There's a difference between a hot female and compelling narrative.
Depending on your definition of "compelling", I can see these two things going very well together. Hell, throw in five of each and it will work even better!:P
Which of those games has any serious amount of innovation in it? I will agree the Starcraft series had an amazing amount of polish, but I can't think of one single innovation unless we go deep into tiny specific details.
Hell, it is hard enough to find a Blizzard game which doesn't feel like it was ripped off from a Games Workshop product, down to visual designs.
I like Japanese animation, but why does Anime have some mystical power here in Slashdot?
You're right. It isn't like every freaking time anime is mentioned on Slashdot we have highly moderated comments slamming the art form, or occasionally a holier-than-thou "The popular anime ________ is trash!"
(yeah, mod me down for flame bait because I DARED to profane NGE and Akira, instead of answering my legitemate question.)
You should be modded down for flamebait because your comment offered nothing truly incisive, simply spewing a standard popular complaint that pretty much guaranteed you mod points. (The complaint that you will be modded down only boosts that, as we all know - everyone loves a badass rebel!)
Regardless, your comment was strictly designed to encourage flames, because it is otherwise nonsensical. It isn't like Evangelion and Akira are only held in critical regard on Slashdot! Why pretend this fame is some kind of cultish Slashdot quirk?
You also completely misunderstood the parent post's point. The quality of a specific anime has nothing to do with it - any film genre (or artform really) that is 'weird' to a viewer will probably fail to draw them in. Most people are severely close-minded about nearly everything new or unusual. You demonstrate this pretty well.
Good point, but can we please stop pretending that iTunes doesn't sell DRM'd music, too? Why should the school help out Apple in selling shitty DRM'd technology?
You can argue the storyline isn't any good, but saying it has zero storyline is simply wrong (I personally think it needs to be presented a little more obviously, as Americans seem easily confused by it - a 'what has occurred before' intro for each game would really help). For example, the ongoing plot of Kasumi and her brother - she became a Runaway Shinobi in game 2 to seek out her lost brother who was brainwashed by DOATEC. These events resulted in her being marked for death in DOA3 (the hunt being led by the very same brother, with his original memory recovered at the end of DOA2, no less). How about Gen Fu's struggle to save his granddaughter? Or the family conflict between Bass and Tina? Ayane killing her 'possessed' foster father (Omega/Genra) in DOA3? That isall plot.
(Psss...the story game mode was a tipoff.)
The volleyball game even features a tiny bit of plot, though it is strictly a silly side-story. Even there the characters react to each other based on the plot (Ayane hating her half-sister Kasumi, etc.).
I agree with the rest of your points. But maybe you should first play all of the games you are writing about next time.
I don't think you understand what the parent post meant when referring to 'artistic' films, or how Psychonauts fits the subject, for that matter. The key phrase is "not so blatantly commercial".
I suspect Ed Fries is talking about stuff like the films (random examples) Memento, Donnie Darko, or Dead Man. I think Psychonauts is just not going to click with a lot of people, especially people who aren't into psychology at least a little. You are talking more about 'art games' that are more like Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, etc. (Actually, those are rated R - pick some examples that are G rated.I can't think of any offhand, though I know they exist - time for bed.) Not even remotely the same thing.
I agree that Sony has made some games that fit this criteria, but to be fair they have had many more years to do just that. Naming several sequels doesn't help your case, though. Sequels are pretty "blatantly commercial", as they work off a preexisting market.
Nintendo, on the other hand... Creating nothing but games that are inoffensive, aimed at all audiences (ie lowest common denominator), feature low difficulty levels, have some lazy art, and based on a preexisting popular franchise if not a sequel itself is probably the definition of "blatantly commercial gaming". The only thing that would make it more blatantly commercial is if they did major cross-marketing with pop idols, maybe. (This is the major reason I am so sick of recent Nintendo of Japan games, BTW.)
The only recent Nintendo game I can think of that might fit what Ed Fries is talking about is maybe Made in Wario, though you could also argue the opposite pretty easily (franchise characters, features a LOT of nostalgia, pretty easy to learn, simple storyline even if the irony and parody will be lost on the young gamers, etc.). There seems to be some actual crazy artistic passion behind the game's design, which is gonzo enough that many gamers simply won't get it (and it is really difficult to 'sell' to people without them actually playing it themselves).
Of course Nintendo has already churned out a sequel.:(
The Japanese voice acting for the Sonic Adventure games is pretty decent, though a little too 'cool' in many ways.
And Sega's Panzer Dragoon series has featured some awesome voice-work, in every game. Same with the Japanese Shenmue voice-acting. Sakura Taisen features some very good voice work!
Really you are blaming Sega of America, which probably deserve the scorn. With stuff like Otogi they do seem to be massively improving, however, so let's hope for the future!:)
It is hard to take a serious, fair look at Nintendo and comment that they aren't behind the times when it comes to gaming. The best you can do to defend them is to argue that it makes for better games, or that the old games were better, new features like online gaming aren't fun, etc. I mean, why isn't the new Mario Kart playable online? Nintendo has the hardware to do so available. Do you know how many people would buy a GC just for that? Just the network effects of online gaming alone can boost game and console sales massively.
And the reason this type of stuff keeps coming up in MS interviews is because the media ask MS about this stuff - the controversy is good for pagehits. You don't see Ed Fries bringing it up first, do you? And every MS interview I have seen is overwhelmingly respectful towards Nintendo, even if they do disagree with them (which is still allowed, right?).
I know some of its proponents try to blur the differences, but cel-shading isn't just 'cartoon style'. It does very different visual things with light and movement that you just didn't have in the 2D S-/NES days (you couldn't even do it if you tried). The Wind Waker style is a massive departure for the series, which previously featured none of the serious Miyazaki/Samurai Jack visual elements that WW takes from so liberally.
Watch a few films, games, shows, etc. in Japanese. You will quickly pick up an ear for good Japanese voice acting (though honestly you probably won't encounter too much bad voice acting). You can tell when the emotions are coming out strongly, when someone isn't too over-the-top to be silly (using a silly voice, for example), when something sounds too stilted.
If you have access to a game with both languages that features a poor English dub (pretty common if it has both), experiment with it for a while. I am sure you will notice it quickly enough. I hear (ha ha) that a good example is DOA2: Hardcore. Soul Calibur II is more common, but it actually doesn't have a very good Japanese dub, either. Compare the voicework of some of the voice actors in it that also do work for the DOA series and you will see the difference (IMDB.com is your friend). I suspect Namco didn't spend enough time on the voice work, though maybe money was another factor. Lack of skill on voice direction is very likely, too.
The fact that Japanese voice actors are usually very well educated (by schools that specialize in the field) in voicework helps, too. You don't have much of that in America, unfortunately.
On top of that, I have trouble thinking of a game that anyone ever said "Yeah, the voice acting on that game was great! Buy the game for the voice acting!"
I think you need to play more games, ASAP. Sure, most gamers don't buy a game specifically for the voicework. Contrary to popular 'hardcore gamer' opinion, the same is true for graphics. But like great graphics or great music, great voice acting adds immensely to the experience. That you haven't encountered many games that exhibit this is rather frightening. Get out of Square-country much?
And like many others noted, RTFA next time, please. Fries is very willing to give Nintendo props.
Nintendo is saying that cheap voice acting in games is terrible. In this they are certainly correct. If you aren't willing to spend the money on quality, you probably shouldn't bother (see also Nintendo's recent Japanese texture work - a shame they can't skip out on that too). Look at many of the best-sellers on non-Nintendo systems, for example Vice City or Halo, and you will see truly excellent voice-acting that elevates the game it belongs to.
I think a third of the winning games not belonging to the PS2 is pretty fair, since the vast majority of games, along with the most game variety, are released for the PS2 in Japan.
Of course, many of my Cube titles are sequels of games from previous Nintendo consoles, and I really can't say that bothers me much. Perhaps a big part of it is simply that I skipped the last 2 of Nintendo's consoles and really missed a lot of the great gameplay from their titles.
I think that is probably exactly what the difference is between 'you' and the 'average gamer'. I enjoyed my N64, but I got sick of not having enough game variety. Remakes of the games I already played don't sell me on a system, especially when they are oftentimes a step backwards (like the battle mode maps in the new Mario Kart).
And I believe Pikmin 2 is also post-Christmas now, right?
I do agree with you, except for the fighting games part. Standard multiplayer alone should last a while, and that is really the point of them. Fighting games do need to start presenting more compelling single-player experiences, however. Online play might actually be the best way to do that, but games like VF4Evo do a good job on it too. Rather have a short fighting game with some cool content like DOA3 (those neat endings) then the busywork that is SCII, though.
If the game doesn't change enough from its prequel, however, I agree 100%.
If a developer is able to focus on a shorter (in length) game, that surplus effort will go into making the shorter game denser and deeper.
Or it could just lead to something like Max Payne 2.
And that game still had the audacity to reuse at least three of its levels (one of them at least three times, too!), one of which was just a remake of a level from the original!
Right now, you can't convince a person that Metal Gear Solid 2 may have had the first postmodern storyline...
Because even if you did believe that, it still wouldn't be the first example of that.:D And I would certainly argue that the same is true of film and novels - very few people, at least in America, would remotely pick up on what you were talking about. Americans (and probably most/all other nation's citizens) just don't really understand critical theory of any kind.
I always understood the Starcraft weapon to be a reference to the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato (or Uchu senkan Yamato). It featured a pretty freaking big laser of sorts, the Wave Motion Gun (or Hado Hou). The edited American version was known as Starblazers, and is pretty popular.
The near-coincidence of the names is cool, though.
That is interesting. 720p is actually putting out very slightly more data than 1080i, so I guess more HDTVs are using 'cheap' screens that can't handle it? Regardless, it seems silly to decide not to support any of the 3 standard HDTV resolutions, though I wouldn't mind seeing some niche console games designed for a minimum 720p, especially things like shmups.
SCII isn't widescreen because Namco is lazy.:) I suspect a more important reason is that it would change the gameplay a little bit, but it still boils down to them being lazy.
And I would be really pissed if future games didn't allow a progressive display. The resolution of 1080i is very impressive, but I would still take something like 720p over it any day. Interlacing just sucks. Another important reason to shy away from it is not all HDTV displays support 1080i, so you would be abandoning that (large, by HDTV standards) market.
And I believe Tony Hawk 4 (and maybe 3) also does 720p, along with a few other games.
Have to agree with the parent post. Go is a really fun strategy game, and unfathomably deep.
If you are into anime or manga at all, I suggest you check out Hikaru no Go. It is a surprisingly accomplished series, especially considering its silly premise and intended audience of young Japanese boys.
This is a great site that really helped me learn Go. I also advise you to grab one of the numerous Go playing programs and start with a smaller board for a few weeks. Have fun!
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference between a hot female and compelling narrative.
:P
Depending on your definition of "compelling", I can see these two things going very well together. Hell, throw in five of each and it will work even better!
Which of those games has any serious amount of innovation in it? I will agree the Starcraft series had an amazing amount of polish, but I can't think of one single innovation unless we go deep into tiny specific details.
Hell, it is hard enough to find a Blizzard game which doesn't feel like it was ripped off from a Games Workshop product, down to visual designs.
I like Japanese animation, but why does Anime have some mystical power here in Slashdot?
You're right. It isn't like every freaking time anime is mentioned on Slashdot we have highly moderated comments slamming the art form, or occasionally a holier-than-thou "The popular anime ________ is trash!"
(yeah, mod me down for flame bait because I DARED to profane NGE and Akira, instead of answering my legitemate question.)
You should be modded down for flamebait because your comment offered nothing truly incisive, simply spewing a standard popular complaint that pretty much guaranteed you mod points. (The complaint that you will be modded down only boosts that, as we all know - everyone loves a badass rebel!)
Regardless, your comment was strictly designed to encourage flames, because it is otherwise nonsensical. It isn't like Evangelion and Akira are only held in critical regard on Slashdot! Why pretend this fame is some kind of cultish Slashdot quirk?
You also completely misunderstood the parent post's point. The quality of a specific anime has nothing to do with it - any film genre (or artform really) that is 'weird' to a viewer will probably fail to draw them in. Most people are severely close-minded about nearly everything new or unusual. You demonstrate this pretty well.
Good point, but can we please stop pretending that iTunes doesn't sell DRM'd music, too? Why should the school help out Apple in selling shitty DRM'd technology?
DoA has zero plot to develop from
Have you played any DOA fighter past #1?
You can argue the storyline isn't any good, but saying it has zero storyline is simply wrong (I personally think it needs to be presented a little more obviously, as Americans seem easily confused by it - a 'what has occurred before' intro for each game would really help). For example, the ongoing plot of Kasumi and her brother - she became a Runaway Shinobi in game 2 to seek out her lost brother who was brainwashed by DOATEC. These events resulted in her being marked for death in DOA3 (the hunt being led by the very same brother, with his original memory recovered at the end of DOA2, no less). How about Gen Fu's struggle to save his granddaughter? Or the family conflict between Bass and Tina? Ayane killing her 'possessed' foster father (Omega/Genra) in DOA3? That isall plot.
(Psss...the story game mode was a tipoff.)
The volleyball game even features a tiny bit of plot, though it is strictly a silly side-story. Even there the characters react to each other based on the plot (Ayane hating her half-sister Kasumi, etc.).
I agree with the rest of your points. But maybe you should first play all of the games you are writing about next time.
But I play a LOT more genres than just FPS. And most of them control better with a console!
I don't think you understand what the parent post meant when referring to 'artistic' films, or how Psychonauts fits the subject, for that matter. The key phrase is "not so blatantly commercial".
:(
I suspect Ed Fries is talking about stuff like the films (random examples) Memento, Donnie Darko, or Dead Man. I think Psychonauts is just not going to click with a lot of people, especially people who aren't into psychology at least a little. You are talking more about 'art games' that are more like Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, etc. (Actually, those are rated R - pick some examples that are G rated.I can't think of any offhand, though I know they exist - time for bed.) Not even remotely the same thing.
I agree that Sony has made some games that fit this criteria, but to be fair they have had many more years to do just that. Naming several sequels doesn't help your case, though. Sequels are pretty "blatantly commercial", as they work off a preexisting market.
Nintendo, on the other hand... Creating nothing but games that are inoffensive, aimed at all audiences (ie lowest common denominator), feature low difficulty levels, have some lazy art, and based on a preexisting popular franchise if not a sequel itself is probably the definition of "blatantly commercial gaming". The only thing that would make it more blatantly commercial is if they did major cross-marketing with pop idols, maybe. (This is the major reason I am so sick of recent Nintendo of Japan games, BTW.)
The only recent Nintendo game I can think of that might fit what Ed Fries is talking about is maybe Made in Wario, though you could also argue the opposite pretty easily (franchise characters, features a LOT of nostalgia, pretty easy to learn, simple storyline even if the irony and parody will be lost on the young gamers, etc.). There seems to be some actual crazy artistic passion behind the game's design, which is gonzo enough that many gamers simply won't get it (and it is really difficult to 'sell' to people without them actually playing it themselves).
Of course Nintendo has already churned out a sequel.
The Japanese voice acting for the Sonic Adventure games is pretty decent, though a little too 'cool' in many ways.
:)
And Sega's Panzer Dragoon series has featured some awesome voice-work, in every game. Same with the Japanese Shenmue voice-acting. Sakura Taisen features some very good voice work!
Really you are blaming Sega of America, which probably deserve the scorn. With stuff like Otogi they do seem to be massively improving, however, so let's hope for the future!
It is hard to take a serious, fair look at Nintendo and comment that they aren't behind the times when it comes to gaming. The best you can do to defend them is to argue that it makes for better games, or that the old games were better, new features like online gaming aren't fun, etc. I mean, why isn't the new Mario Kart playable online? Nintendo has the hardware to do so available. Do you know how many people would buy a GC just for that? Just the network effects of online gaming alone can boost game and console sales massively.
And the reason this type of stuff keeps coming up in MS interviews is because the media ask MS about this stuff - the controversy is good for pagehits. You don't see Ed Fries bringing it up first, do you? And every MS interview I have seen is overwhelmingly respectful towards Nintendo, even if they do disagree with them (which is still allowed, right?).
I know some of its proponents try to blur the differences, but cel-shading isn't just 'cartoon style'. It does very different visual things with light and movement that you just didn't have in the 2D S-/NES days (you couldn't even do it if you tried). The Wind Waker style is a massive departure for the series, which previously featured none of the serious Miyazaki/Samurai Jack visual elements that WW takes from so liberally.
Watch a few films, games, shows, etc. in Japanese. You will quickly pick up an ear for good Japanese voice acting (though honestly you probably won't encounter too much bad voice acting). You can tell when the emotions are coming out strongly, when someone isn't too over-the-top to be silly (using a silly voice, for example), when something sounds too stilted.
If you have access to a game with both languages that features a poor English dub (pretty common if it has both), experiment with it for a while. I am sure you will notice it quickly enough. I hear (ha ha) that a good example is DOA2: Hardcore. Soul Calibur II is more common, but it actually doesn't have a very good Japanese dub, either. Compare the voicework of some of the voice actors in it that also do work for the DOA series and you will see the difference (IMDB.com is your friend). I suspect Namco didn't spend enough time on the voice work, though maybe money was another factor. Lack of skill on voice direction is very likely, too.
The fact that Japanese voice actors are usually very well educated (by schools that specialize in the field) in voicework helps, too. You don't have much of that in America, unfortunately.
On top of that, I have trouble thinking of a game that anyone ever said "Yeah, the voice acting on that game was great! Buy the game for the voice acting!"
I think you need to play more games, ASAP. Sure, most gamers don't buy a game specifically for the voicework. Contrary to popular 'hardcore gamer' opinion, the same is true for graphics. But like great graphics or great music, great voice acting adds immensely to the experience. That you haven't encountered many games that exhibit this is rather frightening. Get out of Square-country much?
And like many others noted, RTFA next time, please. Fries is very willing to give Nintendo props.
Nintendo is saying that cheap voice acting in games is terrible. In this they are certainly correct. If you aren't willing to spend the money on quality, you probably shouldn't bother (see also Nintendo's recent Japanese texture work - a shame they can't skip out on that too). Look at many of the best-sellers on non-Nintendo systems, for example Vice City or Halo, and you will see truly excellent voice-acting that elevates the game it belongs to.
I think a third of the winning games not belonging to the PS2 is pretty fair, since the vast majority of games, along with the most game variety, are released for the PS2 in Japan.
nd the frustration of trying to get Linux working with much more modern hardware (like my NForce2 board)
:P
So, how's OSX handling that NForce2 mobo?
Of course, many of my Cube titles are sequels of games from previous Nintendo consoles, and I really can't say that bothers me much. Perhaps a big part of it is simply that I skipped the last 2 of Nintendo's consoles and really missed a lot of the great gameplay from their titles.
I think that is probably exactly what the difference is between 'you' and the 'average gamer'. I enjoyed my N64, but I got sick of not having enough game variety. Remakes of the games I already played don't sell me on a system, especially when they are oftentimes a step backwards (like the battle mode maps in the new Mario Kart).
And I believe Pikmin 2 is also post-Christmas now, right?
I do agree with you, except for the fighting games part. Standard multiplayer alone should last a while, and that is really the point of them. Fighting games do need to start presenting more compelling single-player experiences, however. Online play might actually be the best way to do that, but games like VF4Evo do a good job on it too. Rather have a short fighting game with some cool content like DOA3 (those neat endings) then the busywork that is SCII, though.
If the game doesn't change enough from its prequel, however, I agree 100%.
If a developer is able to focus on a shorter (in length) game, that surplus effort will go into making the shorter game denser and deeper.
Or it could just lead to something like Max Payne 2.
And that game still had the audacity to reuse at least three of its levels (one of them at least three times, too!), one of which was just a remake of a level from the original!
Right now, you can't convince a person that Metal Gear Solid 2 may have had the first postmodern storyline...
:D And I would certainly argue that the same is true of film and novels - very few people, at least in America, would remotely pick up on what you were talking about. Americans (and probably most/all other nation's citizens) just don't really understand critical theory of any kind.
Because even if you did believe that, it still wouldn't be the first example of that.
Maybe some nerds just happen to work in the film industry?
I always understood the Starcraft weapon to be a reference to the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato (or Uchu senkan Yamato). It featured a pretty freaking big laser of sorts, the Wave Motion Gun (or Hado Hou). The edited American version was known as Starblazers, and is pretty popular.
The near-coincidence of the names is cool, though.
That is interesting. 720p is actually putting out very slightly more data than 1080i, so I guess more HDTVs are using 'cheap' screens that can't handle it? Regardless, it seems silly to decide not to support any of the 3 standard HDTV resolutions, though I wouldn't mind seeing some niche console games designed for a minimum 720p, especially things like shmups.
SCII isn't widescreen because Namco is lazy. :) I suspect a more important reason is that it would change the gameplay a little bit, but it still boils down to them being lazy.
And I would be really pissed if future games didn't allow a progressive display. The resolution of 1080i is very impressive, but I would still take something like 720p over it any day. Interlacing just sucks. Another important reason to shy away from it is not all HDTV displays support 1080i, so you would be abandoning that (large, by HDTV standards) market.
And I believe Tony Hawk 4 (and maybe 3) also does 720p, along with a few other games.
Yeah, I mean Romero has been so goddamn noisy for the past five years or so. When the hell will that bastard shut up?
Have to agree with the parent post. Go is a really fun strategy game, and unfathomably deep.
If you are into anime or manga at all, I suggest you check out Hikaru no Go. It is a surprisingly accomplished series, especially considering its silly premise and intended audience of young Japanese boys.
This is a great site that really helped me learn Go. I also advise you to grab one of the numerous Go playing programs and start with a smaller board for a few weeks. Have fun!