort of under the radar and nontraditional.