It was roughly a year ago when I sold both my Wii and Nintendo DS and picked up an Xbox 360 and eventually a PS2. Selling both systems was surprisingly easy, considering I’ve never sold a game system before. Though I’m not as steeped in owning Nintendo consoles as some of you, (my gaming roots are found in PC gaming) ever since I got my first Nintendo systems, I was always enthralled by them in one way or another. Smash Bros. is to this day my favorite franchise of all time, I still hold the Zelda series in high esteem, and I’ve probably put more hours in the Pokemon Gameboy RPGs than any person that will read this. And even though I’m not the biggest fan of Mario’s or Samus’ adventures, when I do find a game of theirs I enjoy, I enjoy them thoroughly. Hell, you’d be hard pressed to find any Nintendo franchise, that I’ve played, that I can’t stand. In contrast, I have no notable past with Nintendo’s rival companies, Sony and Microsoft. In fact, I have a fair amount of apathy or disdain for some of their primary franchises. Yet I became disenchanted with Nintendo’s system and software to the point where I was practically gleeful to sell their latest hardware offerings. And reading other Nintendo fan sites, I’m not alone in my negative feelings. What happened to me, or Nintendo, that caused my opinion to change so drastically? I’ll try to trace what Nintendo did to alienate me, specifically, since that’s the only thing I can really do. Hopefully, it will shed some light on the reason why Nintendo fans at large are shying away at large. Maybe, you will see something in here that will make you think, “Yeah! That bugs me too!” At large, this is all just a semi-organized manifesto on gaming at large and why Nintendo is becoming a polarizing gaming company.

The way I see it, there are three areas where I take issue with Nintendo: software, hardware, and gaming philosophy. Kind of broad, but I’ll explain one by one in depth.

The first area is software, or the games, if you prefer that term. We all play video games for different reasons. Different games meet us on different levels. Every game developer has to sit down and ask himself or herself: “How do I want my game to engage the player?” There’s obviously mixes of focus, but in my observation they generally break down into four categories.

The first possible focus of a game is on the personal experience of the player. These games tend to focus on engrossing a player in an atmosphere. They can be story-centric; they focus on taking the player out of the real world and putting them in a virtual world for an adventure or story, like a book or a movie. These are the Bioshocks, the Zeldas, the Metal Gear Solids, of the gaming world.

The second possible focus of a game focuses on the competitive nature of the player. These games tend to focus on multiplayer environments or they can emphasize high scores. They can range from tactical to twitch, moody to flashy, the atmosphere isn’t very important for these games. Their focus is bringing out the competitor in the player, even if it’s a friendly cooperative competition, like in a sport or a card game. For example, Halo, Smash Bros., SOCOM, and Starcraft are all good examples of games with this focus.

The third possible focus is simple relaxation. Some people just want to unwind with games. Maybe your parents play Solitaire or Minesweeper on the PC, maybe your sister enjoys Endless Ocean or Animal Crossing, or maybe even you enjoy Tetris or Virtual Chess. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a method of relaxation and decompression from your day at work/school/whatever. Some people watch TV, some people read a book, others play Brain Age.

The fourth possible focus is the hardest to quantify, perhaps because it seems unique to games. Due to a lack of a better term eluding me at the moment, I’ll define it as fun mechanics. You’ve all played a game and found some specific gimmick, some minor thing, that you just did repeatedly over and over for no reason other than it entertained you. Maybe you had fun jumping on Goomba’s heads over and over in a Mario platformer, maybe you just swung around the city as Spiderman in the Spidey games, maybe you liked the spiffy arm in Bionic Commando, or maybe you enjoyed transforming enemies into chickens in Rachet and Clank, who knows? There are entire games based around just amusing concepts like those.

Now that I’ve quantified games and why we enjoy them, my main issue with Nintendo software is now much clearer. The first two game types I mentioned are being crippled on Nintendo’s consoles, and the last two are getting way too much attention by comparison. The story and atmospheric intensive games are simply not being encouraged by Nintendo, either inwardly in their own development teams, or outwardly through encouraging other developers. The depth on the X360 and PS3 just plain beat the Wii in this area. There’s really no arguing it since none of Nintendo’s franchise have this focus anymore, except Fire Emblem. Zelda, the one I cited in the examples, used to be a good mix between this atmosphere-centered gaming and the last mechanic-centered gaming. But Nintendo has fallen into a rut, becoming more and more dependent on merely using the boomerang and bombs to compel the gamer to buy it rather than building interesting fairy tale worlds.

The second game type is harder to argue, but I can simply win the argument by bringing out a brand name that everyone now associates with inferior multiplayer features: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Nintendo has limited all competitive gaming to local multiplayer only or crippled online modes. By cutting out an unbelievable amount of possibilities for the competitive-focused gamer, Nintendo has seriously hurt their competitiveness with other platforms in that realm.

As for why Nintendo is strong in the last two, the answer should be obvious. The casual phenomenon is almost exclusively in the latter two categories, their main franchises are repetitious and relying on mechanics alone to win over players, and the hardware of both the Wii and DS focus on bringing new possibilities for unique game mechanics. If you, as a gamer, play games for the last two focuses, Nintendo is a perfect fit for you. I, however, am mainly focused on the first two types of games. That’s why Nintendo’s software is so very unpalatable to me.

Next time, we’ll go further into my beefs with Nintendo. Stay tuned. Or don’t, ’cause it’ll probably be two months before I put together another one.

A lot of sites, blogs, podcasts, forums, and so on and so forth, have what they like to call “Game of the Year” awards. With categories like “Best Graphics” and “Best Multiplayer Game.” Similar to a gaming Oscars, essentially. But I always thought that we should not look to some arbitrary time period to give recognition to games. Games should be recognized in a larger picture that takes in the context of all of gaming at the time. They should be acknowledged for what they did to affect the gaming scene, what they did to change this newborn, untested culture for the better. In a decade, will anyone care about the amazing graphics? Will they care about the shiny paint of high-res textures and bump-mapping when by then they will no doubt look silly and inferior? Of course not. What they will recognize is what they did, what effect they had.

It is with this in mind that I will record  my opinions on games that have changed the format for the better. The criteria other than that? It has to have been made on this generation of consoles (Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, DS, PSP).  PC games will not be considered unless they have brought something culture-shattering to the forefront. For example, if this was a few years ago, World of Warcraft would have received certain accolades. It should also be noted there are no “categories,” as I find them restrictive. Instead, specific games will be presented as the progressive games of this generation. Thus the term Generation Game. A game that defined the generation. The Zeldas, the Final Fantasys, the Halos, the Street Fighters of this new generation.

Now, ladies and gentlemen. The generational games:

Bioshock is the first game in our ceremony of this generation. I will readily admit that I did not enjoy playing Bioshock. But my problem was not the quality of the content, but of the interface with the content. You know you have a truly amazing product when you can stand back and say “That is a good product and I love it, but the gameplay isn’t good.” It tells you that the narrative, the art, the story, the music, the extra-playing elements of games were so compelling that you realized it and acknowledged it. And that is the case with Bioshock. The elements I mentioned above just smack you across the face from the moment you enter Rapture. They all intertwine wonderfully and make such a delightfully moody game that I would recommend its play to anyone who thinks gaming is nothing more than Pac-Man, and those that recognize that gaming is so much more than Pac-Man.

Oblivion is a game often forgot in the discussion of this generation. If you know me, dear reader, you are more than likely well aware that I hold this game in high esteem. Why? I will tell you right now, the main story in the game is nothing progressive or innovative. What makes Oblivion is its depth elsewhere in the layers of its incredibly deep existence. It is a wonderfully executed bright, beautiful world drenched in so much lore it would make a Tolkien fan do a double-take. Blades and bows, elves and dwarves, trolls and ogres, we’ve seen it a billion times before. We have not seen such a deep game that does not overstep its bounds and ends up feeling like it collapsed on itself. At least, I have not. Truly, it is an inspiration for RPGs from now on, as we saw in Fallout 3.

Allow me to be clear: Halo is not a revolutionary godsend game that unifies the world under its banner of complete and utter supremacy. There is not much more I hate in the gaming realm then when people say that, because it’s quite clearly not. The only things that are unique and progressive about the Halo franchise, historically speaking, are the way it brought FPSs to consoles and how it has implemented the online world in its games. The first has been done, there’s nothing to reward there. The second is what is special about Halo 3. Implementing the Forge, a unique way of making custom games, the Theater, an obvious, but not implemented, way of recording game films and sharing with friends, and trivial things like armor and ranks are all things that make Halo 3 a game that must be recognized. While it might be an inevitable evolution in gaming, it had not yet occurred. And therefore, it must be acknowledged.

Mass Effect is probably my favorite game of this past generation.  It would take an entire post to expound upon why I love it, and you might very well get it soon. But, to summarize, here’s what it did to progress gaming:

- Story

- Art

- Character Interaction

- Presentation

- Music/Sound

- Player Integration

- Philosophical Musings

This is the stuff of generational games. When a game evolves and revolutionizes at the same time, they are truly special. Mass Effect is such a game.

Special Circumstances

The following games were under heavy consideration by me for a generational recognition, but for one reason or another, failed to do so.

Rock Band - Ultimately, this game is more of an evolution of an age old music genre. The only truly thing new about this game is the social aspect of playing in a band, which relies on something outside the game for its revolutionary value. I didn’t feel comfortable putting it in the list for that reason.

Metal Gear Solid 4 – Everything I know of this game suggests it’d be at the top of my list. The problem is, quite simply, I haven’t played it. Putting a game I have not played on the list is not something that I believe I should do.

Wii Sports – This one was a struggle for me as well. It is, perhaps, the most impactful game of the generation, but did not progress it at all. How does one address that? It’s merely older than dirt sports games with new controls. The hardware might get a reward, but this ceremony rewards software. Ultimately, that’s why I had to leave it out.

What games define the generation for you? Feel free to share.

]]> http://cerebralgamer.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/on-open-world-gameplay/ Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:06:03 +0000 cerebralgamer http://cerebralgamer.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/on-open-world-gameplay/

Games are meant to be an escape from reality. We all play games to just escape for a little bit from our lives, however busy or non-busy they may or may not be.  Some of us desire simple gameplay, like a game of Madden or a round of Soul Calibur. Others desire a really deep gaming experience that you can lose hours in, which is my general preference. Games I’ve highlighted on this blog, like Oblivion and Lost Odyssey, show my interests generally go beyond the more shallow gaming experiences. The most compelling element a developer can put in for me is a completely open world. Freedom is yours to do whatever you want. One of the games I always daydreamed of not so long ago involved an amazingly deep, free world. However, I realized that open world gameplay can only be achieved through great sacrifice.

A more modern open-world game.

But first, allow me to outline what my fantasy game was. I always called it Destiny. It was a simple game in concept, not so in execution. You were a warrior in Japan. An evil race of serpent dragons (inspired by Eastern interpretations of dragons) awoke from their slumber and took over half of Japan. Your sensei ordered you to travel to the ends of the earth to find these dragons’ natural enemy, the winged (inspired by western ideas) dragon, and find out how they were able to defeat the serpent dragons millenia ago. So, you set off on your adventure with just your sword and your armor.

Nothing like bloodshed to start your journey.

However, the main plot was ultimately supplementary to my game. The real adventure was your journey to Briton. Your warrior would have to track through China, through India, through Arabia, through Israel, through Europe, and eventually to England. Each area would have cities and issues related to their area. China would have constant war between the segments, India would have to deal with all the Muslim-Hindu relations/wars, Arabia would focus mainly on Islam and its challenges, Israel would actually be in the middle of the Crusades, Europe would have all the fun of the Christian Middle-Ages, and then in Briton it’d just be tons of dragon-slaying. In each region, you’d have to make key choices to survive. Mainly, what enemies and allies would you make? Would you side with the Mughal Empire? Do you dare join Saladin to try to take Jerusalem? Or would you aid the Church in return for semi-safe passage through Europe? It would be a game of amazing scale, and amazing depth. You could start businesses, homes, families, etc. anywhere. You could be as evil or as good as you desired.

Freedom. Total freedom.

The first issue I always realized would be the profound technical infeasibility of the project. The problem here, however, could be overcome in time. Hell, in a a decade or two, we might be able to do it easily. Computers are coming along crazily like that.

The other issues I realized as time passed was far more deep. The first being the amount of investment would be unprecedented. Perhaps MMOs have it beat, but this would be a single player adventure. Would anyone want to spend time in it past the first region? Maybe they’d just stay in Japan or China, and never move on. That’s when I got to thinking about maybe releasing it in sections. Destiny: The Orient for Japan/China/India, Destiny: The Heartland for Arabia/Israel, and Destiny: The West for Europe. But the problem with investment with multiple titles for essentially one game then becomes an issue.

That’s a lot of ground to cover in one game.

Then comes the moral issues. True free gameplay, while not putting any limits on moral uprightness, also puts no limits on depravity. This would mean allowing rather detestable things like cannibalism and rape. Indeed, it’d probably include far more detestable things if it weren’t for laws set up internationally. If I was a programmer, there would be no way I would make such things. Not to mention it’d certainly get the AO rating, making marketing a nightmare. But, really, is this the price we must pay for true open-world gameplay? It seems that games should allow as much as they can. The thing is, I’ve seen what men do when given such freedom in reality with actual consequences. I would hate to see what they would do in a virtual reality with no consequences.

A smoldering landscape would be one of the least evil things doable in-game.

Lastly, would it be even fun anymore? Trekking all of that land sounds more like a chore than entertainment. Even if one were to implement a fast travel system, a la Oblivion, it would still be rather frustrating at times.

I came to realize that true, vast open-world gameplay is a slippery slope. Ultimately, gaming is an escape. I now believe I have a little insight into some of the developers dilemmas when making games, and I don’t envy them as technology becomes more advanced and game development gets into sketchy moral areas. This next decade or two of gaming will be very interesting.

But damn, if my vision somehow became workable… It’d be a blast. For me at least.

(NOTE: Images taken from other games for thematic purposes. Not actual game footage or anything.)

In the past week, I’ve been playing a ROM of Mother 3/EarthBound 2, with a translation patch by the dedicated people at fobby.net who gave their time to rework this game for the sake of the fandom. As someone who liked EarthBound, but not enough to try to play the sequel with a walkthrough/script or read up on it or anything, I am one of those who would never have experienced the game without their translation. These people have worked hard in their free time without being paid to translate and patch an entire game, just because they cared about it that much, and because of that they’ve been able to bring it to more people who can appreciate it. Such an admirable, dedicated group of fans deserves praise, and I intend to deliver them some, as soon as I dare set foot on the interactive part of their site where spoilers are everywhere.

I have to say I’ve been quite impressed with the translation so far; as I would expect from a group of such dedicated, enthusiastic fans, they’ve done a great job bringing back the feeling of the Mother 2/EarthBound 1 translation. I can’t speak for how close they are to the original, but I trust them to be faithful. Even things like enemy names and English-language puns ring true. These translators deserve a giant helping of applause, and possibly jobs in the industry translating more of our RPGs.

As far as that industry goes, I’m in chapter seven at present, and discovering one major potential reason why Nintendo said they had no plans to bring it over to America: censorship and political concerns. The Magypsies are a group of magic-wielding, millenia-old, flamboyant lipsticked men with five o’clock shadow, and they’re turning out to be a huge part of the plot. They’re sturdily-built limp-wristed men who sit in giant pink heart-shaped glittery chairs. You can’t pretend they aren’t transvestites, and you also can’t pretend they’re really women, no matter what you make the dialogue say. They’re an extremely noticeable, important part of the game, and they are definitely the Good Guys. In Japan, people probably just laugh, but in America’s political climate, I don’t know how Nintendo would bring this game over without a lot of conservative Americans having a fit at the idea that their kids might play a game containing some transvestite characters (and ones who are good people, at that).

Gameplay is a little frustrating because the ROM– and its sound– aren’t perfectly synched with my button-pressing, which makes the rhythm-game aspect of the battles disappointingly chancy. I can actually hear the lag between the sound of my pushing a button and the sound of an enemy getting hit; emulation lag has never been this severe of an issue for me because my timing is often linked to also-lagging cues, but now it’s getting all up in my gameplay by interrupting rhythms that aren’t lagging in my head. Of course, the rhythm isn’t always meant to be smooth, either– the composers have made a great soundtrack full of battle themes that change tempo all the time. Some of these songs are going to take a lot of memorising to begin with. At least I have something to do during the random encounters.

At any rate, I’m enjoying this game (I did mention heaps of appreciation, right?) Due to life circumstances, I might have to put it on hold for a while in January, but part of me wants to just keep on playing.

Comments on my prior blog entry about the price of games have me thinking. There are at least two upcoming PS3 games that I would love to purchase (The Last Remnant and Heavy Rain), and various others that I’d love to give a spin. It’s gotten to the point where, if the PS3 were the price of the average console, I would say it’s time to buy one. But– ouch. The price difference takes it from a range where I’d easily choose to purchase it, into a range where it’s not as easy of a decision for me. If Sony didn’t charge an exorbitant price for their console, I would shell out for it right now. Would they rather risk that I not do so? This is the direct impact of their decision, which they may have thought wouldn’t matter that much. Right here, right now, it is mattering: I definitely want one, but I won’t just run out and buy one now.

I suspect that because the Playstation caters more towards the older sector of the gaming crowd than the kids, Sony thought they could set a high price since it is a “mature” console. A high price for a working adult is more than a high price for a child, it’s true– but what they may have overlooked is that the price is simply a lot. Even without the downturn in today’s economy, the average American would have to be serious about gaming to buy a PS3.

Would Super Mario Bros. 3 alone be worth $100? I believe so, given what it delivers– but perhaps not to someone, even a serious gamer, who hasn’t played it. When buying a new console, gamers take the risk that there might not be any games on the console that captivate them enough to make it worth the price; perhaps they’ll neglect it and play mostly on some other console. It’s a lot of money down, betting that the reward will be worth the price. Even though there’s a good chance that the bet will pay off, how much money does the average gamer want to stake on that risk? There’s a certain price that gamers are used to staking; when that abruptly rises with no more guarantee of payoff than their usual price, it asks them to put more down for the same quality difference as they always get.

Maybe I’m biased because I’m so used to handheld games right now, so I’ve been buying less expensive games, but I feel like I’m getting just as much bang for fewer bucks that way. On the other hand, I’m going through DS games so much because it’s my only current-generation console, and it’s getting more releases than my old systems right now. The galling thing is that I don’t care a whit about graphical superiority– I just want to be able to play lots of fun new games, and it won’t be long before my TV consoles are obsolete.

After some poking around, I think I understand better what’s wrong with Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir. This article and its comments clued me in: it’s made, of course, by a PC games company that’s already released similar games for the PC. I should have expected that given its American origins. Of course.

The problem is, PC games of this type don’t, and probably never will, port well to consoles. I can think of two reasons: expectations and demographics.

On the expectations side, we get reactions like mine and those of the review I linked: the idea that DS games are generally more full and rich and varied than MillionHeir, which presents mostly one set of identical puzzles to wade through, a very scanty framework as an excuse for playing, and (insofar as there is a plot) no attempt at making anything endearing. This is fairly normal for PC puzzle games, the market that brought you Minesweeper, free MSN download games, the addictive but basically ugly Snood, and games where the goal is to swat flies and make them splat. Generally, when I think of pretty PC games, I think of MMORPGs, not puzzle games. Japanese puzzle games often have a nice aesthetic or at least simple cuteness, but American puzzle games often don’t try to be endearing; they’re more often humour-centric rather than focusing on genuine appeal. And the console gaming market is used to getting a full story replete with mini-games, serious variety in the challenges, and an emotionally satisfying conclusion even for the simplest of stories. Compared to the average console game, most PC puzzle games fall flat on their face for an audience that expects all of that to round out a decent game as a matter of course.

As a further barrier to sales of these games, as a commentor pointed out, the demographic for this type of game is basically your mom. I can think of no demographic less likely to own a console, unless they’ve been hooked by either curiosity or younger family members. While there are obviously plenty of exceptions, the demographic on the whole tends to think of computer games as an occasional way to pass time rather than a serious hobby, so not only are they less likely to own a console, they’re less likely to buy new games on a regular basis. I don’t think there are enough middle-aged-or-older women who buy console games to justify a port of this type of game, whereas many of them do own PCs and understand how to put in a game disc to start up a game. Even people who do take gaming seriously and know their stuff but gravitate towards this type of game are less likely to even think of looking for their type of game on a console, since they mostly find these games in the PC aisle.

As a result, most PC games aren’t going to get rave reviews from the console gaming audience, who are by and large used to routinely paying high prices for excellent games and tend to feel gypped on purchasing an inexpensive game that doesn’t have much to it. I have to wonder how PC gamers feel when faced with ports of especially complex console games, such as Final Fantasy VII. Do they react with delight at the smorgasbord of features, or is it too complex for their tastes?

…and don’t you come back.

Sanya Weathers put up a great commentary over at Eating Bees today regarding MMO reporters who review game content they haven’t personally experienced.  Though she doesn’t mention specific names, I could easily picture several reviews or posts I’ve read over the past year or so that frustrated me when it became apparent that that the articles were written without any direct personal experience.

“But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. Alright? The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” – Randy Pausch, “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, Carnegie Mellon University

Per CNN: ‘Last Lecture’ professor dies at 47

My copy of Final Fantasy III for the DS had been missing for an entire year, so last night I finally broke down and bought a new one. Guess what I found today.

At least I bought some other interesting things that I didn’t already own copies of– I have been on quite the game-acquiring spree lately. For some reason, a lot of PS2 titles and a relative lot of Gamecube titles have been showing up used lately; perhaps this is a big year for people to sell their consoles. The proliferation of good DS titles has contributed to my acquisition as well. Suddenly, there’s a lot that I want. It’s been a good year, but at the same time I’m not feeling any more positive about the gaming industry than I have since the Wii era began; good games are released not in a steady flood but in fits and starts. I might as well pick up what I want while I can, to tide me over through darker times.

Perhaps the most unusual find was actually purchased not by me but by a friend; I spotted a box set of Ar tonelico, which is going for around $70 on eBay, being sold for $40. For my part, I was amused by the font on the side of the box; it was reminiscent of old Atari games. Imagine a game whose plot revolves around music, with a soundtrack of Atari 2600 chiptunes and a harem of girls with 25-pixel faces.