Wow, the history of beat em ups? Try learning what they are, and how they are not fighting games. Beat em ups are single player (or co-op), often side-scrollers, that involve beating up huge amounts of enemies. Fighting games are 2 player versus games (occasionally 4, such as Powerstone 2, SSB, and GG: Isuka) that require one player to defeat the other.
I've been playing a single 2D fighter for over 5 years. I own other fighters (as well as other genres), but w/ just that one, I'd be happy. 95% of the time it's what I'm playing on PS2. The competitive nature of fighting games vastly extends the their lifespan. They have no real end, as there is instead infinite levels of "getting better." No monthly fee, at worst, the game may have a yearly/biyearly update to buy (but of course, that's optional.) The games are also not dependent on a company continuing to support the game. It'll keep working even if they go out of business (w/out the need of player run servers). Fighting games, even lesser known ones have a wonderful social community, much more face to face than an MMO community.
Oh yeah, and there are still Street Fighter 2 tournaments. And that came out before modern MMOs.
What do mean by recent years? Does the last generation count? Cause sony has made tons of money on ps2 hardware sales. It's pretty standard for the companies that make hardware to make profit from it, whereas the companies that don't make hardware (MS, Sega) to lose money because they have to may others to make it for them. Hell, wouldn't surprise me if in 2 years the PS3 is profitable on hardware. Of course, they'll have to get their PR act together first.
Yeah, a real problem I've had w/ the 360 is that so few games have 4 player local multiplayer, especially ones that should. The only 360 game I'm looking forward to is Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, since that one will have it.
The Wii brought back communal gaming? I didn't know it was gone. Every week we have 8 - 10 people here; 2 ps2s and a pc all set up for fighting games.
And what about LAN parties. Don't get much more communal than that.
Well I'd consider myself in group 2, but the term "real gamer" sounds a bit too elitist for me. My distaste for the Wii is more one of precision. My favorite game (A 2d fighter, so clearly I'm know graphics whore) requires buttons pressings timed sometimes to 1/60th of a second. Refused to even play MSA for it, because flicking it to throw a grenade isn't fast enough for me. I didn't get a custom arcade stick built for nothing. I was initially excited about the Wii after E3 (Oh cool! You'll get to actually move w/ the game), but over time it became "Oh man, you have to move w/ the game..." And graphics aren't the only thing the Wii lacks compared to the other 2: Power. Half-life wasn't about looking better than Doom, it was about having more advanced AI, not possible when Doom came out. So the Wii and the the other 2 should very well be able to offer very different experiences from eachother irregardless of graphical prowess.
That being said, I'll get one for Smash Brothers. Alien Syndrome looks interesting as well. I think I'd just rather have more Wii titles offer classic controller support, so I'd have to option to play the old way. I can really only imagine 3 games I might enjoy using motion controllers for: Burnout, Loco Roco, and Katamari. Given that 2 are Sony only, that leaves me to hope they get put on the PS3 (and to get a PS3).
So much for competitive gaming, huh? Banning players for being good. That's just stupid. If you cannot prove he is cheating, then you cannot ban him. Burden of proof lies on the accuser.
In the fighting game community, the best player is the winner. In the fps community, the best player gets kicked....
Woah, wait. How is Lumines an exclusive, when there are 3 versions on Sony systems. Also, Lumines on 360 is the worst version, in that at higher levels, it pulls a tetris by upping the speed too much, turning it into a twitch game instead of a thinking game. And that dpad? Euw.
You're right, for the most part. Case in point, I hated fighting games as a kid, cause they're only good multiplayer and I was horrible at them. Now I go to tournaments for them. Also, it is more a about skill than time spent playing. For me, the real problem is multiplayer games that only really have online play. Online is nice, but pales in comparison to playing against someone in the same room. Far too many 360 games have a complete lack of local multiplayer support, and that's just stupid.
Oh, and the real problem w/ 13 year olds playing shooters isn't that they've got so much more time to practice, but the fact that most shooters degenerate to twitch reflexes more than strategy, so the hyperactive 13 years olds are great at them. You'll notice a lot less of them performing well at strategy or fighting games.
I've both a psp and a ds. Now the DS has quite a bit of good, unique games, but I find they don't have the same staying power of the really good PSP games. I've got twice as many DS games, but I play my psp games 3 times as often.
Both systems have large libraries of worthless games. The PSP has it's wealth of stripped down PS2 ports, while the DS is filled w/ horrible licensed games and games that are ruined by trying to unnecessarily include the touch screen (Nanostray anyone?).
I dunno, I love the Second Encounter, but Serious Sam 2 just didn't do it for me. Somehow, I just couldn't find it as enjoyable or entertaining. And the story...ugh. When I think of Sam, I don't think of him running around saving little blue people.
Used games have a 30 day warranty against defects, and 7 days return policy if you just don't like them. The latter is especially good for parents w/ finicky kids. As someone else also mentioned, prices for older used games are great. As a whole, I was a bigger fan of EB before the merger. REally, it's a matter of finding one of the stores that has a good staff.
The other thing sony needs to do is continue upgrading the console's overall functionality. In march there's a huge firmware update, akin to the 2.0 update of the psp. Rumor has it that region coding will be disabled for ps2 and ps1 games w/ said update. This is very appealing to me, since it would mean that I wouldn't need to keep using swap magic to play my favorite game. Of course, I'd still have to get my arcade stick to work on the ps3, but w/ a ps2 to usb converter, I should be able to get it to work. Which just further illustrates the gap between the hardcore gamers playing a PS3/360 versus the Wii when it comes to accuracy in input. I've a custom built arcade stick w/ top of the line parts. Why would I want to take a step backwards and have less control over the action in my games? People also need to stop touting the Wii as a fitness machine, since I highly doubt it'll develop into that. If fitness games sold, the one that came out for the eyetoy would have sold much more. More than that, the last thing I personally need is to burn calories, considering that no matter what I eat, I'm can't gain weight. I don't think the overweight gamers are really going to use the Wii as a way of losing weight, and the casual and new gamers who enjoy physical activity would often rather go outside (where one can find games w/ such features as fresh air and sunlight), and the wii will get use when that's not available.
Ok, GBA is not even in competition here. Trust me, no one is worried about losing sales to an obsolete handheld. Secondly, PS3s are not sitting on shelves, they're being restocked frequently. Thirdly, the wii selling less than twice as much when the cost is less than half is not too great. And once supply finally picks up, is all the demand going to keep coming? The release date is sparse for some time to come (granted ps3s isn't much better, but ps3 has the advantage that people are buying games for it, rather than the vast amount that are just playing Wii Sports). And yes, Zelda may be huge over here, but it's sales are pitiful in Japan.
There was an article on here just a few months ago from a dev trashing the other devs for complaining. He said that the dev kit was better than the first ps2 one, which didn't even come w/ a compiler. Can't remember much else. More importantly, the ps2 sure wasn't easy to code for.
Furthermore, just talked w/ the Sony rep at work today (he's really a cool guy, a fan, not a fanboy even though he's paid by sony. Ended up talking to him about crackdown, and he's no problem talking about how great XB Live is). Sony is really looking to get dev kits out to mod teams and let the homebrew stuff flourish. The PS3 could really benefit from a fan created mod the quality of CS coming out.
Very well put. I'm a Sony fan (to the point that owning only 1 ps2 may not be enough for my fighting game parties). My psp also gets a lot of play. That being said. I had to work w/ a hardcore sony fanboy for a while and I wanted to strangle him every time he spoke. I own a 360 (contest win, the only game that I've bothered to pick up is Crackdown, which I love), and a DS, and a Cube. Love the cube, but only for a few games, and the Wii doesn't appeal to me. I'll be buying it just for Smash Brothers. Less accurate input in order to add realism not really up my alley. Great for them for bring all sorts of other people to the world of gaming, but I'm really not sure how much it's going to affect the other consoles. It's becoming more apparent that the Wii is appealing primarily to the casual crowd, w/ hardcore gamers picking one up in addition to their 360 or PS3.
Now, isn't the 360 is selling more slowly than the first Xbox did, And the 360 also took a year to really hit its stride. Worse still, more and more they're having breaking. I see more sell to as replacements than first time consoles. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're already talking about a redesign?! They'd better get that out the door before Halo drops in november, or when Halo boosts the install base, everyone who just bought one aren't going to be looking to shell out even more money, and may be angry as a result. Who knows though, they could be too busy playing Halo to even notice./ramble
Something being a good party system doesn't mean that it's the most fun to play w/ friends. That's all a matter of opinion. For me, the most fun is to get a bunch of friends together and play 2d fighters for hours on end. This includes smash brothers on occasion, but rarely.
Well, keep in mind several of their top developers left a few years ago and are now working on "Hellgate: London" if I recall. If I recall correctly, the guys who left were some of the key developers for the Diablo series. Regardless, "Hellgate: London" looks awesome so far.
As far as WOW, I'll stick to fighting games, you know, games that require skill, rather than merely rewarding whoever spends the most time playing.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, the history of beat em ups? Try learning what they are, and how they are not fighting games. Beat em ups are single player (or co-op), often side-scrollers, that involve beating up huge amounts of enemies.
Fighting games are 2 player versus games (occasionally 4, such as Powerstone 2, SSB, and GG: Isuka) that require one player to defeat the other.
Based on that logic, Guilty Gear: Slash is more balanced, given the diversity of characters and that there are even more characters!
Fighting Games: My Anti-Wow
I've been playing a single 2D fighter for over 5 years. I own other fighters (as well as other genres), but w/ just that one, I'd be happy. 95% of the time it's what I'm playing on PS2. The competitive nature of fighting games vastly extends the their lifespan. They have no real end, as there is instead infinite levels of "getting better." No monthly fee, at worst, the game may have a yearly/biyearly update to buy (but of course, that's optional.) The games are also not dependent on a company continuing to support the game. It'll keep working even if they go out of business (w/out the need of player run servers). Fighting games, even lesser known ones have a wonderful social community, much more face to face than an MMO community.
Oh yeah, and there are still Street Fighter 2 tournaments. And that came out before modern MMOs.
Except it's already been announced that there will be no light-saber game on the Wii.
What do mean by recent years? Does the last generation count? Cause sony has made tons of money on ps2 hardware sales. It's pretty standard for the companies that make hardware to make profit from it, whereas the companies that don't make hardware (MS, Sega) to lose money because they have to may others to make it for them. Hell, wouldn't surprise me if in 2 years the PS3 is profitable on hardware. Of course, they'll have to get their PR act together first.
Pools of Radiance! That's what got me started on RPGs. Nothing compares to those 10 games.
Yeah, a real problem I've had w/ the 360 is that so few games have 4 player local multiplayer, especially ones that should. The only 360 game I'm looking forward to is Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, since that one will have it.
The Wii brought back communal gaming? I didn't know it was gone. Every week we have 8 - 10 people here; 2 ps2s and a pc all set up for fighting games. And what about LAN parties. Don't get much more communal than that.
Well I'd consider myself in group 2, but the term "real gamer" sounds a bit too elitist for me. My distaste for the Wii is more one of precision. My favorite game (A 2d fighter, so clearly I'm know graphics whore) requires buttons pressings timed sometimes to 1/60th of a second. Refused to even play MSA for it, because flicking it to throw a grenade isn't fast enough for me. I didn't get a custom arcade stick built for nothing. I was initially excited about the Wii after E3 (Oh cool! You'll get to actually move w/ the game), but over time it became "Oh man, you have to move w/ the game..." And graphics aren't the only thing the Wii lacks compared to the other 2: Power. Half-life wasn't about looking better than Doom, it was about having more advanced AI, not possible when Doom came out. So the Wii and the the other 2 should very well be able to offer very different experiences from eachother irregardless of graphical prowess. That being said, I'll get one for Smash Brothers. Alien Syndrome looks interesting as well. I think I'd just rather have more Wii titles offer classic controller support, so I'd have to option to play the old way. I can really only imagine 3 games I might enjoy using motion controllers for: Burnout, Loco Roco, and Katamari. Given that 2 are Sony only, that leaves me to hope they get put on the PS3 (and to get a PS3).
I'm 22, and my video games bleed into real life. I'm still trying to throw fireballs from my hands and double jump.
But seriously, old school D&D games? I'm right there w/ you. Played the entire SSI Gold Box series; all 10 of them.
So much for competitive gaming, huh? Banning players for being good. That's just stupid. If you cannot prove he is cheating, then you cannot ban him. Burden of proof lies on the accuser.
In the fighting game community, the best player is the winner. In the fps community, the best player gets kicked....
Woah, wait. How is Lumines an exclusive, when there are 3 versions on Sony systems. Also, Lumines on 360 is the worst version, in that at higher levels, it pulls a tetris by upping the speed too much, turning it into a twitch game instead of a thinking game. And that dpad? Euw.
You're right, for the most part. Case in point, I hated fighting games as a kid, cause they're only good multiplayer and I was horrible at them. Now I go to tournaments for them. Also, it is more a about skill than time spent playing. For me, the real problem is multiplayer games that only really have online play. Online is nice, but pales in comparison to playing against someone in the same room. Far too many 360 games have a complete lack of local multiplayer support, and that's just stupid. Oh, and the real problem w/ 13 year olds playing shooters isn't that they've got so much more time to practice, but the fact that most shooters degenerate to twitch reflexes more than strategy, so the hyperactive 13 years olds are great at them. You'll notice a lot less of them performing well at strategy or fighting games.
I've both a psp and a ds. Now the DS has quite a bit of good, unique games, but I find they don't have the same staying power of the really good PSP games. I've got twice as many DS games, but I play my psp games 3 times as often. Both systems have large libraries of worthless games. The PSP has it's wealth of stripped down PS2 ports, while the DS is filled w/ horrible licensed games and games that are ruined by trying to unnecessarily include the touch screen (Nanostray anyone?).
I dunno, I love the Second Encounter, but Serious Sam 2 just didn't do it for me. Somehow, I just couldn't find it as enjoyable or entertaining. And the story...ugh. When I think of Sam, I don't think of him running around saving little blue people.
Used games have a 30 day warranty against defects, and 7 days return policy if you just don't like them. The latter is especially good for parents w/ finicky kids. As someone else also mentioned, prices for older used games are great. As a whole, I was a bigger fan of EB before the merger. REally, it's a matter of finding one of the stores that has a good staff.
The other thing sony needs to do is continue upgrading the console's overall functionality. In march there's a huge firmware update, akin to the 2.0 update of the psp. Rumor has it that region coding will be disabled for ps2 and ps1 games w/ said update. This is very appealing to me, since it would mean that I wouldn't need to keep using swap magic to play my favorite game. Of course, I'd still have to get my arcade stick to work on the ps3, but w/ a ps2 to usb converter, I should be able to get it to work.
Which just further illustrates the gap between the hardcore gamers playing a PS3/360 versus the Wii when it comes to accuracy in input. I've a custom built arcade stick w/ top of the line parts. Why would I want to take a step backwards and have less control over the action in my games?
People also need to stop touting the Wii as a fitness machine, since I highly doubt it'll develop into that. If fitness games sold, the one that came out for the eyetoy would have sold much more. More than that, the last thing I personally need is to burn calories, considering that no matter what I eat, I'm can't gain weight. I don't think the overweight gamers are really going to use the Wii as a way of losing weight, and the casual and new gamers who enjoy physical activity would often rather go outside (where one can find games w/ such features as fresh air and sunlight), and the wii will get use when that's not available.
Ok, GBA is not even in competition here. Trust me, no one is worried about losing sales to an obsolete handheld. Secondly, PS3s are not sitting on shelves, they're being restocked frequently. Thirdly, the wii selling less than twice as much when the cost is less than half is not too great. And once supply finally picks up, is all the demand going to keep coming? The release date is sparse for some time to come (granted ps3s isn't much better, but ps3 has the advantage that people are buying games for it, rather than the vast amount that are just playing Wii Sports). And yes, Zelda may be huge over here, but it's sales are pitiful in Japan.
There was an article on here just a few months ago from a dev trashing the other devs for complaining. He said that the dev kit was better than the first ps2 one, which didn't even come w/ a compiler. Can't remember much else. More importantly, the ps2 sure wasn't easy to code for. Furthermore, just talked w/ the Sony rep at work today (he's really a cool guy, a fan, not a fanboy even though he's paid by sony. Ended up talking to him about crackdown, and he's no problem talking about how great XB Live is). Sony is really looking to get dev kits out to mod teams and let the homebrew stuff flourish. The PS3 could really benefit from a fan created mod the quality of CS coming out.
Very well put. I'm a Sony fan (to the point that owning only 1 ps2 may not be enough for my fighting game parties). My psp also gets a lot of play. That being said. I had to work w/ a hardcore sony fanboy for a while and I wanted to strangle him every time he spoke. I own a 360 (contest win, the only game that I've bothered to pick up is Crackdown, which I love), and a DS, and a Cube. Love the cube, but only for a few games, and the Wii doesn't appeal to me. I'll be buying it just for Smash Brothers. Less accurate input in order to add realism not really up my alley. Great for them for bring all sorts of other people to the world of gaming, but I'm really not sure how much it's going to affect the other consoles. It's becoming more apparent that the Wii is appealing primarily to the casual crowd, w/ hardcore gamers picking one up in addition to their 360 or PS3. Now, isn't the 360 is selling more slowly than the first Xbox did, And the 360 also took a year to really hit its stride. Worse still, more and more they're having breaking. I see more sell to as replacements than first time consoles. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're already talking about a redesign?! They'd better get that out the door before Halo drops in november, or when Halo boosts the install base, everyone who just bought one aren't going to be looking to shell out even more money, and may be angry as a result. Who knows though, they could be too busy playing Halo to even notice. /ramble
Something being a good party system doesn't mean that it's the most fun to play w/ friends. That's all a matter of opinion. For me, the most fun is to get a bunch of friends together and play 2d fighters for hours on end. This includes smash brothers on occasion, but rarely.
Well, keep in mind several of their top developers left a few years ago and are now working on "Hellgate: London" if I recall. If I recall correctly, the guys who left were some of the key developers for the Diablo series. Regardless, "Hellgate: London" looks awesome so far. As far as WOW, I'll stick to fighting games, you know, games that require skill, rather than merely rewarding whoever spends the most time playing.