It's been a while. In the time I got laid off from my traditional marketing and advertising position, and taken a full time job back in retail. Which sucks, in a certain way.
But I have to say, the one thing that sets my mind alive like fire is Project Natal. Natal sounds like fun for gaming, but what it really means is jobs.
In the weird part of my mind, I think that Natal is the platform of the future for communication. Something that follows you, is interactive in the way that they purport in their video here...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgWUtw0sbro
What can you do with this tech?
Well, you can do what many economists are hoping we do, but can't do right now... specialize. I think Natal may birth what we can call "The Communication App".
Using the software, homebrew producers could come up with programs to help people communicate. Then, for a nominal fee, someone buys the software, and is able to run a small business communicating with other people.
Some examples.
Tutoring
Nursing home adjustment
Medical checkups for sick kids
Physical therapy
Music Lessons
Cooking
Therapy
The ability to share information via Natal is different than it is with webcams, more intuitive. It can work in people's living rooms, which would have an appeal unlike a computer. It would get people the services they need at a fraction of the cost of what it would be to have the person live and in their living room. And for many people out there begging for an opportunity, this could be it.
It's a pretty farfetched dream, but dreaming has to stay alive in this economy.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The More Things Change… The Clink all the way to the Credits.
As a fun rebuttal to the Angsty Gaijin’s take on the “wisening” up of game companies, I am afraid that the industry has shown that they haven’t wised up, in fact they pull the same old pony tricks.
Now, and this is hardly sentimental, I look at games with a very particular lense of my adolescence. I believe that the greatest period of games began with the coin clink at the beginning of Super Mario World and ended with Halo 2’s credits.
That’s a hell of a period, but I’ll explain why.
There were games of varying quality in this period, but I think you could point to any game of any merit (including Spyro, Final Fantasy 8, and even Super Mario World) and you could single out the faults. Looking back at the developer diaries and making of the games, you can definitely see that games had some cuts. You could see the rush.
Super Mario World has been considered rushed by its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. But it is a fantastic game. Its color palate is still unbeaten, and you can see the tiny points where rushing may or may not have occurred. It’s not a game without its flaws, but in truth it was a semi-rushed release game that withstood any evident criticism. It also displayed Mode 7, in some very rudimentary forms at the end. But Mode 7 was the beginning of mature 3D console gaming. It showed an imperfect solution to a huge gaming problem…
great minds can overcome hardware limitations.
Steven Hawking would agree with that.
And if you look at most games from that era, be they on the Nintendo 64 with Star Wars: Pod Racer, or Final Fantasy 7’s numerous discs, there were few problems that couldn’t be solved with a little bit of spitshine and polish.
With the Xbox’ storage and horsepower, a lot went out the window. Gone were the ideas that you couldn’t have a massive game, gone were the ideas that online gaming on a console wasn’t a mere diversion, but a serious competition for the PC.
Also, with that game, it marked the first time that a well-made game would be considered irrevocably flawed. The criticism of game decisions was never louder, the flaws of the experiments never more glaring.
Now, if you have to change discs, it’s a crime (RE4). Or don’t have progressive scan. Or use and ship with a ridiculously expensive and poorly assembled controller (DDR). You can’t have a shitty camera (Ninja Gaiden II) the way you could with Ninja Gaiden. Even the big lads can’t escape. Since Halo 2, no Mario, nor Metal Gear, nor Final Fantasy, nor Smash Brothers, nor Zelda has been considered half as good as what came before.
Take it another way. Ico is a fucking brilliant game. Shadows of the Colossus is better in many ways. But most gamers harp on about Colossus’ length and pant heavily at the thought of more Ico.
Criticism… has changed.
There are things about Halo 2 that unleashed a different wave and mentality in the internet, the way no semi-perfect game had before. It raised the bar and made gamers more aware of a game’s flaws. Suddenly, the experience of a great game was jarred by deadlines. Choices were made that weren’t vetted properly. And it affected the game every single step of the way.
Spyro couldn’t cut it in this climate. The great early games of the Gamecube, the charm if imperfect world of the Prince of Persia remake. All those games of PS2 and PSX origin that you can smile about now (Ehrgheiz)… ah. Those were the days. Tony Hawk used to make great games. You wouldn’t know it now. In a post Halo 2 world, no Tony Hawk game has come close to the hype or plaudits of the original.
That’s not to say there aren’t great games. That would be a lie. It’s just to say that there’s a remarkable difference in the way a game’s flaws are perceived by the buying public that has made anything short of perfection forgivable.
Mirror’s Edge, as a hasty 3D Playstation 2 concept, would be forgiven for its poor mechanics 6 years ago. Banjo and Kazooie Nuts and Bolts would be forgiven for spending too much time not having fun. Metal Gear would be forgiven for its lengthy prose, and the Wii Codes wouldn’t be such a pain if we didn’t know any better.
But Halo 2 was the shifting point.
Now flaws are unforgivable, and concepts have to be perfectly executed. This falls in contrary to the publisher’s main goal of making money. They need to make shortcuts, but nothing ever captured the cheesy and acceptable charm of Bowser floating around in bad, pixely Mode 7.
Now games like Superman 64 existed before Halo 2; this is not an argument about bad games or the like. Bad games are bad. Flawed games are now bad, when before they were damn neat and maybe a ton of fun.
Part of the problem is that, yes, the economy changed. But gaming opinion took a more negative slant on itself faster than the financial markets. Games still sold, but suddenly store like Gamestop were considered a prime threat. Why would you ever want to sell our neat game?
The other part of the problem is that games in 3D, with such elevated graphics and story, cannot settle for anything short of perfection. Is marketing finally loosening its grip on the consumer?
No such luck, I’m afraid. Hype floats the Wii in many forms, and Motor Storm still sold a ton. If you took any of the recent Sonic games and push Spyro in his place, you wouldn’t sell half as many of the same game.
Marketing still works. Games will always have flaws and rushed cuts and deadlines, but until our mindset changes, it will be game over for more good ideas. Will it change? No clue, but I do know what Mario did. It began with a clink, opened a colorful world, and began a time where anything, truly, was possible. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it sure was fun. I hope we can go back there someday. That’s a fight we should finish.
Now, and this is hardly sentimental, I look at games with a very particular lense of my adolescence. I believe that the greatest period of games began with the coin clink at the beginning of Super Mario World and ended with Halo 2’s credits.
That’s a hell of a period, but I’ll explain why.
There were games of varying quality in this period, but I think you could point to any game of any merit (including Spyro, Final Fantasy 8, and even Super Mario World) and you could single out the faults. Looking back at the developer diaries and making of the games, you can definitely see that games had some cuts. You could see the rush.
Super Mario World has been considered rushed by its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. But it is a fantastic game. Its color palate is still unbeaten, and you can see the tiny points where rushing may or may not have occurred. It’s not a game without its flaws, but in truth it was a semi-rushed release game that withstood any evident criticism. It also displayed Mode 7, in some very rudimentary forms at the end. But Mode 7 was the beginning of mature 3D console gaming. It showed an imperfect solution to a huge gaming problem…
great minds can overcome hardware limitations.
Steven Hawking would agree with that.
And if you look at most games from that era, be they on the Nintendo 64 with Star Wars: Pod Racer, or Final Fantasy 7’s numerous discs, there were few problems that couldn’t be solved with a little bit of spitshine and polish.
With the Xbox’ storage and horsepower, a lot went out the window. Gone were the ideas that you couldn’t have a massive game, gone were the ideas that online gaming on a console wasn’t a mere diversion, but a serious competition for the PC.
Also, with that game, it marked the first time that a well-made game would be considered irrevocably flawed. The criticism of game decisions was never louder, the flaws of the experiments never more glaring.
Now, if you have to change discs, it’s a crime (RE4). Or don’t have progressive scan. Or use and ship with a ridiculously expensive and poorly assembled controller (DDR). You can’t have a shitty camera (Ninja Gaiden II) the way you could with Ninja Gaiden. Even the big lads can’t escape. Since Halo 2, no Mario, nor Metal Gear, nor Final Fantasy, nor Smash Brothers, nor Zelda has been considered half as good as what came before.
Take it another way. Ico is a fucking brilliant game. Shadows of the Colossus is better in many ways. But most gamers harp on about Colossus’ length and pant heavily at the thought of more Ico.
Criticism… has changed.
There are things about Halo 2 that unleashed a different wave and mentality in the internet, the way no semi-perfect game had before. It raised the bar and made gamers more aware of a game’s flaws. Suddenly, the experience of a great game was jarred by deadlines. Choices were made that weren’t vetted properly. And it affected the game every single step of the way.
Spyro couldn’t cut it in this climate. The great early games of the Gamecube, the charm if imperfect world of the Prince of Persia remake. All those games of PS2 and PSX origin that you can smile about now (Ehrgheiz)… ah. Those were the days. Tony Hawk used to make great games. You wouldn’t know it now. In a post Halo 2 world, no Tony Hawk game has come close to the hype or plaudits of the original.
That’s not to say there aren’t great games. That would be a lie. It’s just to say that there’s a remarkable difference in the way a game’s flaws are perceived by the buying public that has made anything short of perfection forgivable.
Mirror’s Edge, as a hasty 3D Playstation 2 concept, would be forgiven for its poor mechanics 6 years ago. Banjo and Kazooie Nuts and Bolts would be forgiven for spending too much time not having fun. Metal Gear would be forgiven for its lengthy prose, and the Wii Codes wouldn’t be such a pain if we didn’t know any better.
But Halo 2 was the shifting point.
Now flaws are unforgivable, and concepts have to be perfectly executed. This falls in contrary to the publisher’s main goal of making money. They need to make shortcuts, but nothing ever captured the cheesy and acceptable charm of Bowser floating around in bad, pixely Mode 7.
Now games like Superman 64 existed before Halo 2; this is not an argument about bad games or the like. Bad games are bad. Flawed games are now bad, when before they were damn neat and maybe a ton of fun.
Part of the problem is that, yes, the economy changed. But gaming opinion took a more negative slant on itself faster than the financial markets. Games still sold, but suddenly store like Gamestop were considered a prime threat. Why would you ever want to sell our neat game?
The other part of the problem is that games in 3D, with such elevated graphics and story, cannot settle for anything short of perfection. Is marketing finally loosening its grip on the consumer?
No such luck, I’m afraid. Hype floats the Wii in many forms, and Motor Storm still sold a ton. If you took any of the recent Sonic games and push Spyro in his place, you wouldn’t sell half as many of the same game.
Marketing still works. Games will always have flaws and rushed cuts and deadlines, but until our mindset changes, it will be game over for more good ideas. Will it change? No clue, but I do know what Mario did. It began with a clink, opened a colorful world, and began a time where anything, truly, was possible. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it sure was fun. I hope we can go back there someday. That’s a fight we should finish.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
DS Sigh
Color me underwhelmed, but Nintendo has done a significant brush-off (again) to its loyal fanbase.
See, what Nintendo fails to realize is that some point in its illustrious history, many of its fans grew up. They bought big TV’s, and sound systems that handle fiber optic cables. They became jaded gamers who loved the retro lovin. I mean… LOVE IT. Mega Man 9 as a theory is what gaming is about.
The DSi is not about the evolution of gaming. None of its new elements (3 megapixel camera, SD compatibility) really do it for me. What they’ve managed to do with this device is create the perfect Christmas present for a young kid.
Imagine you’re a parent and your kid asks for several things for Christmas. A DS, and Ipod, and a camera…
Well, Nintendo’s got you covered, babycakes! As a retail worker, the DS age group ABSOLUTELY ASKS for those items every Christmas and birthday season. And for the low low price of 180 bucks (plus the cost of an SD card) you can give them everything they want!
And these aren’t kids who want Game Boy Advance compatibility! No! They don’t want/need that. Their Pokemon was never Red, nor was it Leaf! This new DS is everything that my generation doesn’t want or need.
And well, that’s a bit insulting. I really can’t blame this move on their part, but I can’t help wishing for more. The precipitous drop in battery life makes me sigh; I know how the original portable wars were won, and it wasn’t via color or speed, but how long the damn Game Boy lasted.
The lack of a graphic upgrade also makes me sigh. Arguably, if they want to put the PSP to bed, they should to it soundly. If the Wii is destined to be shovelware, then the DS should be known for quality. Sigh.
The camera… I have a camera on my cell phone. It’s used in those extreme situations, like a really funny license plate or when Cloverfield shows up. Other than that, it’s not a great camera and I don’t ever use it. I know what 3 megapixels looks like, and it’s not pretty.
The SD card reader… I’m really mixed on this one. I could write an entire essay on the effects of the SD card. It is the first near-ubiquitous memory card, the most adaptive and also the most inexpensive. Its potential is so insane that only the humble USB 2.0 spec carries more gravitas. The USB 2.0 spec changed the world, and I think SD cards can do the same.
Its inclusion on the DS begs… no… taunts pirates to abuse it. I furtively believe that Nintendo wouldn’t be presenting so suggestively if they didn’t see dollars, and I assume they see dollars in the way of Virtual Console. The changing of Wii Points to Nintendo Points is the greatest indicator of this. They see dollar bills, y’all, and they are going to make hits of their back catalogue work for them.
Sigh. But it’s not enough to get me excited. It doesn’t answer any glaring issues with the DS Lite, and it doesn’t add to the experience in a meaningful way for core gamers. If that’s not the point, then Nintendo is continuing its long snub of is core fans who dared to grow up.
If Nintendo sticks to its game release habits, we’re done with Mario, Link, and Samus in this generation. The new games were good, but the public likes to see what’s coming. If nothing’s coming, then either A. they don’t get how insane people are for these games or B. It’s not coming to the Wii.
And considering how many more games came out for the Gamecube in its life time (2 Links, and two adventures for Samus), this is more than a little disappointing. I have no doubt that Punch Out! will be fun, and Sin and Punishment begs someone to care. Nintendo takes a long time to showcase games, and I don’t think Punch Out or Sin and Punishment 2 can moves systems. Their progenitors sure didn’t.
See, what Nintendo fails to realize is that some point in its illustrious history, many of its fans grew up. They bought big TV’s, and sound systems that handle fiber optic cables. They became jaded gamers who loved the retro lovin. I mean… LOVE IT. Mega Man 9 as a theory is what gaming is about.
The DSi is not about the evolution of gaming. None of its new elements (3 megapixel camera, SD compatibility) really do it for me. What they’ve managed to do with this device is create the perfect Christmas present for a young kid.
Imagine you’re a parent and your kid asks for several things for Christmas. A DS, and Ipod, and a camera…
Well, Nintendo’s got you covered, babycakes! As a retail worker, the DS age group ABSOLUTELY ASKS for those items every Christmas and birthday season. And for the low low price of 180 bucks (plus the cost of an SD card) you can give them everything they want!
And these aren’t kids who want Game Boy Advance compatibility! No! They don’t want/need that. Their Pokemon was never Red, nor was it Leaf! This new DS is everything that my generation doesn’t want or need.
And well, that’s a bit insulting. I really can’t blame this move on their part, but I can’t help wishing for more. The precipitous drop in battery life makes me sigh; I know how the original portable wars were won, and it wasn’t via color or speed, but how long the damn Game Boy lasted.
The lack of a graphic upgrade also makes me sigh. Arguably, if they want to put the PSP to bed, they should to it soundly. If the Wii is destined to be shovelware, then the DS should be known for quality. Sigh.
The camera… I have a camera on my cell phone. It’s used in those extreme situations, like a really funny license plate or when Cloverfield shows up. Other than that, it’s not a great camera and I don’t ever use it. I know what 3 megapixels looks like, and it’s not pretty.
The SD card reader… I’m really mixed on this one. I could write an entire essay on the effects of the SD card. It is the first near-ubiquitous memory card, the most adaptive and also the most inexpensive. Its potential is so insane that only the humble USB 2.0 spec carries more gravitas. The USB 2.0 spec changed the world, and I think SD cards can do the same.
Its inclusion on the DS begs… no… taunts pirates to abuse it. I furtively believe that Nintendo wouldn’t be presenting so suggestively if they didn’t see dollars, and I assume they see dollars in the way of Virtual Console. The changing of Wii Points to Nintendo Points is the greatest indicator of this. They see dollar bills, y’all, and they are going to make hits of their back catalogue work for them.
Sigh. But it’s not enough to get me excited. It doesn’t answer any glaring issues with the DS Lite, and it doesn’t add to the experience in a meaningful way for core gamers. If that’s not the point, then Nintendo is continuing its long snub of is core fans who dared to grow up.
If Nintendo sticks to its game release habits, we’re done with Mario, Link, and Samus in this generation. The new games were good, but the public likes to see what’s coming. If nothing’s coming, then either A. they don’t get how insane people are for these games or B. It’s not coming to the Wii.
And considering how many more games came out for the Gamecube in its life time (2 Links, and two adventures for Samus), this is more than a little disappointing. I have no doubt that Punch Out! will be fun, and Sin and Punishment begs someone to care. Nintendo takes a long time to showcase games, and I don’t think Punch Out or Sin and Punishment 2 can moves systems. Their progenitors sure didn’t.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Force Unfinished
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: A Tale of Two Video Games.
When it’s firing on all cylinders, this game is one of the best Star Wars games ever. When it’s not, it’s one of the worst.
Story
This is an odd juxtaposition. A story game in an adventure game. It REALLY plays like God of War in its mechanics, and its story is duly similar. The interesting thing about Star
Wars canon is that things only happen once. And the story that ties together the prequels and the original trilogy has this as a gap. It’s not always a sane one, it’s a book one. As insane as the movies are (and boy howdy on that note) the books are really batty. This is a decent bridge, but due to its role as being A STAR WARS video game it mirrors the two protagonists of each trilogy. For a video game, this isn’t bad. In fact, it’s one of the better told stories I’ve seen. As a piece that’s supposed to be (thus far) the definitive gap filler, it’s kind of a letdown. It’s interesting to people who care about Star Wars more than a little.
Design
The levels are fairly straightforward and uninteresting, but when they are big they aren’t varied. Critiques leveled are that the graphics are too simplistic or that the path is too linear. First off, few are the adventure games where the path isn’t linear. Sandbox style game play in a supposedly linear story doesn’t work either. It’s a platform adventure hack n’ slash. This is a rather solid genre. When games like Assassin’s Creed or a Spider Man game ARE open ended, the critique is that they are not straightforward enough.
It’s the most detailed Star Wars game on any console, and the best implementation of Force Powers. The practical considerations like not amputating opponents when you slash with your saber are a shame, but it’s a practical shame. While a lot of the levels are very… similar. There is a good deal more detail and nuance than your average game. Some of the levels are practically inspired design, others feel very average. Some of the levels feel too busy, but I’m fine with that. Star Wars can be messy, and I’m not sorry for that feeling.
Gameplay
This is one of the games that are geared towards the “Core” gamer. Its gameplay utilizes every button on the controller for combos and various moves. This is at times disorienting. This approach is necessary given all the choices the character has, but I can’t help but feel bad for the newly minted gamers who are going to be excited by this, but are frustrated by overly complex controls. They did the best with what they have, but it doesn’t change the fact that this game is sharply for the experienced hand.
Sound
It’s Star Wars. Greatest soundtrack ever. The sound effects are dead on (they even get in the Wilhelm, for goodness sake’s). My complaint here is the lack of more variety. Star Wars is a deep canal, and there’s plenty of music to go with, yet it seems the mixes here are smaller. Given that John Williams wrote specific themes for characters, their lack leaves the game an exhaustive mood. Everything is mood music or The March of the Empire. It didn’t work in the prequels.
Glitches and Bad Choices
Sometimes, the game takes a good idea and ruins it, and that does a lot of damage to its reputation. This is a game that many can be proud of, but the lack of polish or discretion in certain instances offer a counterpoint to the developer layoffs. It pains me to say, but some of the decisions and quality checks that failed really do warrant termination. Not an entire team, per se, but these are revenue-costing mistakes, and punitive actions are due.
This game is unforgivably insipid at times. It’s embarrassing, and it makes this a rental, not a buy. The Star Destroyer scene is really as terrible as you’ve heard. It’s embarrassingly glitchy, it’s unreliable and it hurts to do. For such a centerpiece of the game, it’s really awful. Took me over an hour and a half. How this ever got past testing, I’ll never know or understand. When you use the force so effortlessly (that’s kind of the point of the game) this section feels awful.
Boss fights are also poorly implemented. Imagine that you spend an entire game with a certain viewpoint and move reactions. Which you do in The Force Unleashed. Until a boss fight. Then you get these wide shots that are really hard to control in. It’s not what you’re doing 90% of the time, and while it does offer a wider venue, it throws you out of the game and your character’s health suffers for it.
That most enemies need a lightning bolt in order to inflict significant damage is also kind of sad. The environmental damage is minimal and takes too long to pull off. For a game built around the havoc engine, there’s a lot you can’t do. Penny Arcade’s comic tells a more interesting combo than any available in the game.
Glitch-wise, the most egregious errors are in general combat. At one point, my character froze up and couldn’t move. Got seriously owned. It took about 15 minutes to get to that same point in the level. Argh. Enemies would randomly spawn. Sometimes, my Nerf lightsaber wouldn’t even make contact on stormtroopers. It’s ghastly. Targeting is a damn joke in this game. It’s as bad as some of the Playstation 1 Star Wars games. It’s sad, because the enemies will kill you, lots.
I don’t know what kind of demands this game is to the hardware of this generation, but their menu system is the worst I have ever seen. Every menu needs to load up. If you need to add experience points or learn new skills midbattle, you will wait a while. Switching lightsaber colors, that’s a load. The menus and submenus are poorly arranged and use the top right-left triggers for switching purposes. It’s not an effective design. The wait times are unpleasant. Too many games have shown me it doesn’t have to be like this.
Releasing this game now is a curious move. There is no Teen rated mega-game for the holiday season other than the Rock Band/Guitar Hero stuff for the holiday season. This game could have used another month or two of troubleshooting. Core gamers, the kind most likely to buy this game, do read reviews and these errors will translate poorly in sales figures. Kids do not deserve a game that is hard to play not because the game itself is difficult but because the game design is poor. This game needed to bake a little longer.
Final Analysis
For everything this game does right, it does wrong. I recommend playing it, because going to the Star Wars Universe is always compelling. It’s really a wonderful, sometimes delightfully unpretentious world. There’s a lot to be said for craftsmanship, however, and this game makes mistakes that are inexcusable. This apprentice isn’t a Jedi, yet.
When it’s firing on all cylinders, this game is one of the best Star Wars games ever. When it’s not, it’s one of the worst.
Story
This is an odd juxtaposition. A story game in an adventure game. It REALLY plays like God of War in its mechanics, and its story is duly similar. The interesting thing about Star
Wars canon is that things only happen once. And the story that ties together the prequels and the original trilogy has this as a gap. It’s not always a sane one, it’s a book one. As insane as the movies are (and boy howdy on that note) the books are really batty. This is a decent bridge, but due to its role as being A STAR WARS video game it mirrors the two protagonists of each trilogy. For a video game, this isn’t bad. In fact, it’s one of the better told stories I’ve seen. As a piece that’s supposed to be (thus far) the definitive gap filler, it’s kind of a letdown. It’s interesting to people who care about Star Wars more than a little.
Design
The levels are fairly straightforward and uninteresting, but when they are big they aren’t varied. Critiques leveled are that the graphics are too simplistic or that the path is too linear. First off, few are the adventure games where the path isn’t linear. Sandbox style game play in a supposedly linear story doesn’t work either. It’s a platform adventure hack n’ slash. This is a rather solid genre. When games like Assassin’s Creed or a Spider Man game ARE open ended, the critique is that they are not straightforward enough.
It’s the most detailed Star Wars game on any console, and the best implementation of Force Powers. The practical considerations like not amputating opponents when you slash with your saber are a shame, but it’s a practical shame. While a lot of the levels are very… similar. There is a good deal more detail and nuance than your average game. Some of the levels are practically inspired design, others feel very average. Some of the levels feel too busy, but I’m fine with that. Star Wars can be messy, and I’m not sorry for that feeling.
Gameplay
This is one of the games that are geared towards the “Core” gamer. Its gameplay utilizes every button on the controller for combos and various moves. This is at times disorienting. This approach is necessary given all the choices the character has, but I can’t help but feel bad for the newly minted gamers who are going to be excited by this, but are frustrated by overly complex controls. They did the best with what they have, but it doesn’t change the fact that this game is sharply for the experienced hand.
Sound
It’s Star Wars. Greatest soundtrack ever. The sound effects are dead on (they even get in the Wilhelm, for goodness sake’s). My complaint here is the lack of more variety. Star Wars is a deep canal, and there’s plenty of music to go with, yet it seems the mixes here are smaller. Given that John Williams wrote specific themes for characters, their lack leaves the game an exhaustive mood. Everything is mood music or The March of the Empire. It didn’t work in the prequels.
Glitches and Bad Choices
Sometimes, the game takes a good idea and ruins it, and that does a lot of damage to its reputation. This is a game that many can be proud of, but the lack of polish or discretion in certain instances offer a counterpoint to the developer layoffs. It pains me to say, but some of the decisions and quality checks that failed really do warrant termination. Not an entire team, per se, but these are revenue-costing mistakes, and punitive actions are due.
This game is unforgivably insipid at times. It’s embarrassing, and it makes this a rental, not a buy. The Star Destroyer scene is really as terrible as you’ve heard. It’s embarrassingly glitchy, it’s unreliable and it hurts to do. For such a centerpiece of the game, it’s really awful. Took me over an hour and a half. How this ever got past testing, I’ll never know or understand. When you use the force so effortlessly (that’s kind of the point of the game) this section feels awful.
Boss fights are also poorly implemented. Imagine that you spend an entire game with a certain viewpoint and move reactions. Which you do in The Force Unleashed. Until a boss fight. Then you get these wide shots that are really hard to control in. It’s not what you’re doing 90% of the time, and while it does offer a wider venue, it throws you out of the game and your character’s health suffers for it.
That most enemies need a lightning bolt in order to inflict significant damage is also kind of sad. The environmental damage is minimal and takes too long to pull off. For a game built around the havoc engine, there’s a lot you can’t do. Penny Arcade’s comic tells a more interesting combo than any available in the game.
Glitch-wise, the most egregious errors are in general combat. At one point, my character froze up and couldn’t move. Got seriously owned. It took about 15 minutes to get to that same point in the level. Argh. Enemies would randomly spawn. Sometimes, my Nerf lightsaber wouldn’t even make contact on stormtroopers. It’s ghastly. Targeting is a damn joke in this game. It’s as bad as some of the Playstation 1 Star Wars games. It’s sad, because the enemies will kill you, lots.
I don’t know what kind of demands this game is to the hardware of this generation, but their menu system is the worst I have ever seen. Every menu needs to load up. If you need to add experience points or learn new skills midbattle, you will wait a while. Switching lightsaber colors, that’s a load. The menus and submenus are poorly arranged and use the top right-left triggers for switching purposes. It’s not an effective design. The wait times are unpleasant. Too many games have shown me it doesn’t have to be like this.
Releasing this game now is a curious move. There is no Teen rated mega-game for the holiday season other than the Rock Band/Guitar Hero stuff for the holiday season. This game could have used another month or two of troubleshooting. Core gamers, the kind most likely to buy this game, do read reviews and these errors will translate poorly in sales figures. Kids do not deserve a game that is hard to play not because the game itself is difficult but because the game design is poor. This game needed to bake a little longer.
Final Analysis
For everything this game does right, it does wrong. I recommend playing it, because going to the Star Wars Universe is always compelling. It’s really a wonderful, sometimes delightfully unpretentious world. There’s a lot to be said for craftsmanship, however, and this game makes mistakes that are inexcusable. This apprentice isn’t a Jedi, yet.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Oh won't somebody please think of the children?
Delivering delight to a child, however small a wonder, is popular and profitable. Nintendo made a fortune and a near monopoly by utilizing older technology in new and innovative ways to make something new. The world sorely needs more of those kinds of ideas.
One thing that Nintendo has missed the boat on, as far as I’m concerned, is philanthropy. And this is frustrating because of their profits. It is a far cry from Folding@home, the Sony program which voluntarily utilizes PS3 horsepower to tackle real world problems. Microsoft’s creator has been most benevolent in his actions. Yet Nintendo always profits on their machines, and it's important to remember how hard it is for companies to make money on consoles themselves.
Literally, the actions by these companies can save lives, and has saved lives. These are not idle entertainment cogs, money invested in these machines has saved lives. Whether it is another cog in terms of publicity (and thus more money) is irrelevant. The point of the matter is that Nintendo has made the Wii.
The Wii is profitable. It sips power like a supermodel. It is rugged in comparison to its fellow systems.
And friends, it costs Nintendo next to nothing to make. What IBM (holla!) has done is created a chipset that can handle if not impressive gaming, then at least versatile programming from a variety of inputs. Nintendo has shown that a microcomputer can be profitable, because in essence they have a microcomputer.
The holy grail of today’s computer manufacturer is a computer that can be sold to countries where companies like Merril Lynch and Lehman represent more than the total combined income of all its citizens. It is these markets and these children for whom education is a survival mechanism. From Chicago to Haiti to Venezuela, information helps.
And then there’s one Laptop per Child. What a mess that thing is. Without going into too much detail, a bunch of Linux nerds build a computer on the cheap with the intention of selling it around the world. It has not approached profitability or reliability by any stretch of the definitions. It is a catastrophic failure.
Flash memory has decreased dramatically in price. Solid state hard drives for larger storage are still unfeasible, but the prices of storage needed to run the global standard efficiently (approx 10 gb of storage, and 512 RAM) with a decent bus speed are found in playthings!
I am not saying the Wii is the computer that could get into the hands of every child. It just baffles me when I see companies like HP and Dell and OLPC attack this market that IBM and Nintendo have built a working model of a quality.mini-computer and made more than a dime on it.
We have a unique opportunity. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Nintendo made a fortune buying off Sharp’s over-production of LCD’s, utilizing Gunpei Yokoi’s model for using existing technology in new and innovative ways. Today, we face a global market where demand for larger, clearer LCD’s is the technology standard, with production prices skyrocketing downwards. Companies such as Sony and Toshiba now outsource their screens to Samsung and Sharp, respectively. The cost of business has become so low for certain companies that it makes less sense for some of the biggest names in the industry to run their own screen production.
So when I hear about One Laptop Per Child, I look over at my Wii, as underpowered as it is compared to its competitors, and realize that for many children all over the world, we could use a little Gunpei Yokoi. Impressive amounts of tech stare me in the face, horsepower at the ready. It pains me to see Nintendo follow Apple into the realm of profitable bilking, compromising features for style, compassion for cool, and limited third party support. That’s less a revolution, and more just a game cube.
One thing that Nintendo has missed the boat on, as far as I’m concerned, is philanthropy. And this is frustrating because of their profits. It is a far cry from Folding@home, the Sony program which voluntarily utilizes PS3 horsepower to tackle real world problems. Microsoft’s creator has been most benevolent in his actions. Yet Nintendo always profits on their machines, and it's important to remember how hard it is for companies to make money on consoles themselves.
Literally, the actions by these companies can save lives, and has saved lives. These are not idle entertainment cogs, money invested in these machines has saved lives. Whether it is another cog in terms of publicity (and thus more money) is irrelevant. The point of the matter is that Nintendo has made the Wii.
The Wii is profitable. It sips power like a supermodel. It is rugged in comparison to its fellow systems.
And friends, it costs Nintendo next to nothing to make. What IBM (holla!) has done is created a chipset that can handle if not impressive gaming, then at least versatile programming from a variety of inputs. Nintendo has shown that a microcomputer can be profitable, because in essence they have a microcomputer.
The holy grail of today’s computer manufacturer is a computer that can be sold to countries where companies like Merril Lynch and Lehman represent more than the total combined income of all its citizens. It is these markets and these children for whom education is a survival mechanism. From Chicago to Haiti to Venezuela, information helps.
And then there’s one Laptop per Child. What a mess that thing is. Without going into too much detail, a bunch of Linux nerds build a computer on the cheap with the intention of selling it around the world. It has not approached profitability or reliability by any stretch of the definitions. It is a catastrophic failure.
Flash memory has decreased dramatically in price. Solid state hard drives for larger storage are still unfeasible, but the prices of storage needed to run the global standard efficiently (approx 10 gb of storage, and 512 RAM) with a decent bus speed are found in playthings!
I am not saying the Wii is the computer that could get into the hands of every child. It just baffles me when I see companies like HP and Dell and OLPC attack this market that IBM and Nintendo have built a working model of a quality.mini-computer and made more than a dime on it.
We have a unique opportunity. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Nintendo made a fortune buying off Sharp’s over-production of LCD’s, utilizing Gunpei Yokoi’s model for using existing technology in new and innovative ways. Today, we face a global market where demand for larger, clearer LCD’s is the technology standard, with production prices skyrocketing downwards. Companies such as Sony and Toshiba now outsource their screens to Samsung and Sharp, respectively. The cost of business has become so low for certain companies that it makes less sense for some of the biggest names in the industry to run their own screen production.
So when I hear about One Laptop Per Child, I look over at my Wii, as underpowered as it is compared to its competitors, and realize that for many children all over the world, we could use a little Gunpei Yokoi. Impressive amounts of tech stare me in the face, horsepower at the ready. It pains me to see Nintendo follow Apple into the realm of profitable bilking, compromising features for style, compassion for cool, and limited third party support. That’s less a revolution, and more just a game cube.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Rock the Castle
It amazes me that most of the games I spend time playing are gorgeous games that take basic gameplay principles and apply them in HD. I have gotten more playing time out of more 15 dollar games than I have in 60 dollar games.
What’s more, I have had the distincy privilege of not just playing an obscenely violent and expensive sci-fi shooter across the country with my friends. No. I have had my chance to go back to the basements of our collective youth, to the days when we sat around and played something silly that Capcom or Tecmo or Acclaim used to make: a beat-em up side-scrolling brawler game.
It’s a miracle to accomplish this across such great distances. Such magic is usually reserved for time machines and teleporters. And here I was, tonight, playing a video game like I would have over ten, maybe even 15 years ago. With friends. Happily slaying throngs of enemies, laughing and joking and planning.
It wasn’t until tonight that I realized how utterly detached Nintendo was from its core audience. They may not release as many “core games”. They may have their reasoning for friend codes and other parental placations, but that an Xbox 360 has literally delivered me to the basement TV of my youth has showed how little Super there is left in Nintendo. That an entire system cannot do it, on the system that delivered such things. This isn’t Wii Bowling. This is STAYING POWER. No mere nostalgia; this is the stuff companies were made of.
Castle Crashers isn’t perfect, but it delivers the perfect experience. There are many hosannahs in the Live Arcade catalogue: Braid, (Portal to come), Geometry Wars, Lumines, and now Castle Crashers. These games show creativity, pushing games’ boundaries in ways that many of the big leaguers forget. The level of fun and attention to detail is born straight from the same purple and gray oven that baked my gaming experiences.
We are the better for it. Friendships are stronger for it. In gaming, you truly can win sometimes. I love Castle Crashers, if only because I felt like a kid again.
What’s more, I have had the distincy privilege of not just playing an obscenely violent and expensive sci-fi shooter across the country with my friends. No. I have had my chance to go back to the basements of our collective youth, to the days when we sat around and played something silly that Capcom or Tecmo or Acclaim used to make: a beat-em up side-scrolling brawler game.
It’s a miracle to accomplish this across such great distances. Such magic is usually reserved for time machines and teleporters. And here I was, tonight, playing a video game like I would have over ten, maybe even 15 years ago. With friends. Happily slaying throngs of enemies, laughing and joking and planning.
It wasn’t until tonight that I realized how utterly detached Nintendo was from its core audience. They may not release as many “core games”. They may have their reasoning for friend codes and other parental placations, but that an Xbox 360 has literally delivered me to the basement TV of my youth has showed how little Super there is left in Nintendo. That an entire system cannot do it, on the system that delivered such things. This isn’t Wii Bowling. This is STAYING POWER. No mere nostalgia; this is the stuff companies were made of.
Castle Crashers isn’t perfect, but it delivers the perfect experience. There are many hosannahs in the Live Arcade catalogue: Braid, (Portal to come), Geometry Wars, Lumines, and now Castle Crashers. These games show creativity, pushing games’ boundaries in ways that many of the big leaguers forget. The level of fun and attention to detail is born straight from the same purple and gray oven that baked my gaming experiences.
We are the better for it. Friendships are stronger for it. In gaming, you truly can win sometimes. I love Castle Crashers, if only because I felt like a kid again.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
On Braid
Braid is perhaps the most thoughtful game I’ve ever played. It easily has the most nuanced story. It is artful in what it does and what it doesn’t do. It’s also a maddening puzzler that drives your emotions. If this game has a spiritual cousin, it is Portal, another game about madness and puzzles and the meshing of interesting takes on traditional mechanics.
It is, in my opinion, also a reasonably adult treatise on villainy, and with its allusions to castles and the Super Mario Brothers series… that it’s really about Bowser. Why would a monster want a princess? Why would he build huge castles, engage in villainy, all for a princess?
This is one theme of many very good themes in the game, but it bears mentioning as I have seen nothing about it on Google. The allusions of the oft-posted Donkey Kong level shows an origin, a passing by on the way to something else. It feels almost chronological. When you see the green flag raised at the end I was reminded of when a green flag was lowered. Repeatedly, at the end of every level. By a plumber. I don’t think this is an accident.
They also reference the creation of the atomic bomb, throwing in a line that is actually a line of history. That quote was the summation of sane individuals who built the ultimate tool of self-annihilation. And I do think this is about redemption and deconstructing one’s fantasies to see the real reason a human can fail. These are heady, heady themes. Most books about redemption don’t touch the dirt. There’s scrappy, seldom blunt references to a person’s past in ways other than flashbacks. They don’t share the level of self pity and vice that can leave a man alone. By confronting as bluntly and yet artfully, they have successfully shown that games like Final Fantasy 5,7,8, and Legend of Zelda, and others have been unambitious as storytellers. I’ve thought this often; Braid’s the treatise. The new crop of American storytellers, creating games like GTA4, Portal, and Braid show that this medium has been irrevocably one-upped, and it will be to the detriment of studios looking to check-mark their way into a story. That’s bad news for companies like Nintendo and Square Enix, which do check-mark their stories. The proposition of Final Fantasy 13’s main protagonist being described proudly as “Cloud… but a girl!!” does little to allay my concerns, for one simple reason.
I’ve already played that game.
Braid offers something new, and we are the better for it.
It is, in my opinion, also a reasonably adult treatise on villainy, and with its allusions to castles and the Super Mario Brothers series… that it’s really about Bowser. Why would a monster want a princess? Why would he build huge castles, engage in villainy, all for a princess?
This is one theme of many very good themes in the game, but it bears mentioning as I have seen nothing about it on Google. The allusions of the oft-posted Donkey Kong level shows an origin, a passing by on the way to something else. It feels almost chronological. When you see the green flag raised at the end I was reminded of when a green flag was lowered. Repeatedly, at the end of every level. By a plumber. I don’t think this is an accident.
They also reference the creation of the atomic bomb, throwing in a line that is actually a line of history. That quote was the summation of sane individuals who built the ultimate tool of self-annihilation. And I do think this is about redemption and deconstructing one’s fantasies to see the real reason a human can fail. These are heady, heady themes. Most books about redemption don’t touch the dirt. There’s scrappy, seldom blunt references to a person’s past in ways other than flashbacks. They don’t share the level of self pity and vice that can leave a man alone. By confronting as bluntly and yet artfully, they have successfully shown that games like Final Fantasy 5,7,8, and Legend of Zelda, and others have been unambitious as storytellers. I’ve thought this often; Braid’s the treatise. The new crop of American storytellers, creating games like GTA4, Portal, and Braid show that this medium has been irrevocably one-upped, and it will be to the detriment of studios looking to check-mark their way into a story. That’s bad news for companies like Nintendo and Square Enix, which do check-mark their stories. The proposition of Final Fantasy 13’s main protagonist being described proudly as “Cloud… but a girl!!” does little to allay my concerns, for one simple reason.
I’ve already played that game.
Braid offers something new, and we are the better for it.
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