Saturday, 20. June 2009, 22:35:01
When gamers want to stress the artistic value of games they often compare them to film. Of course there's an inherent folly (that makes me sound like a twat) to this that we're all well aware of. Games aren't movies, plain and simple. The narrative is constructed in a different way, they're far longer, and they have to be fun.
Well we can argue that last point some other time, but for now lets use the example of David Lynch. I like David Lynch, I find his films fascinating, but I'll happily admit that some of them are incredibly hard to watch. If you translate that to a game, there aren't too many great games that are hard to play through. On a shallower level you could probably point to something like Megaman 9, but that'll offend fans, maybe Gran Turismo or Forza, but again there are people who would argue their depth makes them fun. They aren't hard to play in the same way Eraserhead is hard to watch, they're just hard.
There's another way that games and films differ, a less obvious way, and that's what their devotees value about them. Granted most people 'like' films, but I'm not talking about the people who'll watch Saw when it's on telly, I'm talking about the people who'll track down some obscure Romanian horror from the 1950's.
I'm not sure what to call these types of people, they're musos with an ocular fixation, and as such 'film buffs' seems a little weak. I don't want to call them anything derogatory either, as I'm right on their border. As such the 'Cinemati' (with the capital naturally) is going to have to do.
These Cinemati value films with heart, something that tugs a little, even something they can empathise with. A Farrely brothers comedy isn't really their thing, and their favourite Jim Carrey film is either 'Eternal Sunshine...' of 'The Cable Guy'. They'll watch animations where nothing happens for the sheer wonder of it, and the brief and subtle glance between the two protagonists that speaks all you need to know about their love (5 Centimetres per Second - great film).
If you take the equivalent person who plays games, the elitist type who will perhaps sigh at the sales charts and tut at peoples purchases, what do they champion? You probably know where I'm going with this, but lets go through it anyway shall we?
These 'hardcore' gamers (their name, not mine) beat their drums for the likes of Killzone and Gears of War. They nail their colours to the HD consoles and anything that comes out on anything else is shit. Unless they want it then it's wasted on whatever format isn't doing it justice. Silent Hill Shattered Memories is an example of this, the new Ju-On game too, not to mention Madworld.
They close themselves off to experiences seemingly out of spite, and fear they might like something they 'shouldn't'.
To labour my point, here's a quote I found:
"But the ppl tht made the wii are smart.
They made sports games anD "healthy-fit"
games for one reason:
to attract non-gamers.
the attention of nintendo on non-gamers as is gamers is a pretty uneven (horrible) ratio
so the Makers did somethin tht no one else would:
design the console with a moving sensor.
This, along side with designing the "healthy-fit games", assured all non-gamers, including gamers (gamers atrracted to SSBB, anyway) to have build intrest into buying it."
Granted this person is clearly an idiot, but if he was half as hardcore as he thinks he is then he'd be playing more that Smash Bros. on his Wii.
I am being a little disingenuous I'll admit. Not all 'Hardcore' gamers think like that, and not all the high valued games are boom fests. In fact games like Ico and shadow of the Colossus (made by the same developers admittedly), maybe Killer 7, Pixel Junk Eden, Flower, Rez, Braid etc, all those games are counter to my point.
Can I ask though, what's the best war film you've seen? Schindler's List? Platoon? Full Metal Jacket? Barefoot Gen?
Now what's the best war game you've played?
Love story? Tale of loss? Tale of hope? Exploration of rage? Revenge?
The values that make films great aren't the same as those for games. Yes I'd love to have more character exploration in games, deeper stories, and even deal with more serious subjects. In the grand scheme of things that would be a good thing for gaming AS A WHOLE, but that isn't what makes games great, especially when you start to look at individual titles.
We seem to have forgotten that in our protestations of the merits of videogames. We forget that we should be singing the praises of games that are fun, that that alone makes them worthy. The 'art' can, will, and has come, but lets not forget what our medium does better than all the others.
Saturday, 20. June 2009, 00:35:28
Wii Motion plus, Grand Slam Tennis, Wii Sports Resort, EA
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Wii Motion+ has finally arrived. We can all mutter about whether or not it should have been in the Wii remote from the start, but no one's listening.
It's here now and so are a couple of games. As it stands I've only played EA's Grand Slam Tennis. I did want Virtua Tennis, for after all, I am a Sega fanboy *clenched fist on heart* Unfortunately it wasn't too be, I had a credit note for Gamestation and they only had Virtua Tennis with 2 plastic racket add-ons for £50. this is without adding on the Motion+, which would have been another tenner at least. Why am I telling you this? We'll come to that in a bit.
To follow the 2 competing tennis games we've also got Tiger Woods 10. The talk from across the pond is that this is brilliant. Personally I'm not a big golf fan so it's hard to get excited about it, but a good games a good game. After that Nintendo join the action with Wii Sports Resort, a collection of light-sport games. It looks good, I'm not knocking it.
I've heard that Tiger Woods uses the Motion+ to the best effect, having not played it I can't really argue, but I will offer a counter suggestion. Wii Sports Resort offers more than just traditional sports games, certainly not everything involves some sort of stick. Tiger Woods and the two tennis games try to recreate the swinging mechanic required, which is fine, but it doesn't really show what the technology can do.
I'm not complaining that they don't push the technology, who cares so long as what they do is fun. However what they show is limited. The sheer variety of sports in Sports Resort (basketball, fencing, sky diving) means the remote is used in a more involved way. Fencing would be a prime example of this.
Now, those rackets I mentioned before. One of the issues I've got with Grand Slam Tennis is that it's not always clear how the motion+ is affecting the game. I quite like the controls so this isn't a massive complaint, but it was only thanks to a loading screen that I clocked that it was the side of the remote that represented the racket face. Cheap plastic peripherals, assuming they match the game, would have given me a real world guide.
What you need is something more explicit. Rather than a puny girly-boy tennis racket, why not a big fuck off sword? It's a bad example, but the Soul Calibur Legends game that came out on the Wii a few years back, something along the lines of that (except better), where the remote allowed you to parry and counter, so that what you were doing in the real world could be easily seen on screen. And that's the point, it must be easily seen. Surely that's more impressive, and what I liked about Sony's press conference.
Perhaps my opinion will change as I play more of Grand Slam Tennis, a game I genuinely do like, but it really doesn't feel like the most impressive demonstration of Motion+. If you want people to be impressed then make what you're doing explicit, as it stands it just feels like standard remote doing what it's supposed to do.
Remove the smoke and mirrors, leave the Magic Circle, let us see all the work that goes into making an elephant disappear. I for one would be more impressed
Friday, 23. January 2009, 01:29:03
metal gear solid 4, world of goo, 360, Wii
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The credit crunch, people losing their jobs, others struggling to find them, money too tight to mention. Things are hard and it's not much fun, the bills are all coming in and those new things you wanted to kick off the year seem further and further away. There must be a silver lining though surely, anything, no matter how much you're kidding yourself?
There sure is! The obvious silver lining is that there's sales everywhere, bargains to be had. The problem with that approach is it assumes you've got the money to spend, and to be honest a lot of the stuff that's on sale now was also on sale before christmas, like we've had a perpetual state of £20 new games. It certainly is a silver lining though, anything you missed in the over-flooded end to 2008 can be picked up now. Whatever you pick up will still feel recent enough to scratch the itch for a 'new' game that we all get, all the time, relentlessly, gnawing away until we eventually cave.
No, the silver lining that's my current saving grace is due to being completely broke. No games at all since the turn of the year, actually I bought Ninja Gaiden Sigma for a whopping £2 but have yet to play it. I got games for christmas like I'm sure most reading this did, and handled wrongly they would get ignored. One of these games I got for christmas is actually the spark for both this lining and this post. I got World of Goo on the Wii from a secret santa (which I've still not played), but I couldn't download it because I needed to update my Wii. Unfortunately updating the Wii meant ending my sporadic love affair with the Freeloader disk. There are a couple of import games I'd still like to pick up, but my real issue was that I still hadn't played No More Heroes.
I know I could eventually have picked up the pal version, maybe even matched the sale of my U.S. copy with the cost of an EU copy, and I know this is a bit of a juvenile excuse, but I wanted the blood. We can get into the minutia of this some other time, but I wanted to play the game in its 'true' state. In short, I had a deadline and so sat and played the game. Within 5 days of starting it was done, the further into the game I got the more I loved it. I'd had it for months, probably more than half a year, but never got myself together to play it. But now I had no choice.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was my next game. Borrowed from a friend it's been in my possession for a while, again I didn't start it when I got it, but when I did I made slow progress through it. I really enjoyed what I played, but the time dedication was putting me off. Again though I had a deadline, I'd promised to get it done as my next game post NMH's, and so I had to sit down and finish it. And finish it I did, it might have even usurped Yakuza 2 as my game of 08. There's problems with it sure, but as an experience there's nothing else like it, it's something that needs to be played!
I've games that will no doubt get forgotten about, and that's what this current climate is good for. I picked Braid and Rez up prior to the new year, both hidden away on my 360 hard-drive, but I've completed Braid and am inching my way through Rez due to over familiarity. leading up to the new year I bought Motorstorm Pacific Rift and Resistance, neither of which I've played since the turn of the year but illustrate my point. As does, probably more than any other game, Valkyria Chronicles, a game I've got for christmas and wanted for months, but still haven't spent any real time with.
Things being tight is forcing me to fight the itch, to go back and actually work my way through the games I've bought recently. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to buying games, my eyes are bigger than my mouth, or thumbs, or whatever. It would be all to easy to wander off from Mororstorm, despite enjoying it far more than I was expecting, there's new games on the way, shiny things, and I'm not committed to play it for any reason. Resistance too, I was enjoying that, it's not a classic sure but it's fun enough. The thing is the difficulty just spiked (again) right when I had to stop playing, it kind of kills the motivation to go back when that happens. Valkyria Chronicles is probably the quintessential forgotten game this generation, wonderfully presented and offering a fresh take on an old genre, but it's so easy to leave on a shelf.
So it's not all bad news, and certainly being forced to sit and play some of the best games of last year is hardly a hardship. The real test isn't due until next month with the arrival of House of the Dead, Street Fighter 4, then Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2. So I guess it's a race between how much I can get done and how much I can save. Then there's the issue of what to do if society falls apart? If I've burnt through my back catalogue in January and we're in some Mad Max dystopia by April I'm going to look quite the fool!
Tuesday, 25. November 2008, 00:36:25
Little Big Planet, nintendo, mario, sony
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The issue of new and casual gamers is one I've regularly come back to on God Mode On. I'm not entirely sure why that is but I suspect it's because I've become deeper involved in games as a pastime, almost accidentally, while many of my friends have remained passive. It's put me in a peculiar position of looking at the so called 'hardcore' and 'casual' from the outside despite being one of them. I'm not the only one, as television begins to lose its grip, film and music having to find new distribution avenues, gaming is becoming more accepted, creating a more zealous inner-inner circle leaving many gamers in a half-way house between the two camps. But that is a topic for another, more pretentious, day.
I was back at my parents Friday night. My friends, that are still in the country (and not in Japan, the jammy gets!) had made plans it was too late to change, so I settled in for a night in front of the telly with my parents and a takeaway. My dad soon got tired of my mums soaps and celebrity watching and went in the other room, me and my mum got talking about the Wii they'd recently bought. I'd brought a couple of games back with me for her to try and as there was nothing on I suggested we stick them on.
First things first, I had to set up the second remote. My parents had bought it the day they got the Wii (with Wii Play naturally), but couldn't connect it. They had no idea how, and decided to just give up trying. I also had to sort out the sensor bars range, again they had no idea how to do it, or that there was anything really wrong (there was, the pointer was all over the place). We also got talking about the channels, she liked the idea of the news and weather channels (and the internet channel, but they have to pay for that so it's a no go), the problem is that they have to sort out the wireless connection, easy enough if you know how, but they don't know the password for their router (understandably enough) and so I couldn't set it up for them.
Which actually brings me to a nice Little Big Planet tangent. LBP is often touted as being Sony's in for the casual market, I'd argue they've already got that with Buzz and Singstar, probably not console sellers on their own I guess. Little Big Planet though is not as casual as some think, ignoring the difficulty as it's not exactly Megaman, level creation is hugely in depth, and to access the fan made content you need to be online. Connecting an ethernet cable is easy enough but I can't see my parents doing that, and we've already established that they aren't about to set the PS3 up wirelessly.
Back on topic, once everything was set up I popped in Mario Galaxy and handed my mum the controllers. I've never seen anyone struggle so much in my life. When I first got my Dreamcast my mum fancied a go on Sonic Adventure, I happily obliged and handed her the controller, my prevailing memory of the next 5 minutes is of Sonic running in ever decreasing circles to the soundtrack of my mums helpless laughter.
Well history set about repeating itself, Mario swerved like a drunkard, falling into the quite avoidable black-hole of the second training level, wandering into enemies and leaping into the air every 3 seconds. My mums arms flailed around like an excitable Kermit, no matter how many times I tried to calm her down and get her to just use her thumb rather than the left side of her body to move. She doesn't understand analogue control, it's as simple as that. Frankly I've never understood why analogue control is regarded as such a massive leap over digital, there really aren't that many games that make the most of it.
House of the Dead was marginally more successful. It may seem a strange game to get your mother to play, but it involves nothing more than pointing at the screen and pressing the button. Actually that's not true, while her coordination was much better, the concept of reloading wasn't. I know HOTD2 pretty well from its Dreamcast days and really made the most of that knowledge. Without being unkind I was working extra hard to keep us alive, and I didn't mind that nor am I complaining, I expected it and was willing. I was trying to make things as easy as possible for my mum to engage with the game after all. It was tough going though, at one point seeing that there was only one slow moving zombie left I held back, leaving it for my mum to deal with. "Rererererererererererererererererererererererererereload"
I ended up dealing with the zombie, whilst we both laughed (me and my mum, not the zombie).
The point of all this, casual gamers may look at games like Mario and Little Big Planet and really want to play them. My mum has complained about being bored of the various brain tests she's invested in on the DS, but enabling them to make the step up is going to be difficult. How to you teach someone analogue control, twitch reflexes, and the patience to overcome deficits in skill?
That is what the games industry is going to have to overcome if it really wants to expand is 'core' user-base
Tuesday, 11. November 2008, 00:58:43
Little Big Planet, Gamespot, Gears of War, mike Capp
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A post on Kotaku referencing
Videogaming247 got me thinking. The post features quotes from Epic's Mike Capps, he talks about both the rental market and the second hand market being a problem for publishers and developers. Essentially his complaint is that the games industry (everything except the retail arm of it anyway) doesn't make any money when games are rented or when they are sold second hand.
This is not a new complaint for the industry and likewise me dismissal of it isn't new either. Perhaps I'm wrong but I can't think of another industry where the original artists (for argument's sake) are paid again on resale. The only thing I can think of that comes close is actors getting paid for repeats of TV programs, and possibly musicians getting royalties for air play. The royalties argument is probably closer to the rental market, however I would point out to Mr Capps that when I worked in a video shop we had to pay anywhere between £60-£100 for our rental films (each copy). We weren't just picking films up on the cheap from Play then renting them out for £3.50 a time. They cost a lot of money, the rentals would eventually pay that (most of the time), but if they didn't, or for extra profit, we would then sell them pre-owned.
The example that is often used as comparison to the 2nd hand games market is that of the second hand car market. My dad, being a northerner, is loathed to pay for a new car. He used to see it as a chumps move as, his words, 'It drops in value as soon as the wheels touch the road'. And he's right, my brother bought himself a 2nd hand Alfa Romeo, he could never afford a brand new one, yet second hand he paid as much as he sold his previous car for (or there abouts) and it's in great condition. However the car industry doesn't get money back when you sell your car, whether you do it through a magazine, a website, privately or through a dealership.
The dealership actually brings me to my next point slightly earlier than I intended, that while games and cars are very different, there are lessons to be learned for publishers. I mentioned before about my dad not being keen on buying new cars, that's increasingly not the case. In recent times car dealerships have begun offering packages and deals with your new car, be that free insurance, a buy back guarantee, free trade-ins, extra features, even tax, petrol and MOT's all being paid for. Buying a new car becomes a much more tempting proposition when you know you're not going to lose as much when you want to replace it, when there's zero risk attached and you know you have a nice new reliable car for the next 2-3 years. In gaming terms, give people a reason to buy new rather than wait a couple of weeks to line someone else's pockets. The recent Burnout game is a good example of this, even the likes of Gears 2 and Fable 2 with their online codes.
Probably the smartest move the car industry has made in the last decade is to buy into, or franchise, the 2nd had dealerships. You can buy a 2nd hand Volvo from a Volvo dealer knowing that it's been checked out by people that specialise in Volvo's, have the parts, and should anything go wrong knowing that you're dealing with Volvo from the off. My first thought with this comparison was Valve and Steam, obviously that doesn't actually deal in 2nd hand games, but it does sell old games with the money going to the devs and publishers.
The better model is to take it more literally, why don't EA buy into Gamestop, Ubisoft into Game? They take a cut of any of their games that get traded in and resold, offering reduced cost on new games for the store (in exchange for favoured shelf space), cheaper resale and better exchange rate to the customer (possibly even more so against other games from the publisher in question)? Basically give the customer a reason to sell your games back to you so you can make a second profit on them. Granted this favours the publishers big enough to invest in game stores, but then that encourages mid level and small publishers to find reasons for customers to buy new. There's always the option of publishers starting their own rental or trade in services on their websites.
To finish off, the quote from Capps that will cause the most fuss on the net
“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”This as he suggests it (or repeats the suggestion) is unacceptable. If you pay for a disk you are entitled to everything on it, the publishers have no right to charge a second time for content in such a cock-tease manner. What he's describing is essentially a download model for gaming, which I don't have a problem with (Steam for example), except that the customer has to buy the disk first. If we were talking about a return to the shareware model, where games are sold cheaply, or even free, with a payment having to be made to access the later parts of the game I'd be more forgiving. It still poses issues with the lack of uniformity with the net still, limited speeds and bandwidth caps would hinder a good chunk of users. Eventually you'd get people asking why they couldn't just pay a set price and have the whole thing on the disk and accessible to begin with and then... well then we're back to where we started.
Publishers and developers getting a second payment is an unreasonable expectation, I understand why they want it but it's just never going to happen. They are on the first steps of the right track with DLC, granted not every game is suitable for Burnout style expansions, but then perhaps not every game can be kept off the 2nd hand market. Online components will help with certain areas of the markets, there are people that wont trade in certain games because of the potential use they'll get from it online. Why not create short 4 hour spin offs (a la R&C Quest for Booty) that allow you to swap items and data between the download and retail games. Think about something like Animal Crossing, where by every new Nintendo game you bought gave you new items for your town. And maybe if you're really lucky you'll create the next Little Big Planet and have the consume provide you with the reasons not to sell the game while you fleece them with extortionate costumes?
Friday, 12. September 2008, 19:23:08
Tragic news friends, my best friend, the guy who's kept me sane since I left school has dies, just 2 weeks before his 9th birthday.
Granted he wasn't in the best of health, he quite often needed his pins cleaning, sometimes bending into/out of position. There were times when he wouldn't even recognise that I was trying to play with him and I'd have to turn him on all over again.
I am of course talking about my Dreamcast, Sega's box of wonder that has been by my side since launch day. The greatest console of all time, staggering game after staggering game, and the supplier of so many great gaming memories.
I'll never forget the struggle I had getting you online, but you supplying my teenage years with access to free porn just when I needed it. And the time I had saved a doctored image of Britney with a milk bottle in her fanny, not realising that you'd pick an image from my VMU to use as a screen saver. It was hard to tell whether my dad was angry, embarrassed or amused when I wandered back into the room to find him stood there. Great times.
I remember heading into Chester with mates, nipping into Game just to kill a bit of time and noticing an extraordinarily long que, puzzled I scanned the store and its customers, why was there such a freakish que? Of course it was because Shenmue had broken street date, I immediately snatched a copy and joined the hordes, sharing nervous looks with a fellow Dreamer praying this wasn't some horrible trick. Shenmue itself provided its own memories, my brother and his mate watching as I played the epic masterpiece, not wanting to play only to watch. I was on holiday from work at the time, but because I was heading towards the final breathtaking moments I called in sick on my day back just so I could finish the game uninterrupted.
You became something of a communal ritual, epic Soul Calibur battles were a given, as was getting destroyed by my button mashing brother. Before football every sunday a friend would come round just so we could tear through House of the Dead 2 to get us 'in the mood'. The hilarity of the ninja roping escapades on Worms, twitch gameplay in one of gamings slowest genres. I'd take on all comers on Streetfighter Alpha's dynamic fighter mode, granted I'd feel a bit cheap when I'd unleash a super-move if my friends looked like they were going to beat me, but I always knew you were routing for me.
Long after your official passing you stayed with me, heading to University and holding your own against he PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. How could they compete when you were offering 4 player Virtua Tennis, Project Justice and Guilty Gear. Ikaruga was daily for an entire term and I found new love for old classics like Berserk and Jet Set Radio.
Even at a non-geek student party one of your cousins was set up to keep us entertained. The host had been killing time till his guests arrived by trying to finish the crazy box in Crazy Taxi. Everyone took a turn trying to beat the last box, a mad race to the finish. The controller was handed to me just as I reached the optimum blood alcohol level familiar to pool players everywhere. I ended up defeated too, a mere second away from crossing the finish line to the giddy groans of my peers. I was forced to have another go but alas I'd tipped over the edge and was now far too drunk to show any crazy skills, only to pull and then later projectile vomit.
Up until your untimely death you were in use, with peripherals regularly being slotted into you, and you can't say I didn't keep you well fed with new games!
To quote Frightened Rabbit "I wish we'd never met then met today". Farewell my beautiful brother, though I may buy another Dreamcast, you will forever be my Drizzle Sizzle.
Friday, 8. August 2008, 00:35:50
We all have to do things we rather not to sometimes, putting ourselves out for our loved ones. Going to watch a film you'll hate with your partner, staying out late and not drinking to provide your friends with a safe ride home, grinding enough sleeping pills into your elderly relatives tea to make their final moments peaceful ones.
For me, as this is a gaming blog and not a euthanasia one, it's more a case of buying a game I ordinarily wouldn't. It's my sisters birthday next week, and as she's an adult there's nothing she desperately wants or needs. She did kind of hint that she wanted money, but even though I tend to ask for the same thing I feel weird giving my older sister cash as a present, I feel obliged to put more thought into her present. That extra thought was actually just a text asking her if there was a game that she wanted. I knew that she was broke and a bit bored with what she had for her Wii, even though she has my copy of the almost fantastic Zack & Wiki.
It turns out my sister has turned into a bit of a cliche given that she wants Big Beach Sports, probably the most advertised game on T.V. at the minute.She never used to be this way (my sister), back when I was a kid she listened to great music and watch some pretty cool films. The day it all changed was when she dug out her old New Kids on the Block cds, abandoning the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I could rant here about having to listen to I Should Be So Lucky through my bedroom wall, but I wont. My sister, despite not really owning a console at any point in her life (until the PS2, which she sold a year ago) actually liked some pretty good games. She'd play the likes of Streets of Rage and Road Rash on my Megadrive, Mario on my brothers Snes. She loved Ecco on the Dreamcast, except for that heart attack inducing giant Great White at the end of the first area.
Even when she did get a PS2, though she filled it with licenced games, her heart was in the right place. She remembered Goldeneye being good on the N64, so was trying to recreate that. One of the Simpsons games was a rip off (err, allegedly) of the mighty Crazy Taxi, another game she adored. She also had a GTA game, again because she loved the original, I've no idea how far she got with it, but at least she was thinking about the right games.
With the Wii though things have changed. To my knowledge she hasn't started Zack & Wiki because it'll be too hard (for the record, it's not all that hard, especially early on), she refused to borrow Resident Evil 4 off me because it too would be too hard. A shame because she'd love it, or she would have done a few years back anyway. Instead her Wii is being used the way critics accuse most Wii's of being used, as a Wii Sports machine.
In the past I've defended the casual market, just because they might not be what we look for in a game doesn't mean there's no value to them. the prime example if something like Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, it's a multiplayer game plain and simple, and when played as such it's a great game (well, a 'great' game) but it's hardly Ikaruga for hardcore appeal (don't get me started on the facets of 'Hardcore', but there's some very cynical people who wouldn't give a game like Ikaruga a chance yet claim to be teh hardcorz). If all you want is something diverting then these games can fill that hole. We're all guilty of buying less than stellar games because of some quirky, license or aesthetic appeal.
Thing is it's getting harder to defend these game. They seem to be getting more and more cynical and I'm waiting for the sign that some of the casual gamers are making a step up. Both my sister and my mum have gone backwards, to the point where a simple puzzle game terrifies them because it's not got Dr. Kawashima's erotically angular face on the box. Maybe that should have been the focus of this post rather than just an after thought at the end. Maybe I've been spending too much time on the internet and I've let its teenage cynicism infest me. I don't know any more.
What I do know is, I'd have rather spent more money than I did on a better game for her.
Monday, 7. July 2008, 23:16:18
I got into a forum conversation the other day regarding innovation on the DS. I actually missed the guys point a bit, reading more into what he'd written than he meant.
The thread in question had somehow gotton onto the subject of the standard of DS games. There was a time where the DS was king of all, not just in terms of sales but pure gold quality too. Granted some of these so called great games weren't in the top echelons of gaming greatness, but at a time where gaming had become stilted and tired (like it is now) it was throwing up genuinely enjoyable and interesting titles. You could probably argue the same right now too with the likes of Space Invaders Extreme (also on PSP) and The World Ends With You, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Tuesday, 10. June 2008, 10:16:30
Gotta no respect? That may be the best title I've ever come up with.
Without wanting to sound like an advert for a razor, for me as a gamer, control is everything. You can have the greatest gameplay mechanics ever conceived, the biggest sprawling worlds packed with the most ludicrous enemies, but if you can't interact with it all properly then the game will never reach the heights.
This is why I've never really embarked on a full blown love affair with the Survival Horror genre. sure there's been some drunken one night stands, brief but mind blowing encounters, but there's only been a handful of serious relationships. Me and RE: Code Veronica went steady for a while, D2 was awesome in the sack, and I thought I had something special with Silent Hill 2. But it wasn't until Resident Evil 4 that my criticisms of a Survival Horror game didn't start out with 'clunky controls'.
In the current gaming climate controls seem to be the big issue, what with people getting sued and accusations of copycattery being thrown around. The Wii receives derision and acclaim in equal measure for it's inaccurate/precise control schemes, and for what it's worth Zack & Wiki drove me crazy with its motion controls yet Metroid is probably my favourite FPS this gen.
I've heard much talk over the past 5 years about how console FPS games' controls have improved. I can believe it too, granted I'm not the biggest FPS player but even I can feel the fluid movement and tighter aiming that modern analogues bring. It's not a surprise really given the obscene number of FPS games that have been released in the past few years developers would have been hard pushed not to learn something.
There's one format though that has had unchanged controls for years, and is all too ready to boast about them. I am of course referring to the PC. At any given moments anywhere in the world there is a 30% chance you are about to be accosted by a PC gamer who will pin you down and berate you, the console gamer, for your sluggish imprecise controls. Your old defences of quicker loading times, lack of installs and no need for patches have been eroded by your own ravenous lust for power and 1080P's. The arcade ports that PC gamers could only dream of are dead, and you already know deep in your heart that your favourite FPS game has a better port on the PC. So while you lie there no longer trying to free yourself, resigned to the PC gamers sweat dripping into your mouth, while his talk of anti-aliasing penetrates your ears. As you silently scream out for a saviour, a hero, a magnificent hunk, know that I am he.
I am your messiah and I have for you just 4 letters. W. A. S. D.
Speak them child and know there power, the PC gamers stalwart is also its biggest enemy. Try them, chances are your sat at a PC as you read these teachings, place your fingers on those sacred insignia and imagine playing through a 20 hour FPS with them. Now reach for R to reload, F to turn on your torch. G for grenades, Ctrl to grab and C to crouch. Without unfixing your eyes from the screen hit the number buttons to change weapon. Don't you see, the keyboard is not an ergonomic gaming peripheral, it was never designed for precision movement, rapidly changing weapons, reacting to fluctuating conditions. This is our weapon brothers!
In all seriousness and without wanting to start some huge argument, the WASD control method is uncomfortable and cumbersome. I'm sure hardened PC gamers will be used to it, hell even I'm au fait with it and I'm hardly hardcore. It is such a staple of PC gaming though, and with good reason, everyone who owns a PC will also own a keyboard and a mouse.
I don't think the WASD keys give you the same level of control as a pad either, platform sections in particular can be a struggle. Strafing is easy, but with an analogue stick not only can you strafe you can also circle around with a minute adjustment of your thumb. However for such a manoeuvre on either format you need a second hand either working a 2nd analogue stick or a mouse. Score 1 for the PC. there is no doubt that the mouse is more precise and responsive than the analogue stick. The stick is fine for looking around but precise aiming, particularly at speed is still not all it could be.
The solution to this is or course some sort of combination of analogue and mouse, and we already have one have one in the Wii. But until more FPS games appear on the machine it's only a theoretical solution. Admittedly turning the camera isn't right on the Wii yet, rather than having a locked focus in the centre of the screen, the pointer is allowed to roam free. Great picking off enemies already on screen, but the counters put in place to stop the screen from spinning get in the way of fast turning. For me all it needs is a button to be held to allow for camera movement, but I assume there's a reason this hasn't been implemented.
So what was the point of all this, I guess that no control scheme is perfect. There are a few examples such as the light gun and the Saturn pad & arcade stick (for fighters) that do as good a job as you could ever hope for, but they're very specialised. In short then, the jack of all trades...
Wednesday, 28. May 2008, 12:06:07
Well I never thought it would happen but it has. I didn't see it coming, I just didn't, maybe I was being naive thinking I wouldn't be affected in the way I have...
Ok deep breath Ben, you can do this.
I am... a PC Gamer. Wow, it feels like a weight has been lifted, I feel green and new, ready to face this world of new challenges . Alright so I'm exaggerating for effect, but I am genuinely taken aback by how quickly I've been hooked into the world of PC gaming.
I got a new pc a few weeks back, my old one had started making weird clicking noises before slowing right down, it also had real problems booting up. I figured the cooling for the CPU had packed up, my boss reckons it's the HDD, either way I had to bite the bullet and get a new computer. Just as an aside my old computer seems to be working alright now, likely because it's not on all the time like it used to be, so I reckon it is something to do with the cooling.
My old computer has lasted me and my family for about 5 years, it was pretty good when we got it although not stellar, and when I moved out it came with me and worked absolutely fine for what I wanted. When I was at school there was a real need to replace your computer after a few years, basic programs were advancing so fast that even if you weren't using your PC to run games it would still begin to struggle astonishingly quickly. I'm not sure that's quite the case now, or at least I hope not. My 5 year old PC needed some more ram and a bigger HDD, but aside from that there was nothing I needed it to do that it let me down on.
That was pretty much my logic with this new computer, rather than skimp and get a newer version of my old computer I thought I'd spend the money making sure things like the ram and the CPU would still being capable a few years down the line, ideally at least until I've paid for it. I looked at some really expensive computers, gaming ones, but the cost of them was insane! And really, how much better could they be in relation to their price? You end up paying a lot more for incrementally better machines. That's not to say I wasn't tempted, hell I was tempted by all sorts of stuff including a PC case that has a small screen built into it for viewing pictures and the like.
Truth is though I had no interest in playing games on it beyond Football Manager and Audiosurf, so as long as it had enough space that I wouldn't have to manage my HDD as rigorously as I'd had to with the old PC, plenty of ram and a good CPU that would do everything I asked when I asked I was happy.
However, one of the best things about getting a new PC is replaying your old games with all the settings whacked up to full. It's a simple stupid joy but it's a good one, and it gives another burst of life to games that had been sitting on the shelf for a few years. Unfortunately I hadn't calculated the Vista factor, meaning games like the Max Payne's had problems running (although I got the 2nd one running) and I daren't even attempt the likes of Alice and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
I've mentioned this before but back when I was at school I lost pretty much all interest in gaming. I was pushed into getting rid of my Gamegear and my Megadrive (*cough* and 32X *cough*) and the 32bits had nothing to offer me. We flogged our Playstation and used some of the money to pick up Championship Manager 2 for our PC, we had Doom with a bunch of sound files (Evil Dead, Aliens, Beavis & Butthead) and were given the awesome Duke Nukem. I eventually found my way back to the Saturn but the likes of Quake, Football Manager, Warcraft 2, Half-Life and the already mentioned Max Payne have all dotted my gaming history.
I really did think though that my PC gaming days were behind me. While there is of course a gulf in power between a high end PC and the home consoles, there's less of one in terms of games. While Crysis can't be faithfully recreated on with the ps3 or the 360 it can be approximated. The Orange Box took one of PC gaming's greatest series and recreated it magnificently. Halo, or perhaps a better example would be Call of Duty offer console gamers the online experience of a pacey fps.
There are of course certain types of games that still don't really make the jump across, MMO's are still rare although doable, strategy games are still the preserve of the PC and with good reason. This actually highlights a problem I'm having with console gaming at the minute. the 360 is so overwhelmed by FPS and action games, I know that's not all there is but that's its bread and butter, the PS3 seems desperate to follow suit and add a sprinkling of PS2 sequels that I didn't like first time round. The Wii has actually been my preferred console since launch, it does offer alternatives and unique games, unfortunately there still isn't a wealth of quality games coming out for it at the minute.
This is all starting to feel a bit familiar.
Audiosurf was the spark for all of this. Actually no it was Sam & Max Episode 4, which was given away free through Steam (meaning I had to download steam) and I still haven't played. It popped my cherry in regards to downloading and paying for PC games. I've done it with music a few times, and after initially thinking it was a bad idea, missing out on the convenience of CDs and the appeal of physically owning something, the truth is that it's meant my cds can all be boxed away while I listen to everything either on my mp3 player (or phone) or on my computer. Thank's to Sam & Max, Audiosurf, and even the Virtual Console/Live Arcade/PSN downloading games is a lot more appealing.
I checked the specs of my computer against Half-Life 2 out of sheer boredom, and then bought the Orange Box off Steam out of sheer drunken consumerism. Within hours I'd grabbed hold of Quake 4, Painkiller and Fallout 2 (which I don't think works), not all the latest and greatest but they have (especially HL2) been dominating my gaming time.
So I've returned to an old flame and everything's rosey. Except that already I'm thinking about upgrading my graphics card, I don't need to but wouldn't it be nice to play Crysis at something like a high spec. I'm not sure how well by computer will run the upcoming Alan Wake and Fallout 3, the only 2 games coming to PC I give a shit about.
And that's the crux of my problem. I bought the PC as an internet, music player, video watcher, Football Manager, Word machine, if I won't the high end gaming experience I should have spent more, especially as I'm already used to having all the settings on max. but then what is there out there? Really, beyond the games I've already mentioned, plus maybe Dreamfall (which i could just buy on xbox for pennies), the upcoming months are as barren for me.
The blessing is that I've more than enough to keep me going until christmas, across all formats
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