And yet Sony seems to be the only company that provides a consistent and well thought out feature set and UI for all of their music players (car, bookshelf, handheld, etc.).
On any Sony music player you know that you can buffer keystrokes, press pause during track seeking to cue up at the beginning of the track, get a true track shuffle instead of amnesiac random play, and initiate shuffle in the middle of a track to start shuffling as soon as the track ends. You can also swap up your shuffle and repeat options at any time without interrupting play.
You might think that this stuff is minor, but try using a Sony music device for an extended period, then switching over to something else. It's like having a limb amputated. Many players don't consistently buffer keystrokes, don't let you cue up tracks on pause, only have pure random play, immediately switch tracks when you initiate random play, etc. And most product reviews don't even cover these sorts of things, so unless you're able to try out the product beforehand you can get totally screwed.
Personally, I think that anyone who makes a car MP3 player that doesn't implement an actual shuffle function needs to be shot. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Panasonic.) With pure random play, an MP3 CD with 8 hours of music will start having an oppressive number of repeats after only 2 or 2.5 hours, which completely defeats the purpose of using the thing on a long road trip. Sony understands this, but many other companies don't. So until the other people figure it out, I'll just have to stick with Sony.
(Yeah, yeah, "just get an iPod and use it everywhere instead." Except I don't want my ability to listen to music to be tied completely to a single expensive device, and I like having the option of listening to uncompressed music of my choosing alongside the compressed library.)
Granted, Jenkins was hardly the best writer the Hulk had ever seen, and the translation of the story to the game wasn't the best, either -- but the game itself was extremely solid and enjoyable, and immensely replayable.
Anyone know where I can find an el cheapo copy of Dungeon Siege for OS X so I can try this out? It doesn't seem to be on sale anymore through the usual channels...
I buy a lot of games, and I often wind up getting them from GameSpot or some similar chain store because I usually like to pick them up on the release date. I've gone to mom & pop shops on occasion, but they've always turned me off for various reasons. Still, the chain stores have some major problems, and I'd happily go to a mom & pop shop if it offered me a better experience.
Here's what I'd suggest. Note that this is purely from a customer's perspective, so it may not jibe with best business practices.
1. Have a clean, uncramped, well-ventilated store. Walk into a chain store in a mall these days and it's so overpacked that you can barely move when you're in there. This really shouldn't be happening when you can use mostly wall space and some sanely placed racks for your product. And ventilation is more important than you might think -- many mom & pop shops have sent me packing because they've consistently smelled like rotting B.O.
2. Have an engaged, knowledgeable, and non-disgusting work force. Hire people with an active interest in games across multiple systems who actually pay attention to what's out and what's coming up, and who can make meaningful recommendations to people. No hypemongers or rabid single-system fanboys, please. And no planetoids with poor hygiene, either. As I mentioned above, if visiting the store becomes an assault on the senses, people won't come back.
3. Don't give me the hard sell. No, I don't want the fucking strategy guide. And don't argue with me when I say I want a new copy instead of a used one. If I come up to the counter and ask for something, just sell it to me without the extra push.
4. Let me try before I buy. Have multiple kiosks for each system and let people try out any game in the store. Have the latest demo discs available too, so people can try out upcoming games.
5. Sell new releases as soon as possible. I don't know the mechanics of this, but occasionally the chain stores will let pre-orderers pick up their game a day early, or they'll sell a huge new release at midnight the night before it would usually be on sale. Most hardcore gamers like to get their new stuff as soon as they can, and whoever can get it in their hands first at a fair price will get their business.
6. Have review information available in-store. This could be as simple as having a public web kiosk that points to Metacritic.com or something similar. You might even be able to convince them to contribute some money toward the kiosk since you'd be driving traffic to their site. Anyway, I mention this because I'll often spot an obscure title in a store and have no way of knowing if it's any good or not. The store employees usually aren't much help (and even good employees can't be familiar with every game out there), so having on-site access to a range of reviews for every game could help close a sale that might not otherwise happen.
7. Have a frequent buyer program with real benefits. Reward loyalty with periodic unrestricted discounts and game-related goodies (e.g. that promotional Prince Of Persia soundtrack CD that came with preorders of POP:T2T at some stores). And give people a one-time discount when they refer a friend to your store.
8. Keep your prices reasonable. Most people understand that mom & pop shops need to bump up their margin a little compared to chain stores, but if you're more than about 5% above the competition you probably won't keep any customers. And even the people who are willing to pay a little extra are only going to do it if they're getting added value from shopping at your store instead of a chain.
You might also consider hosting and/or sponsoring gaming events to get your name out there and build up good will. Even hosting a little weekly Madden tournament in your store with a $20 store credit purse would draw in a decent number of younger customers.
1. As others have mentioned, Sony has massive third-party support and exclusive (or at least time-exclusive) franchise titles like Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, etc. To listen to the author, the only franchises with mass appeal are apparently Halo and Nintendo's first-party titles. Complete nonsense.
2. The 360 only has a DVD drive in it. Many of today's PS2 and XBox titles already fill a whole DVD, and they have much simpler geometry, textures, and FMV clips than most next-gen games will have. 1080i video has about 6 times as many pixels as standard 480i video, so it's not hard to see how the size of textures and FMV clips would balloon just to keep pace with current-gen technology pixel-for-pixel. Then add in the enhanced geometry and the larger variety of assets that increased resources allow (and demand, even, to have that "next-gen" sheen), and you see how storage space will quickly become an issue. It doesn't matter if Microsoft releases an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive for the 360 later on, either -- most publishers won't bother to support it if it doesn't come standard.
3. The PS3 will have a Blu-Ray drive standard. Not only will it hold 6 times as much data as a DVD, but if Blu-Ray becomes the standard for HD video discs (which it certainly seems poised to do), that alone will help push PS3 sales, much like DVD-playing capability helped push PS2 sales. Next-gen consoles are geared toward HD content, so this will be a factor. Potentially a huge one.
4. For a large segment of gamers, XBox Live is not a selling point for the 360. I don't want to have to pay for an extra subscription service in order to play games online. I actually find that concept obscene, and I'm not alone in that opinion. Plus you have all the gamers who can't or just won't play online at all, so that won't impact their buying decision.
The way I see it, the 360 is pretty much only going to appeal to XBox fanboys and uber-hardcore gamers who already buy every system, and neither of those groups undercut Sony's potential market. Assuming the PS3 doesn't massively suck and they don't steal some major Sony franchise, the only way for Microsoft to gain ground at Sony's expense is to get current PS2 owners to pony up for the 360 early on, but then be so satisfied or starved for cash that they don't consider getting a PS3 later.
That level of supreme satisfaction seems unlikely given the huge franchises in Sony's pocket, and the cash angle seems pretty flimsy since it expects that someone who's willing to pay $400 to have a next-gen system right now would be completely unwilling to drop the same amount the following year on a system with some obvious advantages that'll also play all their existing PS2 and PS games.
Sorry, but the author seems disconnected from reality here...
> It might actually be cool to play a game in which all powerups and damage were handled very realistically, where if you lost an arm, you'd have to go through the rest of the game without it.
I'd love to see it, personally. But the gaming public at large just won't accept that sort of lack of forgiveness in a game anymore. For example, look at the uproar over the lack of an in-level save in Aliens vs. Predator 2 (an intentional design choice to heighten tension and force you to legitimately survive) -- I think they had a quicksave patch out within a month or two.
And have we ever seen a fighting game where you could break limbs and they'd stay broken for the rest of the fight? The closest thing I can think of is Time Killers, where you could hack off one or both arms and the other player could keep going without them. The game stunk, though.
> Hmmm... what does the game seem to think of that attribute? Thing about a complete bastard doing things we don't approve of at our behest...
Kratos was chosen partly because of certain enhancements he'd received from his former association with Ares, but mainly because his desire for vengeance was so single-mindedly strong that the other gods felt he was the only human who could actually do what was necessary to take down the god of war. And there was another significant reason, but I can't say what it is without spoiling the story.
> I think a lot of games don't do that because they raise the question: "Why are we helping this guy slaughter innocent people?"
Yes, though that's not the focus of the game. Much like Manhunt, this is an evil person being pitted against forces that are just as evil, if not slightly moreso. Someone committing horrible acts in the service of something ostensibly good, even though they couldn't care less about doing the right thing. I think that's an interesting dynamic.
> I guess I disagree because I don't consider its use to be offensive. I don't think you've proven your point there sufficently.
To me, some cute icon that's jarringly out of place completely shatters the illusion of the experience. Even the medical kits in Splinter Cell nearly break the experience, because the idea of instant health regeneration in that environment is patently absurd.
> If he *wasn't* a random badass then maybe it'd be easier to get with.
I actually like the fact that he's unapologetically evil. It's rare to have a main character that isn't given at least some kind of rogueish charm or hidden nobility. Kratos isn't a traditional "badass" -- he's a genuine bastard. He doesn't care if Athens burns or not, and he'll cut down anyone who gets in his way, even if they're innocent. He just wants revenge against Ares. But that desire for vengeance is misplaced, because Kratos was an enthusiastic participant in the very things he wound up holding against Ares. And even the one aspect of Kratos's past that's superficially sympathetic is completely negated by the character's own choices, so he's totally irredeemable. I think that's a lot more interesting than yet another hero setting out to save the world...
> Before releasing Pong, Nolan Bushnell & company produced Computer Space, the first arcade video game and somewhat similar (I think I heard) to Space War, but it was not popular, probably because it was too complex.
That's probably what they had at the arcade when I was a kid, then. It was basically 2-player Asteroids minus the asteroids, plus the option of having a variable-strength gravity well in the middle of the screen either with or without an accompanying planet that would destroy you on contact. The controls were all buttons -- rotation, thrust, firing, and I think a shield.
> What were we talking about here, again?
The idea of using a heart icon for health restoration in a realistic-toned game like Splinter Cell. I felt that was basically impossible without ruining the tone of the game, and you disagreed, but hadn't really explained how it could be pulled off inoffensively.
> Gameplay footage looks mostly like yet another "guy slays bunches of monsters in 3D using combos and special moves through a series of linear levels" game.
And that's basically spot-on, though the linear paths are all seamlessly connected in a non-linear way, so you can backtrack or take shortcuts at will. The thing about God Of War, both in terms of gameplay and of story, is that it's not even remotely innovative -- it's just incredibly well-executed.
> I've also heard PoP:SoT had a good story, but I probably won't get around to playing it. Not that I have anything against it... just that there's such a lot of games to play that I'll probably never be able to find time for.
It's a pretty short game, actually. Probably 8-12 hours the first time through, though it can be completed in as little as 2.5 hours if you know exactly what you're doing. It's a very satisfying story with a great ending, and the game looks and plays like a dream. Well worth the investment.
Couldn't find any cumulative numbers, though I did find this story which casts the Wikipedia numbers in severe doubt, since GTA:SA sold 5.1 million units in 2004 alone, and I think that's only a domestic figure.
Google yields plenty of stories citing the game as the fastest-selling game of all time, plus a couple from the UK and Australia talking about moving 1 million units in both places in the first week or so.
I admit that I've just heard the "#1 selling game of all time" line tossed around so much that I simply assumed it was true. It's possible that it's not.
> Watch the words, "doesn't cut it anymore." For its time, and for an arcade-only machine, Pong was quite a hit.
As a novelty. But Pong doesn't have the lasting appeal of something like Space War, which I believe came out even earlier.
> But the fact remains that Pong is more accessable to people who've never played a video game before than GTA games, and there are still many more such people than gamers.
More accessible, yes. More appreciable to the masses on either merits or aesthetics? I doubt it.
> Well, it could still be done I think without wrecking the tone.
I really don't see how.
> those kits aren't exactly realistic either, though in a different way.
Quite true.
> Care to elaborate upon the storytelling in [God Of War]?
Well, the spoiler-free answer is that in their particular spin on Greek mythology, Ares is leading a massive assault on Athens, but the gods are forbidden to directly interfere with the affairs of other gods, so Athena and others are forced to recruit an extremely evil human being (your character) with former ties to Ares and guide him toward how to grant himself the power to kill Ares outright. There are some interesting turns to the story, despite the fact that many of them are predictable -- and in that respect it's much like the rest of the game, which is a collection of extremely well-polished and well-executed clichés.
Oh, I enjoyed the story in Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, too. A fantastic game with characters that you actually cared about.
> And I also disagree that more people would enjoy Pong over GTA:SA.
I assume you meant "GTA:SA over Pong". Since GTA:SA is the #1 selling video game of all time, I don't think the raw numbers are on your side. Yes, Pong is still fun...for about 10 minutes. But after experiencing evolutionary games like Warlords or Arkanoid, Pong just doesn't cut it anymore for long-term enjoyment.
> The gang-banger theme of SA really turned me and my friends off when we rented it.
A rental just can't do that game justice. New gameplay elements are steadily introduced pretty much all the way through the main narrative, and the tone of the game changes considerably once you get beyond Los Santos.
> Unless that thing is not important to the plot, but instead speaks something about the story in a different way, or is used instead to modulate the viewer's expectations [...]
But that justification could be applied to just about anything that someone might label as extraneous -- so really, you're just backing up my position.
> I still don't quite see what adding hearts does to ruin a game.
It's a matter of tone. It's fine for cutesy games, but it's a hammer to the forehead when it's used in games that are intended to be darker or more serious. Can you imagine how absurd it would look if heart icons were used in Splinter Cell?
> I don't think we've seen many great examples of storytelling in games yet
Nothing that's been pitch-perfect yet, but there have been some really strong ones. I'm no big Kojima fan (I thought MGS2 sucked after leaving the tanker), but I have to say that despite the sporadic goofiness, Metal Gear Solid 3 really worked as a story. You actually cared about the characters, and the game was able to elicit emotional responses from you.
I also enjoyed how Guardian Heroes took on religion and genre conventions in its multiple story branches, showing the dark side of the ostensible "good guys" and the sympathetic aspects of the supposed "bad guys". And it let you choose which side to back, or just go your own way.
God Of War had a pretty decent story too, albeit a predictable one.
> False! Many arcade games have followed this pattern.
Touché. Though I meant losing in the local, situational sense, not in the overall sense.
> Pong is still playable today, and since it is a versus game, it's actually a way of testing the players against each other, rather than against a scripted set of missions, which means it's *possible* get tired of GTA:SA before Pong.
Ah, but GTA:SA has 2-player free-roaming co-op play, as well as 2-player rampages. And its open-ended design allows you to roll your own mayhem for theoretically endless enjoyment. And don't forget that GTA:SA also has several embedded old-school video games, including a Gyruss clone and a game that's an interesting mixture of Asteroids and Ikaruga. They keep high score lists and everything.
There's even an entire subculture of people who create stunt videos using the GTA games -- a subculture which I just joined, as a matter of fact. You can check out my very first stunt video here, if you're interested.
> I know people who would never play a game like GTA:SA, but would love Pong.
True, though you must admit that there are a lot more people who feel exactly the opposite.
> **All other things being equal,** then fewer game elements do automatically make for a better game, for the same reason movies should not contain unnecessary characters, or novels unnecessary plot threads.
I completely disagree with this. The stripping of extraneous elements from movies makes most of them completely predictable. If a character makes a reference to something that doesn't seem to apply to the plot, you know it's going to be important later. If a minor character appears and doesn't seem to play much of a role, you know that's going to change later on. It's especially problematic in thrillers where the identity of the bad guy is supposed to be a mystery, because it almost always screams out the identity of the guy before the actual reveal if you haven't turned your brain off.
Extraneous elements that don't interfere with what you're conveying are perfectly fine, and perhaps even desirable. Back to GTA:SA, the extraneous stuff is part of what makes the game so great. The random comments and responses from pedestrians. The out-of-the-blue plane and car crashes. The spontaneous NPC police chases. Many times you just bear witness to them, but sometimes you get caught in the middle of them, and that's when the really interesting things start to happen. A "pure" game design would never allow for that sort of thing.
> And that's [...] why it could only be designed by an outsider!
Again, I completely disagree. It couldn't be designed by a bean counter or someone with tunnel vision, but it could absolutely be designed by an "insider". In fact, I'd say that's even more likely, because it borrows heavily from two very iconic pieces of video gaming lore.
> There's a certain something in KD that's difficult to put into words.
Well, it has a very bizarre and consistent style to both the music and the visual presentation that gives it extra charm. And working the scope-changing into the gameplay mechanics borders on the revelatory, as things that used to be obstacles or even gameplay areas later become fodder for your ball. That final level is absolutely awe-inspiring.
> No, because you'd also know that your opponent would be more likely to pick the more powerful throw as well.
But you'd know that your opponent would know that, so he'd have to worry about you predicting that he'd try to counter the more powerful choice with the only option that would beat it. And that would raise the importance of the sign that beat the sign that beat the powerful choice, but that one would be beaten by the powerful choice, so when the
Elegance and simplicity don't automatically translate into strength of design. It would be extremely "elegant" to have a game where no matter what you did, you always wound up losing. It just wouldn't be very much fun. It might also be "elegant" to have a flight game that didn't concern itself with wind shear and G forces and the like, but that certainly wouldn't make it a stronger design than a more complex flight simulator.
To put it another way: Pong vs. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Which game has the purer design? Now which one is more engaging? Which is deeper? Which is the better experience?
> Less things to worry about [...] mean a purer play experience.
Purer, yes. Deeper, no. Better? Debatable.
> I find myself wondering about this more and more these days, that part of what is percieved a "balance" exists in the social sphere that surrounds the games.
Probably, though the more vibrant and hardcore gaming scenes tend to weed the subjectivity out of that. Someone will only think that a character stinks until they see someone use them like an expert.
> Katamari Damacy could only have been designed by someone *not* steeped in the history and lore of gaming.
Baloney. KD is a great game, and a breath of fresh air in these days of genre rigidity -- but when it comes right down to it, it's just Marble Madness with tank controls and ever-increasing scale.
> Does that explain things?
Not really.:)
> take Rock, Scissors, Paper. There are exactly as many choices as you need. Add more choices and something is lost.
Yes, within that particular continuum, since the only possible results are win, loss, or tie.
> If you put in, say, a throw that wins over two choices, then it gets picked more often, so it wrecks the game. (Or more accurately, it DOESN'T wreck the game...)
No, it does wreck the game statistically. There's no way to counterbalance it completely in a game that shallow (or should I say "pure"?). Shoving the response proportions around could only mitigate it somewhat -- it'd still be in your interest to pick that choice most of the time.
> But even in well-designed variants like Rock, Scissors, Paper, Spock, Lizard, in which all the choices still have equal power, it's essentially more complex than it needs to be. The soul of the game is in the equality of the choices, everything else is superfluous and should be edited out.
Though in that case a new continuum isn't really being added -- it's just adding extra points on the same win/loss scale. Instead of beating one sign, losing to another, and tying itself, it just beats 2, loses to 2, and still ties itself. That's why the complexity is mostly empty -- there's not really a new dimension added, there's just more noise in the current one.
Now look at games like Set or Quarto which play with variations in shape, color, and texture (and size, in Quarto's case). All of the elements are distinct, yet all are equally important to winning. Is this "impure"? Is this "needlessly complex"? Not at all, because each dimension of the game is pure, and those dimensions interlock in a pure way.
If Paper, Rock, and Scissors is a square, then Set is a cube and Quarto is a hypercube. They're all elegant, but the higher-order structures are a lot more interesting.
> Take that concept and generalize it to the case of video games, and that's a fair bit of what I'm talking about.
It's becoming obvious why you like Nintendo so much. And why I don't.
> I'm still confused why you brought [Altered Beast] up in the first place.
Because it was a clear example of one player avatar being swapped out for a completely different one during the course of
> And yet, having multiple win conditions is always a case of having a weaker design than having a single win condition, because more arbitrary factors are added to the game.
I don't see any rational basis for that statement at all.
> Sure, there *can* be situations where you can go after a health or positioning win, but there also can be situations where you get a similar (though likely not identical) effect in a Ring Out only system.
No, because in the second case the only actual threat is being knocked out of the ring. If your offensive attempt fails, but you weren't in danger of being knocked out yourself, then it's not a dilemma.
> Not necessarily. But we're moving into wholly theoretical realms here, where it's difficult to see how one could convince the other without demonstrations.
If the game is balanced, then each character should have a roughly equal chance of achieving one of the win conditions when used properly. Yes, some characters may be better suited to forcing Ring Outs than to achieving KOs, and vice-versa -- but that doesn't remove the other condition from the picture. If the guy using the bruiser character only concerns himself with health and isn't paying attention to his position, a decent opponent is going to make him pay for that oversight.
> there's a lot of things about game design that are like this, the best ones tend to come way out of left field. To some extent, I suspect both of us are full of crap.
Well, I don't think I'm full of crap, and you still haven't explained that "restricting options" comment...
> A game that isn't *just* about these things, thus, has the potential to be greater than a game that is just about them.
Sure, but that isn't a response to my point at all.
> fighting games are almost as insular a genre as FPSes
This is true. Though it's pretty much impossible to make a competitive game that's satisfying to both button-mashers and tactical players, because the button-mashers want to be 100% effective without a learning curve, while the tactical players won't settle for a system that allows button-mashing to win the day.
> Well there are other instances of this concept in gaming from far before Altered Beast.
Which is why I said the prior art goes back "at least as far as Altered Beast."
> I seem to remember Smash being out a little before Power Stone
I think it came out a month or two earlier, so the development had to be concurrent.
> Their games [...] are closer to the secret soul of gaming than are the rigidly genre-fied games that are everywhere in the industry right now
I'd agree with that to a point (they tend to put gameplay first and try to do new and different things with it), but that's hardly exclusive to Nintendo. The "soul of gaming" was more apparent in the early days partly because the whole thing was new, and partly because the graphics were so primitive that gameplay was the thing that really set titles apart.
And honestly, I think the best Atari and Intellivision games completely trash the best NES games, because they weren't stuck in that Nintendo house style of cutesy graphics, red hearts for health, and an overemphasis on platforming. And the NES's 8-way thumbpad with two buttons was a huge step backward from the Intellivision and Atari 5200 controllers, which had at least 14 buttons and registered 32+ directions. Gaming controllers didn't bounce back from that oversimplified NES style until the Dual Shock appeared.
> I think you're more likely to find a truly inventive game with simple, abstract elements than one that takes pains to look, for example, exactly like a military base on Mars being attacked by demons...
> Replace the words "K.O. your opponent" with "Ring out your opponent" in the sentence. Your scenario is possible under both systems.
No, because being near a boundary automatically creates a Ring Out risk for both players, though not necessarily an equal one. I'm pointing out the extra dimension that having to worry about two different win conditions creates. If health is off the table, you're only concerned about position. But if you have to concern yourself with both position and health (and time, for that matter), it adds a lot more texture to the risk/reward tradeoff. I don't see why you would dispute this.
> This is not always true. People tend to go for the easiest condition.
And those people are novices who will be destroyed by anyone who sees the larger picture.
> Sometimes, added complexity makes a game more shallow!
Only if the complexity introduces imbalances that point you toward a specific subset of exploitable tactics. That's not the case with VF.
> Restricting options based on the individual selections made can add depth, because the individual parts aren't interchangable.
I really don't see what you're trying to say here.
> Guardian Heroes isn't the same kind of game, however, it's a side-scrolling Beat-em-up in the vein of Double Dragon and Final Fight.
Control-wise, it actually has more in common with 2D fighting games than with the brawlers you mentioned. All fighting takes place on one of 3 2D planes, and the controls and special moves resemble Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat much more than Double Dragon or Final Fight. You just happen to be fighting multiple opponents simultaneously.
> Once again, sheer number of possibilities doesn't necessarily make a game deeper. Number of *useable* possibilites is closer, but even then not always.
When a game is about offense, defense, counters, and meta-counters, the number of unique gameplay situations does in fact make the game deeper. Exponentially so.
> in almost all fighting games, sure you can move around in a 3D area, you can move around a bit, but the most important directions, almost exclusively, are "towards the opponent" and "anywhere except towards the opponent."
That's true.
> Smash has a lot of coolness in it, but maybe its best innovation is that other directions mean a lot more, like "away from the gaping pit"
Though not an exclusive innovation, since the first SSB and Power Stone came out around the same time.
> Well if you're going to go to Altered Beast, then the gloves are off
I was simply citing an early reference for swapping out a character with a completely different one -- I wasn't making any comment beyond that.
> Here's a slightly better working definition of balance: that which avoids making one character (or set of characters) more desirable than another, given all possible situations.
And how is that different from the definition I offered? How can a given character be more desirable unless the risk/reward ratio for some of their maneuvers is wildly out of sync with those of the other characters? Highly damaging moves should be proportionately harder to connect with (which can be achieved through tougher timing, more difficult button manipulation, or greater ease of countering). Faster characters should have weaker health or defense. For every benefit there should be a countering drawback, and then you achieve overall balance.
> Nintendo... well, they probably wouldn't have as many fanboys if they didn't do a lot of things right surprisingly often.
I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't begrudge Nintendo any of their success -- they've obviously made quite a few great games over the years, and they've built a lot of brand loyalty as a result. But if you polled the Nintendo fanbo
> But the ONLY way to win a (standard) Smash game is by scoring Ring Outs, scoring damage is merely a means to that end, and that's a lot (but not all) of what's interesting about it.
But your argument was that it made the game deeper. How does being more limited create depth? Isn't it a tougher problem if you have the opportunity to make a move that will K.O. your opponent if you succeed, but leave yourself open to a Ring Out if you fail? Similarly, from the defensive side, you could intentionally take damage from someone who's only thinking about beating you down, then sidestep at the last minute and knock them out of the ring for the win, even though your health is nearly gone. Multiple win conditions automatically make the game more complex.
> And even VF's movement system can't hold up to Smash in this department -- Smash is essentially a full 2D platforming game that happens to have a fight taking place within it.
Quite true. Though the Power Stone games are very much in the same vein as SSBM.
> I'm not referring to raw number of characters here [...] but to the ways in which they are differentiated from each other.
Remove the similar characters from MvC2 and you still have well over 40 very distinct fighters -- everything from screen-filling monstrosities to tiny football-sized robots -- and they can be lumped together in arbitrary teams of 3, giving you a pretty insane arsenal of swap-in combos and simultaneous multi-character attacks.
Or go back to Virtua Fighter 4, where most characters have multiple fighting stances (at least one character has 4 of them) that completely change the way they approach combat. Start working fighting stance changes into your combos and the number of possibilities becomes ridiculous.
> No other fighting game has anything like the Ice Climbers (two characters at once)
Guardian Heroes on the Saturn had the magician Randy with his little rabbit Nando who would attack semi-independently, even though they were controlled by the same player. I believe that Servbot in MvC2 can also call in hordes of similar robots to attack simultaneously. And I'm sure there are other examples.
> or Zelda/Sheik (two characters with opposite styles, switchable at any time - and no, Tag-style games don't count).
There's prior art going at least as far back as Altered Beast for that one. And VF's multiple fighting stances would arguably qualify, too. Also, I don't think it's fair to exclude tag-style games from that dynamic when you can incorporate tags into combo strings, since that's functionally the same thing that you're describing. And in a game like MvC2, that amounts to any character being able to switch to 3 different states out of 56 at any time.
> Smash intentionally has fewer moves (though, again, not as few as it seems at first), but since moving around large areas is more a part of the game, there's more room for aerial attacks, escaping, deathsaving, and surprisingly many other tactics, tactics that never come up in more traditional fighters.
True. Though again, we've seen this sort of thing in the Power Stone series too.
> I'm unsure, again because it's harder to definitively balance something like Smash than VF.
Well, random item drops automatically debalance a game. That's their entire purpose, after all. But leaving that aside, balance is really a matter of making sure that the risk/reward ratio is basically equal for all moves across all characters, and ideally making sure that all characters have the ability to somehow evade, defend, or counter most of the things that can be thrown at them. The less complicated a game is, and the fewer moves each character has, the easier it is to balance.
In fairness, MvC2 isn't even close to being a balanced game -- you team up Cable, Iron Man, and Juggernaut and it's all over for
> it can be argued that it's deeper than those games you mention
Let's see...
> It's not a straight, left-right fighting game. Of course there are 3D fighters like Tekken and SoulCalibur, but they're still essentially about a 2D plane.
Within the context of quasi-realistic fighting, Virtua Fighter 3 made full use of all three dimensions. Battle areas had lots of height variations and some obstacles, and relative positioning in 3-space affected many elements of the battle system. Although VF4 returned to flat rings, you could still move in any direction, and relative positioning still had a major impact on the system. But yes, the vertical part of the game doesn't go much over the 10-foot mark.
> Instead of depleting a health bar, Smash Bros' lose condition involves being knocked off the stage.
The Virtua Fighter series has always been set in rings, so you could win by K.O., Ring Out, or having more health left when time ran out. Beginning with VF3 some walls were introduced, and VF4 added breakable walls to the mix.
> Knocking a player out of an area is an inherently deeper play mechanic than getting an arbitrary number high/low enough.
Having to worry about both at the same time is even deeper.
> Smash has a shield/dodge system that can allow a player to absolutely rule if mastered, but can be played entirely without it.
Virtua Fighter 4 has multi-directional dodges, reversals, and throw escapes that can be stacked in almost arbitrary combinations. This lets expert players defeat a significant subset of the attacks aimed at them, but they still have to predict what their opponent will do and pull off some challenging controller maneuvers to make it happen. That said, novices can still play a pretty deep game without ever touching that part of the system.
> Sheer variety of characters.
SSBM has VF4: Evolution beat (only 16 characters), but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has 56 characters, and each player controls a team of 3. So SSBM is certainly respectable in this category, but not the king of the hill.
Also, you have to ask how much variety each character provides. The movesets in Virtua Fighter are so expansive that three or four different players could have relatively deep, yet completely different playstyles for the same character with very little move overlap. Could you say the same of SSBM...?
> Of course there other fighting games that have some (though not this much) variety
As we've just seen, SSBM isn't the king of variety.
> But the thing about Smash Bros. Melee is that it's still balanced despite it all. That takes an amazing amount of play testing, and genius game designers.
The Virtua Fighter games are renowned for their balance (since VF2, at least), and the development team goes out of their way to respond to player feedback and tweak any small details that may arise over time. With 15 unique characters whose move lists are all as long as your arm, I'd say that's at least as amazing as SSBM's accomplishment.
"I always believed [Super Smash Bros. Melee] was the deepest fighting game of this gaming generation, but from then on, I was convinced it was the deepest fighting game ever."
I guess this guy's never played a Virtua Fighter game before. Or any of Capcom's later-era 2D fighters. Geez.
D'arcy Stern from Urban Chaos was a black female cop in a game whose mechanics were sort of a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider, and it came out well over a year before Grand Theft Auto III. Fun game for its time, too.
Nope. I've never understood the amount of blind worship that Nintendo's gotten over the years. I figure it must come from people younger than me who grew up on the NES and SNES and are overly influenced by nostalgia.
Nintendo's games have always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it's that overly boopsy, kiddie approach, or maybe it's casting that fat, shroom-dropping plumber in the lead role. Maybe it was the way that they fundamentally bastardized every arcade game that was converted to the NES, throwing in gratuitous heart icons and completely changing the structure of the game.
Whatever it is, I have no special place in my heart for Nintendo, and I think it's absurd to give them more than 2 or 3 slots out of the top 10, considering the quality and volume of their competition.
Yeah, the lack of anything pre-NES was pretty ridiculous, and there was an insane amout of bias toward Nintendo games in general. 4 of the top 10 games of all time made by Nintendo? Gimme a break.
If the list was meant to reward genre trailblazers, then skipping proto-RTS/builder games like Sea Battle and Utopia on the Intellivision was a major oversight, as was skipping INTV's sports titles, which were the first to let you call plays and control every character on the field. And don't get me started on all the Atari 2600 games that were overlooked.
If the list was meant to reward pure gameplay quality, then where are the classics that still hold up today, like The Dreadnaught Factor, or damn near any other Activision or Imagic game from the pre-NES period? What about the Colecovision version of Donkey Kong, which was considered to be the first near-perfect home translation of an arcade game?
Granted, they only had 100 slots, and they did include some worthy games that you might not have expected them to (e.g. Herzog Zwei) -- but it's pretty obvious that the editors were weaned on the NES, and that's clouded their perception a bit. Oh well.
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On any Sony music player you know that you can buffer keystrokes, press pause during track seeking to cue up at the beginning of the track, get a true track shuffle instead of amnesiac random play, and initiate shuffle in the middle of a track to start shuffling as soon as the track ends. You can also swap up your shuffle and repeat options at any time without interrupting play.
You might think that this stuff is minor, but try using a Sony music device for an extended period, then switching over to something else. It's like having a limb amputated. Many players don't consistently buffer keystrokes, don't let you cue up tracks on pause, only have pure random play, immediately switch tracks when you initiate random play, etc. And most product reviews don't even cover these sorts of things, so unless you're able to try out the product beforehand you can get totally screwed.
Personally, I think that anyone who makes a car MP3 player that doesn't implement an actual shuffle function needs to be shot. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Panasonic.) With pure random play, an MP3 CD with 8 hours of music will start having an oppressive number of repeats after only 2 or 2.5 hours, which completely defeats the purpose of using the thing on a long road trip. Sony understands this, but many other companies don't. So until the other people figure it out, I'll just have to stick with Sony.
(Yeah, yeah, "just get an iPod and use it everywhere instead." Except I don't want my ability to listen to music to be tied completely to a single expensive device, and I like having the option of listening to uncompressed music of my choosing alongside the compressed library.)
So what are the state names, "tea", "no tea", and "intelligent"...?
Yeah, really. They could have maybe gotten someone like Paul Jenkins, who'd actually written the Hulk comic before, to work on the game with them. And maybe even base the game off of one of his comic book storylines. And they could have even gone the extra mile and done a comic book miniseries based on the game. Oh, wait -- they already did.
Granted, Jenkins was hardly the best writer the Hulk had ever seen, and the translation of the story to the game wasn't the best, either -- but the game itself was extremely solid and enjoyable, and immensely replayable.
Anyone know where I can find an el cheapo copy of Dungeon Siege for OS X so I can try this out? It doesn't seem to be on sale anymore through the usual channels...
Here's what I'd suggest. Note that this is purely from a customer's perspective, so it may not jibe with best business practices.
1. Have a clean, uncramped, well-ventilated store. Walk into a chain store in a mall these days and it's so overpacked that you can barely move when you're in there. This really shouldn't be happening when you can use mostly wall space and some sanely placed racks for your product. And ventilation is more important than you might think -- many mom & pop shops have sent me packing because they've consistently smelled like rotting B.O.
2. Have an engaged, knowledgeable, and non-disgusting work force. Hire people with an active interest in games across multiple systems who actually pay attention to what's out and what's coming up, and who can make meaningful recommendations to people. No hypemongers or rabid single-system fanboys, please. And no planetoids with poor hygiene, either. As I mentioned above, if visiting the store becomes an assault on the senses, people won't come back.
3. Don't give me the hard sell. No, I don't want the fucking strategy guide. And don't argue with me when I say I want a new copy instead of a used one. If I come up to the counter and ask for something, just sell it to me without the extra push.
4. Let me try before I buy. Have multiple kiosks for each system and let people try out any game in the store. Have the latest demo discs available too, so people can try out upcoming games.
5. Sell new releases as soon as possible. I don't know the mechanics of this, but occasionally the chain stores will let pre-orderers pick up their game a day early, or they'll sell a huge new release at midnight the night before it would usually be on sale. Most hardcore gamers like to get their new stuff as soon as they can, and whoever can get it in their hands first at a fair price will get their business.
6. Have review information available in-store. This could be as simple as having a public web kiosk that points to Metacritic.com or something similar. You might even be able to convince them to contribute some money toward the kiosk since you'd be driving traffic to their site. Anyway, I mention this because I'll often spot an obscure title in a store and have no way of knowing if it's any good or not. The store employees usually aren't much help (and even good employees can't be familiar with every game out there), so having on-site access to a range of reviews for every game could help close a sale that might not otherwise happen.
7. Have a frequent buyer program with real benefits. Reward loyalty with periodic unrestricted discounts and game-related goodies (e.g. that promotional Prince Of Persia soundtrack CD that came with preorders of POP:T2T at some stores). And give people a one-time discount when they refer a friend to your store.
8. Keep your prices reasonable. Most people understand that mom & pop shops need to bump up their margin a little compared to chain stores, but if you're more than about 5% above the competition you probably won't keep any customers. And even the people who are willing to pay a little extra are only going to do it if they're getting added value from shopping at your store instead of a chain.
You might also consider hosting and/or sponsoring gaming events to get your name out there and build up good will. Even hosting a little weekly Madden tournament in your store with a $20 store credit purse would draw in a decent number of younger customers.
Good luck...
2. The 360 only has a DVD drive in it. Many of today's PS2 and XBox titles already fill a whole DVD, and they have much simpler geometry, textures, and FMV clips than most next-gen games will have. 1080i video has about 6 times as many pixels as standard 480i video, so it's not hard to see how the size of textures and FMV clips would balloon just to keep pace with current-gen technology pixel-for-pixel. Then add in the enhanced geometry and the larger variety of assets that increased resources allow (and demand, even, to have that "next-gen" sheen), and you see how storage space will quickly become an issue. It doesn't matter if Microsoft releases an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive for the 360 later on, either -- most publishers won't bother to support it if it doesn't come standard.
3. The PS3 will have a Blu-Ray drive standard. Not only will it hold 6 times as much data as a DVD, but if Blu-Ray becomes the standard for HD video discs (which it certainly seems poised to do), that alone will help push PS3 sales, much like DVD-playing capability helped push PS2 sales. Next-gen consoles are geared toward HD content, so this will be a factor. Potentially a huge one.
4. For a large segment of gamers, XBox Live is not a selling point for the 360. I don't want to have to pay for an extra subscription service in order to play games online. I actually find that concept obscene, and I'm not alone in that opinion. Plus you have all the gamers who can't or just won't play online at all, so that won't impact their buying decision.
The way I see it, the 360 is pretty much only going to appeal to XBox fanboys and uber-hardcore gamers who already buy every system, and neither of those groups undercut Sony's potential market. Assuming the PS3 doesn't massively suck and they don't steal some major Sony franchise, the only way for Microsoft to gain ground at Sony's expense is to get current PS2 owners to pony up for the 360 early on, but then be so satisfied or starved for cash that they don't consider getting a PS3 later.
That level of supreme satisfaction seems unlikely given the huge franchises in Sony's pocket, and the cash angle seems pretty flimsy since it expects that someone who's willing to pay $400 to have a next-gen system right now would be completely unwilling to drop the same amount the following year on a system with some obvious advantages that'll also play all their existing PS2 and PS games.
Sorry, but the author seems disconnected from reality here...
Someone hasn't unlocked the 1,000,000 roses level yet...
Because regular iPods support Firewire 800, which all Power Macs also support, and which trumps USB 2.0's bandwidth by a healthy margin.
I swear it wasn't on the list the first time I looked... :/
Jump through the side of the VCN building and find this...
I'd love to see it, personally. But the gaming public at large just won't accept that sort of lack of forgiveness in a game anymore. For example, look at the uproar over the lack of an in-level save in Aliens vs. Predator 2 (an intentional design choice to heighten tension and force you to legitimately survive) -- I think they had a quicksave patch out within a month or two.
And have we ever seen a fighting game where you could break limbs and they'd stay broken for the rest of the fight? The closest thing I can think of is Time Killers, where you could hack off one or both arms and the other player could keep going without them. The game stunk, though.
> Hmmm... what does the game seem to think of that attribute? Thing about a complete bastard doing things we don't approve of at our behest...
Kratos was chosen partly because of certain enhancements he'd received from his former association with Ares, but mainly because his desire for vengeance was so single-mindedly strong that the other gods felt he was the only human who could actually do what was necessary to take down the god of war. And there was another significant reason, but I can't say what it is without spoiling the story.
> I think a lot of games don't do that because they raise the question: "Why are we helping this guy slaughter innocent people?"
Yes, though that's not the focus of the game. Much like Manhunt, this is an evil person being pitted against forces that are just as evil, if not slightly moreso. Someone committing horrible acts in the service of something ostensibly good, even though they couldn't care less about doing the right thing. I think that's an interesting dynamic.
To me, some cute icon that's jarringly out of place completely shatters the illusion of the experience. Even the medical kits in Splinter Cell nearly break the experience, because the idea of instant health regeneration in that environment is patently absurd.
> If he *wasn't* a random badass then maybe it'd be easier to get with.
I actually like the fact that he's unapologetically evil. It's rare to have a main character that isn't given at least some kind of rogueish charm or hidden nobility. Kratos isn't a traditional "badass" -- he's a genuine bastard. He doesn't care if Athens burns or not, and he'll cut down anyone who gets in his way, even if they're innocent. He just wants revenge against Ares. But that desire for vengeance is misplaced, because Kratos was an enthusiastic participant in the very things he wound up holding against Ares. And even the one aspect of Kratos's past that's superficially sympathetic is completely negated by the character's own choices, so he's totally irredeemable. I think that's a lot more interesting than yet another hero setting out to save the world...
That's probably what they had at the arcade when I was a kid, then. It was basically 2-player Asteroids minus the asteroids, plus the option of having a variable-strength gravity well in the middle of the screen either with or without an accompanying planet that would destroy you on contact. The controls were all buttons -- rotation, thrust, firing, and I think a shield.
> What were we talking about here, again?
The idea of using a heart icon for health restoration in a realistic-toned game like Splinter Cell. I felt that was basically impossible without ruining the tone of the game, and you disagreed, but hadn't really explained how it could be pulled off inoffensively.
> Gameplay footage looks mostly like yet another "guy slays bunches of monsters in 3D using combos and special moves through a series of linear levels" game.
And that's basically spot-on, though the linear paths are all seamlessly connected in a non-linear way, so you can backtrack or take shortcuts at will. The thing about God Of War, both in terms of gameplay and of story, is that it's not even remotely innovative -- it's just incredibly well-executed.
> I've also heard PoP:SoT had a good story, but I probably won't get around to playing it. Not that I have anything against it... just that there's such a lot of games to play that I'll probably never be able to find time for.
It's a pretty short game, actually. Probably 8-12 hours the first time through, though it can be completed in as little as 2.5 hours if you know exactly what you're doing. It's a very satisfying story with a great ending, and the game looks and plays like a dream. Well worth the investment.
Couldn't find any cumulative numbers, though I did find this story which casts the Wikipedia numbers in severe doubt, since GTA:SA sold 5.1 million units in 2004 alone, and I think that's only a domestic figure.
Google yields plenty of stories citing the game as the fastest-selling game of all time, plus a couple from the UK and Australia talking about moving 1 million units in both places in the first week or so.
I admit that I've just heard the "#1 selling game of all time" line tossed around so much that I simply assumed it was true. It's possible that it's not.
> Watch the words, "doesn't cut it anymore." For its time, and for an arcade-only machine, Pong was quite a hit.
As a novelty. But Pong doesn't have the lasting appeal of something like Space War, which I believe came out even earlier.
> But the fact remains that Pong is more accessable to people who've never played a video game before than GTA games, and there are still many more such people than gamers.
More accessible, yes. More appreciable to the masses on either merits or aesthetics? I doubt it.
> Well, it could still be done I think without wrecking the tone.
I really don't see how.
> those kits aren't exactly realistic either, though in a different way.
Quite true.
> Care to elaborate upon the storytelling in [God Of War]?
Well, the spoiler-free answer is that in their particular spin on Greek mythology, Ares is leading a massive assault on Athens, but the gods are forbidden to directly interfere with the affairs of other gods, so Athena and others are forced to recruit an extremely evil human being (your character) with former ties to Ares and guide him toward how to grant himself the power to kill Ares outright. There are some interesting turns to the story, despite the fact that many of them are predictable -- and in that respect it's much like the rest of the game, which is a collection of extremely well-polished and well-executed clichés.
Oh, I enjoyed the story in Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, too. A fantastic game with characters that you actually cared about.
I assume you meant "GTA:SA over Pong". Since GTA:SA is the #1 selling video game of all time, I don't think the raw numbers are on your side. Yes, Pong is still fun...for about 10 minutes. But after experiencing evolutionary games like Warlords or Arkanoid, Pong just doesn't cut it anymore for long-term enjoyment.
> The gang-banger theme of SA really turned me and my friends off when we rented it.
A rental just can't do that game justice. New gameplay elements are steadily introduced pretty much all the way through the main narrative, and the tone of the game changes considerably once you get beyond Los Santos.
> Unless that thing is not important to the plot, but instead speaks something about the story in a different way, or is used instead to modulate the viewer's expectations [...]
But that justification could be applied to just about anything that someone might label as extraneous -- so really, you're just backing up my position.
> I still don't quite see what adding hearts does to ruin a game.
It's a matter of tone. It's fine for cutesy games, but it's a hammer to the forehead when it's used in games that are intended to be darker or more serious. Can you imagine how absurd it would look if heart icons were used in Splinter Cell?
> I don't think we've seen many great examples of storytelling in games yet
Nothing that's been pitch-perfect yet, but there have been some really strong ones. I'm no big Kojima fan (I thought MGS2 sucked after leaving the tanker), but I have to say that despite the sporadic goofiness, Metal Gear Solid 3 really worked as a story. You actually cared about the characters, and the game was able to elicit emotional responses from you.
I also enjoyed how Guardian Heroes took on religion and genre conventions in its multiple story branches, showing the dark side of the ostensible "good guys" and the sympathetic aspects of the supposed "bad guys". And it let you choose which side to back, or just go your own way.
God Of War had a pretty decent story too, albeit a predictable one.
Touché. Though I meant losing in the local, situational sense, not in the overall sense.
> Pong is still playable today, and since it is a versus game, it's actually a way of testing the players against each other, rather than against a scripted set of missions, which means it's *possible* get tired of GTA:SA before Pong.
Ah, but GTA:SA has 2-player free-roaming co-op play, as well as 2-player rampages. And its open-ended design allows you to roll your own mayhem for theoretically endless enjoyment. And don't forget that GTA:SA also has several embedded old-school video games, including a Gyruss clone and a game that's an interesting mixture of Asteroids and Ikaruga. They keep high score lists and everything.
There's even an entire subculture of people who create stunt videos using the GTA games -- a subculture which I just joined, as a matter of fact. You can check out my very first stunt video here, if you're interested.
> I know people who would never play a game like GTA:SA, but would love Pong.
True, though you must admit that there are a lot more people who feel exactly the opposite.
> **All other things being equal,** then fewer game elements do automatically make for a better game, for the same reason movies should not contain unnecessary characters, or novels unnecessary plot threads.
I completely disagree with this. The stripping of extraneous elements from movies makes most of them completely predictable. If a character makes a reference to something that doesn't seem to apply to the plot, you know it's going to be important later. If a minor character appears and doesn't seem to play much of a role, you know that's going to change later on. It's especially problematic in thrillers where the identity of the bad guy is supposed to be a mystery, because it almost always screams out the identity of the guy before the actual reveal if you haven't turned your brain off.
Extraneous elements that don't interfere with what you're conveying are perfectly fine, and perhaps even desirable. Back to GTA:SA, the extraneous stuff is part of what makes the game so great. The random comments and responses from pedestrians. The out-of-the-blue plane and car crashes. The spontaneous NPC police chases. Many times you just bear witness to them, but sometimes you get caught in the middle of them, and that's when the really interesting things start to happen. A "pure" game design would never allow for that sort of thing.
> And that's [...] why it could only be designed by an outsider!
Again, I completely disagree. It couldn't be designed by a bean counter or someone with tunnel vision, but it could absolutely be designed by an "insider". In fact, I'd say that's even more likely, because it borrows heavily from two very iconic pieces of video gaming lore.
> There's a certain something in KD that's difficult to put into words.
Well, it has a very bizarre and consistent style to both the music and the visual presentation that gives it extra charm. And working the scope-changing into the gameplay mechanics borders on the revelatory, as things that used to be obstacles or even gameplay areas later become fodder for your ball. That final level is absolutely awe-inspiring.
> No, because you'd also know that your opponent would be more likely to pick the more powerful throw as well.
But you'd know that your opponent would know that, so he'd have to worry about you predicting that he'd try to counter the more powerful choice with the only option that would beat it. And that would raise the importance of the sign that beat the sign that beat the powerful choice, but that one would be beaten by the powerful choice, so when the
Elegance and simplicity don't automatically translate into strength of design. It would be extremely "elegant" to have a game where no matter what you did, you always wound up losing. It just wouldn't be very much fun. It might also be "elegant" to have a flight game that didn't concern itself with wind shear and G forces and the like, but that certainly wouldn't make it a stronger design than a more complex flight simulator.
To put it another way: Pong vs. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Which game has the purer design? Now which one is more engaging? Which is deeper? Which is the better experience?
> Less things to worry about [...] mean a purer play experience.
Purer, yes. Deeper, no. Better? Debatable.
> I find myself wondering about this more and more these days, that part of what is percieved a "balance" exists in the social sphere that surrounds the games.
Probably, though the more vibrant and hardcore gaming scenes tend to weed the subjectivity out of that. Someone will only think that a character stinks until they see someone use them like an expert.
> Katamari Damacy could only have been designed by someone *not* steeped in the history and lore of gaming.
Baloney. KD is a great game, and a breath of fresh air in these days of genre rigidity -- but when it comes right down to it, it's just Marble Madness with tank controls and ever-increasing scale.
> Does that explain things?
Not really. :)
> take Rock, Scissors, Paper. There are exactly as many choices as you need. Add more choices and something is lost.
Yes, within that particular continuum, since the only possible results are win, loss, or tie.
> If you put in, say, a throw that wins over two choices, then it gets picked more often, so it wrecks the game. (Or more accurately, it DOESN'T wreck the game ...)
No, it does wreck the game statistically. There's no way to counterbalance it completely in a game that shallow (or should I say "pure"?). Shoving the response proportions around could only mitigate it somewhat -- it'd still be in your interest to pick that choice most of the time.
> But even in well-designed variants like Rock, Scissors, Paper, Spock, Lizard, in which all the choices still have equal power, it's essentially more complex than it needs to be. The soul of the game is in the equality of the choices, everything else is superfluous and should be edited out.
Though in that case a new continuum isn't really being added -- it's just adding extra points on the same win/loss scale. Instead of beating one sign, losing to another, and tying itself, it just beats 2, loses to 2, and still ties itself. That's why the complexity is mostly empty -- there's not really a new dimension added, there's just more noise in the current one.
Now look at games like Set or Quarto which play with variations in shape, color, and texture (and size, in Quarto's case). All of the elements are distinct, yet all are equally important to winning. Is this "impure"? Is this "needlessly complex"? Not at all, because each dimension of the game is pure, and those dimensions interlock in a pure way.
If Paper, Rock, and Scissors is a square, then Set is a cube and Quarto is a hypercube. They're all elegant, but the higher-order structures are a lot more interesting.
> Take that concept and generalize it to the case of video games, and that's a fair bit of what I'm talking about.
It's becoming obvious why you like Nintendo so much. And why I don't.
> I'm still confused why you brought [Altered Beast] up in the first place.
Because it was a clear example of one player avatar being swapped out for a completely different one during the course of
I don't see any rational basis for that statement at all.
> Sure, there *can* be situations where you can go after a health or positioning win, but there also can be situations where you get a similar (though likely not identical) effect in a Ring Out only system.
No, because in the second case the only actual threat is being knocked out of the ring. If your offensive attempt fails, but you weren't in danger of being knocked out yourself, then it's not a dilemma.
> Not necessarily. But we're moving into wholly theoretical realms here, where it's difficult to see how one could convince the other without demonstrations.
If the game is balanced, then each character should have a roughly equal chance of achieving one of the win conditions when used properly. Yes, some characters may be better suited to forcing Ring Outs than to achieving KOs, and vice-versa -- but that doesn't remove the other condition from the picture. If the guy using the bruiser character only concerns himself with health and isn't paying attention to his position, a decent opponent is going to make him pay for that oversight.
> there's a lot of things about game design that are like this, the best ones tend to come way out of left field. To some extent, I suspect both of us are full of crap.
Well, I don't think I'm full of crap, and you still haven't explained that "restricting options" comment...
> A game that isn't *just* about these things, thus, has the potential to be greater than a game that is just about them.
Sure, but that isn't a response to my point at all.
> fighting games are almost as insular a genre as FPSes
This is true. Though it's pretty much impossible to make a competitive game that's satisfying to both button-mashers and tactical players, because the button-mashers want to be 100% effective without a learning curve, while the tactical players won't settle for a system that allows button-mashing to win the day.
> Well there are other instances of this concept in gaming from far before Altered Beast.
Which is why I said the prior art goes back "at least as far as Altered Beast."
> I seem to remember Smash being out a little before Power Stone
I think it came out a month or two earlier, so the development had to be concurrent.
> Their games [...] are closer to the secret soul of gaming than are the rigidly genre-fied games that are everywhere in the industry right now
I'd agree with that to a point (they tend to put gameplay first and try to do new and different things with it), but that's hardly exclusive to Nintendo. The "soul of gaming" was more apparent in the early days partly because the whole thing was new, and partly because the graphics were so primitive that gameplay was the thing that really set titles apart.
And honestly, I think the best Atari and Intellivision games completely trash the best NES games, because they weren't stuck in that Nintendo house style of cutesy graphics, red hearts for health, and an overemphasis on platforming. And the NES's 8-way thumbpad with two buttons was a huge step backward from the Intellivision and Atari 5200 controllers, which had at least 14 buttons and registered 32+ directions. Gaming controllers didn't bounce back from that oversimplified NES style until the Dual Shock appeared.
> I think you're more likely to find a truly inventive game with simple, abstract elements than one that takes pains to look, for example, exactly like a military base on Mars being attacked by demons...
Probably true.
No, because being near a boundary automatically creates a Ring Out risk for both players, though not necessarily an equal one. I'm pointing out the extra dimension that having to worry about two different win conditions creates. If health is off the table, you're only concerned about position. But if you have to concern yourself with both position and health (and time, for that matter), it adds a lot more texture to the risk/reward tradeoff. I don't see why you would dispute this.
> This is not always true. People tend to go for the easiest condition.
And those people are novices who will be destroyed by anyone who sees the larger picture.
> Sometimes, added complexity makes a game more shallow!
Only if the complexity introduces imbalances that point you toward a specific subset of exploitable tactics. That's not the case with VF.
> Restricting options based on the individual selections made can add depth, because the individual parts aren't interchangable.
I really don't see what you're trying to say here.
> Guardian Heroes isn't the same kind of game, however, it's a side-scrolling Beat-em-up in the vein of Double Dragon and Final Fight.
Control-wise, it actually has more in common with 2D fighting games than with the brawlers you mentioned. All fighting takes place on one of 3 2D planes, and the controls and special moves resemble Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat much more than Double Dragon or Final Fight. You just happen to be fighting multiple opponents simultaneously.
> Once again, sheer number of possibilities doesn't necessarily make a game deeper. Number of *useable* possibilites is closer, but even then not always.
When a game is about offense, defense, counters, and meta-counters, the number of unique gameplay situations does in fact make the game deeper. Exponentially so.
> in almost all fighting games, sure you can move around in a 3D area, you can move around a bit, but the most important directions, almost exclusively, are "towards the opponent" and "anywhere except towards the opponent."
That's true.
> Smash has a lot of coolness in it, but maybe its best innovation is that other directions mean a lot more, like "away from the gaping pit"
Though not an exclusive innovation, since the first SSB and Power Stone came out around the same time.
> Well if you're going to go to Altered Beast, then the gloves are off
I was simply citing an early reference for swapping out a character with a completely different one -- I wasn't making any comment beyond that.
> Here's a slightly better working definition of balance: that which avoids making one character (or set of characters) more desirable than another, given all possible situations.
And how is that different from the definition I offered? How can a given character be more desirable unless the risk/reward ratio for some of their maneuvers is wildly out of sync with those of the other characters? Highly damaging moves should be proportionately harder to connect with (which can be achieved through tougher timing, more difficult button manipulation, or greater ease of countering). Faster characters should have weaker health or defense. For every benefit there should be a countering drawback, and then you achieve overall balance.
> Nintendo... well, they probably wouldn't have as many fanboys if they didn't do a lot of things right surprisingly often.
I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't begrudge Nintendo any of their success -- they've obviously made quite a few great games over the years, and they've built a lot of brand loyalty as a result. But if you polled the Nintendo fanbo
But your argument was that it made the game deeper. How does being more limited create depth? Isn't it a tougher problem if you have the opportunity to make a move that will K.O. your opponent if you succeed, but leave yourself open to a Ring Out if you fail? Similarly, from the defensive side, you could intentionally take damage from someone who's only thinking about beating you down, then sidestep at the last minute and knock them out of the ring for the win, even though your health is nearly gone. Multiple win conditions automatically make the game more complex.
> And even VF's movement system can't hold up to Smash in this department -- Smash is essentially a full 2D platforming game that happens to have a fight taking place within it.
Quite true. Though the Power Stone games are very much in the same vein as SSBM.
> I'm not referring to raw number of characters here [...] but to the ways in which they are differentiated from each other.
Remove the similar characters from MvC2 and you still have well over 40 very distinct fighters -- everything from screen-filling monstrosities to tiny football-sized robots -- and they can be lumped together in arbitrary teams of 3, giving you a pretty insane arsenal of swap-in combos and simultaneous multi-character attacks.
Or go back to Virtua Fighter 4, where most characters have multiple fighting stances (at least one character has 4 of them) that completely change the way they approach combat. Start working fighting stance changes into your combos and the number of possibilities becomes ridiculous.
> No other fighting game has anything like the Ice Climbers (two characters at once)
Guardian Heroes on the Saturn had the magician Randy with his little rabbit Nando who would attack semi-independently, even though they were controlled by the same player. I believe that Servbot in MvC2 can also call in hordes of similar robots to attack simultaneously. And I'm sure there are other examples.
> or Zelda/Sheik (two characters with opposite styles, switchable at any time - and no, Tag-style games don't count).
There's prior art going at least as far back as Altered Beast for that one. And VF's multiple fighting stances would arguably qualify, too. Also, I don't think it's fair to exclude tag-style games from that dynamic when you can incorporate tags into combo strings, since that's functionally the same thing that you're describing. And in a game like MvC2, that amounts to any character being able to switch to 3 different states out of 56 at any time.
> Smash intentionally has fewer moves (though, again, not as few as it seems at first), but since moving around large areas is more a part of the game, there's more room for aerial attacks, escaping, deathsaving, and surprisingly many other tactics, tactics that never come up in more traditional fighters.
True. Though again, we've seen this sort of thing in the Power Stone series too.
> I'm unsure, again because it's harder to definitively balance something like Smash than VF.
Well, random item drops automatically debalance a game. That's their entire purpose, after all. But leaving that aside, balance is really a matter of making sure that the risk/reward ratio is basically equal for all moves across all characters, and ideally making sure that all characters have the ability to somehow evade, defend, or counter most of the things that can be thrown at them. The less complicated a game is, and the fewer moves each character has, the easier it is to balance.
In fairness, MvC2 isn't even close to being a balanced game -- you team up Cable, Iron Man, and Juggernaut and it's all over for
Let's see...
> It's not a straight, left-right fighting game. Of course there are 3D fighters like Tekken and SoulCalibur, but they're still essentially about a 2D plane.
Within the context of quasi-realistic fighting, Virtua Fighter 3 made full use of all three dimensions. Battle areas had lots of height variations and some obstacles, and relative positioning in 3-space affected many elements of the battle system. Although VF4 returned to flat rings, you could still move in any direction, and relative positioning still had a major impact on the system. But yes, the vertical part of the game doesn't go much over the 10-foot mark.
> Instead of depleting a health bar, Smash Bros' lose condition involves being knocked off the stage.
The Virtua Fighter series has always been set in rings, so you could win by K.O., Ring Out, or having more health left when time ran out. Beginning with VF3 some walls were introduced, and VF4 added breakable walls to the mix.
> Knocking a player out of an area is an inherently deeper play mechanic than getting an arbitrary number high/low enough.
Having to worry about both at the same time is even deeper.
> Smash has a shield/dodge system that can allow a player to absolutely rule if mastered, but can be played entirely without it.
Virtua Fighter 4 has multi-directional dodges, reversals, and throw escapes that can be stacked in almost arbitrary combinations. This lets expert players defeat a significant subset of the attacks aimed at them, but they still have to predict what their opponent will do and pull off some challenging controller maneuvers to make it happen. That said, novices can still play a pretty deep game without ever touching that part of the system.
> Sheer variety of characters.
SSBM has VF4: Evolution beat (only 16 characters), but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has 56 characters, and each player controls a team of 3. So SSBM is certainly respectable in this category, but not the king of the hill.
Also, you have to ask how much variety each character provides. The movesets in Virtua Fighter are so expansive that three or four different players could have relatively deep, yet completely different playstyles for the same character with very little move overlap. Could you say the same of SSBM...?
> Of course there other fighting games that have some (though not this much) variety
As we've just seen, SSBM isn't the king of variety.
> But the thing about Smash Bros. Melee is that it's still balanced despite it all. That takes an amazing amount of play testing, and genius game designers.
The Virtua Fighter games are renowned for their balance (since VF2, at least), and the development team goes out of their way to respond to player feedback and tweak any small details that may arise over time. With 15 unique characters whose move lists are all as long as your arm, I'd say that's at least as amazing as SSBM's accomplishment.
I guess this guy's never played a Virtua Fighter game before. Or any of Capcom's later-era 2D fighters. Geez.
D'arcy Stern from Urban Chaos was a black female cop in a game whose mechanics were sort of a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider, and it came out well over a year before Grand Theft Auto III. Fun game for its time, too.
Nope. I've never understood the amount of blind worship that Nintendo's gotten over the years. I figure it must come from people younger than me who grew up on the NES and SNES and are overly influenced by nostalgia.
Nintendo's games have always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it's that overly boopsy, kiddie approach, or maybe it's casting that fat, shroom-dropping plumber in the lead role. Maybe it was the way that they fundamentally bastardized every arcade game that was converted to the NES, throwing in gratuitous heart icons and completely changing the structure of the game.
Whatever it is, I have no special place in my heart for Nintendo, and I think it's absurd to give them more than 2 or 3 slots out of the top 10, considering the quality and volume of their competition.
If the list was meant to reward genre trailblazers, then skipping proto-RTS/builder games like Sea Battle and Utopia on the Intellivision was a major oversight, as was skipping INTV's sports titles, which were the first to let you call plays and control every character on the field. And don't get me started on all the Atari 2600 games that were overlooked.
If the list was meant to reward pure gameplay quality, then where are the classics that still hold up today, like The Dreadnaught Factor, or damn near any other Activision or Imagic game from the pre-NES period? What about the Colecovision version of Donkey Kong, which was considered to be the first near-perfect home translation of an arcade game?
Granted, they only had 100 slots, and they did include some worthy games that you might not have expected them to (e.g. Herzog Zwei) -- but it's pretty obvious that the editors were weaned on the NES, and that's clouded their perception a bit. Oh well.