All the things he's talking about happening in the game aren't "features" they're bugs in EA's code, and EA's trying to pass them off as some kind of R&D.
In NBA Live 2004, I had Karl Malone prepare for a dunk from the side of the basket from 6 feet out. While in mid-air Malone rotated around the hoop and turned his body 180 degress in midair, so he was point towards the other team's basket, 94 feet away. He then proceed to go into his dunk animation, planting the ball squarely into the had of a defender.
Said defender then picked up the ball and threw it downcourt THROUGH GARY PAYTON'S TORSO to a teammate who then scored.
That's not morale, that's awful, awful code.
In NBA Live 2005, I had Lamar Odom take five steps, then throw the ball off the defender's elbow (who had been called for the foul, and was clipping through his body.) and had the ball shoot up in the air at an 85-88 degree angle to arc straight into the hoop. And the FOUL! YES!
The NBA Live series is horrid. Despite the author's best attempts to have the single most horrid line in that article, talking about "mushin" and a "moralgorithm" but that line belongs to Todd Batty who was referneced as saying:
"Over time, Batty says, the programmers have fixed most real glitches in the game."
So me getting blocked through the backboard must not be one of those glitches. Or my players bouncing off the other players in midair when I have the momentum. Or the fact that I can substitute players after the 2nd free throw. Or all the other rules of NBA basketball that EA just ignores.
You wanna do a study on the quirks that occur in a basketball game? Pick up a game that does it properly first, like NBA 2K5.
It's like the "reviewer" didn't realize that this thing was meant to be used with two hands and not one. You held it with your left (or right) and hit the buttons with the thumb and index fingers, and you used the other hand to control. It was the old Gold Standard.
In my house we specifically used the Coleco-stick for all our old-school gaming. We used it on the C-64, the Atari, and the TI 99/4A. It was the best there was at the time.
However, they need to go back to what made it so special in the past. That is, back off of the convoluted plot, the rediculous looking and uninteresting characters, and the complicated and boring skills systems. Instead, bring back the spirit of adventure.
I agree with this. Now that they're partnered up with Enix, its time to let the company coast on the other franchises it has, and retool Final Fantasy. They've got to give it a breather like Toho did with Godzilla, and then bring it back.
I'm not liking what I'm seeing from FF XII's art so far. Seeing the characters just makes me think FF VIII all over again. Someone's got to sit down and actually design some characters that don't look like Tetsuya Nomura just decided to change outfits and hair colors on the previous games' character models.
Exploration is key to a good epic adventure. So is growth. You get someone who can work both of these things in well, and I'll be sold again.
I don't know what predictions you've been making but judging from what I saw at those shows, I predicted the fall of the Dreamcast and the sputtering of the Xbox just fine. Before, I was able to make value judgements from what a company was showing at their booths.
But no longer. You are correct that the show has basically become irrelevant. I've been hoping it would come back around, and get honest again, hoping the media would only pass along E3 awards to games that were actually playable on the show floor and not just in video format, but it's quickly going the other way.
I'd completely with you there. Until I start hearing some quality you guys are being babies for demanding more than $375/hour and then complaining.
Given that I know several people that work directly with them and some of them do multiple jobs within one day (and got paid for the full day of work at both places because of their contracts.) I don't feel a whit for them.
No, it was probably about him stealing his friend's item and selling it. He probably would have done the same thing if he stole his bike and sold it, too.
I guess you didn't go to the show where they announced the 'Cube, the XBox, and the PS2 had been out already, and there was still nothing exciting on the show floor.
Ah well, at least this year, the new console launches mean that they give away better stuff, and I can get more cash for it on Ebay.
Literally? Not just figuratively or metaphorically not believing that?
But you're right, that number is completely off. It's inside the L.A. Convention Center which boasts 770,000 square feet of exhbition space. They're off by a factor of 100, it's only.027 square miles (.0276, which would actually round to.028.)
So, I guess this means when we get hype from the industry, we should divide by 100?
Anyway, this is big news, in case you hadn't picked up from the implication, because they haven't sold out E3 for quite some time now. There have been huge empty exhibition areas there for the last 3 years.
"Most Western RPGs use battle engines that allow freedom of movement, similar to the way pen-and-paper RPGs take distances into account during combat (which in itself stems from the origins of pen-and-paper RPGs in miniatures wargames)."
Front Mission 4, Generation of Chaos IV, Arc the Lad: Twilight of Spirits, Phantasy Star: C.A.R.D. Revolution, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time...
I think this represents 7 of the last 9 RPGs I've played, all of them have a battle engine that has freedom of movement, some tile based combat, some are not, some are turn based, others are real time. Your simply ignoring the games means you're aren't hip to what's going on.
As far as this, "Story presentation also stems from the pen-and-paper origins, where one of the main draws was that you can act any way you wish and the dungeon master will alter the story as he sees fit."
That's only partially true. This is something to shoot for, but only the best of the best have been able to pull it off. Fable didn't. KOTOR didn't (Your light ending or dark ending was solely determined by one choice at the end of the game.) and neither did KOTOR II. Sudeki sure didn't.
If you're going to point to PC games, I can't even think of the last RPG of note that came out on a PC, and I've been looking. American's McGee's Scrapland got billed as an RPG, but that was just a lie.
The only games that I can think of that actually had a branching storyline with consequential actions that affect the end of the game were the Fallout series and Arcanum, possibly Morrowind, although, that's more, inifnite roads, 1 destination. Deus Ex faked it.
While your favorite RPGs come from the West and have some sort of branching, my favorite RPGs come from all over, and contain some form of branching.
I'm not trying to be simply dismissive of RPGs from the West, it's just that so few people make them anymore. There's what, 1 RPG of note that is actually worth playing in the US every 2 years or so? That isn't an insult when you factor in that there are maybe 3-5 that get made in that time span.
Ultima 7 was groundbreaking, but crap. Over a summer of 3 months, 3 friends and I couldn't ever stomach that game long enough to finish it, I'm sorry.
If you're assuming that "JRPGs are still doing the typical check-the-dresser-for-a-health-potion 'interactivity'!" you haven't played one in the last 5 years. Try picking up Dark Cloud 2 to see how different things have gotten.
I like Ultima 6 better than 4. 6's story gives it classic status in my book, 4 is on the cusp. 5 just seemed like an update to 4 for me.
Dungeon Master made me physically ill. Could have been digital crack, but if it makes me vomit, I'm not enjoying it.
Planescape, from what I understood was supposed to be awesome. Whatever. I haven't played it so I can't say it's super badass or anything.
My point was that the Western RPG at this point is so limited in scope that comparing "Western RPG to Japanese RPG" is fairly useless, as not many people are going to know what the heck Western RPG represents.
When I write reviews, I compare them to those standards all the time. Is the story lacking or linear? Then I dock points. Does the game have you go on a wild journey but force you down a path that is neither desirable or logical? Dock points.
The ideas that you say embody the Western RPG are all fine and good...it's just that the term isn't one that is necesarily attached to the ideas becasue it's frankly archaic right now. On top of that, I just don't see the need to fracture the RPG or any other genre for that matter into locales. An RPG is an RPG. If it's lacking in story it's lacking in story, not just "typical Japanese".
And the US invented the automobile...you don't see a lot of people claiming those are the best across the board, now do you?
A lot of the old Western RPGs were just straight up conversions of D&D modules that SSI cranked out to the tune of 3-4 year. That isn't even close to "getting it down". As I stated there are about 5 Western RPGs that are classic. There are far more that come from Japan. The West started the fire, and then Japan threw all the logs on and kept it burning.
Basically, I'm going to agree with you, but there are a few points of your post I'm going to have to nitpick at myself.
First off, I do agree that Gamer's Quarter, and New Games Journalism, et al are not the answer. Everyone's spending all this time tripping over themselves trying to be the next Hunter S. Thompson, but we haven't found the Game Journalism's Woodward & Bernstein yet...it isn't TIME for that yet.
Gamer's Quarter is fine and dandy...for people who aren't me. In 10 years or so, I can imagine there being a legitimate place in the industry for this magazine and others like it. But not now, however. Now New Games Journalism just does damage to the system, and plays right into the hands of IGNSpy and Gamespot.
Right now there's a swell of solid Games Journalism starting to take hold. News aggregation blogs like Kotaku, Blue's News, and The Magic Box are making it easier and easier for gamers to get reviews that are outside the bounds of the hype effect, news without spin, and some actual reporting on what the heck is going on with these companies past the press releases.
The majority of the game buying public still get their news from their corporate overlords. New Games Journalism sites and mags take away from the noise that the independents are trying to make.
To put it in an imperfect analogy, IGN is Dubya, The Indies are Gore, and NGJ is Ralph Nader from the US 2000 Election. NGJ isn't taking minds and hits from IGN, it's taking then from the pool of open minds that the Game Journalists are fighting to grab, too. We have our window to strike at the incumbent, but it's not going to stay open forever. By working at cross-purposes, it's quite possible that both NGJ and good ol' fashioned GJ both take a fall.
Did you read Greg Costikyan's intended rant for the "Burn Down the House" session at GDC? It's more important than ever for people to start making informed game buying decisions. NGJ doesn't aid in that respect, much in the same way IGN doesn't.
If you guys at GameQuarter could make a hybrid, as bVork suggested above, that would go a long way to having people like myself, who are fans of objective game journalism look at your magazine less dismissively.
Now for bVork, you echo a complaint I've heard from a lot of people, that Western RPGs don't get their due. And, predictably, you bring up the same game that always gets brought up...the ONLY game that gets brought up. Planescape: Torment. Comparing every JRPG to Torment is kind of foolish. In fact, it's fairly foolish to refer to Japanese RPGs as a subset, when, they in fact, are responsible for probably 99% of the good titles in that genre.
Of all of the US/European RPGs I've ever played, only 5 reach classic status: Tunnels of Doom on the TI 99/4A, Bard's Tale II, Ultima VI, Fallout, and Arcanum.
Baldur's was nice but problematic, as was II. I must confess to never playing Morrowind or Torment, they just happened to come along at the wrong time. Maybe I'll get to them, but I must say the premise for Torment doesn't really fire me up.
So in my mind, asking people to compare Japanese RPGs to Western ones to show the differences in design philosophy is kind of laughable. It's akin to comparing US FPS or RTS games to Japanese ones, there are just certain genres that various locales haven't quite got down yet.
But, aside from that, you brought up some good points...especially with the nitpicking. I love the nitpicking.
Slashdot Mirror
All the things he's talking about happening in the game aren't "features" they're bugs in EA's code, and EA's trying to pass them off as some kind of R&D.
In NBA Live 2004, I had Karl Malone prepare for a dunk from the side of the basket from 6 feet out. While in mid-air Malone rotated around the hoop and turned his body 180 degress in midair, so he was point towards the other team's basket, 94 feet away. He then proceed to go into his dunk animation, planting the ball squarely into the had of a defender.
Said defender then picked up the ball and threw it downcourt THROUGH GARY PAYTON'S TORSO to a teammate who then scored.
That's not morale, that's awful, awful code.
In NBA Live 2005, I had Lamar Odom take five steps, then throw the ball off the defender's elbow (who had been called for the foul, and was clipping through his body.) and had the ball shoot up in the air at an 85-88 degree angle to arc straight into the hoop. And the FOUL! YES!
The NBA Live series is horrid. Despite the author's best attempts to have the single most horrid line in that article, talking about "mushin" and a "moralgorithm" but that line belongs to Todd Batty who was referneced as saying:
"Over time, Batty says, the programmers have fixed most real glitches in the game."
So me getting blocked through the backboard must not be one of those glitches. Or my players bouncing off the other players in midair when I have the momentum. Or the fact that I can substitute players after the 2nd free throw. Or all the other rules of NBA basketball that EA just ignores.
You wanna do a study on the quirks that occur in a basketball game? Pick up a game that does it properly first, like NBA 2K5.
*high five*
It's like the "reviewer" didn't realize that this thing was meant to be used with two hands and not one. You held it with your left (or right) and hit the buttons with the thumb and index fingers, and you used the other hand to control. It was the old Gold Standard.
In my house we specifically used the Coleco-stick for all our old-school gaming. We used it on the C-64, the Atari, and the TI 99/4A. It was the best there was at the time.
Oh you mean, like a million dollars? Yeah, nobody EVER does that anymore.
http://www.advent-rising.com/learnMore.aspx
Works well enough to annoy the guys at Doubleclick? Thanks for telling me, Mr. CEO.
*Downloads Adblock*
However, they need to go back to what made it so special in the past. That is, back off of the convoluted plot, the rediculous looking and uninteresting characters, and the complicated and boring skills systems. Instead, bring back the spirit of adventure.
I agree with this. Now that they're partnered up with Enix, its time to let the company coast on the other franchises it has, and retool Final Fantasy. They've got to give it a breather like Toho did with Godzilla, and then bring it back.
I'm not liking what I'm seeing from FF XII's art so far. Seeing the characters just makes me think FF VIII all over again. Someone's got to sit down and actually design some characters that don't look like Tetsuya Nomura just decided to change outfits and hair colors on the previous games' character models.
Exploration is key to a good epic adventure. So is growth. You get someone who can work both of these things in well, and I'll be sold again.
Especially considering that:
"These questions were asked on a poll released last week that shows that two-thirds of Americans do believe that life exists on other planets..."
2/3 is 66.6% NOT 60%!
Helllooooo? Editors?!
Most the other words on that list suck. Gription? Hey...how about "grip"? It means the same thing and it's less letters.
The only ones I approved of were w00t, ginormous, and phonecrastinate.
I don't know what predictions you've been making but judging from what I saw at those shows, I predicted the fall of the Dreamcast and the sputtering of the Xbox just fine. Before, I was able to make value judgements from what a company was showing at their booths.
But no longer. You are correct that the show has basically become irrelevant. I've been hoping it would come back around, and get honest again, hoping the media would only pass along E3 awards to games that were actually playable on the show floor and not just in video format, but it's quickly going the other way.
The free stuff isn't even as cool anymore.
I'd completely with you there. Until I start hearing some quality you guys are being babies for demanding more than $375/hour and then complaining.
Given that I know several people that work directly with them and some of them do multiple jobs within one day (and got paid for the full day of work at both places because of their contracts.) I don't feel a whit for them.
No, it was probably about him stealing his friend's item and selling it. He probably would have done the same thing if he stole his bike and sold it, too.
The local Best Buy in Costa Mesa wasn't. My roommate bought one the day after it launched on a whim.
I wonder...if this has anything that has to do with the story that they posted yesterday which was exactly like it.
And the Xbox 360 only has .03 processor cores!
I guess you didn't go to the show where they announced the 'Cube, the XBox, and the PS2 had been out already, and there was still nothing exciting on the show floor.
Ah well, at least this year, the new console launches mean that they give away better stuff, and I can get more cash for it on Ebay.
Seriously...those are all weak. I think this is why everyone refers to them by their abbrviations...they're less embarassing that way.
But look at the competition...I mean...PHANTOM?!
Literally? Not just figuratively or metaphorically not believing that?
.027 square miles (.0276, which would actually round to .028.)
But you're right, that number is completely off. It's inside the L.A. Convention Center which boasts 770,000 square feet of exhbition space. They're off by a factor of 100, it's only
So, I guess this means when we get hype from the industry, we should divide by 100?
Anyway, this is big news, in case you hadn't picked up from the implication, because they haven't sold out E3 for quite some time now. There have been huge empty exhibition areas there for the last 3 years.
Oh man...Mail Order Monsters. There's a game that needs a remake. That game taught me the word "epoch".
"Most Western RPGs use battle engines that allow freedom of movement, similar to the way pen-and-paper RPGs take distances into account during combat (which in itself stems from the origins of pen-and-paper RPGs in miniatures wargames)."
Front Mission 4, Generation of Chaos IV, Arc the Lad: Twilight of Spirits, Phantasy Star: C.A.R.D. Revolution, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time...
I think this represents 7 of the last 9 RPGs I've played, all of them have a battle engine that has freedom of movement, some tile based combat, some are not, some are turn based, others are real time. Your simply ignoring the games means you're aren't hip to what's going on.
As far as this, "Story presentation also stems from the pen-and-paper origins, where one of the main draws was that you can act any way you wish and the dungeon master will alter the story as he sees fit."
That's only partially true. This is something to shoot for, but only the best of the best have been able to pull it off. Fable didn't. KOTOR didn't (Your light ending or dark ending was solely determined by one choice at the end of the game.) and neither did KOTOR II. Sudeki sure didn't.
If you're going to point to PC games, I can't even think of the last RPG of note that came out on a PC, and I've been looking. American's McGee's Scrapland got billed as an RPG, but that was just a lie.
The only games that I can think of that actually had a branching storyline with consequential actions that affect the end of the game were the Fallout series and Arcanum, possibly Morrowind, although, that's more, inifnite roads, 1 destination. Deus Ex faked it.
While your favorite RPGs come from the West and have some sort of branching, my favorite RPGs come from all over, and contain some form of branching.
I'm not trying to be simply dismissive of RPGs from the West, it's just that so few people make them anymore. There's what, 1 RPG of note that is actually worth playing in the US every 2 years or so? That isn't an insult when you factor in that there are maybe 3-5 that get made in that time span.
You're right, I should have added "recently" to that statement.
Ultima 7 was groundbreaking, but crap. Over a summer of 3 months, 3 friends and I couldn't ever stomach that game long enough to finish it, I'm sorry.
If you're assuming that "JRPGs are still doing the typical check-the-dresser-for-a-health-potion 'interactivity'!" you haven't played one in the last 5 years. Try picking up Dark Cloud 2 to see how different things have gotten.
I like Ultima 6 better than 4. 6's story gives it classic status in my book, 4 is on the cusp. 5 just seemed like an update to 4 for me.
Dungeon Master made me physically ill. Could have been digital crack, but if it makes me vomit, I'm not enjoying it.
Planescape, from what I understood was supposed to be awesome. Whatever. I haven't played it so I can't say it's super badass or anything.
My point was that the Western RPG at this point is so limited in scope that comparing "Western RPG to Japanese RPG" is fairly useless, as not many people are going to know what the heck Western RPG represents.
When I write reviews, I compare them to those standards all the time. Is the story lacking or linear? Then I dock points. Does the game have you go on a wild journey but force you down a path that is neither desirable or logical? Dock points.
The ideas that you say embody the Western RPG are all fine and good...it's just that the term isn't one that is necesarily attached to the ideas becasue it's frankly archaic right now. On top of that, I just don't see the need to fracture the RPG or any other genre for that matter into locales. An RPG is an RPG. If it's lacking in story it's lacking in story, not just "typical Japanese".
I suppose. I was trying to think of which one I was really into, and then I remembered that I didn't even finish that one.
And the US invented the automobile...you don't see a lot of people claiming those are the best across the board, now do you?
A lot of the old Western RPGs were just straight up conversions of D&D modules that SSI cranked out to the tune of 3-4 year. That isn't even close to "getting it down". As I stated there are about 5 Western RPGs that are classic. There are far more that come from Japan. The West started the fire, and then Japan threw all the logs on and kept it burning.
Basically, I'm going to agree with you, but there are a few points of your post I'm going to have to nitpick at myself.
First off, I do agree that Gamer's Quarter, and New Games Journalism, et al are not the answer. Everyone's spending all this time tripping over themselves trying to be the next Hunter S. Thompson, but we haven't found the Game Journalism's Woodward & Bernstein yet...it isn't TIME for that yet.
Gamer's Quarter is fine and dandy...for people who aren't me. In 10 years or so, I can imagine there being a legitimate place in the industry for this magazine and others like it. But not now, however. Now New Games Journalism just does damage to the system, and plays right into the hands of IGNSpy and Gamespot.
Right now there's a swell of solid Games Journalism starting to take hold. News aggregation blogs like Kotaku, Blue's News, and The Magic Box are making it easier and easier for gamers to get reviews that are outside the bounds of the hype effect, news without spin, and some actual reporting on what the heck is going on with these companies past the press releases.
The majority of the game buying public still get their news from their corporate overlords. New Games Journalism sites and mags take away from the noise that the independents are trying to make.
To put it in an imperfect analogy, IGN is Dubya, The Indies are Gore, and NGJ is Ralph Nader from the US 2000 Election. NGJ isn't taking minds and hits from IGN, it's taking then from the pool of open minds that the Game Journalists are fighting to grab, too. We have our window to strike at the incumbent, but it's not going to stay open forever. By working at cross-purposes, it's quite possible that both NGJ and good ol' fashioned GJ both take a fall.
Did you read Greg Costikyan's intended rant for the "Burn Down the House" session at GDC? It's more important than ever for people to start making informed game buying decisions. NGJ doesn't aid in that respect, much in the same way IGN doesn't.
If you guys at GameQuarter could make a hybrid, as bVork suggested above, that would go a long way to having people like myself, who are fans of objective game journalism look at your magazine less dismissively.
Now for bVork, you echo a complaint I've heard from a lot of people, that Western RPGs don't get their due. And, predictably, you bring up the same game that always gets brought up...the ONLY game that gets brought up. Planescape: Torment. Comparing every JRPG to Torment is kind of foolish. In fact, it's fairly foolish to refer to Japanese RPGs as a subset, when, they in fact, are responsible for probably 99% of the good titles in that genre.
Of all of the US/European RPGs I've ever played, only 5 reach classic status: Tunnels of Doom on the TI 99/4A, Bard's Tale II, Ultima VI, Fallout, and Arcanum.
Baldur's was nice but problematic, as was II. I must confess to never playing Morrowind or Torment, they just happened to come along at the wrong time. Maybe I'll get to them, but I must say the premise for Torment doesn't really fire me up.
So in my mind, asking people to compare Japanese RPGs to Western ones to show the differences in design philosophy is kind of laughable. It's akin to comparing US FPS or RTS games to Japanese ones, there are just certain genres that various locales haven't quite got down yet.
But, aside from that, you brought up some good points...especially with the nitpicking. I love the nitpicking.
If you RTFW, it says the PDF is free to download and the magazine is going to be in dead-tree format in a week.
I also wouldn't bother R-ing TF-ing A this time. Basically, take your standard review. Then multiply the length of the review by 20. That's this mag.