Games can be as engrossing as a movie thanks to cutscenes, they however will lack heavily on interactivity when they rely to much on them (see JRPGs, something like Dreamfall, etc.). The really hard part isn't to make games engrossing, but to make them engrossing in actual gameplay. I think games have still a long way to go till they actually manange that. One large problem is AI, Alyx in HalfLife2 for example worked great for most part since she was heavily pre-scripted, the normal squad members on the other side where a total failure and annoyance, they died all the time for stupid reasons, there where mostly AI without much scripting. If there aren't prescripted events it gets very hard to make character behavior believable and I don't think that AI will make it very further in that area for a while.
However in the end its really a matter of what games people are playing, has long games focus on punching, shooting and killing thousands of bad guys or monsters there won't be any emotional connection in actual gameplay, since there is simply no room for that. A emotional connections needs room to unfold and that works best in genres that don't rely on hack&slay all the time, i.e. adventure games for most part. But games such as SotC also work, since they give you plenty of room in between the fights where you really have nothing much to do, you can simply have fun with the horse, without being constantly reminder that its just a stupid game. Other games however simply don't have that space.
When we have the tech to get to such a planet, the 2.5G wouldn't be an issue. Just slip into one of those nice Power Suits which we already have today.
### what's so great about the whole FF series that there are that many sequels?
FF games are not sequels to each other, for most part they are totally independed games and in their own universes, so the reason why you got so many, is simply that Square has sticking FF names on half of the RPGs they ever created over the years.
Aside from that, FF games provide shiny graphics, better then average stories (however at times very cliché), a rather annoying fighting and random encounters, the last two made me never actually finish any of the games.
Re:When you step back and consider history
on
Beginning Ruby
·
· Score: 1
### Whatever it is, I'm hoping it will be functional;)
So do I, I just hope that they manage to create a functional language till then that is actually easy on the eyes. Currently they often try to be a little to clever for their own good.
Re:When you step back and consider history
on
Beginning Ruby
·
· Score: 1
### The only substantial criticism of Ruby I've ever heard is here:
Another issue Ruby and many other 'scripting' languages have is lack of lexical scoping. I just don't understand where there is a benefit of not declaring variables properly, it not only makes the scope of a variable rather unclear it also makes automatically catching errors much harder. A little "var a = 5" isn't much more to type then "a = 5", but its a hell of a lot more expressive. Ruby does a ton of good stuff, in fact its the languages that comes closed to "perfect", but those automatic variable declarations really drive me nuts from time to time.
Re:Ruby as a first language?
on
Beginning Ruby
·
· Score: 1
### Ruby is not terribly lisp like in any way.
Ruby is very much like Lisp in many aspects, of course not in all, especially not syntax, but that is actually the good thing about Ruby. It gives you almost all the power of Lisp, but with a syntax that is much easier to read. I mean macros in Lisp are cool, but the blocks in Ruby are just way more readable and more practical, not as powerful, but powerful enough.
Buy a PS3 and install Linux or an Xbox360 and invest $100 a year to get access to XNA. Its certainly still far away from the freedom you have on a PC, but thinks are better now then they where a few years ago.
### that its completely different from its predecessors
Care to elaborate on that? I know the fight system is different, but aside from that it just looks like yet another PaperMario. And putting Mario in an RPG (even when the round based fights have been taken out) isn't exactly new either, its the sixth game in the series.
I really don't think that AI is the problem, it of course can be hard, but the main issue is that the underlying gamedesign simply doesn't allow good AI. Simple example: God of War. Where exactly do you want to add the better AI? You are a one men army fighting against thousands of bad guys, they have to be stupid and easily defeatable to make that game work. Another game would be Half Life 2: Same problem, one men vs thousands of bad guys, if they actually would behave half as clever as a real person, the player wouldn't stand a chance. And so it goes on with tons of other games.
The issue isn't AI, but game design, as long as most games are designed as linear roller coaster rides no amount of AI development can fix their dullness. The solution would be to go more free form, game design that actually allow enemies to be clever without making the games impossible to beat. Such games are really not impossible to design, many games did it a decade ago already (XCom, EF2000, etc.), its just that most mainstream ones don't really try very hard to create believable worlds and instead continue down the "you vs rest of the world" approach, even the free form ones likes GTA.
### So is it because of risks like this that people have to purchase "Wii Points" cards at other retailers?
I think the main reasons for "Wii Points" and similar systems are that one can do micro payment that way easily and that in some countries credit cards aren't very widespread, especially when it comes to younger audiences, so using only credit cards would lock a lot of users out of the system. Then there is of course the evil reason: You can spend your "Wii Points"-money on XBoxLive, while you could do so with real money.
The law should not do the job of the parents, if they think their kid is ready for violent games, so be it. Its not the job of the law to stop that. The law however should make it as easy for the parents to actually do their parenting.
There are of course always ways around the laws for the children, but just because a kid might gets its hands on alcohol, weapons, games, movies, whatever by illegal means, doesn't mean we shouldn't make it illegal to sell it to them in the first place.
### The goal of laws like this are to stop a kid from playing the game
From what I read the goal of the law is to stop kids from *buying* those games, not playing them. When the parents buy the games for them, everything is fine. When the kids want to buy the games themself the shop clerk won't allow it. Thus the parents have more control over what they kids can buy with their money. Sounds good to me.
### A parent definitely has the tools to take this game away and return it if they don't approve.
Yeah, for like half the price, since its likely already opened and used. They of course also have to catch their kid while playing the game first.
### Thankfully, the law here is common-sense for this case: if anyone breaks in my house, I'm allowed to shoot him, no questions asked.
Lets just say I consider a country where people can be shot just for entering your house uninvited rather screwed up.
### there's no such thing as hard-to-break windows
There are plenty of them, but they cost a some extra cash. Just like a door or a safe they can of course be broken with enough force, but they give you see time to call police. And if that still isn't enough for you get yourself a Panic room, might also be useful in case of tornado or a nuclear bomb. But on the other side not everybody is a paranoid nut job...
### You value the lives of murderers and rapists? You have some screwed-up morals.
Just because somebody breaks into your home doesn't mean he is a murderer or rapist, he might just want to steal your TV/XBox/whatever and yeah, I consider it wrong shooting those guys. Most people are simply not interesting in you, they want your stuff, nothing more.
If you really want to feel secure at home, you better buy a solid front door, windows that can't be easily broken, an alarm system and whatever, a gun will help you very little if somebody surprises you when you are sleeping.
### The cops have access to tasers and pepper sprays too, but they still carry guns. Why is that?
Because they are the executive force of the state, they are the ones that go in and fight a criminals actively, so they need to be on the same level as criminals when it comes to weapons. For some random Joe on the other side getting away from a criminal is enough, they don't need to actively fight them.
### Besides, what's wrong with the weapon being deadly?
Well, they kill people, thats what wrong with them. Some people actually considering killing people a wrong thing to do and thus of course tools that are constructed for the very purpose to kill somebody can't be considered a good thing either, especially not when there are non-deadly alternatives.
### I'd rather he be taken cleanly out of the gene pool, than survive to repeat his crime
The "gene pool cleaning" is job of the state and thus police, not some random Joe who bought a gun in the next best shop.
Keep in mind that a whole bunch of the weapons that are out there in the hand of criminals started out as perfectly legally produced items, the less legal weapons you have around, the less illegal ones you will have. Of course getting rid of all the weapons in the USA would be a hard problem, but not even trying it can't be the right thing to do either.
### I hate to say this, but every time I bring out a classic on an emulator or old DOS Box I am sorely disappointed
For me its actually the other way around, even for those games I never touched back in the day. There is of course always a little hurdle to overcome, a game like Dune2 or Warcraft just doesn't play half as smooth as a current generation RTS game, 3D graphics in 320x200 can also get rather ugly and slow framerates also can be problematic. But when it comes to something like Syndicate, XCom:UFO, StrikeCommander or anything like that I am actually amazed at how good they are. I mean what current day games allow me to walk freely around a huge city with my troop of four armed man, lets me enter taxis, trains, buildings, lets me do research on new weapons, let me recruit new men, equip my them individually, pick up weapons from the ground, etc.? There simply aren't any. When I play something like FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance its just sad to see how flat an primitive it is when compared to XCom:UFO, when playing any kind of air combat game today I am amazed had how void of personality they are compared to a Strike Commander and when playing any kind of tactics shooter its limitations are also way to obvious.
Of course not all games today are bad, we still have a DeusEx or a OperationFlashpoint, which provide similar amounts of freedom and personality like many games back in the good old days, but I pick a good game from yesterday over a random one from today any day. This is especially true when it comes to handhelds, while they might provide smoother gameplay, they simply don't provide games that interest me. A DS might be capable of doing a X-Wing or a StrikeCommander game, but those games are simply not there, they don't exist. Neither exist there anything like Syndicate or XCom:UFO or Indianapolis500, Warcraft or Dune2 aren't there either. Instead we got yet another watered down Mario jump'n run, yet another sequel to AdvancedWars, some remake of FinalFantasy and a lot of stuff that I just don't care about. I am actually quite disappointed by the DS since it just doesn't provide much at all with depth. All the new innovative games on the DS are more often then not nothing but glorified junk that I can get as a Flash game for free.
Who actually wants/needs to own a gun? I can see plenty of reasons to own/consume drugs, but what the heck shall I do with a deadly firearm? When I want to shoot on a few cans and bottles or play some Paintball a non-deadly weapon will do the job perfectly fine. When I want to defend myself a non-deadly weapon, such as a Taser, should be good enough as well. So what areas are left there to actually own a real deadly weapon?
### In Japan you can only be assured that the LAW ABIDING folks aren't carrying guns.
You forget that law abiding people not owning guns also makes it also a lot harder for the criminals to get them. You simply have less guns in circulation and that should really be the goal in the end.
I would actually go even further then to just forbid carrying of firearms, I would outlaw it to own them, produce them, train with them, sell them and everything else that would put them into the hands of people, criminals or not.
The last big school shooting we had over here in germany was commited by somebody who legally owned and trained with the weapons he used for the shooting, so even with our rather strict gun laws he still got all the weapons and training he needed, legally. Would gun ownership have been illegal for him the shooting simply wouldn't have happened the way it did.
Its really as simple as that: Weapons kill people. You can of course also kill people without a weapon, but it will be a heck of a lot harder to do so.
### 1 that doesn't yet exist and one that is just a rehash of a worn out formula
YoshiIsland is among the very best jump'n runs ever created and it did add a ton of stuff that no other game ever did before or after that. Sure, LittleBigPlanet could turn out boring or buggy or whatever, its not released yet, but it clearly shows that 2D (well 2.5D or whatever) jump'n runs are not dead and out of ideas and it also shows that all that computing power of a PS3 can be put to some good use beside beside just more realistic blood and gore.
### three things you complained about already.
The problem isn't when there are things to collect, the problem is when collecting things is the primary or only thing you ever do in a game and with many jump'n runs these days it sadly is.
### not the central aspect facilitating the enjoyment of the game.
How important jumping is becomes apparent when you look at Mario64. That game is just brilliant in that aspect, the best I have seen to date. You don't need a level to have fun with that game, all you need is the garden right in front of the castle at the very beginning, you can easily spend an hour there just exploring all the different kinds of jumps, how you can chain them and such. There is a ton of fun just in moving Mario around, because there are a ton of different ways to actually move him around.
If developers see jumping just as a needed thing to move to a higher platform, then they already have failed to understand why jump'n runs are fun in the first place. No amount of level design can help fix up broken jump mechanics.
### so you could probably start making your own if need be.
### I'm not sure how you even expect there to be anything new in such a narrowly defined genre.
Look at Gish, LittleBigPlanet or YoshisIsland, there is a lot you can do with physics that you couldn't do in any of the earlier Marios. The jump'n run genre is far from being out of ideas, it just happens that few care to but them into action.
### As for your dislike of the double jump,
Double jump simply isn't fun, its a stupid low cost workaround for bad camera work, so that I can correct a jump mid-air when it doesn't turn out as intended. Its just lazyness on the side of the developer, proper game balancing such as seen in Mario64 wouldn't need a double jump. The presence of a doubte jump simply is a clear signal that somebody didn't care enough, and well, most platformers have them these days, even the few 2D ones.
To elaborate some more, the fun in jump'n runs comes in large part from the speed and chaining of actions, the double jumps however destroys both, since it takes the speed out of a jump and it also makes chaining rather boring, since hitting an enemy just is way easier with a double jump instead of a single one. Double jumps simply destroys the single most important element: the jumping.
### I think this is what actually killed the adventure game genre. Is it that nobody's interested in playing another Day of the Tentacle, or that there isn't a company out there that can afford all the requisite 3D animation work?
3D animation is actually a lot cheapter then 2D one, which is why you really don't see 2D animation anymore in games, even 2D games often use prerendered 3D models. See also the new Sam'n Max, all 3D. Thats not what killed the genre. What killed the adventure genre is that there was no technical progress. Doom had its 3D environments and fluffy new effects, while the point&click adventures started with 2d backgrounds and never moved beyond that, even today, 20 years after Maniac Mansion they are still build on the very same technical grounding. And well, publishers want to sell the "next big thing" not some nice little story with the same tech as five years ago. Thus the genre died for most part a decade ago.
However, aside from the adventure games I however agree, 3D killed a lot of gameplay and it might take another 5 years to finally get it back. A little look at XCom:Ufo just makes this all to obvious, in that games I could build bases, level up troops, manage finances, do research for new weapons, intercept UFOs in mid air and search through the wracks that fell to the ground. I could also walk through cities, destroy walls and even level whole buildings to the ground. Today on the other side I can run from A to B and shoot enemies, walls are indestructible, there is no research base building or anything, the games are far more one dimensional. It simply not possible today to combine the gameplay of a Full Spectrum Warrior or Gears of War with the fully destructable environment of a XCom:UFO, physic engines simply are not ready for that and neither are character physics.
I agree that SMB3 is a better Mario then SMB1. Even by todays standards SMB3 is still very close to perfection and there haven't been any 2D platformers that where better then it (even so some got very close such as YoshisIsland), while SMB1 was, obviously, surpassed by SMB3. However I don't think SMB1 suffers from it. What SMB1 does it still does brilliantly. It has a smaller world then SMB3, less enemies, less extras, no backscrolling, etc., but overall its still a pretty good game today, just a smaller, more linear interpretation of Mario. I would pick it over that lackluster borefest that NSMB was any day. And lets not forget all those awful flash games and movie tie-ins that are around these days, very very few get anywhere near the level of quality gaming that SMB1 was.
SMB1 was and is still very good, SMB3 just happens to be better.
Speaking about Zelda1, I am sure that lack of a proper overworld map could get pretty annoying by todays standards, lack of diagonal walking is also rather sucky. Still a decent game overall, but I can point out quite a few more points that are bad about it then I could in SMB1.
Slashdot Mirror
Games can be as engrossing as a movie thanks to cutscenes, they however will lack heavily on interactivity when they rely to much on them (see JRPGs, something like Dreamfall, etc.). The really hard part isn't to make games engrossing, but to make them engrossing in actual gameplay. I think games have still a long way to go till they actually manange that. One large problem is AI, Alyx in HalfLife2 for example worked great for most part since she was heavily pre-scripted, the normal squad members on the other side where a total failure and annoyance, they died all the time for stupid reasons, there where mostly AI without much scripting. If there aren't prescripted events it gets very hard to make character behavior believable and I don't think that AI will make it very further in that area for a while.
However in the end its really a matter of what games people are playing, has long games focus on punching, shooting and killing thousands of bad guys or monsters there won't be any emotional connection in actual gameplay, since there is simply no room for that. A emotional connections needs room to unfold and that works best in genres that don't rely on hack&slay all the time, i.e. adventure games for most part. But games such as SotC also work, since they give you plenty of room in between the fights where you really have nothing much to do, you can simply have fun with the horse, without being constantly reminder that its just a stupid game. Other games however simply don't have that space.
When we have the tech to get to such a planet, the 2.5G wouldn't be an issue. Just slip into one of those nice Power Suits which we already have today.
### what's so great about the whole FF series that there are that many sequels?
FF games are not sequels to each other, for most part they are totally independed games and in their own universes, so the reason why you got so many, is simply that Square has sticking FF names on half of the RPGs they ever created over the years.
Aside from that, FF games provide shiny graphics, better then average stories (however at times very cliché), a rather annoying fighting and random encounters, the last two made me never actually finish any of the games.
### Whatever it is, I'm hoping it will be functional ;)
So do I, I just hope that they manage to create a functional language till then that is actually easy on the eyes. Currently they often try to be a little to clever for their own good.
### The only substantial criticism of Ruby I've ever heard is here:
Another issue Ruby and many other 'scripting' languages have is lack of lexical scoping. I just don't understand where there is a benefit of not declaring variables properly, it not only makes the scope of a variable rather unclear it also makes automatically catching errors much harder. A little "var a = 5" isn't much more to type then "a = 5", but its a hell of a lot more expressive. Ruby does a ton of good stuff, in fact its the languages that comes closed to "perfect", but those automatic variable declarations really drive me nuts from time to time.
### Ruby is not terribly lisp like in any way.
Ruby is very much like Lisp in many aspects, of course not in all, especially not syntax, but that is actually the good thing about Ruby. It gives you almost all the power of Lisp, but with a syntax that is much easier to read. I mean macros in Lisp are cool, but the blocks in Ruby are just way more readable and more practical, not as powerful, but powerful enough.
Buy a PS3 and install Linux or an Xbox360 and invest $100 a year to get access to XNA. Its certainly still far away from the freedom you have on a PC, but thinks are better now then they where a few years ago.
What exactly would OpenGL provide that you can't get with DirectX9?
### that its completely different from its predecessors
Care to elaborate on that? I know the fight system is different, but aside from that it just looks like yet another PaperMario. And putting Mario in an RPG (even when the round based fights have been taken out) isn't exactly new either, its the sixth game in the series.
I really don't think that AI is the problem, it of course can be hard, but the main issue is that the underlying gamedesign simply doesn't allow good AI. Simple example: God of War. Where exactly do you want to add the better AI? You are a one men army fighting against thousands of bad guys, they have to be stupid and easily defeatable to make that game work. Another game would be Half Life 2: Same problem, one men vs thousands of bad guys, if they actually would behave half as clever as a real person, the player wouldn't stand a chance. And so it goes on with tons of other games.
The issue isn't AI, but game design, as long as most games are designed as linear roller coaster rides no amount of AI development can fix their dullness. The solution would be to go more free form, game design that actually allow enemies to be clever without making the games impossible to beat. Such games are really not impossible to design, many games did it a decade ago already (XCom, EF2000, etc.), its just that most mainstream ones don't really try very hard to create believable worlds and instead continue down the "you vs rest of the world" approach, even the free form ones likes GTA.
### So is it because of risks like this that people have to purchase "Wii Points" cards at other retailers?
I think the main reasons for "Wii Points" and similar systems are that one can do micro payment that way easily and that in some countries credit cards aren't very widespread, especially when it comes to younger audiences, so using only credit cards would lock a lot of users out of the system. Then there is of course the evil reason: You can spend your "Wii Points"-money on XBoxLive, while you could do so with real money.
Those however are only grown in a box to put them in shape, no gen tech involved at all.
### A law would not do the job of the parents
The law should not do the job of the parents, if they think their kid is ready for violent games, so be it. Its not the job of the law to stop that. The law however should make it as easy for the parents to actually do their parenting.
There are of course always ways around the laws for the children, but just because a kid might gets its hands on alcohol, weapons, games, movies, whatever by illegal means, doesn't mean we shouldn't make it illegal to sell it to them in the first place.
### The goal of laws like this are to stop a kid from playing the game
From what I read the goal of the law is to stop kids from *buying* those games, not playing them. When the parents buy the games for them, everything is fine. When the kids want to buy the games themself the shop clerk won't allow it. Thus the parents have more control over what they kids can buy with their money. Sounds good to me.
### A parent definitely has the tools to take this game away and return it if they don't approve.
Yeah, for like half the price, since its likely already opened and used. They of course also have to catch their kid while playing the game first.
### Thankfully, the law here is common-sense for this case: if anyone breaks in my house, I'm allowed to shoot him, no questions asked.
Lets just say I consider a country where people can be shot just for entering your house uninvited rather screwed up.
### there's no such thing as hard-to-break windows
There are plenty of them, but they cost a some extra cash. Just like a door or a safe they can of course be broken with enough force, but they give you see time to call police. And if that still isn't enough for you get yourself a Panic room, might also be useful in case of tornado or a nuclear bomb. But on the other side not everybody is a paranoid nut job...
### You value the lives of murderers and rapists? You have some screwed-up morals.
Just because somebody breaks into your home doesn't mean he is a murderer or rapist, he might just want to steal your TV/XBox/whatever and yeah, I consider it wrong shooting those guys. Most people are simply not interesting in you, they want your stuff, nothing more.
If you really want to feel secure at home, you better buy a solid front door, windows that can't be easily broken, an alarm system and whatever, a gun will help you very little if somebody surprises you when you are sleeping.
### The cops have access to tasers and pepper sprays too, but they still carry guns. Why is that?
Because they are the executive force of the state, they are the ones that go in and fight a criminals actively, so they need to be on the same level as criminals when it comes to weapons. For some random Joe on the other side getting away from a criminal is enough, they don't need to actively fight them.
### Besides, what's wrong with the weapon being deadly?
Well, they kill people, thats what wrong with them. Some people actually considering killing people a wrong thing to do and thus of course tools that are constructed for the very purpose to kill somebody can't be considered a good thing either, especially not when there are non-deadly alternatives.
### I'd rather he be taken cleanly out of the gene pool, than survive to repeat his crime
The "gene pool cleaning" is job of the state and thus police, not some random Joe who bought a gun in the next best shop.
Keep in mind that a whole bunch of the weapons that are out there in the hand of criminals started out as perfectly legally produced items, the less legal weapons you have around, the less illegal ones you will have. Of course getting rid of all the weapons in the USA would be a hard problem, but not even trying it can't be the right thing to do either.
### I hate to say this, but every time I bring out a classic on an emulator or old DOS Box I am sorely disappointed
For me its actually the other way around, even for those games I never touched back in the day. There is of course always a little hurdle to overcome, a game like Dune2 or Warcraft just doesn't play half as smooth as a current generation RTS game, 3D graphics in 320x200 can also get rather ugly and slow framerates also can be problematic. But when it comes to something like Syndicate, XCom:UFO, StrikeCommander or anything like that I am actually amazed at how good they are. I mean what current day games allow me to walk freely around a huge city with my troop of four armed man, lets me enter taxis, trains, buildings, lets me do research on new weapons, let me recruit new men, equip my them individually, pick up weapons from the ground, etc.? There simply aren't any. When I play something like FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance its just sad to see how flat an primitive it is when compared to XCom:UFO, when playing any kind of air combat game today I am amazed had how void of personality they are compared to a Strike Commander and when playing any kind of tactics shooter its limitations are also way to obvious.
Of course not all games today are bad, we still have a DeusEx or a OperationFlashpoint, which provide similar amounts of freedom and personality like many games back in the good old days, but I pick a good game from yesterday over a random one from today any day. This is especially true when it comes to handhelds, while they might provide smoother gameplay, they simply don't provide games that interest me. A DS might be capable of doing a X-Wing or a StrikeCommander game, but those games are simply not there, they don't exist. Neither exist there anything like Syndicate or XCom:UFO or Indianapolis500, Warcraft or Dune2 aren't there either. Instead we got yet another watered down Mario jump'n run, yet another sequel to AdvancedWars, some remake of FinalFantasy and a lot of stuff that I just don't care about. I am actually quite disappointed by the DS since it just doesn't provide much at all with depth. All the new innovative games on the DS are more often then not nothing but glorified junk that I can get as a Flash game for free.
#### Um, ever thought about self-protection?
Do you need a deadly weapon for self protection? Wouldn't a taser, peeper spray or something along the lines be enough?
### how far are you willing to go for guns?
Who actually wants/needs to own a gun? I can see plenty of reasons to own/consume drugs, but what the heck shall I do with a deadly firearm? When I want to shoot on a few cans and bottles or play some Paintball a non-deadly weapon will do the job perfectly fine. When I want to defend myself a non-deadly weapon, such as a Taser, should be good enough as well. So what areas are left there to actually own a real deadly weapon?
### In Japan you can only be assured that the LAW ABIDING folks aren't carrying guns.
You forget that law abiding people not owning guns also makes it also a lot harder for the criminals to get them. You simply have less guns in circulation and that should really be the goal in the end.
I would actually go even further then to just forbid carrying of firearms, I would outlaw it to own them, produce them, train with them, sell them and everything else that would put them into the hands of people, criminals or not.
The last big school shooting we had over here in germany was commited by somebody who legally owned and trained with the weapons he used for the shooting, so even with our rather strict gun laws he still got all the weapons and training he needed, legally. Would gun ownership have been illegal for him the shooting simply wouldn't have happened the way it did.
Its really as simple as that: Weapons kill people. You can of course also kill people without a weapon, but it will be a heck of a lot harder to do so.
### 1 that doesn't yet exist and one that is just a rehash of a worn out formula
YoshiIsland is among the very best jump'n runs ever created and it did add a ton of stuff that no other game ever did before or after that. Sure, LittleBigPlanet could turn out boring or buggy or whatever, its not released yet, but it clearly shows that 2D (well 2.5D or whatever) jump'n runs are not dead and out of ideas and it also shows that all that computing power of a PS3 can be put to some good use beside beside just more realistic blood and gore.
### three things you complained about already.
The problem isn't when there are things to collect, the problem is when collecting things is the primary or only thing you ever do in a game and with many jump'n runs these days it sadly is.
### not the central aspect facilitating the enjoyment of the game.
How important jumping is becomes apparent when you look at Mario64. That game is just brilliant in that aspect, the best I have seen to date. You don't need a level to have fun with that game, all you need is the garden right in front of the castle at the very beginning, you can easily spend an hour there just exploring all the different kinds of jumps, how you can chain them and such. There is a ton of fun just in moving Mario around, because there are a ton of different ways to actually move him around.
If developers see jumping just as a needed thing to move to a higher platform, then they already have failed to understand why jump'n runs are fun in the first place. No amount of level design can help fix up broken jump mechanics.
### so you could probably start making your own if need be.
I already did.
### I'm not sure how you even expect there to be anything new in such a narrowly defined genre.
Look at Gish, LittleBigPlanet or YoshisIsland, there is a lot you can do with physics that you couldn't do in any of the earlier Marios. The jump'n run genre is far from being out of ideas, it just happens that few care to but them into action.
### As for your dislike of the double jump,
Double jump simply isn't fun, its a stupid low cost workaround for bad camera work, so that I can correct a jump mid-air when it doesn't turn out as intended. Its just lazyness on the side of the developer, proper game balancing such as seen in Mario64 wouldn't need a double jump. The presence of a doubte jump simply is a clear signal that somebody didn't care enough, and well, most platformers have them these days, even the few 2D ones.
To elaborate some more, the fun in jump'n runs comes in large part from the speed and chaining of actions, the double jumps however destroys both, since it takes the speed out of a jump and it also makes chaining rather boring, since hitting an enemy just is way easier with a double jump instead of a single one. Double jumps simply destroys the single most important element: the jumping.
### I think this is what actually killed the adventure game genre. Is it that nobody's interested in playing another Day of the Tentacle, or that there isn't a company out there that can afford all the requisite 3D animation work?
3D animation is actually a lot cheapter then 2D one, which is why you really don't see 2D animation anymore in games, even 2D games often use prerendered 3D models. See also the new Sam'n Max, all 3D. Thats not what killed the genre. What killed the adventure genre is that there was no technical progress. Doom had its 3D environments and fluffy new effects, while the point&click adventures started with 2d backgrounds and never moved beyond that, even today, 20 years after Maniac Mansion they are still build on the very same technical grounding. And well, publishers want to sell the "next big thing" not some nice little story with the same tech as five years ago. Thus the genre died for most part a decade ago.
However, aside from the adventure games I however agree, 3D killed a lot of gameplay and it might take another 5 years to finally get it back. A little look at XCom:Ufo just makes this all to obvious, in that games I could build bases, level up troops, manage finances, do research for new weapons, intercept UFOs in mid air and search through the wracks that fell to the ground. I could also walk through cities, destroy walls and even level whole buildings to the ground. Today on the other side I can run from A to B and shoot enemies, walls are indestructible, there is no research base building or anything, the games are far more one dimensional. It simply not possible today to combine the gameplay of a Full Spectrum Warrior or Gears of War with the fully destructable environment of a XCom:UFO, physic engines simply are not ready for that and neither are character physics.
I agree that SMB3 is a better Mario then SMB1. Even by todays standards SMB3 is still very close to perfection and there haven't been any 2D platformers that where better then it (even so some got very close such as YoshisIsland), while SMB1 was, obviously, surpassed by SMB3. However I don't think SMB1 suffers from it. What SMB1 does it still does brilliantly. It has a smaller world then SMB3, less enemies, less extras, no backscrolling, etc., but overall its still a pretty good game today, just a smaller, more linear interpretation of Mario. I would pick it over that lackluster borefest that NSMB was any day. And lets not forget all those awful flash games and movie tie-ins that are around these days, very very few get anywhere near the level of quality gaming that SMB1 was.
SMB1 was and is still very good, SMB3 just happens to be better.
Speaking about Zelda1, I am sure that lack of a proper overworld map could get pretty annoying by todays standards, lack of diagonal walking is also rather sucky. Still a decent game overall, but I can point out quite a few more points that are bad about it then I could in SMB1.