So, is Microsoft competing with Nintendo and Sony, or is it not? You can't say that Microsoft's changed the battlefield, that they're now no longer competing with Nintendo and Sony, and then say "the console wars are over."
Of course they're still competing with Nintendo and Sony. Yes, the 360 has some impressive specs. Yes, it's got some fancy new features. Is it still a console? Um... yes. So, it's going to compete with the Revolution and the PS3.
Microsoft's been talking about merging the PC and console gaming markets for a while now, and the X-Box 360 definitely shows that. So, it has a slightly different focus than the Revolution or the PS3, but it's still a console, and it's still aimed towards console gamers (among others, to be sure).
As far as winning the console wars? I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets tired of hearing that about systems that haven't even hit the market yet. Can we please stop saying that some piece of machinery has won a battle that hasn't even begun?
It's easy to imagine a clutter of cubes picking themselves up and walking towards you.
Maybe I've been playing too much of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection recently, but I just pictured a mass of these robots flying across the room only to join into one large robot that starts firing laser bullets out of its eye at me.
I can't be the only one who saw this one coming, but there's a question that's been brewing in my mind ever since I heard of the Revolution being WiFi enabled...
If the Revolution is backwards compatible with the Gamecube, and the DS is backwards compatible with the GBA (albeit without multiplayer), is there any chance of a Revolution-DS connection being backwards compatible with the Gamecube-GBA connection?
Has anyone covered such a possibility? Perhaps with E3 around the corner, someone will pop the question, but to date, I haven't seen anyone even consider it. If there's any sort of press on this, I'd love a link.
I have a friend that works for Microsoft, too. Really brilliant guy. Anyway, from what I'm given to understand (and you may have more insight into this than I do), this kind of stuff happens a lot with their employees. I think employee morale is really important to Microsoft; they want everyone to be really psyched up and feel good about the projects they work on.
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I also think it goes too far too often. I've seen my friend get caught up in the buzzwords, and I'm like, "Chris... (My friend's name is Chris, too), can you tone down the marketing a bit? I think I just heard the programmer inside you cry."
Imagine... a few years after saving the world in Wind Waker, Link decides to settle into the peaceful life of a sheep herder. Kind of what it might look like, huh?
I do not believe all online games are inherently bad or evil.
But I do know, however, that some of the game manufacturers do require their game developers to have degrees in psychology to make them even more addictive.
Um, no. No they do not. What game developers might do is hire a Psychologist who has studied Human Computer Interaction, a branch of Cognitive Psychology which is concerned with, among other things, the usability of computer software.
As games become more complex, it becomes necessary to design an interface which is easily used, but not restrictive. Anyone who's played an MMORPG knows the importance of a good HUD. That's what's at hand here; game developers are hiring more Cognitive Psychologists to aid in the design of their game's interface.
The area of Psychology she's referring to is Psychopathology (i.e., "mental illness"). Psychologists in this realm study addiction... very different from those who study HCI.
Maybe this is some FUD she picked up from her lawyer, Jack Thompson? (Refer to second article)
As a few people have mentioned, this idea seems very akin to just having a raw, uncompressed audio format, like WAV, which I would agree. However, the thought occured to me, what if future audio files were distributed in a truly raw data file, unable to be played until it was converted to a popular format?
What kind of security risk would this provide? We've already heard about the adware that can crop up in media files. Imagine, 1337 h4x0rz creating a corrupted raw audio file that, when formatted, causes a buffer overflow...
I guess that since this is already happening to some degree, it wouldn't be anything new, but with a raw data file taking on any arbitrary audio format, could this pose an increased risk of malicious media files?
As a person who has programmed using various graphics APIs, I must say that there is not much difference in difficulty or "friendliness" between DirectX and OpenGL. There is also little technical difference; what you can accomplish in one, you can accomplish in the other just as easily.
The key difference is that DirectX is more widely supported in games than OpenGL. Why? My guess is that it largely has to do with hardware support. Notice that for a while there, video card manufacturers stopped advertising support for OpenGL? It's not that they actually stopped supporting it, but rather, there weren't many updates to OpenGL in the past.
With consistent updates to their API, Microsoft gave hardware manufacturers an opportunity to make more money on upgrades every couple of years, as they could support DirectX 7, then 8, 9... and so on. Certainly, they could continue to create more powerful video cards, capable of crunching bigger numbers faster, but if the games are using a newer DirectX, then the hardware is essentially useless. In return, Microsoft establishes dominance of its own, proprietary API.
This is versus what?...still supporting OpenGL, roughly unchanged and unimproved? It's popped back into the spotlight recently, and this is more than likely due to things like a major update (OpenGL 2.0) and John Carmak's adoption of OpenGL in Doom 3.
In the end, the game developers will use whatever graphics API is best supported by hardware, and for the past several years, this has been DirectX. The choice is not based on difficulty, I assure you.
*Note: I am aware that OpenGL lacks any sound API, but there is of course OpenAL or SDL, to which similar arguments apply.
"Hey, buddy...it's been a while. Don't worry about sleeping with my girlfriend; that's all in the past. Anyway, check out this awesome demo disc. Viewtiful Joe 2 is so awesome. Merry Christmas!"
"According to http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=82 72&page=10 [pcvsconsole.com] Xbox sales were somewhat higher. But it's the WWW -- don't believe half of what you read, and none of what you read."
Where exactly did you specify that you were referring to the headline and not the article?
Just to clarify, check your own source. The information you provided was on the wrong week. Going forward a page provides the proper information.
Here's the correct link: http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php ?tid=82 72&page=11
And for those who don't like to follow the links: October 11 - 17, 2004 Game Boy Advance SP - 35,280 PlayStation 2 - 22,470 GameCube - 4,368 Game Boy Advance - 633 Xbox - 173 PSone - 60 Wonder Swan Crystal - 38
To quote the Joystiq article: "Notably, it beat the Playstation 2 redesign and, of course, Microsoft's Xbox (which sold a whopping 173 units)."
So, yes, the Joystiq article was not incorrect in the number of X-Box units shipped that week. I realize that this was an easy mistake to make; please be more cautious in the future.
How fitting that this article should come out, as I've been on in constant euphoria playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the past week.
It's as I was telling a friend a couple days ago: I loved it when video game companies could increase their already vice-like grip on the market by taking a tried, tested, and true concept and adding a "Super" in front of it.
"Hey kids, Sonic is pretty fuh, huh?" "Sure, I guess...it's a little old now." "Oh, really? Uh,...well...did I mention Sonic...uh,...can be Super Sonic, now?" "Wow!!!"
Of course, when that got old, just change "Super" to "Hyper" (or, alternatively/additionally, throw in a "Turbo", "Ultra", "Mega", or perhaps "Neo").
Sure, it's the same old formula: Make the Chaos Emeralds into SUPER Chaos Emeralds, then instead of Sonic going SUPER Sonic, he goes HYPER Sonic......but I'll tell you one thing, beating the crap out of Robotnik in the Doomsday Zone as Hyper Sonic has to be the best final battle I've played in any action game of its time.
I can't speak for electronic music in general, but at least concerning video game music, I think the article is a bit backwards. It claims that by catering to realistic sound, modern game music is detracting from artistic innovation.
I have to disagree. Certainly, I would say my favorite video game music spans from the NES days (Mega Man 2's soundtrack, being my favorite), but I see nothing lacking in the quality or enchantment of modern game music.
Chrono Cross has a wonderful soundtrack, with a celtic flare and realistic sound. Any recent Zelda game has a beautiful arrangement of sounds and music. How about Nobuo Uematsu, taking the music of Final Fantasy and performing it with more traditional, rock instruments in his recent album, The Black Mages?
These are all examples of modern video game music composers "imitating" classic sounds and stylings, yet I would still consider them innovative and artistic.
It's not necessarily antithetical to art to embrace technology, yet still utilize the familiar sounds of preceding works of music. Sometimes, there is a convergence of new technology with older music. What about when the Beatles started experimenting with using orchestras in their work? I think that was pretty innovative.
I think that perhaps the most bizarre argument in the article is that by imitating realistic sounds, modern video game music composers are limiting themselves. Yet, by reverting to an earlier technology, they would be free to innovate. If they're utilizing the technology given them to create the music they have visioned in their heads, it's not being limited. Explain to me how utilizing the full range and capability of modern electronic music is more limiting than sticking to an earlier era of electronic music technology.
I would say that the art of a video game music composition comes not from an adherence to sounding realistic or synthetic; it comes from the individual composer's vision. If Yasunori Mitsuda had the vision of a celtic theme for Chrono Cross, and decided to make the music sound like real instruments rather than *BLOOPS* and *BLEEPS*, then he achieved his vision, and his work is art.
Since they're ostensibly pulling a "Duke Nukem Forever" on us, until I can hold one in my hands, this aptly named "Phantom" will be no more to me than a mere ghost.
Incidentally, I seem to remember there being some big news about how the Phantom would be at E3. I don't think I've heard anything of it since. I didn't see anything in my most recent EGM; I believe Slashdot hasn't had a story about said E3 appearance. Has anybody seen any article about the Phantom showing at E3?
As a programmer, I'm a little insulted. This guy seems to ignore that many of today's game designers do not come from a highly technical background,...at least not as technical as the programmers. Furthermore, much of the design either comes from or is altered by the producers. That means that much of the content is swayed by people that don't necessarily have 'any' technical background; they're business people, not programmers or software engineers.
Many of the bigger names in the industry 'are' technical, but they're also artistic, and they mainly hail from the days where only 2 people may be working on a game, forcing programming and artistic expression into one condensed job. However, these people are the exception, and the majority of people who influence the content of video games at this point have little to no technical knowledge of the games they're creating.
The author makes a good point, and more artistic creativity wouldn't hurt the creation of games. I'm just not sure he targeted the problem correctly.
A recent study shows a strong correlation between raping wombats and breathing air, even stronger than that of the correlation between smoking and lung cancer.
Did you know that 100% of people who rape wombats also breathe air? This astonishing statistic puts anyone who breathes air at risk of wombatphilia. If you breathe air, please, seek professional psychological help immediately.
As has been mentioned by many of the previous posts, numbers can be beneficial for a number of reasons. However, I can see two major downfalls to using numbers: one on the part of the readers and one on the part of the reviewers.
With rating numbers, readers are allowed to skip over the actual review, ignoring details, and comparing games solely on the basis of how one's number stacks up to another's number. Of course this isn't a "bad" thing. Perhaps that's all the information the reader wants or needs. The reason I label this a downfall is only because the reader may skip over some vital information that the reviewer was trying to get across.
The other thing is that with a large range of values (0 - 10 with half values), what's the difference between a 7 and a 7.5? Moreover, what do the numbers really "mean?" On a 5 point scale, one could interpret the scores as Very Poor, Poor, Average, Great, and Very Great. But on a larger scale, what does it mean to have a Very Great, a Very Very Great, and a Very Very Very Very Very...(and so on) score?
It's well known that people will interpret a score of 5 out of 10 to be "poor" rather than "average," and it's quite natural for people to review something closer to 7 or 8 if they think a game is just "good" rather than giving it a score of 5 or 6, even though that would be more accurate. This causes ambiguity and may not be the clearest indication of what the reviewer intended. Though someone may want to rate a 4 out of 5 game a little higher than another 4 out of 5 game, the difference should be made in the actual review, rather than relying on a potentially ambiguous 7 out of 10 vs. 7.5 out of 10.
Of course, if a publication did make use of a 5 point scale, this takes us back to the intention of this article: Is that enough to really indicate how poor/good a game is? Not by itself, no, but it's a clearer indication of how a game stacks up overall, and with the accompanying review, a smaller range for the ratings is far clearer than a larger range without as much potential for downfalls.
How about we stop just doling out driver's licenses as though everyone should have one? It's not perfect; stupid drivers will probably still be able to get their hands on a vehicle, but I'm certain it'll at least impact the number of idiots out on the road.
Who's been giving these people a license to drive, anyway? That guy who's trying to inch his way through on-coming traffic, even though there's a big, large sign saying NO LEFT TURN...how did he get a license? How about that person in front of me on the freeway slamming on the brakes while it's raining? How did that license ever come to be?
Perhaps before we start trying to save the stupid drivers, we should save ourselves by not letting them drive.
So, basically, we're talking about a "pacing" issue, right? It's actually a relatively simple, and often used, technique in videogame AI.
Create a fitness value for the player based on whatever criteria you feel best indicates the skill level of the player (Time to complete a stage, Amount of damage taken, Accuracy rating, etc.). Measure the player's actual value against some expected value. Then, adjust certain game parameters (Enemy firing rate/accuracy, Availability of health packs, etc.) to compensate for the player's skill level.
There are certainly details to consider, such as how far back we consider the player's fitness criteria (the last few levels or the entire game?), the frequency/magnitude of "adjustment", or what expected value should be used for comparison. However, these details are usually adjusted through repeated trial-and-error testing.
The new Splinter Cell doesn't seem to hold much more to it's AI than that, but of course, I couldn't say; I didn't develop the game.
More sophisticated adaptive AI in videogames (incidentally, the subject of my thesis) is certainly feasible and has been done to a slight degree already, but as the focus in videogame development remains dependent on a) making the game "look" good and b) getting the game to market, AI takes a back seat and programmers must rely on quick and easy solutions, like pacing.
The real question is: When videogames begin using more sophisticated techniques and stronger AI, will many people believe it? This is the Turing Test, only you know ahead of time that you're interacting with a computer.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the author wrote this entirely about my most recent ex.
Victoria, are you listening? This is why you're such a bitch!
So, is Microsoft competing with Nintendo and Sony, or is it not? You can't say that Microsoft's changed the battlefield, that they're now no longer competing with Nintendo and Sony, and then say "the console wars are over."
Of course they're still competing with Nintendo and Sony. Yes, the 360 has some impressive specs. Yes, it's got some fancy new features. Is it still a console? Um... yes. So, it's going to compete with the Revolution and the PS3.
Microsoft's been talking about merging the PC and console gaming markets for a while now, and the X-Box 360 definitely shows that. So, it has a slightly different focus than the Revolution or the PS3, but it's still a console, and it's still aimed towards console gamers (among others, to be sure).
As far as winning the console wars? I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets tired of hearing that about systems that haven't even hit the market yet. Can we please stop saying that some piece of machinery has won a battle that hasn't even begun?
It's easy to imagine a clutter of cubes picking themselves up and walking towards you.
Maybe I've been playing too much of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection recently, but I just pictured a mass of these robots flying across the room only to join into one large robot that starts firing laser bullets out of its eye at me.
Stop this research now!
I can't be the only one who saw this one coming, but there's a question that's been brewing in my mind ever since I heard of the Revolution being WiFi enabled...
If the Revolution is backwards compatible with the Gamecube, and the DS is backwards compatible with the GBA (albeit without multiplayer), is there any chance of a Revolution-DS connection being backwards compatible with the Gamecube-GBA connection?
Has anyone covered such a possibility? Perhaps with E3 around the corner, someone will pop the question, but to date, I haven't seen anyone even consider it. If there's any sort of press on this, I'd love a link.
I think I've heard of this robot somewhere before.
I have a friend that works for Microsoft, too. Really brilliant guy. Anyway, from what I'm given to understand (and you may have more insight into this than I do), this kind of stuff happens a lot with their employees. I think employee morale is really important to Microsoft; they want everyone to be really psyched up and feel good about the projects they work on.
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I also think it goes too far too often. I've seen my friend get caught up in the buzzwords, and I'm like, "Chris... (My friend's name is Chris, too), can you tone down the marketing a bit? I think I just heard the programmer inside you cry."
Last time my computer crashed (thanks to Win98), I responded by meeting my first girlfriend and making out with her for hours.
:'(
Now I run Linux on my PC... I guess this means I'll never have another girlfriend.
Imagine... a few years after saving the world in Wind Waker, Link decides to settle into the peaceful life of a sheep herder. Kind of what it might look like, huh?
From the article:
I do not believe all online games are inherently bad or evil.
But I do know, however, that some of the game manufacturers do require their game developers to have degrees in psychology to make them even more addictive.
Um, no. No they do not. What game developers might do is hire a Psychologist who has studied Human Computer Interaction, a branch of Cognitive Psychology which is concerned with, among other things, the usability of computer software.
As games become more complex, it becomes necessary to design an interface which is easily used, but not restrictive. Anyone who's played an MMORPG knows the importance of a good HUD. That's what's at hand here; game developers are hiring more Cognitive Psychologists to aid in the design of their game's interface.
The area of Psychology she's referring to is Psychopathology (i.e., "mental illness"). Psychologists in this realm study addiction... very different from those who study HCI.
Maybe this is some FUD she picked up from her lawyer, Jack Thompson? (Refer to second article)
As a few people have mentioned, this idea seems very akin to just having a raw, uncompressed audio format, like WAV, which I would agree. However, the thought occured to me, what if future audio files were distributed in a truly raw data file, unable to be played until it was converted to a popular format?
What kind of security risk would this provide? We've already heard about the adware that can crop up in media files. Imagine, 1337 h4x0rz creating a corrupted raw audio file that, when formatted, causes a buffer overflow...
I guess that since this is already happening to some degree, it wouldn't be anything new, but with a raw data file taking on any arbitrary audio format, could this pose an increased risk of malicious media files?
As a person who has programmed using various graphics APIs, I must say that there is not much difference in difficulty or "friendliness" between DirectX and OpenGL. There is also little technical difference; what you can accomplish in one, you can accomplish in the other just as easily.
...still supporting OpenGL, roughly unchanged and unimproved? It's popped back into the spotlight recently, and this is more than likely due to things like a major update (OpenGL 2.0) and John Carmak's adoption of OpenGL in Doom 3.
The key difference is that DirectX is more widely supported in games than OpenGL. Why? My guess is that it largely has to do with hardware support. Notice that for a while there, video card manufacturers stopped advertising support for OpenGL? It's not that they actually stopped supporting it, but rather, there weren't many updates to OpenGL in the past.
With consistent updates to their API, Microsoft gave hardware manufacturers an opportunity to make more money on upgrades every couple of years, as they could support DirectX 7, then 8, 9... and so on. Certainly, they could continue to create more powerful video cards, capable of crunching bigger numbers faster, but if the games are using a newer DirectX, then the hardware is essentially useless. In return, Microsoft establishes dominance of its own, proprietary API.
This is versus what?
In the end, the game developers will use whatever graphics API is best supported by hardware, and for the past several years, this has been DirectX. The choice is not based on difficulty, I assure you.
*Note: I am aware that OpenGL lacks any sound API, but there is of course OpenAL or SDL, to which similar arguments apply.
They're more or less icons at this point, rather than just mascots.
"Hey, buddy...it's been a while. Don't worry about sleeping with my girlfriend; that's all in the past. Anyway, check out this awesome demo disc. Viewtiful Joe 2 is so awesome. Merry Christmas!"
"According to http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=82 72&page=10 [pcvsconsole.com] Xbox sales were somewhat higher. But it's the WWW -- don't believe half of what you read, and none of what you read."
Where exactly did you specify that you were referring to the headline and not the article?
Thank you.
Just to clarify, check your own source. The information you provided was on the wrong week. Going forward a page provides the proper information.
p ?tid=82 72&page=11
Here's the correct link:
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.ph
And for those who don't like to follow the links:
October 11 - 17, 2004
Game Boy Advance SP - 35,280
PlayStation 2 - 22,470
GameCube - 4,368
Game Boy Advance - 633
Xbox - 173
PSone - 60
Wonder Swan Crystal - 38
To quote the Joystiq article:
"Notably, it beat the Playstation 2 redesign and, of course, Microsoft's Xbox (which sold a whopping 173 units)."
So, yes, the Joystiq article was not incorrect in the number of X-Box units shipped that week. I realize that this was an easy mistake to make; please be more cautious in the future.
How fitting that this article should come out, as I've been on in constant euphoria playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the past week.
...but I'll tell you one thing, beating the crap out of Robotnik in the Doomsday Zone as Hyper Sonic has to be the best final battle I've played in any action game of its time.
It's as I was telling a friend a couple days ago: I loved it when video game companies could increase their already vice-like grip on the market by taking a tried, tested, and true concept and adding a "Super" in front of it.
"Hey kids, Sonic is pretty fuh, huh?"
"Sure, I guess...it's a little old now."
"Oh, really? Uh,...well...did I mention Sonic...uh,...can be Super Sonic, now?"
"Wow!!!"
Of course, when that got old, just change "Super" to "Hyper" (or, alternatively/additionally, throw in a "Turbo", "Ultra", "Mega", or perhaps "Neo").
Sure, it's the same old formula: Make the Chaos Emeralds into SUPER Chaos Emeralds, then instead of Sonic going SUPER Sonic, he goes HYPER Sonic...
I can't speak for electronic music in general, but at least concerning video game music, I think the article is a bit backwards. It claims that by catering to realistic sound, modern game music is detracting from artistic innovation.
I have to disagree. Certainly, I would say my favorite video game music spans from the NES days (Mega Man 2's soundtrack, being my favorite), but I see nothing lacking in the quality or enchantment of modern game music.
Chrono Cross has a wonderful soundtrack, with a celtic flare and realistic sound. Any recent Zelda game has a beautiful arrangement of sounds and music. How about Nobuo Uematsu, taking the music of Final Fantasy and performing it with more traditional, rock instruments in his recent album, The Black Mages?
These are all examples of modern video game music composers "imitating" classic sounds and stylings, yet I would still consider them innovative and artistic.
It's not necessarily antithetical to art to embrace technology, yet still utilize the familiar sounds of preceding works of music. Sometimes, there is a convergence of new technology with older music. What about when the Beatles started experimenting with using orchestras in their work? I think that was pretty innovative.
I think that perhaps the most bizarre argument in the article is that by imitating realistic sounds, modern video game music composers are limiting themselves. Yet, by reverting to an earlier technology, they would be free to innovate. If they're utilizing the technology given them to create the music they have visioned in their heads, it's not being limited. Explain to me how utilizing the full range and capability of modern electronic music is more limiting than sticking to an earlier era of electronic music technology.
I would say that the art of a video game music composition comes not from an adherence to sounding realistic or synthetic; it comes from the individual composer's vision. If Yasunori Mitsuda had the vision of a celtic theme for Chrono Cross, and decided to make the music sound like real instruments rather than *BLOOPS* and *BLEEPS*, then he achieved his vision, and his work is art.
"Currently, users must reset their Xbox if they initiate or receive four or more challenges if they wish to send or receive game invites."
That's not a bug in your game; that's merely a feature of using a Microsoft platform.
Since they're ostensibly pulling a "Duke Nukem Forever" on us, until I can hold one in my hands, this aptly named "Phantom" will be no more to me than a mere ghost.
Incidentally, I seem to remember there being some big news about how the Phantom would be at E3. I don't think I've heard anything of it since. I didn't see anything in my most recent EGM; I believe Slashdot hasn't had a story about said E3 appearance. Has anybody seen any article about the Phantom showing at E3?
I like to get pulled over and ticketed in small towns for going 3 mph over the speed limit.
Wait! No, I don't!
As a programmer, I'm a little insulted. This guy seems to ignore that many of today's game designers do not come from a highly technical background,...at least not as technical as the programmers. Furthermore, much of the design either comes from or is altered by the producers. That means that much of the content is swayed by people that don't necessarily have 'any' technical background; they're business people, not programmers or software engineers.
Many of the bigger names in the industry 'are' technical, but they're also artistic, and they mainly hail from the days where only 2 people may be working on a game, forcing programming and artistic expression into one condensed job. However, these people are the exception, and the majority of people who influence the content of video games at this point have little to no technical knowledge of the games they're creating.
The author makes a good point, and more artistic creativity wouldn't hurt the creation of games. I'm just not sure he targeted the problem correctly.
A recent study shows a strong correlation between raping wombats and breathing air, even stronger than that of the correlation between smoking and lung cancer.
Did you know that 100% of people who rape wombats also breathe air? This astonishing statistic puts anyone who breathes air at risk of wombatphilia. If you breathe air, please, seek professional psychological help immediately.
As has been mentioned by many of the previous posts, numbers can be beneficial for a number of reasons. However, I can see two major downfalls to using numbers: one on the part of the readers and one on the part of the reviewers.
With rating numbers, readers are allowed to skip over the actual review, ignoring details, and comparing games solely on the basis of how one's number stacks up to another's number. Of course this isn't a "bad" thing. Perhaps that's all the information the reader wants or needs. The reason I label this a downfall is only because the reader may skip over some vital information that the reviewer was trying to get across.
The other thing is that with a large range of values (0 - 10 with half values), what's the difference between a 7 and a 7.5? Moreover, what do the numbers really "mean?" On a 5 point scale, one could interpret the scores as Very Poor, Poor, Average, Great, and Very Great. But on a larger scale, what does it mean to have a Very Great, a Very Very Great, and a Very Very Very Very Very...(and so on) score?
It's well known that people will interpret a score of 5 out of 10 to be "poor" rather than "average," and it's quite natural for people to review something closer to 7 or 8 if they think a game is just "good" rather than giving it a score of 5 or 6, even though that would be more accurate. This causes ambiguity and may not be the clearest indication of what the reviewer intended. Though someone may want to rate a 4 out of 5 game a little higher than another 4 out of 5 game, the difference should be made in the actual review, rather than relying on a potentially ambiguous 7 out of 10 vs. 7.5 out of 10.
Of course, if a publication did make use of a 5 point scale, this takes us back to the intention of this article: Is that enough to really indicate how poor/good a game is? Not by itself, no, but it's a clearer indication of how a game stacks up overall, and with the accompanying review, a smaller range for the ratings is far clearer than a larger range without as much potential for downfalls.
How about we stop just doling out driver's licenses as though everyone should have one? It's not perfect; stupid drivers will probably still be able to get their hands on a vehicle, but I'm certain it'll at least impact the number of idiots out on the road.
Who's been giving these people a license to drive, anyway?
That guy who's trying to inch his way through on-coming traffic, even though there's a big, large sign saying NO LEFT TURN...how did he get a license?
How about that person in front of me on the freeway slamming on the brakes while it's raining? How did that license ever come to be?
Perhaps before we start trying to save the stupid drivers, we should save ourselves by not letting them drive.
So, basically, we're talking about a "pacing" issue, right? It's actually a relatively simple, and often used, technique in videogame AI.
Create a fitness value for the player based on whatever criteria you feel best indicates the skill level of the player (Time to complete a stage, Amount of damage taken, Accuracy rating, etc.). Measure the player's actual value against some expected value. Then, adjust certain game parameters (Enemy firing rate/accuracy, Availability of health packs, etc.) to compensate for the player's skill level.
There are certainly details to consider, such as how far back we consider the player's fitness criteria (the last few levels or the entire game?), the frequency/magnitude of "adjustment", or what expected value should be used for comparison. However, these details are usually adjusted through repeated trial-and-error testing.
The new Splinter Cell doesn't seem to hold much more to it's AI than that, but of course, I couldn't say; I didn't develop the game.
More sophisticated adaptive AI in videogames (incidentally, the subject of my thesis) is certainly feasible and has been done to a slight degree already, but as the focus in videogame development remains dependent on a) making the game "look" good and b) getting the game to market, AI takes a back seat and programmers must rely on quick and easy solutions, like pacing.
The real question is: When videogames begin using more sophisticated techniques and stronger AI, will many people believe it? This is the Turing Test, only you know ahead of time that you're interacting with a computer.