Why do you guys have Google Desktop installed on your machines in the first place? Google has been fairly up-front about what it does, in their "please this, it's not just the usual yada-yada" terms of service.
Ah, incorrect sir! It was because I find the sandbox game is a lot more interesting in Grand Theft Auto than the story. Doing my own thing is awesome in those games. Following an annoying narrative about gang warfare or corrupt cops or the pornography industry or the mob or whatever is, to me at least, considerably less awesome.
Well someone beat me to mentioning Ico, which blows away anything Nintendo ever made...
Now why'd you have to go and say something like that?
I'm as likely to sing the praises of Ico as anyone, but "blows away anything Nintendo ever made" is simply not true.
Ico is a certain kind of game. It has a thoughtful, intelligent outlook, features real characters, and is grand storytelling in a mode that puts the likes of Final Fantasy to shame. And, if you look at it only from those perspectives, perhaps you could say it is better than any of Nintendo's releases.
But games are more than Ico. For all of Ico's strengths, it is possible to make a great game that is nothing like Ico, in all the ways Ico is great. Robotron: 2084, for example, has no storytelling, no real characters, and is rather simple, but it is a GREAT GAME. Thus, it is possible for Nintendo to make games the equal or surpassing Ico without even challenging it in the ways it is great.
And it just so happens that Nintendo DOES have a series that carries some elements of Ico: the 3D versions of the Zelda series, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker, each have a surprising thoughtful story, and interesting characterization, in places.
Having already demonstrated that you don't have to be anything like Ico to be better than it, I won't attempt to pose the question of whether its storytelling is better or worse. (It's probably a little worse, since Zelda games all carry at least a nominal non-linear aspect, which makes it a lot harder to tell a tight story.) But characters in those Zelda games tend to have, in my opinion, a lot more romance in their souls than those in most RPGs, and tend to be a lot more interesting as well.
(The most interesting character in Wind Waker, by the way, is arguably Ganon, who for the first time is given motivations beyond just wanting to conquer everyone.)
GENERATION ONE: Pre-programmable consoles. For example, dedicated single-game devices like Odyssey. GENERATION TWO: The first programmable consoles. The first I know of is Fairchild Channel F, but the Atari 2600 was the overriding success story of this age. GENERATION THREE: Mattel Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 5200. I think Vectrex as well, although that was more like a portable, not included in this list. GENERATION FOUR: NES, Sega Master System, Atari 7800. GENERATION FIVE: Genesis and Sega CD, Super Nintendo, Turbografx and Turbo Duo. The home Neo-Geo console may also be included here. GENERATION SIX: Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64. GENERATION SEVEN: Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft X-Box. GENERATIOn EIGHT: X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Revolution, ?.
Oh and then comes the old sales pitch. Simple. Yes, we are going to reach that part of the market that is to dumb to figure out a lightswitch.
Well, of course it's a sales pitch. The guy's job is to make Nintendo look as good as possible.
As far as the lightswitch crack goes....
Look. We each have a limited amount of what I call brainspace. It's the intersection of the sets of available free time, energy and interest. Geeks tend to have more available game-related brainspace than "normal people" because we have more interest in games. Thus, we're willing to use more of the limited pool available it us to understand the workings of a game sufficently well to play it.
But there are plenty of people without that much brainspace to devote to games. I know plenty of people who have trouble attaching a file to an email message! These people are not stupid: they could discuss the finer points of William Blake or John Milton better than you probably could hope to in your life, but their interests are in a different direction.
This is the kind of user that Nintendo hopes to attract. Not stupid, just a harder sell. People who think video games are something they'd never enjoy. And they're doing it because, at the moment, practically everyone who is interested in games is already playing them, so the only way to expand the total size of the market is to attract new players.
But hmm, I thought these things were largely obvious....
I saw this posted, with the same damn wistful tone, over on Metafilter too! There I was more understanding, but the fact that the same story is popping up everywhere, with the same tone, makes me a little suspecious.
This is NOT the classic Atari! The second-most classic Atari was the one that released the home computers and game consoles, which was fine for a while, but ultimately it died all on its own.
The MOST classic Atari, without question, is the one that got renamed Midway Games West before dumping everyone and dying themselves. The that used to be known as Atari Games. The arcade company. The only game company I can think of who made better games than Nintendo.
They made everything in the Infogrammes-Atari's "classics" catalogue (and most of them are still deserving of that name), and most of the good stuff in the three Midway Arcade Treasures compilations to boot. THEY should be mourned. Not, by ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, THIS Atari.
You may actually be on to something. The Zelda cartoon was generic fantasy, missing almost all of the charm of the games. But Captain Lou in a Mario Costume trying to do an Italian accent, that's just gold man.
It's not that PlayStation is better, although I feel that it is, it's that PlayStation has a history, so I know what to expect and that my games will still work on the PS3, that XBox has to compete with.
Hmm... well, at least Playstation is undergoing less of a drastic platform change than X-Box is this time, which is really what's hurting X-Box backward compatibility at the moment.
What keeps Linux from replacing Windows as the desktop of choice is what keeps XBox from replacing PlayStation as console of choice for most people.
No, I'd say not. What prevents most people from switching to Linux are, in summary, Ignorance ("What the hell is Linux?"), Fear ("My god how do I use this?"), Apathy ("I don't care about the things Linux does better"), Cost ("Dual booting is annoying/difficult to set up and I can't afford/have no room for a dedicated Linux-only machine too"), and Applications ("There's no Linux version of Illustrator/Photoshop/Windows Media Player/my favorite games").
Ignorance: Everyone knows about PS3 and X-Box 360, so not a factor. Fear: Absolutely not a factor, all the systems will have accessible interfaces *or else*, and the companies know this. Apathy: More of a factor, but X-Box 360's reputation as an up-and-comer will make a big difference here. Cost: Considerably important, but It'still relatively a lot easier/cheaper to own one of all the major game systems, even at their inflated prices this time out, for the average user. Applications: Many games will be available for both PS3 and X-Box 360 (with only Revolution projected to have a major exclusivity aspect this time).
Details like backwards compatibility that Microsoft almost didn't include with the 360 (still didn't - depending who you ask) are things that Sony clearly understands the importance of.
Word is X-Box 360's backward compatibility is so shameful, even for "supported" games, for anything that isn't Halo that it seriously borders on false advertising.
IMO the biggest risk to PlayStation lossing it's throne isn't from the XBox but from the internal management struggles inside Sony. It seems that the PlayStation division is always at odds with the rest of Sony and might be a better match for another company.
This is an issue with many large, diverse companies, actually. Nintendo's all games and pretty monolithic, so they get off almost for free, and Microsoft's mostly software outside of X-Box 360.
But Sony is a behemoth that sells TVs and stereos too. Thing is, they could have used their consumer retail electronics presence to make the PS3 almost ubiquitous by now. Imagine if all Sony-brand TVs or DVD players had, in the apropriate era, an internal PS or PS2? Of course, PS2 is almost ubitiquous anyway.... but PS3 is sufficently expensive that they couldn't just throw in the components at cost without severely raising the price of their hardware.
What I'm saying here is that Sony missed a great chance to have their game system linked with their consumer electronics, driving the sales of both, but instead it's rather of surprising how non-Sony the Playstation seems to be. The only thing that Playstations really get out of their Sony heritage, from where I stand, is their reputation for fragility....
Well the article's published in Forbes, hardly a hangout for Nintendo fanboys. I think it's much more likely that little problem is a result of poor research more than console partisanship.
This is called "The Peter Principle," and there was a book published about it some years back. The Principle states, people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence.
I am DISAGREEING, which you seem to have some difficulty with.
If you were just disagreeing, you'd respond to my points instead of ignoring them when convenient. That, and your absurd hyperbole, are why I say you're trolling.
I not only say you're doing it, but you probably know you are, and are just trying to get a rise out of me.
Sounds simple, but it's really very hard to come up with a workable system for players to create *all* content, and have them be rewarded for it, in a way that's not vulnerable to abuse or technical issues. Second Life's the best we've seen, but even there it's possible for one player to bring down an entire server.
You understate the situation as well. Non-trivial player-made content would require a lot more than a basic MMORPG framework to make workable (it'd require a user-visible scripting language), you'd still have to front the sizable server, storage and bandwidth costs, and you'd have to hire people to teach people how to use the scripting language and create good software, and also kill damaging user-spawned processes (imagine sysadmining a system with thousands of simultaneous users).
Yet, ultimately, player-created content is the only MMORPGs can evolve. Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar learned that lesson way back in Habitat (http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html):
The first goal-directed event planned for Habitat was a rather involved treasure hunt called the "D'nalsi Island Adventure". It took us hours to design, weeks to build (including a 100-region island), and days to coordinate the actors involved. It was designed much like the puzzles in an adventure game. We thought it would occupy our players for days. In fact, the puzzle was solved in about 8 hours by a person who had figured out the critical clue in the first 15 minutes. Many of the players hadn't even had a chance to get into the game. The result was that one person had had a wonderful experience, dozens of others were left bewildered, and a huge investment in design and setup time had been consumed in an eyeblink. We expected that there would be a wide range of "adventuring" skills in the Habitat audience. What wasn't so obvious until afterward was that this meant that most people didn't have a very good time, if for no other reason than that they never really got to participate. It would clearly be foolish and impractical for us to do things like this on a regular basis.
A little further:
Propelled by these experiences, we shifted into a style of operations in which we let the players themselves drive the direction of the design. This proved far more effective. Instead of trying to push the community in the direction we thought it should go, an exercise rather like herding mice, we tried to observe what people were doing and aid them in it. We became facilitators as much as designers and implementors. This often meant adding new features and new regions to the system at a frantic pace, but almost all of what we added was used and appreciated, since it was well matched to people's needs and desires. As the experts on how the system worked, we could often suggest new activities for people to try or ways of doing things that people might not have thought of. In this way we were able to have considerable influence on the system's development in spite of the fact that we didn't really hold the steering wheel -- more influence, in fact, than we had had when we were operating under the delusion that we controlled everything.
That strikes me as a lot more interesting, in the long run, than World of Warcraft, despite its strengths. Even computer-generated content, which drives most MMORPGs these days, has the disadvantage in that it tends to stop being interesting after a short period. (I DON'T think it's necessarily bad, but developers will have to loosen their stranglehold on game design and invent something almost Roguelike in nature, I believe, to make it work best.)
Oh, blah blah blah. Mr. Ad Hominem himself now wants to complain that I saw his ad hominem and raised him an appeal to authority? Bullshit. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, kiddo.
Then, if you please, give me your example of my using an Ad Hominem.
And, yes, your unfounded assertions that the gaming industry sucks, that my choice in games sucks, etc, etc, are all ad hominem arguments. I was kind enough to have a sense of humor about yours.
Oh for the love of....
The game industry DOES suck, and first-person shooters DO suck, all according to my opinion of course but it is MY opinion after all, but it should not be any skin off your bones for me to say these things. I did not call *you* any names. On the contrary, I've tried to keep things fairly civil in speaking with you. Don't take these things so seriously, dude.
But I don't, because I disagree with you on almost every point. I think you are ranting on about your unfounded opinions and therefore your point of view is entirely unsupported. EVERYTHING we've been discussing is entirely subjective, so you're lying to yourself if you think ANYTHING you've said is "provable".
Oh, man, you've got it bad. The mental image I'm forming of you is an angry, disappointed starbucks cashier who went to a community college (etc etc)
Ah, because if you can't respond logically to someone the best thing to do is stereotype them? No I don't work for Starbucks no I don't have blue hair and piercings no I don't rant for hours about Evangelion no etcetera. On the other hand, you are fulfilling more than one stereotype of your own -- AND you are resorting to ad hominem attacks, and are verging on trolling.
The person I was referring to who thinks the industry sucks, by the way, is Chris Crawford, who is one of the most brilliant game designers I can think of off the top of my head. He *is* somewhat embittered, but I just happen to think he has very good reasons!
The control scheme I mentioned works well for ANY sort of game in which you are inhabiting a human-like character in a world you can explore.
I do not accept the assertion. The controls to the original Legend of Zelda are completely different from Quake.
For games in which you are piloting a human-type person, whether you're in first person or third person, the control scheme I described is nearly PERFECT.
I do not accept this assertion either, a perfect control scheme would be virtual reality, which would have no truck with mice, buttons or joypads.
And it arrived at its form through a vicious type of darwinian selection -- first person shooters with klunky control schemes were rejected by gamers as "unplayable", and ultimately, the most easily playable, perfect control scheme arose from this.
I reject this assertion as well, Darwininan-style, "genetic" algorithms can produce startlingly ingenious results, but they do not create perfection, by definition, unless run over an infinite time frame, and they also rely on chance providing the mutation factor, not human cunning.
Note that this has been in progress since Doom 1, and I've been there as a gamer the whole way.
I've been a gamer since Combat. And you forgot about Wolfenstein 3D, Catacombs and MIDImaze. Anyway, your point?
So it's not just a matter of opinion, it's a matter of 12 years of experience playing almost every single shooter, adventure, or platforming game that's come out with a 3D, realistic environment.
That's Argument From Authority, the second logical fallacy I've spotted in this message alone, and considering that I've played a fair number of games myself (embarassingly many, in fact) it's not even a particularly good authority relative to your opponent. Meanwhile you have yet to respond to my counter-examples from prior messages.
I disagree with you VEHEMENTLY that all first person shooters are "the same, but with different maps".
They are. I don't think someone can argue against this point. Whether I like FPSes or not is beside the point.
They are games in which you have a character, virtually represented by the camera, who launches missile weapons of various ranges (including melee range) at other foes, who have similar abilities although typically much less stamina, in real-time. If you have a sufficently broad definition of game, then indeed, all FPSes are the same game. You could not confuse a FPS with MULE, Parappa, Rogue, Zelda, Mario, *Wars, Wizardry, SimCity, The Sims, Zork, Starflight, Everquest, Civilization, Pirates, Rampart, 720 Degrees, Marble Madness, Robotron, Katamari Damacy or Final Fantasy, or for that matter Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Clue, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Dungeons & Dragons, Boggle, Bridge, Poker, Magic, or Go Fish. However, you could easily confuse Halo with Unreal.
I think that's the point of view of a gamer who dislikes first person shooters, and can't be bothered to learn anything about them.
Well I do know something about them, I *have* played some FPSes before (which I think I mentioned, Serious Sam sure isn't a board game). But although there may be s
There are actually many substantial simularities. Not enough that I'd say that Ninja Gaiden ripped off Castlevania, but enough that I've noted them long before the article was written.
Where I differ with the author is in his assertion Castlevania was a bad game. On the contrary, it has excellent design and "flows" well, while Ninja Gaiden seems twitchy and stuttery to me, and is a lot more annoying than Castlevania. Both games are fairly difficult, though.
It's worth noting that Namco, themselves, never really ripped off the original Pac-Man in the classic era.
The most popular sequel, Ms. Pac-Man, was actually originally a Pac-Man rip-off that Midway bought from General Computer Corporation. Both of Namco's direct sequels, Super Pac-Man and Pac 'n Pal, while having a similar theme and graphics, had substantial gameplay differences from the original game.
First, I have to apologize for my previous comment, I included an imcomplete section that I had intended to remove, but I forgot to take it out completely when I hit the Submit button, sorry if it was confusing.
Ok; on narrative, we'll have to agree to disagree. I find your "axiom" to be a matter of opinion (and wrong, but that's MY opinion, equally valid as yours). There's no point in us restating our sides over and over again.
Except, are we really at that point? I do sometimes have to "agree to disagree," but I never like it.
But the thing about my statement is that I consider it to be obvious. I don't see how anyone could not see it. Yet, I cannot come up with a good counter-example to your premise because of the vagueness of your claim. Again, what does having a beginning, middle and end really mean? I consider you to mean the classical model, containing setting, complication, climax and resolution. To that, I can respond - and did, if I remember correctly.
Like all software (I'm a software engineer) games should adhere to common industry UI conventions and test for usability. It's simply good practice.
Except entertainment software is a lot more difficult to define than applications software. As I said before, there are games where a large portion of the fun comes from its control scheme. Arcade driving games use real steering wheels. Marble Madness had perhaps the all-time best use of a trackball. Your arguement that games would benefit from having standardized controls actually seems to be an arguement that first-person shooters would benefit from having them. But concerning that....
Virtually all shooters use the standard in which the left thumbstick sidesteps and moves forward and back, and the right thumbstick orients the point of view. This is an excellent example of standardization of UI.
Yeah, but first-person shooters suck. I so hate them! And I happen to know that I am not alone in this opinion. The last FPS I could bring myself to spend any time with is Metroid Prime 2 (which doesn't completely qualify), and the one before that was Serious Sam (which was fairly cool for what it was). Lots of people may like them, but it is a grevious mistake to think they are the only gamers who matter.
And it's interesting to note the reason we hate FPSes: it's BECAUSE they've become so standardized! Not just in controls, but in just about every other aspect of their being. They all literally *are* the same game with different maps and minor rule changes. A FPS with a goofy control scheme (like Revolution has) might actually be enough to get me to play another one, if just because of the novelty factor, but I'm not going to posit the revival of the genre based on that.
Ultimately, the core of entertainment is in novelty, and I am loathe to banish any potential source of innovation from gaming because of that.
But again, we'll probably have to agree to disagree, while noting that the industry seems to agree with ME on this one (katamari damarcy notwithstanding).
I'd say the industry agrees with you because the industry sucks. I know a lot of gamers -- and at least a couple of developers -- who agree with me on that issue. They ain't all Nintendo fanboys.
And Katamari Damacy is a very instructive example, enough that I would hardly say it is not withstanding. Even game industry wonks seem to recognize there's something of value there....
On flying cars, when it comes to your comment about how the same problems exist with normal cars, you MUST be insane. Normal cars have nowhere NEAR the kinetic energy a flying car would have, especially after it had fallen two to three hundred feet. The amount of damage a flying car crash would cause would be astronomically higher than that caused by an ordinary car. You aren't thinking the issue through.
My observation is that dangers inherent in ground vehicles and flying vehicles are different primarily in matters
My point is that there is already a relatively "perfect" interface and general approach used in videogames. Since this is just a framework that lets the player have an adventure, why not stick to the standards and not gum up the works with some new and bizarre control scheme, or random, potentially boring game dynamics?
Because what is often forgotten in game design is that controls can be part of the fun. That's a large part of the fun of Robotron 2084, of Katamari Damacy, of Dance Dance Revolution, and will be a lot of the fun, Nintendo hopes, of Revolution. Your reductionist approach to controls would ignore that.
Within that framework, you can do ANYTHING. If you want to be innovative, do it in the writing and the art design, NOT the game mechanics.
No, I do not accept this. A game IS its mechanics, that's what a video game brings to the table that cannot be done in another medium.
It means the story should begin in a way that lures you in, EASES you in, and gets you interested and involved, while sort of sneaking up on you; it should provide you with some sort of conflict that requires tremendous efforts on your part, something appropriately heroic and challenging (the middle); and it should ultimately bring you to some sort of satisfying conclusion or closure. Just like any sort of narrative. I wasn't being cryptic. These are the three parts of just about ANY story.
But the key here is that a story does not HAVE to be like that in order to be good. Beginnings, middles and ends are tools for the writer, not mandates that must be in a story to make it good. But I think you can be forgiven for that confusion, since so many other people are also confused on the issue these days: you don't enjoy something because of how it's made, instead its construction aids you in enjoying it. There must be something else there, however, or the effort is wasted. I make no attempt to prove this: it is an axiom.
They're why plays generally have three acts, right?
No, many plays, including all of Shakespeare's, have five acts. Some have just one.
As far as playing around with narrative, that's fine, but if you pay attention you'll notice that THOSE stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end ALSO. What they're changing is the order in which things are revealed to you. So I have to disagree with this criticism.
Then once again I must ask, what do you mean by a "beginning, middle and end?" If you're merely talking about the chronological progress of the story then your statement is trivial to the point of meaninglessness. Obviously, you mean there's something special that must be in a beginning, something special that must be in middles, and something special that must be in endings. There are lots of things that SHOULD be in those sections of a story, but I can think of counter examples for all of the "shoulds" I can think of, while your statements are proscriptive in a way Plato would be proud of. The danger with making those kinds of statements, of course, is that they are destroyed if someone can come up with even one good counter-example.
However, if it doesn't have them, it's VERY DIFFICULT for it to be good. They're a required element, but not a sufficient one.
Okay, let's break it down into four possible states: 1. Has structure, is good. 2. Has no structure, is good. 3. Has structure, is not good. 4. Has no structure, is not good.
Now, you can make pancakes in a variety of ways. You can use milk and eggs, you can use butter, you can use something else... But you will ALWAYS use pancake batter and syrup, because otherwise, they're not pancakes and your naked girlfriend will put her clothes on and go to Denny's, which is not an optimal outcome.
Unless I make scrambled eggs and bacon instead. You might say, "Ah-ha, but that wouldn't be pancakes, now would it?" And I'd respond that it's always the person who gets the question wrong, or thinks about it from a different
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you guys have Google Desktop installed on your machines in the first place? Google has been fairly up-front about what it does, in their "please this, it's not just the usual yada-yada" terms of service.
Ah, incorrect sir! It was because I find the sandbox game is a lot more interesting in Grand Theft Auto than the story. Doing my own thing is awesome in those games. Following an annoying narrative about gang warfare or corrupt cops or the pornography industry or the mob or whatever is, to me at least, considerably less awesome.
Yes, yes, and katanas.
Wait, didn't his Giant Ultra Mega Pig form in Ocarina of Time have weapons like those?
While GTA does have blood, boobs, and violence...it actually has a story, setting, and a POINT to using those three in a very provacative way.
Then why did I always lose interest in the story of the GTA games right around the time I became able to turn it into Crazy Taxi?
Well someone beat me to mentioning Ico, which blows away anything Nintendo ever made...
Now why'd you have to go and say something like that?
I'm as likely to sing the praises of Ico as anyone, but "blows away anything Nintendo ever made" is simply not true.
Ico is a certain kind of game. It has a thoughtful, intelligent outlook, features real characters, and is grand storytelling in a mode that puts the likes of Final Fantasy to shame. And, if you look at it only from those perspectives, perhaps you could say it is better than any of Nintendo's releases.
But games are more than Ico. For all of Ico's strengths, it is possible to make a great game that is nothing like Ico, in all the ways Ico is great. Robotron: 2084, for example, has no storytelling, no real characters, and is rather simple, but it is a GREAT GAME. Thus, it is possible for Nintendo to make games the equal or surpassing Ico without even challenging it in the ways it is great.
And it just so happens that Nintendo DOES have a series that carries some elements of Ico: the 3D versions of the Zelda series, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker, each have a surprising thoughtful story, and interesting characterization, in places.
Having already demonstrated that you don't have to be anything like Ico to be better than it, I won't attempt to pose the question of whether its storytelling is better or worse. (It's probably a little worse, since Zelda games all carry at least a nominal non-linear aspect, which makes it a lot harder to tell a tight story.) But characters in those Zelda games tend to have, in my opinion, a lot more romance in their souls than those in most RPGs, and tend to be a lot more interesting as well.
(The most interesting character in Wind Waker, by the way, is arguably Ganon, who for the first time is given motivations beyond just wanting to conquer everyone.)
Incomplete.
GENERATION ONE: Pre-programmable consoles. For example, dedicated single-game devices like Odyssey.
GENERATION TWO: The first programmable consoles. The first I know of is Fairchild Channel F, but the Atari 2600 was the overriding success story of this age.
GENERATION THREE: Mattel Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 5200. I think Vectrex as well, although that was more like a portable, not included in this list.
GENERATION FOUR: NES, Sega Master System, Atari 7800.
GENERATION FIVE: Genesis and Sega CD, Super Nintendo, Turbografx and Turbo Duo. The home Neo-Geo console may also be included here.
GENERATION SIX: Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64.
GENERATION SEVEN: Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft X-Box.
GENERATIOn EIGHT: X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Revolution, ?.
Oh and then comes the old sales pitch. Simple. Yes, we are going to reach that part of the market that is to dumb to figure out a lightswitch.
Well, of course it's a sales pitch. The guy's job is to make Nintendo look as good as possible.
As far as the lightswitch crack goes....
Look. We each have a limited amount of what I call brainspace. It's the intersection of the sets of available free time, energy and interest. Geeks tend to have more available game-related brainspace than "normal people" because we have more interest in games. Thus, we're willing to use more of the limited pool available it us to understand the workings of a game sufficently well to play it.
But there are plenty of people without that much brainspace to devote to games. I know plenty of people who have trouble attaching a file to an email message! These people are not stupid: they could discuss the finer points of William Blake or John Milton better than you probably could hope to in your life, but their interests are in a different direction.
This is the kind of user that Nintendo hopes to attract. Not stupid, just a harder sell. People who think video games are something they'd never enjoy. And they're doing it because, at the moment, practically everyone who is interested in games is already playing them, so the only way to expand the total size of the market is to attract new players.
But hmm, I thought these things were largely obvious....
I saw this posted, with the same damn wistful tone, over on Metafilter too! There I was more understanding, but the fact that the same story is popping up everywhere, with the same tone, makes me a little suspecious.
This is NOT the classic Atari! The second-most classic Atari was the one that released the home computers and game consoles, which was fine for a while, but ultimately it died all on its own.
The MOST classic Atari, without question, is the one that got renamed Midway Games West before dumping everyone and dying themselves. The that used to be known as Atari Games. The arcade company. The only game company I can think of who made better games than Nintendo.
They made everything in the Infogrammes-Atari's "classics" catalogue (and most of them are still deserving of that name), and most of the good stuff in the three Midway Arcade Treasures compilations to boot. THEY should be mourned. Not, by ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, THIS Atari.
Really?
(Thinking back for confirmation: "Swing your hips..." "...do the Mario..." "...just like that...")
Okay, I've decided that I don't care enough you challenge you. I think I'd prefer to keep my neurons *alive*....
Give up?
It's Sony!
You may actually be on to something. The Zelda cartoon was generic fantasy, missing almost all of the charm of the games. But Captain Lou in a Mario Costume trying to do an Italian accent, that's just gold man.
It's not that PlayStation is better, although I feel that it is, it's that PlayStation has a history, so I know what to expect and that my games will still work on the PS3, that XBox has to compete with.
Hmm... well, at least Playstation is undergoing less of a drastic platform change than X-Box is this time, which is really what's hurting X-Box backward compatibility at the moment.
What keeps Linux from replacing Windows as the desktop of choice is what keeps XBox from replacing PlayStation as console of choice for most people.
No, I'd say not. What prevents most people from switching to Linux are, in summary, Ignorance ("What the hell is Linux?"), Fear ("My god how do I use this?"), Apathy ("I don't care about the things Linux does better"), Cost ("Dual booting is annoying/difficult to set up and I can't afford/have no room for a dedicated Linux-only machine too"), and Applications ("There's no Linux version of Illustrator/Photoshop/Windows Media Player/my favorite games").
Ignorance: Everyone knows about PS3 and X-Box 360, so not a factor.
Fear: Absolutely not a factor, all the systems will have accessible interfaces *or else*, and the companies know this.
Apathy: More of a factor, but X-Box 360's reputation as an up-and-comer will make a big difference here.
Cost: Considerably important, but It'still relatively a lot easier/cheaper to own one of all the major game systems, even at their inflated prices this time out, for the average user.
Applications: Many games will be available for both PS3 and X-Box 360 (with only Revolution projected to have a major exclusivity aspect this time).
Details like backwards compatibility that Microsoft almost didn't include with the 360 (still didn't - depending who you ask) are things that Sony clearly understands the importance of.
Word is X-Box 360's backward compatibility is so shameful, even for "supported" games, for anything that isn't Halo that it seriously borders on false advertising.
IMO the biggest risk to PlayStation lossing it's throne isn't from the XBox but from the internal management struggles inside Sony. It seems that the PlayStation division is always at odds with the rest of Sony and might be a better match for another company.
This is an issue with many large, diverse companies, actually. Nintendo's all games and pretty monolithic, so they get off almost for free, and Microsoft's mostly software outside of X-Box 360.
But Sony is a behemoth that sells TVs and stereos too. Thing is, they could have used their consumer retail electronics presence to make the PS3 almost ubiquitous by now. Imagine if all Sony-brand TVs or DVD players had, in the apropriate era, an internal PS or PS2? Of course, PS2 is almost ubitiquous anyway.... but PS3 is sufficently expensive that they couldn't just throw in the components at cost without severely raising the price of their hardware.
What I'm saying here is that Sony missed a great chance to have their game system linked with their consumer electronics, driving the sales of both, but instead it's rather of surprising how non-Sony the Playstation seems to be. The only thing that Playstations really get out of their Sony heritage, from where I stand, is their reputation for fragility....
On X-Box 360: Seconded. The only games for it I'm interested in are for X-Box Live Arcade... which, I suppose, is better than nothing.
Well the article's published in Forbes, hardly a hangout for Nintendo fanboys. I think it's much more likely that little problem is a result of poor research more than console partisanship.
Hm, I'm unsure if this is accurate, but I'll admit it's been a while since I've heard much of the Peter Principle.
Yeah, but wasn't the Dilbert Principle, from what little I remember of it, explicitly stated to be a mutation of the Peter Principle?
This is called "The Peter Principle," and there was a book published about it some years back. The Principle states, people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence.
And that's all I have to say about that, heh.
I am DISAGREEING, which you seem to have some difficulty with.
If you were just disagreeing, you'd respond to my points instead of ignoring them when convenient. That, and your absurd hyperbole, are why I say you're trolling.
I not only say you're doing it, but you probably know you are, and are just trying to get a rise out of me.
Sounds simple, but it's really very hard to come up with a workable system for players to create *all* content, and have them be rewarded for it, in a way that's not vulnerable to abuse or technical issues. Second Life's the best we've seen, but even there it's possible for one player to bring down an entire server.
You understate the situation as well. Non-trivial player-made content would require a lot more than a basic MMORPG framework to make workable (it'd require a user-visible scripting language), you'd still have to front the sizable server, storage and bandwidth costs, and you'd have to hire people to teach people how to use the scripting language and create good software, and also kill damaging user-spawned processes (imagine sysadmining a system with thousands of simultaneous users).
Yet, ultimately, player-created content is the only MMORPGs can evolve. Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar learned that lesson way back in Habitat (http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html):
The first goal-directed event planned for Habitat was a rather involved treasure hunt called the "D'nalsi Island Adventure". It took us hours to design, weeks to build (including a 100-region island), and days to coordinate the actors involved. It was designed much like the puzzles in an adventure game. We thought it would occupy our players for days. In fact, the puzzle was solved in about 8 hours by a person who had figured out the critical clue in the first 15 minutes. Many of the players hadn't even had a chance to get into the game. The result was that one person had had a wonderful experience, dozens of others were left bewildered, and a huge investment in design and setup time had been consumed in an eyeblink. We expected that there would be a wide range of "adventuring" skills in the Habitat audience. What wasn't so obvious until afterward was that this meant that most people didn't have a very good time, if for no other reason than that they never really got to participate. It would clearly be foolish and impractical for us to do things like this on a regular basis.
A little further:
Propelled by these experiences, we shifted into a style of operations in which we let the players themselves drive the direction of the design. This proved far more effective. Instead of trying to push the community in the direction we thought it should go, an exercise rather like herding mice, we tried to observe what people were doing and aid them in it. We became facilitators as much as designers and implementors. This often meant adding new features and new regions to the system at a frantic pace, but almost all of what we added was used and appreciated, since it was well matched to people's needs and desires. As the experts on how the system worked, we could often suggest new activities for people to try or ways of doing things that people might not have thought of. In this way we were able to have considerable influence on the system's development in spite of the fact that we didn't really hold the steering wheel -- more influence, in fact, than we had had when we were operating under the delusion that we controlled everything.
That strikes me as a lot more interesting, in the long run, than World of Warcraft, despite its strengths. Even computer-generated content, which drives most MMORPGs these days, has the disadvantage in that it tends to stop being interesting after a short period. (I DON'T think it's necessarily bad, but developers will have to loosen their stranglehold on game design and invent something almost Roguelike in nature, I believe, to make it work best.)
Oh, blah blah blah. Mr. Ad Hominem himself now wants to complain that I saw his ad hominem and raised him an appeal to authority? Bullshit. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, kiddo.
Then, if you please, give me your example of my using an Ad Hominem.
And, yes, your unfounded assertions that the gaming industry sucks, that my choice in games sucks, etc, etc, are all ad hominem arguments. I was kind enough to have a sense of humor about yours.
Oh for the love of....
The game industry DOES suck, and first-person shooters DO suck, all according to my opinion of course but it is MY opinion after all, but it should not be any skin off your bones for me to say these things. I did not call *you* any names. On the contrary, I've tried to keep things fairly civil in speaking with you. Don't take these things so seriously, dude.
But I don't, because I disagree with you on almost every point. I think you are ranting on about your unfounded opinions and therefore your point of view is entirely unsupported. EVERYTHING we've been discussing is entirely subjective, so you're lying to yourself if you think ANYTHING you've said is "provable".
Yep, you're trolling.
Oh, man, you've got it bad. The mental image I'm forming of you is an angry, disappointed starbucks cashier who went to a community college (etc etc)
Ah, because if you can't respond logically to someone the best thing to do is stereotype them? No I don't work for Starbucks no I don't have blue hair and piercings no I don't rant for hours about Evangelion no etcetera. On the other hand, you are fulfilling more than one stereotype of your own -- AND you are resorting to ad hominem attacks, and are verging on trolling.
The person I was referring to who thinks the industry sucks, by the way, is Chris Crawford, who is one of the most brilliant game designers I can think of off the top of my head. He *is* somewhat embittered, but I just happen to think he has very good reasons!
The control scheme I mentioned works well for ANY sort of game in which you are inhabiting a human-like character in a world you can explore.
I do not accept the assertion. The controls to the original Legend of Zelda are completely different from Quake.
For games in which you are piloting a human-type person, whether you're in first person or third person, the control scheme I described is nearly PERFECT.
I do not accept this assertion either, a perfect control scheme would be virtual reality, which would have no truck with mice, buttons or joypads.
And it arrived at its form through a vicious type of darwinian selection -- first person shooters with klunky control schemes were rejected by gamers as "unplayable", and ultimately, the most easily playable, perfect control scheme arose from this.
I reject this assertion as well, Darwininan-style, "genetic" algorithms can produce startlingly ingenious results, but they do not create perfection, by definition, unless run over an infinite time frame, and they also rely on chance providing the mutation factor, not human cunning.
Note that this has been in progress since Doom 1, and I've been there as a gamer the whole way.
I've been a gamer since Combat. And you forgot about Wolfenstein 3D, Catacombs and MIDImaze. Anyway, your point?
So it's not just a matter of opinion, it's a matter of 12 years of experience playing almost every single shooter, adventure, or platforming game that's come out with a 3D, realistic environment.
That's Argument From Authority, the second logical fallacy I've spotted in this message alone, and considering that I've played a fair number of games myself (embarassingly many, in fact) it's not even a particularly good authority relative to your opponent. Meanwhile you have yet to respond to my counter-examples from prior messages.
I disagree with you VEHEMENTLY that all first person shooters are "the same, but with different maps".
They are. I don't think someone can argue against this point. Whether I like FPSes or not is beside the point.
They are games in which you have a character, virtually represented by the camera, who launches missile weapons of various ranges (including melee range) at other foes, who have similar abilities although typically much less stamina, in real-time. If you have a sufficently broad definition of game, then indeed, all FPSes are the same game. You could not confuse a FPS with MULE, Parappa, Rogue, Zelda, Mario, *Wars, Wizardry, SimCity, The Sims, Zork, Starflight, Everquest, Civilization, Pirates, Rampart, 720 Degrees, Marble Madness, Robotron, Katamari Damacy or Final Fantasy, or for that matter Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Clue, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Dungeons & Dragons, Boggle, Bridge, Poker, Magic, or Go Fish. However, you could easily confuse Halo with Unreal.
I think that's the point of view of a gamer who dislikes first person shooters, and can't be bothered to learn anything about them.
Well I do know something about them, I *have* played some FPSes before (which I think I mentioned, Serious Sam sure isn't a board game). But although there may be s
There are actually many substantial simularities. Not enough that I'd say that Ninja Gaiden ripped off Castlevania, but enough that I've noted them long before the article was written.
Where I differ with the author is in his assertion Castlevania was a bad game. On the contrary, it has excellent design and "flows" well, while Ninja Gaiden seems twitchy and stuttery to me, and is a lot more annoying than Castlevania. Both games are fairly difficult, though.
It's worth noting that Namco, themselves, never really ripped off the original Pac-Man in the classic era.
The most popular sequel, Ms. Pac-Man, was actually originally a Pac-Man rip-off that Midway bought from General Computer Corporation. Both of Namco's direct sequels, Super Pac-Man and Pac 'n Pal, while having a similar theme and graphics, had substantial gameplay differences from the original game.
First, I have to apologize for my previous comment, I included an imcomplete section that I had intended to remove, but I forgot to take it out completely when I hit the Submit button, sorry if it was confusing.
Ok; on narrative, we'll have to agree to disagree. I find your "axiom" to be a matter of opinion (and wrong, but that's MY opinion, equally valid as yours). There's no point in us restating our sides over and over again.
Except, are we really at that point? I do sometimes have to "agree to disagree," but I never like it.
But the thing about my statement is that I consider it to be obvious. I don't see how anyone could not see it. Yet, I cannot come up with a good counter-example to your premise because of the vagueness of your claim. Again, what does having a beginning, middle and end really mean? I consider you to mean the classical model, containing setting, complication, climax and resolution. To that, I can respond - and did, if I remember correctly.
Like all software (I'm a software engineer) games should adhere to common industry UI conventions and test for usability. It's simply good practice.
Except entertainment software is a lot more difficult to define than applications software. As I said before, there are games where a large portion of the fun comes from its control scheme. Arcade driving games use real steering wheels. Marble Madness had perhaps the all-time best use of a trackball. Your arguement that games would benefit from having standardized controls actually seems to be an arguement that first-person shooters would benefit from having them. But concerning that....
Virtually all shooters use the standard in which the left thumbstick sidesteps and moves forward and back, and the right thumbstick orients the point of view. This is an excellent example of standardization of UI.
Yeah, but first-person shooters suck. I so hate them! And I happen to know that I am not alone in this opinion. The last FPS I could bring myself to spend any time with is Metroid Prime 2 (which doesn't completely qualify), and the one before that was Serious Sam (which was fairly cool for what it was). Lots of people may like them, but it is a grevious mistake to think they are the only gamers who matter.
And it's interesting to note the reason we hate FPSes: it's BECAUSE they've become so standardized! Not just in controls, but in just about every other aspect of their being. They all literally *are* the same game with different maps and minor rule changes. A FPS with a goofy control scheme (like Revolution has) might actually be enough to get me to play another one, if just because of the novelty factor, but I'm not going to posit the revival of the genre based on that.
Ultimately, the core of entertainment is in novelty, and I am loathe to banish any potential source of innovation from gaming because of that.
But again, we'll probably have to agree to disagree, while noting that the industry seems to agree with ME on this one (katamari damarcy notwithstanding).
I'd say the industry agrees with you because the industry sucks. I know a lot of gamers -- and at least a couple of developers -- who agree with me on that issue. They ain't all Nintendo fanboys.
And Katamari Damacy is a very instructive example, enough that I would hardly say it is not withstanding. Even game industry wonks seem to recognize there's something of value there....
On flying cars, when it comes to your comment about how the same problems exist with normal cars, you MUST be insane. Normal cars have nowhere NEAR the kinetic energy a flying car would have, especially after it had fallen two to three hundred feet. The amount of damage a flying car crash would cause would be astronomically higher than that caused by an ordinary car. You aren't thinking the issue through.
My observation is that dangers inherent in ground vehicles and flying vehicles are different primarily in matters
My point is that there is already a relatively "perfect" interface and general approach used in videogames. Since this is just a framework that lets the player have an adventure, why not stick to the standards and not gum up the works with some new and bizarre control scheme, or random, potentially boring game dynamics?
Because what is often forgotten in game design is that controls can be part of the fun. That's a large part of the fun of Robotron 2084, of Katamari Damacy, of Dance Dance Revolution, and will be a lot of the fun, Nintendo hopes, of Revolution. Your reductionist approach to controls would ignore that.
Within that framework, you can do ANYTHING. If you want to be innovative, do it in the writing and the art design, NOT the game mechanics.
No, I do not accept this. A game IS its mechanics, that's what a video game brings to the table that cannot be done in another medium.
It means the story should begin in a way that lures you in, EASES you in, and gets you interested and involved, while sort of sneaking up on you; it should provide you with some sort of conflict that requires tremendous efforts on your part, something appropriately heroic and challenging (the middle); and it should ultimately bring you to some sort of satisfying conclusion or closure. Just like any sort of narrative. I wasn't being cryptic. These are the three parts of just about ANY story.
But the key here is that a story does not HAVE to be like that in order to be good. Beginnings, middles and ends are tools for the writer, not mandates that must be in a story to make it good. But I think you can be forgiven for that confusion, since so many other people are also confused on the issue these days: you don't enjoy something because of how it's made, instead its construction aids you in enjoying it. There must be something else there, however, or the effort is wasted. I make no attempt to prove this: it is an axiom.
They're why plays generally have three acts, right?
No, many plays, including all of Shakespeare's, have five acts. Some have just one.
As far as playing around with narrative, that's fine, but if you pay attention you'll notice that THOSE stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end ALSO. What they're changing is the order in which things are revealed to you. So I have to disagree with this criticism.
Then once again I must ask, what do you mean by a "beginning, middle and end?" If you're merely talking about the chronological progress of the story then your statement is trivial to the point of meaninglessness. Obviously, you mean there's something special that must be in a beginning, something special that must be in middles, and something special that must be in endings. There are lots of things that SHOULD be in those sections of a story, but I can think of counter examples for all of the "shoulds" I can think of, while your statements are proscriptive in a way Plato would be proud of. The danger with making those kinds of statements, of course, is that they are destroyed if someone can come up with even one good counter-example.
However, if it doesn't have them, it's VERY DIFFICULT for it to be good. They're a required element, but not a sufficient one.
Okay, let's break it down into four possible states:
1. Has structure, is good.
2. Has no structure, is good.
3. Has structure, is not good.
4. Has no structure, is not good.
Now, you can make pancakes in a variety of ways. You can use milk and eggs, you can use butter, you can use something else... But you will ALWAYS use pancake batter and syrup, because otherwise, they're not pancakes and your naked girlfriend will put her clothes on and go to Denny's, which is not an optimal outcome.
Unless I make scrambled eggs and bacon instead. You might say, "Ah-ha, but that wouldn't be pancakes, now would it?" And I'd respond that it's always the person who gets the question wrong, or thinks about it from a different