I happen to be playing through RE4 right now and saw that part a few days ago. I was wondering how much truth it had in it, but hadn't gotten around to looking it up. Wow. It makes me wonder if any particular government bodies happened to have researched these parasites in the past, and if they ever actually applied such research to subjects in the real world. That's going very sci-fi, but I think humans have proven in the past they're willing to experiement with, and on, anything that happens to share this planet with us.;)
I have to agree. The dual screen rarely brings anything to the device that a larger screen or better use of existing screen real-estate doesn't. I hate the second screen in that respect, because it constantly diverts my attention from where it should be: the gameplay. There are a couple interesting uses for it, but I have yet to see any use of the second screen that justifies it.
That being said, the rest of the device is a dream. The games that have come out for it (or are right around the corner) are almost always sure winners: Nintendogs, Kirby, the new Sonic, the new Mario, Castlvania, the upcoming Animal Crossing, Lost in Blue, Meteos, Advance Wars DS... I held off on buying a DS until yesterday (a few run-ins with coworkers playing Nintendogs finally sold me), and I think the library of games and creativity shown in each one really, genuinely offers something new to gamers. This is mostly because of the stylus interface, but they use the wireless and flip-top covers in wierd unique ways as well.
The only thing else I could ask for would be that it played the old GB games, an analogue stick, and maybe a nice emulator (ala PSP). And considering that the PSP has all of those, that brings me to my point: the only reason the DS won me over for Portable Platform Money-Sink 2005(tm) was because the games are awesome.
I think what this article really means to say is that there aren't many games based on positive, pro-religious propaganda. Xenogears and Final Fantasy Tactics were two that had heavy religious overtones, and were done very well. There are a handful of games that use religion to enhance the story, so I don't think this articles talk of the "potential" between games and religion is very accurate.
I've recently gotten into this myself pretty fiercely. If you ever get the chance, try out Rudora no Hihou, Terranigma, and I'm sure you've probably already played Sieken Densetsu 3, but if not then there is another one to grab. I couldn't believe these games weren't released in the US, but it all came down to market timing and other BS back then. Great games though, and I don't know what I'd do without the internet for bringing us gems like these.
I don't beleive he's saying that a large portion of people only find life worth living because of some geek, sci-fi fiction universe. At least not in that pitiful perspective that you can read it as. I believe what he's saying is that it is human nature to wonder about the unknown, and we find that teasing our imaginations of the unknown through fictional stories and universes like "Star Trek" and the like, satisfy a large part of our wonder despite being highly unplausible. Not only because of thier ability to paint a potential future for mankind, but also paint a positive one. So what exactly is wrong with hoping that a future of peacful space travel and exploration that does not involve wanton destruction, prejudice and war (all things currently and constantly plaguing our race on this earth), is a bad thing? That thought alone *does* allow me to be a bit happier in life, because if I look around me right now, there aren't a whole lot of things our people are doing to making life better for everyone as a whole. If you take a gander at the world today you can't help but see the damage the human race brings on itself and it's environment. If you see optimistic things though the extincting of animals, controlling populace through fear and war, and the growing of individual goverments world-power over controlled medicines, unhealthy food production and inequality in living conditions, then *your* opiate is to lie to yourself.
First they pioneer a non-violent MMO (though I guess IRC could qualify as that). Then they start thinking of alternate styles of gameplay for non-violent scenarios. If any game puts the social aspect in the onling genre first, this one does.
I've always wondered this same thing about imports and regional limits in general. Can someone answer why exactly importing games and DVD's from overseas is so discouraged? It can't possibly be due to marketshare concerns, I wouldn't think that people who import media would be such a large percentage of potential domestic customers for the same product, so it must be something else, right?
I have a huge game collection of oldschool titles I grew up with. Once in a while I pick them up to play through old favorites, but I am so busy nowadays that I rarely have 10 minutes to spare.
Often times I just make a mental list of games that I'll play through again someday when I have the time. Well these Time attacks are a blessing in disguise, because I can relive all my old memories of childhood faves, not to mention in usually under 30 minutes!
I'd say that many skills from gaming definitely transfer to real world scenarios. Things that I have noticed personally are elements of resource management from RTS's applying to efficient living in the real world. Critical thinking and decision making can be taken away from nearly any game, from snap-decisions in FPS games to strategic ones in Strategy. I'm not so sure about social skills, but efficient team work definitely grows when playing a team game, regardless of the genre.
Something I've noticed before is that it's not so much the subject of the game that is conveyed to our minds, but the mode of thinking that are minds are forced into after hours of play. We begin to think more like machines, efficient decisions, precise moves, cunning strategies, and these roll over into the real world more than raw knowledge (which is something that edutainment hasn't really touched on yet).
I'd have to say that physical actions are something that have very little chance of transferring to the real world, though. Games are nearly an entirely mental experience, and the player is usually quite detached aside from the usual hand-eye coordination. Firing guns and playing sports are entirely different actions on the screen and off.
Nowadays the causal gamer audience isn't the only thing driving the difficulty lower in mainstream titles. This is just personal observation, and your perspective may differ, but I think the loading times in games are what make difficult titles more unbearable.
A decade ago you would run off a cliff and the longest you would have to wait was for the screen telling you how many lives you had remaining to fade away. Instant death was around every corner back then. Today most designers caution against any pitfalls in a game that are unexpected to the player, and don't offer a way out. This is reasonable for easing the amount of frustration, but the frustrating element here isn't the difficulty of the game, as much as the duration of time it takes to get back on ones feet after death.
After looking over so many modern games this way, I really think we could get away with todays games having a much higher difficulty if we were able to load back into the level only a few seconds after dying and try again. I'd say that todays easier games are just a way to offset the frustration of the waiting.
You should check out Planeshift (www.planeshift.it). It has a full team of developers working on it almost full time, with a working client and non-advertising based free service. The current version is a working test client with limited interactivity, but the next release (due in about 1 - 2 months) has implemented combat, experience, etc. The game is graphically on par with most RPGs today, not quite as polished as Everquest 2, but in the same ballpark as online games from about a year ago.
The people working on it are very dedicated and this will probably be the #1 free MMO by the end of the year. Keep an eye on it.
I would love to see a game based around magic and spellcraft where you speak the words. It would be very simple, and with the addition of a peripheral like the eye-cam on the PS2, using hand gestures in addition to vocal commands would be quite engaging.
I know that EA went after Peroxide who made the 3D Ultima 1: Legend Reborn.
http://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?page=pr oj ect&type=remakes3d (Scroll down the page for the still-available tech demos)
I think as soon as EA realized how good it looked they forced them to change the name. The team kept on developing their engine however, and it's now a game "in the spirit of Ultima" called Era: Arken Throne. YOu can see their latest work here: http://www.peroxide.dk/era/
Its too bad they weren't able to keep on with the Ultima 1 remake, because that would have been fantastic.
I don't know why EA hasn't bothered chasing off any of the other remakes listed in that first link, but hopefully it doesn't happen any longer because this does look like a great mod.
"Are there still games that break all rules of logic..?"
I don't know about today, but definitely in the earlier, 2D era there were plenty of games that had at least completely illogical aspects to them. I recall that being a huge draw to games for me. There have been a number of recent articles concerning this very same subject, and while some of these have expressed a desire to see more "realistic" content, I say we should try to hold onto that original nonesense to some extent. Take, for example, Super Mario Brothers 3. As far as I know, this is held as the best 2D Mario ever conceived. The game worlds were plentiful, varied, and fresh. But take a moment to look at the actual gameplay, specifically the logic employed in it: In order to obtain the powerup that allows mario to fly, one has to first obtain the *leaf* object. One the leaf is obtained, Mario acquires a *racoon skin cap*, and by batting the tail on the hat up and down fast enough, Mario is able to lift off the ground. There is a certain logic in this over time as the player is introduced to the game vocabulary, and experience with past platformers gives them added intuition, (like the ability to grasp the concept of powerups and other platform style gameplay). However the symbolism involved is just... what? Leaf? Racoon hat? What?
Beautiful!!
Of course there is the underlying logic found throughout the game that the article speaks of, and this I can agree on simply because it's a logical assumption in itself to have common and established ways for the game to communicate to the player. Otherwise there will be no progress, and then no one will play it.
The future "hook" is likely total immersion. When I think of something that will blow me away today, on the same level as, say, the GLQuake example blew us away when we first began utilizing 3D cards, it's total immersion. Graphics today have a long way to go before they peak, there are still many things we can do that we just haven't had the time or power to do yet. However I don't forsee any of these things being revolutionary on that level until we are *in* the game.
Now I feel like I'm in the mid-90's saying "Virtual Reality is the Next-Big-Thing" all over again, but I think that was the right attitude all along, just far, far too early to be realized.
I think I can speak for myself and at least a dozen of my friends when I say we'd be a small portion of a market for that sort of thing. There are very few really good games made, and more often lately I find myself having fun with some obscure indie developers lower-budget creation. With indie games the expectations are lower, and gameplay is generally the focus, so it's much more entertaining bang for my buck. Whenever my skeptical gaming friends and I disguss our perspectives on the game industry today we always arrive at the conclusion that our middle-aged gaming years will be spent in the game industries equivalent of the sundance festival. It's nice to know other people are thinking along those lines as well.
As for if the Phantom can deliver it, that remains to be seen. I still haven't seen anything that really proves it's not a really elaborate hoax yet.
I think the largest factor in people being upset with this move is that it signals a similar direction that Deus Ex 2 took. Having a third person option isn't all that bad on it's own, but the potential reasons behind it and more recent releases from the same studio make me really stop looking forward to this game.
As long as the player has the option to be in first person it should be ok, but this game is really being weighed against a hefty legacy and I myself am a huge Thief fan that recoils in pain at this news. I just don't want to be let down.
With the GBA riding as the top product for this market, it's a sure target for a challenger. However I really don't think any of the devices here hold any sort of challenge for it, sadly enough. The PalmOS devices, while supporting a vast library of PalmOS games, don't have nearly the quality that the average gamer would be interested in. The typical PalmOS games are not very exciting to say the least, and will ultimately fail to really draw in a crowd. The NGage needs no introduction, and it's reasons for failure are already pretty apparent. The Sony PSP is really the next best contender, but if they launch at the rumored price level reported in the last few days, it's not going to go very far until a major drop in retail. Who knows...
Funny enough, the two devices that probably could have done quite well against the GBA were never brought over here; the Wonderswan color and the GP32. The Wonderswan probably would have sold for the Final Fantasy ports alone, and the GP32 really entices me as an older gamer, simply because of it's open development.
Games will generally always benefit from a more simplified control scheme. The easier it is for a player to jump into a work and play, the more potential fun and wider potential audience.
It doesn't always end up that way, which is an interesting loophole to that rule. I carried the torch for the "simpler=better" argument until I played R.A.D. (Robotic Alchemic Drive), which places you as the pilot to a giant robot in a very Japanese style fighting/adventure game. The premise of this game is like many other 3D robot games, with their control scheme being a large exception. The game treats the interface as thought the player is controlling a giant remote control toy, using L&R 1&2 for control of the legs (forward and back) and the analog sticks for control of the arms (left and right punches). Turning a standard 3D action titles' controls upside down provided me with the most entertaining experience in years. Half of the games challenge was learning to effectively control your larger, onscreen avatar, and it was a blast. Just for argument, there was an "easy" option for the game that reverted the controls to a simplified control pad = direction of the robot, etc. control system. However this took absolutely all the fun out of playing the game when used, because the main draw to the game was the experience of surmounting the more immediately challenge: that of your own motor skills.
So that just goes to show that in some cases simplicity is better, but it doesn't always apply. If the controls in R.A.D. weren't as logically placed, or as responsive, it may have turned out to be an ugly experience. In the instance of Deus Ex 2, this title is just another addition to a long line of games in one particular genre. A genre that has built upon its series' standards for many generations and players have come to expect certain things. The attempt to simplify this title was not so directly relevant to gameplay as the previous example, and instead was receive poorly due to expectations of those standards by series' fans. (I think this is akin to an American driving a stick-shift in the US for most of his life, and then buying a new car only to find it's an automatic whose steering wheel is on the right-hand side. It may essentially be a much "simpler" control scheme, but our American driver has come to expect the standard he was raised on, and would probably reject it.)
I think the moral here is to not pigeonhole your designs, and experimentation is still a viable strategy in this medium.
How about some more 2D Castlevania on the PS2 or other current system? If I recall correctly, Harmony of Dissonance was originally targetted at the PS2. While it was still a decent game on it's own, a lot of my interest was lost when I found I'd be playing it on my GBA player instead.
Konami really knows how to harness the goodness of 2D design and gameplay to where it still appeals to a lot of gamers today. I'd really like to see one of these designs with the quality of Aria of Sorrow, but utilizing the powers of the PS2. Would make for some truly amazing experiences and would also revitilize the vision that Symphony of the Night brought to the PS1 when everyone thought 2D was dead *then*.
After posting I had the thought of "urk, blatant self promotion seen in a negative way"... Hope it's not modded down.;)
As for making my own, there are several games on there that are downloadable and playable. None are finished, all are just fun experiments, but it's close. I can't make my own entirely though because I lack funds and income to feed myself. Otherwise that would be a dream come true.
Slashdot Mirror
I happen to be playing through RE4 right now and saw that part a few days ago. I was wondering how much truth it had in it, but hadn't gotten around to looking it up. Wow. ;)
It makes me wonder if any particular government bodies happened to have researched these parasites in the past, and if they ever actually applied such research to subjects in the real world. That's going very sci-fi, but I think humans have proven in the past they're willing to experiement with, and on, anything that happens to share this planet with us.
I have to agree. The dual screen rarely brings anything to the device that a larger screen or better use of existing screen real-estate doesn't. I hate the second screen in that respect, because it constantly diverts my attention from where it should be: the gameplay. There are a couple interesting uses for it, but I have yet to see any use of the second screen that justifies it.
That being said, the rest of the device is a dream. The games that have come out for it (or are right around the corner) are almost always sure winners: Nintendogs, Kirby, the new Sonic, the new Mario, Castlvania, the upcoming Animal Crossing, Lost in Blue, Meteos, Advance Wars DS... I held off on buying a DS until yesterday (a few run-ins with coworkers playing Nintendogs finally sold me), and I think the library of games and creativity shown in each one really, genuinely offers something new to gamers. This is mostly because of the stylus interface, but they use the wireless and flip-top covers in wierd unique ways as well.
The only thing else I could ask for would be that it played the old GB games, an analogue stick, and maybe a nice emulator (ala PSP). And considering that the PSP has all of those, that brings me to my point: the only reason the DS won me over for Portable Platform Money-Sink 2005(tm) was because the games are awesome.
Maybe they had some issues with the Tingle casting?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441877/
I think what this article really means to say is that there aren't many games based on positive, pro-religious propaganda.
Xenogears and Final Fantasy Tactics were two that had heavy religious overtones, and were done very well. There are a handful of games that use religion to enhance the story, so I don't think this articles talk of the "potential" between games and religion is very accurate.
I've recently gotten into this myself pretty fiercely. If you ever get the chance, try out Rudora no Hihou, Terranigma, and I'm sure you've probably already played Sieken Densetsu 3, but if not then there is another one to grab. I couldn't believe these games weren't released in the US, but it all came down to market timing and other BS back then.
Great games though, and I don't know what I'd do without the internet for bringing us gems like these.
Good, good fun. Very fast paced.
http://www.soldat.prv.pl/
I don't beleive he's saying that a large portion of people only find life worth living because of some geek, sci-fi fiction universe. At least not in that pitiful perspective that you can read it as. I believe what he's saying is that it is human nature to wonder about the unknown, and we find that teasing our imaginations of the unknown through fictional stories and universes like "Star Trek" and the like, satisfy a large part of our wonder despite being highly unplausible. Not only because of thier ability to paint a potential future for mankind, but also paint a positive one.
So what exactly is wrong with hoping that a future of peacful space travel and exploration that does not involve wanton destruction, prejudice and war (all things currently and constantly plaguing our race on this earth), is a bad thing? That thought alone *does* allow me to be a bit happier in life, because if I look around me right now, there aren't a whole lot of things our people are doing to making life better for everyone as a whole.
If you take a gander at the world today you can't help but see the damage the human race brings on itself and it's environment. If you see optimistic things though the extincting of animals, controlling populace through fear and war, and the growing of individual goverments world-power over controlled medicines, unhealthy food production and inequality in living conditions, then *your* opiate is to lie to yourself.
First they pioneer a non-violent MMO (though I guess IRC could qualify as that). Then they start thinking of alternate styles of gameplay for non-violent scenarios. If any game puts the social aspect in the onling genre first, this one does.
I've always wondered this same thing about imports and regional limits in general. Can someone answer why exactly importing games and DVD's from overseas is so discouraged? It can't possibly be due to marketshare concerns, I wouldn't think that people who import media would be such a large percentage of potential domestic customers for the same product, so it must be something else, right?
I have a huge game collection of oldschool titles I grew up with. Once in a while I pick them up to play through old favorites, but I am so busy nowadays that I rarely have 10 minutes to spare.
Often times I just make a mental list of games that I'll play through again someday when I have the time. Well these Time attacks are a blessing in disguise, because I can relive all my old memories of childhood faves, not to mention in usually under 30 minutes!
YEAH! THANK YOU GUYS!!
I'd say that many skills from gaming definitely transfer to real world scenarios. Things that I have noticed personally are elements of resource management from RTS's applying to efficient living in the real world. Critical thinking and decision making can be taken away from nearly any game, from snap-decisions in FPS games to strategic ones in Strategy.
I'm not so sure about social skills, but efficient team work definitely grows when playing a team game, regardless of the genre.
Something I've noticed before is that it's not so much the subject of the game that is conveyed to our minds, but the mode of thinking that are minds are forced into after hours of play. We begin to think more like machines, efficient decisions, precise moves, cunning strategies, and these roll over into the real world more than raw knowledge (which is something that edutainment hasn't really touched on yet).
I'd have to say that physical actions are something that have very little chance of transferring to the real world, though. Games are nearly an entirely mental experience, and the player is usually quite detached aside from the usual hand-eye coordination. Firing guns and playing sports are entirely different actions on the screen and off.
Nowadays the causal gamer audience isn't the only thing driving the difficulty lower in mainstream titles.
This is just personal observation, and your perspective may differ, but I think the loading times in games are what make difficult titles more unbearable.
A decade ago you would run off a cliff and the longest you would have to wait was for the screen telling you how many lives you had remaining to fade away. Instant death was around every corner back then. Today most designers caution against any pitfalls in a game that are unexpected to the player, and don't offer a way out. This is reasonable for easing the amount of frustration, but the frustrating element here isn't the difficulty of the game, as much as the duration of time it takes to get back on ones feet after death.
After looking over so many modern games this way, I really think we could get away with todays games having a much higher difficulty if we were able to load back into the level only a few seconds after dying and try again. I'd say that todays easier games are just a way to offset the frustration of the waiting.
You should check out Planeshift (www.planeshift.it). It has a full team of developers working on it almost full time, with a working client and non-advertising based free service.
The current version is a working test client with limited interactivity, but the next release (due in about 1 - 2 months) has implemented combat, experience, etc.
The game is graphically on par with most RPGs today, not quite as polished as Everquest 2, but in the same ballpark as online games from about a year ago.
The people working on it are very dedicated and this will probably be the #1 free MMO by the end of the year. Keep an eye on it.
That's such a funny idea. I would have loved to see that.
Reminds me of "Battle Hamster" http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3403
Obviously there are some localization discrepancies in NZ. ;)
I would love to see a game based around magic and spellcraft where you speak the words. It would be very simple, and with the addition of a peripheral like the eye-cam on the PS2, using hand gestures in addition to vocal commands would be quite engaging.
I know that EA went after Peroxide who made the 3D Ultima 1: Legend Reborn.
r oj ect&type=remakes3d
http://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?page=p
(Scroll down the page for the still-available tech demos)
I think as soon as EA realized how good it looked they forced them to change the name. The team kept on developing their engine however, and it's now a game "in the spirit of Ultima" called Era: Arken Throne. YOu can see their latest work here: http://www.peroxide.dk/era/
Its too bad they weren't able to keep on with the Ultima 1 remake, because that would have been fantastic.
I don't know why EA hasn't bothered chasing off any of the other remakes listed in that first link, but hopefully it doesn't happen any longer because this does look like a great mod.
"Are there still games that break all rules of logic ..?"
I don't know about today, but definitely in the earlier, 2D era there were plenty of games that had at least completely illogical aspects to them. I recall that being a huge draw to games for me. There have been a number of recent articles concerning this very same subject, and while some of these have expressed a desire to see more "realistic" content, I say we should try to hold onto that original nonesense to some extent.
Take, for example, Super Mario Brothers 3. As far as I know, this is held as the best 2D Mario ever conceived. The game worlds were plentiful, varied, and fresh. But take a moment to look at the actual gameplay, specifically the logic employed in it:
In order to obtain the powerup that allows mario to fly, one has to first obtain the *leaf* object. One the leaf is obtained, Mario acquires a *racoon skin cap*, and by batting the tail on the hat up and down fast enough, Mario is able to lift off the ground.
There is a certain logic in this over time as the player is introduced to the game vocabulary, and experience with past platformers gives them added intuition, (like the ability to grasp the concept of powerups and other platform style gameplay).
However the symbolism involved is just... what? Leaf? Racoon hat? What?
Beautiful!!
Of course there is the underlying logic found throughout the game that the article speaks of, and this I can agree on simply because it's a logical assumption in itself to have common and established ways for the game to communicate to the player. Otherwise there will be no progress, and then no one will play it.
The future "hook" is likely total immersion. When I think of something that will blow me away today, on the same level as, say, the GLQuake example blew us away when we first began utilizing 3D cards, it's total immersion.
Graphics today have a long way to go before they peak, there are still many things we can do that we just haven't had the time or power to do yet. However I don't forsee any of these things being revolutionary on that level until we are *in* the game.
Now I feel like I'm in the mid-90's saying "Virtual Reality is the Next-Big-Thing" all over again, but I think that was the right attitude all along, just far, far too early to be realized.
I think I can speak for myself and at least a dozen of my friends when I say we'd be a small portion of a market for that sort of thing.
There are very few really good games made, and more often lately I find myself having fun with some obscure indie developers lower-budget creation. With indie games the expectations are lower, and gameplay is generally the focus, so it's much more entertaining bang for my buck.
Whenever my skeptical gaming friends and I disguss our perspectives on the game industry today we always arrive at the conclusion that our middle-aged gaming years will be spent in the game industries equivalent of the sundance festival. It's nice to know other people are thinking along those lines as well.
As for if the Phantom can deliver it, that remains to be seen. I still haven't seen anything that really proves it's not a really elaborate hoax yet.
I think the largest factor in people being upset with this move is that it signals a similar direction that Deus Ex 2 took. Having a third person option isn't all that bad on it's own, but the potential reasons behind it and more recent releases from the same studio make me really stop looking forward to this game.
As long as the player has the option to be in first person it should be ok, but this game is really being weighed against a hefty legacy and I myself am a huge Thief fan that recoils in pain at this news. I just don't want to be let down.
With the GBA riding as the top product for this market, it's a sure target for a challenger. However I really don't think any of the devices here hold any sort of challenge for it, sadly enough.
The PalmOS devices, while supporting a vast library of PalmOS games, don't have nearly the quality that the average gamer would be interested in. The typical PalmOS games are not very exciting to say the least, and will ultimately fail to really draw in a crowd.
The NGage needs no introduction, and it's reasons for failure are already pretty apparent.
The Sony PSP is really the next best contender, but if they launch at the rumored price level reported in the last few days, it's not going to go very far until a major drop in retail. Who knows...
Funny enough, the two devices that probably could have done quite well against the GBA were never brought over here; the Wonderswan color and the GP32. The Wonderswan probably would have sold for the Final Fantasy ports alone, and the GP32 really entices me as an older gamer, simply because of it's open development.
Games will generally always benefit from a more simplified control scheme. The easier it is for a player to jump into a work and play, the more potential fun and wider potential audience.
It doesn't always end up that way, which is an interesting loophole to that rule. I carried the torch for the "simpler=better" argument until I played R.A.D. (Robotic Alchemic Drive), which places you as the pilot to a giant robot in a very Japanese style fighting/adventure game. The premise of this game is like many other 3D robot games, with their control scheme being a large exception. The game treats the interface as thought the player is controlling a giant remote control toy, using L&R 1&2 for control of the legs (forward and back) and the analog sticks for control of the arms (left and right punches). Turning a standard 3D action titles' controls upside down provided me with the most entertaining experience in years. Half of the games challenge was learning to effectively control your larger, onscreen avatar, and it was a blast. Just for argument, there was an "easy" option for the game that reverted the controls to a simplified control pad = direction of the robot, etc. control system. However this took absolutely all the fun out of playing the game when used, because the main draw to the game was the experience of surmounting the more immediately challenge: that of your own motor skills.
So that just goes to show that in some cases simplicity is better, but it doesn't always apply. If the controls in R.A.D. weren't as logically placed, or as responsive, it may have turned out to be an ugly experience. In the instance of Deus Ex 2, this title is just another addition to a long line of games in one particular genre. A genre that has built upon its series' standards for many generations and players have come to expect certain things. The attempt to simplify this title was not so directly relevant to gameplay as the previous example, and instead was receive poorly due to expectations of those standards by series' fans.
(I think this is akin to an American driving a stick-shift in the US for most of his life, and then buying a new car only to find it's an automatic whose steering wheel is on the right-hand side. It may essentially be a much "simpler" control scheme, but our American driver has come to expect the standard he was raised on, and would probably reject it.)
I think the moral here is to not pigeonhole your designs, and experimentation is still a viable strategy in this medium.
How about some more 2D Castlevania on the PS2 or other current system? If I recall correctly, Harmony of Dissonance was originally targetted at the PS2. While it was still a decent game on it's own, a lot of my interest was lost when I found I'd be playing it on my GBA player instead.
Konami really knows how to harness the goodness of 2D design and gameplay to where it still appeals to a lot of gamers today. I'd really like to see one of these designs with the quality of Aria of Sorrow, but utilizing the powers of the PS2. Would make for some truly amazing experiences and would also revitilize the vision that Symphony of the Night brought to the PS1 when everyone thought 2D was dead *then*.
Hey, I really appreciate that. Thanks very much.
;)
After posting I had the thought of "urk, blatant self promotion seen in a negative way"... Hope it's not modded down.
As for making my own, there are several games on there that are downloadable and playable. None are finished, all are just fun experiments, but it's close.
I can't make my own entirely though because I lack funds and income to feed myself. Otherwise that would be a dream come true.
Cheers!