The issue is that Xbox Live does a lot more than scoreboards and server listings.
Server listings alone aren't the same thing as matchmaking, which is what a lot of games need (I know Blizzard tried it for Warcraft III, heard it went poorly). Sure, difference in abilities don't matter too much for the FPS games you mention where you play with 30 other people on one server - things tend to average out. But in any 1on1 (and 2on2, so on) style game, being able to play someone of your abilities is a godsend. Or even just being aware of the other's abilities - you can challenge someone more experienced and be aware of that going into it. And hell, it is just nice to know if someone keeps fragging you that they really are a lot better than you, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Feels better when you then frag them, too.:D The lack of anonymonity helps keep things accurate, too.
Integrated, automatic voice chat is very nice. Sure, you can use a third party program, but things just aren't standardized enough. And sure, stuff like UT2k4 will support it integrated (as does CS, etc.), but with Live you know every player has the hardware.
One of the nicest things is to be able to see if your friends are online and what they are playing at any time, and then message them to either join your (potentially completely different) game, or just join them right away. It pops up right in the game.
Really competent anti-cheating system. I have heard rumors of Xbox Live cheating, but have never seen it whatsoever. Anyone who tries is very quickly banned, and this is one of the reasons you want to pay money to play online - so no one wants to get banned.:D I see it all of the time in PC games. This is probably an unfixable problem without something like Palladium (shudder), but it is another Xbox Live advantage.
Xbox Live does some other cool stuff, but these are my favorite features I miss when playing something like Enemy Territory.
Sure, all of these can be done on PC. Many of them can be done now with third-party programs. But having all of them integrated in every Xbox online game, and having them all just work seemlessly with no real setup is what makes it so great. I know MS themselves are planning on doing something like this for Windows, but I would be just as happy with some kind of open version. PC games really need it. The only types of PC games that really seem to do online well are FPSes and the occasional RTS - not at all what the aforementioned indie gamers are going to try and do most of the time.
That isn't why EA is doing what is doing. You have no conception of what the disagreement is really about.
Regardless, EA's online services are a shadow of what Xbox Live offers. The only advantages it has exist for EA alone - the ability to stop your games from working online when they want you to buy the sequel (see Madden - this and Sony's cash ar ethe real reasons Live isn't yet supported by EA), and the inability for non-EA gamers to find friends playing EA games.
Ummm, how is that remotely exclusive to Xbox Live?
What's more, Xbox Live actually solves that problem to some extent. Drop a game because you are losing, and it is attached to your more or less permanent online record. No anonyminity to hide behind...
I couldn't imagine that he was elected! And though he did replace the Lincoln statue, I am not convinced that he didn't change the existing monument, rather than Lincoln never becoming president in the first place.
However, let's say he brought some futuristic weapons, along with reinforcements, and his landing was a surprise... and there is the implication that somehow they were able to advace Earth's apes as well, perhaps through interbreeding? And when did he start doing this? Of course it is a long shot, but so was the original film's twist ending.:)
The typical gamer is a 28-year-old male and games will need to broaden their base so that other groups (especially women and older generations) can come to appreciate them as an art. Will that happen in the near future? I think so but it's not looking too good when games, like Tomb Raider, that really challenge gender roles fall flat in sales.
But the typical gamer isn't that typical. Sure, maybe 28-year-old males are statistically a bigger group than any other gamer collective, but they still aren't even close to being a majority, which is what is crucial. Games are made for every possible group (with a potential exception being the elderly, and that I think you could disagree with). Sure, women might not be buying all of the PS2 games (though more than you expect, I suspect), but I guarantee you they are playing tons of flash games on their PC. Videogames reach a lot larger market than most 'hardcore gamers' assume, just often in different (and often non-commercial in the sense EA/Nintendo isn't publishing it) forms than what that gamer plays...
(And doesn't the amazing success of the Sims say something? I don't think too many 28-year-old males are buying those expansions!)
And Tomb Raider did really well for most of its sequels, so I am not sure about your point there. What's more, I guess it was really popular among Japanese girls.:D
A good example of this is in Prince of Persia: Sands of time: At the end of a battle the prince puts away his sword. Slowly. In an in-engine cutscene. I can't begin to articulate how frustrated I was by the end of the game with that.
But the thing about that 'cinema scene' is that really it is there for gameplay reasons. It makes it crystal clear to the player that all threats are gone in the area. Maybe it could have been sped up a little (especially after the player is further in the game), but that is really an unusual borderline case of something that is both a cinema scene and a crucial gameplay mechanic...
In general I don't have a problem with the '5 second cinemas' you mention, as long as they are used sparingly. Some of the original classic arcade games have similar stuff! Though yeah, it is always better if the player still retains some small degree of control, even just over the camera. Einhander did it pretty well - during the 'cinema transitions', which were short, built some nice subtle context stuff, and helped the pacing (and loading times), the player could still move the ship and fire. It never accomplishes anything, really, but at least you are still technically in control.
But I certainly agree about the problem with longer cinemas in stuff like MGS2, especially combined with the complete inability of so many developers to understand a concept like 'pacing'. Other than my mentioned caveats, I pretty much agree completely with your post...
The 'Atomis engine' is just new arcade hardware, a la the NeoGeo. Nothing fighting game specific. I believe it is just a slightly modified Sega Naomi system (which powered the first Guilty Gear X, among dozens of other games like Crazy Taxi). In fact, it looks like it is just a less powerful (!) version, roughly equivalent to a stock Dreamcast. Bizarre that they would use something like that - the Naomi can't be that much more expensive, especially now. Perhaps Sega didn't want to license something completely equivalent to their system? Either way, an excellent system in terms of price/performance, but nothing too advanced, either.
(If you look at that page, the Dolphin Blue game is apparently some kind of spiritual successor to Metal Slug. Very cool. What is also pretty cool is that since DC/Naomi emulators are getting close to primetime, Atomiswave should also be easily doable. Bad for business perhaps, but I know the odds of me seeing a new arcade machine like that around here is frighteningly low. Home ports would also be very welcome...)
And I forget the exact details, but you are correct that the people involved with the KOF series currently are Korean. The developers (Eolis?), maybe? And I do think they did a pretty nice visual job on the 2k3 version - it just feels a little faster and more exciting to me than other games in the series.
I'm thinking of starting a collection of import DC games... An excellent idea. I haven't yet played Cool Cool Toon (soon I will), but the DC has some amazing Japanese-only games, just like its father the Saturn...
No, the remake sucked, all by itself. It built up to a climactic ending which made NO SENSE AT ALL. The ending actually makes perfect sense. It is just a little tricky, because you actually have to think quite a bit about the film's structure.:D
Think about what we know about how the time warp behaved, in terms of what went in when, versus when it came out. First In Last Out.
To spell it out further: so when Marky Mark goes into the time warp again at the end of the film, it stands to reason that anyone potentially going after him is going to get out well before him...
I am not so sure about that. I know a lot of gamers who had problems with Rez, especially the bosses. It demands more of the finger button smashing than most modern games. And you do know that Rez has integreated difficulty settings based around your performance, right? Get to a high form and you are in for quite a challenge. So if Rez is too easy for you, you probably just aren't very good at it.:D
This is all ignoring the fact that Rez isn't an arcade game designed to munch quarters, but an experience that is supposed to help you feel synaesthesia.
That is a good point about the accidental thing, but I just wish it also supported the more common method that I am used to. Would help the learning curve a bit, since it has been many years since I have last played it.
Thanks for the tip though. I think I will dig up a FAQ or whatever on the hotkeys, print it out, and maybe give it another go.
You might already be aware of this, but Sims Online features just this kind of thing with McDonalds. No health penalty whatsoever for eating there all of the time, to my understanding. Not only that, but players can even open their own McDonalds' kiosks and make (ingame) money off of it.
I am unable to currently find links to the news stories about it, but what was kind of cool is that players were actually doing virtual protests ingame about McDonalds. Not sure how that ended up working out, but at least it looks like advertising in games may not always work how the admen expect.:D
Some good insights in your post, thanks.
(And I have no serious problem with 'realistic advertising' in games, but I do wish they would at least let me turn it off. I don't want to be watching ads all of the time...)
All of which shows that Miyamoto served as an advisor, nothing more, which is what I wrote. The level design, graphics, music, and enemy design were done by Argonaut, and they did an awesome job on it. NOJ involvement (which was important, I agree - it was published by Nintendo after all) is still not NOJ/Miyamoto creation.
The controls tweaking is just a guess on your part - I find it unlikely, since the controls in the N64 version were worse in many ways, but it is still just a guess. And the animal characters addition is nothing to be proud of, as that remains the weakest part of the game.:D
For single player FPSs, the Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty are amazing. Good story, great map variety, great atmosphere.
See, both of these are the exact opposite type of experience that Halo provides so well (and gives it its fans, such as myself and the grandparent). Those WWII shooters are about going through a heavily-scripted, movie-like experience. They are meant to be played a couple times, tops. (And in the case of MOH and me, 2/3 times - least fun AI I have ever encountered, terrible game design all around outside of a few big moments... quicksaving/quickloading sucks.)
Halo is designed more like a classic arcade game, that you go through many many times - you don't hear many Pac-Man or Defender fans complaining that the maps are too repetitive, do you? The arenas you fight through are merely backdrops/context - you aren't usually going through the game to be wowed by some scripted cinematic moment. You are going through it for the visceral, unpredicable thrills it will give you, each and every time. It appeals to a very different type of gaming itch, quite addictive, and which many people value quite a bit!
Incidentally, the original Doom series (among others) had quite a bit of this quality, too.
I am not sure how this rumor got started, but I see it a lot. The original StarFox was created by Argonaut Games. Miyamoto might have consulted on it a little, but he deserves no real credit for making it the great game it was.
He did work on StarFox64, at least as an advisor. Technical attributes aside, I found it to be a much weaker game overall than the original, which was the reason I bought a SNES.
Make sure you try and use the new Open Source version - I am not sure how playable it is (a little buggy when I tried it six months ago), but the graphics tweaks are really nice. Some of the nicer visual features were apparently only available on Voodoo cards (which I doubt you have:D), until the new OS version which reimplemented them.
Yeah. Things are just too damn small I found, especially the font. And I was surprised how much I missed the more modern isometric view, though I understand why they didn't do that (the terrain isn't really 3D, per se, so having things behind mountains wouldn't have worked). I also missed some of the more common interface niceties I am used to, like double-clicking to select all of that unit.
Fun game, but not as cool interface-wise as I remembered. I am finding it really hard to play through again.:(
And I agree, it does seem to be a little underrated by many 'serious gamers'. It is a great choice for when I just want to relax and have a little fun with no real pressure. The relationship mechanics can get pretty sophisticated, too...
Many Wal-Mart CDs do have censored contents. It is done by the record companies at Wal-Mart's 'request', so you could maybe argue that it isn't censorship. I still see it as such, though, as do obviously many other people...
In my experience was that it just couldn't run well enough in multiplayer. My friends and I tried it on a network a few times, and we never got satisfactory performance on any of our machines. They had really upped the polycounts on the units, far more than the average computers of that era could handle well. I am curious if it would play a lot better on a modern computer.
I also recall the game design itself being rather flawed, but it has been so long now that I couldn't share any details on it.
I really wanted this when it came out, but didn't have the money, and my computer wouldn't have played it anyway.
I am only mentioning this because the game is no longer being sold, but isohunt.com is your friend. I had to regrab TA again just a few days ago, because I can't find my legit CDs. Seriously - bought it at release...anyone else remember those awesome magazine ads? Completely sold me on the (great) game, though I still don't think it is as perfect as many of its fans say.
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The issue is that Xbox Live does a lot more than scoreboards and server listings.
:D The lack of anonymonity helps keep things accurate, too.
:D I see it all of the time in PC games. This is probably an unfixable problem without something like Palladium (shudder), but it is another Xbox Live advantage.
Server listings alone aren't the same thing as matchmaking, which is what a lot of games need (I know Blizzard tried it for Warcraft III, heard it went poorly). Sure, difference in abilities don't matter too much for the FPS games you mention where you play with 30 other people on one server - things tend to average out. But in any 1on1 (and 2on2, so on) style game, being able to play someone of your abilities is a godsend. Or even just being aware of the other's abilities - you can challenge someone more experienced and be aware of that going into it. And hell, it is just nice to know if someone keeps fragging you that they really are a lot better than you, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Feels better when you then frag them, too.
Integrated, automatic voice chat is very nice. Sure, you can use a third party program, but things just aren't standardized enough. And sure, stuff like UT2k4 will support it integrated (as does CS, etc.), but with Live you know every player has the hardware.
One of the nicest things is to be able to see if your friends are online and what they are playing at any time, and then message them to either join your (potentially completely different) game, or just join them right away. It pops up right in the game.
Really competent anti-cheating system. I have heard rumors of Xbox Live cheating, but have never seen it whatsoever. Anyone who tries is very quickly banned, and this is one of the reasons you want to pay money to play online - so no one wants to get banned.
Xbox Live does some other cool stuff, but these are my favorite features I miss when playing something like Enemy Territory.
Sure, all of these can be done on PC. Many of them can be done now with third-party programs. But having all of them integrated in every Xbox online game, and having them all just work seemlessly with no real setup is what makes it so great. I know MS themselves are planning on doing something like this for Windows, but I would be just as happy with some kind of open version. PC games really need it. The only types of PC games that really seem to do online well are FPSes and the occasional RTS - not at all what the aforementioned indie gamers are going to try and do most of the time.
That isn't why EA is doing what is doing. You have no conception of what the disagreement is really about.
Regardless, EA's online services are a shadow of what Xbox Live offers. The only advantages it has exist for EA alone - the ability to stop your games from working online when they want you to buy the sequel (see Madden - this and Sony's cash ar ethe real reasons Live isn't yet supported by EA), and the inability for non-EA gamers to find friends playing EA games.
Ummm, how is that remotely exclusive to Xbox Live?
What's more, Xbox Live actually solves that problem to some extent. Drop a game because you are losing, and it is attached to your more or less permanent online record. No anonyminity to hide behind...
I couldn't imagine that he was elected! And though he did replace the Lincoln statue, I am not convinced that he didn't change the existing monument, rather than Lincoln never becoming president in the first place.
:)
However, let's say he brought some futuristic weapons, along with reinforcements, and his landing was a surprise... and there is the implication that somehow they were able to advace Earth's apes as well, perhaps through interbreeding? And when did he start doing this? Of course it is a long shot, but so was the original film's twist ending.
The typical gamer is a 28-year-old male and games will need to broaden their base so that other groups (especially women and older generations) can come to appreciate them as an art. Will that happen in the near future? I think so but it's not looking too good when games, like Tomb Raider, that really challenge gender roles fall flat in sales.
:D
But the typical gamer isn't that typical. Sure, maybe 28-year-old males are statistically a bigger group than any other gamer collective, but they still aren't even close to being a majority, which is what is crucial. Games are made for every possible group (with a potential exception being the elderly, and that I think you could disagree with). Sure, women might not be buying all of the PS2 games (though more than you expect, I suspect), but I guarantee you they are playing tons of flash games on their PC. Videogames reach a lot larger market than most 'hardcore gamers' assume, just often in different (and often non-commercial in the sense EA/Nintendo isn't publishing it) forms than what that gamer plays...
(And doesn't the amazing success of the Sims say something? I don't think too many 28-year-old males are buying those expansions!)
And Tomb Raider did really well for most of its sequels, so I am not sure about your point there. What's more, I guess it was really popular among Japanese girls.
A good example of this is in Prince of Persia: Sands of time: At the end of a battle the prince puts away his sword. Slowly. In an in-engine cutscene. I can't begin to articulate how frustrated I was by the end of the game with that.
But the thing about that 'cinema scene' is that really it is there for gameplay reasons. It makes it crystal clear to the player that all threats are gone in the area. Maybe it could have been sped up a little (especially after the player is further in the game), but that is really an unusual borderline case of something that is both a cinema scene and a crucial gameplay mechanic...
In general I don't have a problem with the '5 second cinemas' you mention, as long as they are used sparingly. Some of the original classic arcade games have similar stuff! Though yeah, it is always better if the player still retains some small degree of control, even just over the camera. Einhander did it pretty well - during the 'cinema transitions', which were short, built some nice subtle context stuff, and helped the pacing (and loading times), the player could still move the ship and fire. It never accomplishes anything, really, but at least you are still technically in control.
But I certainly agree about the problem with longer cinemas in stuff like MGS2, especially combined with the complete inability of so many developers to understand a concept like 'pacing'. Other than my mentioned caveats, I pretty much agree completely with your post...
The 'Atomis engine' is just new arcade hardware, a la the NeoGeo. Nothing fighting game specific. I believe it is just a slightly modified Sega Naomi system (which powered the first Guilty Gear X, among dozens of other games like Crazy Taxi). In fact, it looks like it is just a less powerful (!) version, roughly equivalent to a stock Dreamcast. Bizarre that they would use something like that - the Naomi can't be that much more expensive, especially now. Perhaps Sega didn't want to license something completely equivalent to their system? Either way, an excellent system in terms of price/performance, but nothing too advanced, either.
(If you look at that page, the Dolphin Blue game is apparently some kind of spiritual successor to Metal Slug. Very cool. What is also pretty cool is that since DC/Naomi emulators are getting close to primetime, Atomiswave should also be easily doable. Bad for business perhaps, but I know the odds of me seeing a new arcade machine like that around here is frighteningly low. Home ports would also be very welcome...)
And I forget the exact details, but you are correct that the people involved with the KOF series currently are Korean. The developers (Eolis?), maybe? And I do think they did a pretty nice visual job on the 2k3 version - it just feels a little faster and more exciting to me than other games in the series.
I'm thinking of starting a collection of import DC games...
An excellent idea. I haven't yet played Cool Cool Toon (soon I will), but the DC has some amazing Japanese-only games, just like its father the Saturn...
Which arcade system did the NeoGeo cost 4x more upon release?
And plenty of Neogeo games had four times the graphics ability of the SNES...
No, the remake sucked, all by itself. :D
It built up to a climactic ending which made NO SENSE AT ALL.
The ending actually makes perfect sense. It is just a little tricky, because you actually have to think quite a bit about the film's structure.
Think about what we know about how the time warp behaved, in terms of what went in when, versus when it came out. First In Last Out.
To spell it out further: so when Marky Mark goes into the time warp again at the end of the film, it stands to reason that anyone potentially going after him is going to get out well before him...
I am not so sure about that. I know a lot of gamers who had problems with Rez, especially the bosses. It demands more of the finger button smashing than most modern games. And you do know that Rez has integreated difficulty settings based around your performance, right? Get to a high form and you are in for quite a challenge. So if Rez is too easy for you, you probably just aren't very good at it. :D
This is all ignoring the fact that Rez isn't an arcade game designed to munch quarters, but an experience that is supposed to help you feel synaesthesia.
I believe Space Harrier's reincarnation would be Panzer Dragoon Orta on the xbox.
Or more likely Rez on the Dreamcast and Playstation2. Both are classic, underrated games. Listening to the Rez soundtrack right this moment...
That is a good point about the accidental thing, but I just wish it also supported the more common method that I am used to. Would help the learning curve a bit, since it has been many years since I have last played it.
Thanks for the tip though. I think I will dig up a FAQ or whatever on the hotkeys, print it out, and maybe give it another go.
Would you mind sharing the name of the game you just shipped? Your comment about reviews intrigued me, so I wanted to check it out myself.
You might already be aware of this, but Sims Online features just this kind of thing with McDonalds. No health penalty whatsoever for eating there all of the time, to my understanding. Not only that, but players can even open their own McDonalds' kiosks and make (ingame) money off of it.
:D
I am unable to currently find links to the news stories about it, but what was kind of cool is that players were actually doing virtual protests ingame about McDonalds. Not sure how that ended up working out, but at least it looks like advertising in games may not always work how the admen expect.
Some good insights in your post, thanks.
(And I have no serious problem with 'realistic advertising' in games, but I do wish they would at least let me turn it off. I don't want to be watching ads all of the time...)
Thanks for the info!
:D A shame about Star Fox 2...
And thank you for your work on such a classic game.
All of which shows that Miyamoto served as an advisor, nothing more, which is what I wrote. The level design, graphics, music, and enemy design were done by Argonaut, and they did an awesome job on it. NOJ involvement (which was important, I agree - it was published by Nintendo after all) is still not NOJ/Miyamoto creation.
:D
The controls tweaking is just a guess on your part - I find it unlikely, since the controls in the N64 version were worse in many ways, but it is still just a guess. And the animal characters addition is nothing to be proud of, as that remains the weakest part of the game.
For single player FPSs, the Medal of Honor series and Call of Duty are amazing. Good story, great map variety, great atmosphere.
See, both of these are the exact opposite type of experience that Halo provides so well (and gives it its fans, such as myself and the grandparent). Those WWII shooters are about going through a heavily-scripted, movie-like experience. They are meant to be played a couple times, tops. (And in the case of MOH and me, 2/3 times - least fun AI I have ever encountered, terrible game design all around outside of a few big moments... quicksaving/quickloading sucks.)
Halo is designed more like a classic arcade game, that you go through many many times - you don't hear many Pac-Man or Defender fans complaining that the maps are too repetitive, do you? The arenas you fight through are merely backdrops/context - you aren't usually going through the game to be wowed by some scripted cinematic moment. You are going through it for the visceral, unpredicable thrills it will give you, each and every time. It appeals to a very different type of gaming itch, quite addictive, and which many people value quite a bit!
Incidentally, the original Doom series (among others) had quite a bit of this quality, too.
I am not sure how this rumor got started, but I see it a lot. The original StarFox was created by Argonaut Games. Miyamoto might have consulted on it a little, but he deserves no real credit for making it the great game it was.
He did work on StarFox64, at least as an advisor. Technical attributes aside, I found it to be a much weaker game overall than the original, which was the reason I bought a SNES.
You will not be disappointed!
:D), until the new OS version which reimplemented them.
Make sure you try and use the new Open Source version - I am not sure how playable it is (a little buggy when I tried it six months ago), but the graphics tweaks are really nice. Some of the nicer visual features were apparently only available on Voodoo cards (which I doubt you have
Yeah. Things are just too damn small I found, especially the font. And I was surprised how much I missed the more modern isometric view, though I understand why they didn't do that (the terrain isn't really 3D, per se, so having things behind mountains wouldn't have worked). I also missed some of the more common interface niceties I am used to, like double-clicking to select all of that unit.
:(
Fun game, but not as cool interface-wise as I remembered. I am finding it really hard to play through again.
And I agree, it does seem to be a little underrated by many 'serious gamers'. It is a great choice for when I just want to relax and have a little fun with no real pressure. The relationship mechanics can get pretty sophisticated, too...
Many Wal-Mart CDs do have censored contents. It is done by the record companies at Wal-Mart's 'request', so you could maybe argue that it isn't censorship. I still see it as such, though, as do obviously many other people...
In my experience was that it just couldn't run well enough in multiplayer. My friends and I tried it on a network a few times, and we never got satisfactory performance on any of our machines. They had really upped the polycounts on the units, far more than the average computers of that era could handle well. I am curious if it would play a lot better on a modern computer.
I also recall the game design itself being rather flawed, but it has been so long now that I couldn't share any details on it.
I really wanted this when it came out, but didn't have the money, and my computer wouldn't have played it anyway.
I am only mentioning this because the game is no longer being sold, but isohunt.com is your friend. I had to regrab TA again just a few days ago, because I can't find my legit CDs. Seriously - bought it at release...anyone else remember those awesome magazine ads? Completely sold me on the (great) game, though I still don't think it is as perfect as many of its fans say.