Good point. While I agree that Rootkit fiascos, Lik-Sang shut down, and even press blunders are only going to be heard by a very small percentage of their customers (even the public address blunders require that you be constantly tuned into tech news), it DOES reach the press, who starts to get an increasingly negative view of their products. When the press starts rooting against a console (or a politician, or anything), then the console's got problems, because that inherently negative attitude from the press will start to affect the popular consensus. A huge majority of tech news sites online have a very bad impression of the PS3. Hell, I was in GameStop yesterday, and one of the clerks was even voicing his feelings against the system... and when you have the very people who are supposed to be pushing your system's, voicing their opposition, you're SCREWED.
It's all a snowball effect. Maybe I was wrong to overlook the small, geeky concerns of one tiny demographic. Sure, in the end maybe only 0.1% of the population will know what a Root Kit is, but the negativity that trickles down through tech news sites because of that could have a huge impact on the long-term popularity of the system. Now, the people that are suggesting that a Root Kit debacle itself will have any impact on the minds of the masses, need to get their heads out of their collective asses... but it might be a bit short-sided to overlook the larger problems it could cause.
I do agree that it's a gimmick. I used to roll my eyes when people would shove a "rumble pack" into their N64 controllers. That said, it could actually serve as some surprisingly effective tactile feedback in the Wiimote, we'll see, but maybe rumble has finally found its purpose. Unfortunately, the rumble in the Wiimote is extremely basic. Now, 50 years from now, when all controllers have high velocity gyros and can mimick the feel of actually making contact with an object, then we'll talk.
...is what the right would say. But, seriously, it's free speech, it may be tacky, but since when did we ever make a law against something being tacky? I mean, we have tabloids, for god's sake! No reason for Google to get involved unless any laws are being broken, or people put in danger.
This is exactly what I'm concerned about, there is such a thing as having a controller that's "too light". After a point, it just feels flimsy and cheap, and becomes a constant reminder that it's a toy. The Dualshock controllers were quite good, just the right amount of weight, any lighter, and it begin to feel cheap. I do use Wavebird GCN controllers, but those are a little larger, giving them a bit more weight than the SIXAXIS will probably have, and I still wish (for all their greatness) they had a little more heft to them.
The PS3 is a $600 console, it's being marketted as a media entertainment center, and as something slightly more sophisticated than JUST a game console (supposedly), having a really light-weight controller is sort of going against their overarching image.
Which brings me to another point. What is Sony's overarching philosophy for this console? They don't seem to have a very unified idea in mind: art-deco looking console, utilitarian interface, lightweight controllers with motion sensors, with an Xtreme Gen Y sounding name... all these things really don't fit together to create a unified whole. If it has no unique feel in mind, then why should I buy it over the other guys' consoles? Nintendo spent YEARS developing a finely crafted gestalt that followed their unique philosophy on gaming, so much that the Wii almost has a living, breathing, personality. Microsoft a bit less so, but they've at least met the status quo in terms of having a unified feel (it's just not that original). But the PS3 just seems schizophrenic, it has no gestalit. It's as if each piece was designed completely independantly and the thing was just thrown together. Seriously, why should I get excited about something that was built with such an unprofessional looking attitude in design philosophy? While Joe Public may not be analyzing it like this, it comes across, subliminaly, as being unsure of itself and unable to deliver a really solid feel that will win people over.
Oh boy... dude, I don't think you could be more far off. In looking back on many long-running series, it's almost an assurence that the second game is the weakest. Let's see:
Final Fantasy II (Japanese) - commonly criticized for having one of the worst magic/stat systems in RPG history
Mario II - if you're counting The Lost Levels, then I need not explain myself. Meanwhile, Mario 2 USA, while still pretty good, is usually considered one of the weakest in the series
Metroid II - I happen to dissagree with this, but it's still a common conception that this game isn't very good
Zelda II - Highly revered for being "unique", highly criticised for being almost entirely unplayable.
Devil May Cry 2 - need I say more?
Halo 2 - well, we'll have to see if the rest of the series can hold up
Metroid Prime: Echos - not terrible, but miles below the first
Xenosaga 2 - argggg
There's only a very few examples where Game #2 was considered one of the best in the series:
Mega Man 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - although I disagree with this, it seems to be everyone's favorite (I think the first one is still the best)
Earthbound (Mother 2)
I'll argue that for video games, Game #3, more often than not, is a defining moment in the series, just look at this list of just a few #3 games:
Mario 3
Zelda - A Link to the Past
Super Metroid
Metal Gear Solid - Snake Eater
Devil May Cry 3
In fact, almost no long-running series I can think of has a bad #3 game. If #2 is good, #3 will usually be good (Mega Man, Sonic, incluced), if the #2 game sucks, well there's a very good chance of redemption at #3. Many series, however, had such weak #2 games that the series died right then and there.
"Really what we're hoping is that people will take a look at what we're trying to do and we're trying to price things -- and the developers are trying to price things for what they think is a good price point for the development investment they've put into this content. Remember, this stuff costs money to make."
So, what you're saying is that we're supposed to think that everyone's out to make us (the consumers) happy and realize that Microsoft and the Developers are all really generous and caring organizations, and that we should just collectively shut our yap? Oh, wow, gee, I never looked at it like that before! How could I have been so out of touch all these years. Wait...
You're really off base. In fact, aside from "Toys", all the examples you gave there are MANY adverts aimed at teens. If you're a teenage girl, almost every clothing commercial on TV is aimed at YOU. Most fast-food commercials star teens and are aimed at teens/young adults as a way of establishing their places as hang outs. Teens have access to LOTS of money, especially for smaller, more entertainment-driven items (food, clothing, etc). Most video games are marketted toward teens. The thing is that the older adolecent years is a good bulls-eye, if you can hit it correctly, you're likely to strike it with many older children and young adults. If you hit the 18-year-old mark, you're likely to attract people anywhere from 13 to 28.
There are toys for teens too... they're just called condoms.
I'll second that. Metroid Prime and Super Metroid are some of the creepiest games ever made. Going deeper and deeper into the Phazon Mines, in which you start encountering giant glow-in-the-dark mushrooms, objects that you can only see in the X-Ray scope (which itself, was really creepy vision) and completely dark rooms just creeped me out. It didn't help that every so often, you were suddenly faced with a giant, mutant space pirate. And to top it off, at the end you face off with Omega Pirate, quite possibly one of the strangest bosses ever... I mean, the guy will suddenly disappear from normal space, and then you're watching his spinal column regenerate itself in the X-Ray scope... fucked up. Similarly, that 8-eyed monster inside Norfair (Super Metroid) who's skin eventually melts off while he screems is pretty fucked up too... when he re-appeared again (the first time I played the game), I almost shit myself!
Prime Echos almost had it, but some things irked me about that game, and kinda took away from the suspense. And the "Dark Aether" crap just felt like they were trying too hard.
You do realize that 95% of the time, when you turn on your TV, you're hearing some form of MIDI, right? Most commercials, and all but something like 8 shows use almost exclusively synthesized instruments... and most people will never hear the difference. MIDI isn't just Sound Blaster Bleeps and Bloops anymore.
As a composer, MIDI is a godsend, even if the final product is a live orchestral score, it really enables you to do changes on the fly, and be able to run it by directors / clients / producers, without re-recording orchestra. So no, not everyone hates MIDI.
Well, I wouldn't completely be satisfied unless he was able to go back and license Lamb Lies Down on Broadway... but that would mean getting through to Phil Collins, which would be a nightmare.
Alright I fucking HATE this description (and I've heard it before) that notes consist of "tone" and "noise". That's just a really detremental way of looking at sound. Most of that "noise" consists of harmonics, as well as other resonating frequencies thrown into the mix, so many that it "appears" to be random. Fuck, how simple do you want to get? is anything that's not a pure sine wave, "noise"? Take my 20% pulse wave, that's pretty fucking "noisy". God, I had a first year electronic music professor use this description, it screwed with my head for weeks until I realized that it was a total bullshit way of looking at sound. Thankfully, she got fired, and none of my other electronic music profs ever used that model again. "Noise" is random, very little sound is entirely random, it's just complicated enough that noone wants to bother breaking it down. But do some complex Fourier transformations on tones, and you'll see just how much "noise" that shit really is.
Sorry for sounding like an ass, I've just heard that description before, and it seems like a way you would describe sound on Seseme Street.
But video games ARE Hands-On activities. For the past 50 years, Children have been simply watching TV, instead of becoming actively involved in their entertainment. Video Games may well be the key to getting people to actually enjoy DOING THINGS again, instead of simply being spoon-fed mindless entertainment. The thought process that you go through when bettering youself in a video game is extremely complicated, and very similar to that of practicing an instrument, which development experts have known for decades increases mental awareness. The only difference is that practicing an instrument is rewarding for people other than the one doing the practicing, where-as videogames are not... but this makes no difference when discussing the more over-arching issue of developing general mental capability. People have a problem thinking one-step removed of what is going on. Most parents sit their kid in front of a piano because they dream of them one day being a sophisticated concert pianist, but then they'll boast to their friends that their kid is ALSO learning mental functionality. No parent dreams of their child becoming a video game prodegy, so there-for practicing video games is a "waste of time". It's all extremely biased.
And this is coming from someone who's a conservatory-trained musician and composer.
This would be good for "Greatest Hits" titles, re-released a year after a game's innitial release, if it goes double platinum (or something). I think a game only deserves to have commentary if the game actually becomes something of a classic, even if it's only a phenominon for a year or so. This way, the developers have time to collect their thoughts, survey the reception of their game, and reflect back on its creation later. Also, we don't have to hear designers jizzing over how great their game was, when it was unanomously considered a POS by the gaming community. The only acception is Japanese games that take a lot of time to be translated. Basically, after it goes to the localization house, the developers have relinquished control of the title anyway (at least the day to day hard work on it). FF12 is here something like 8 months after its innitial release. Which is why us Americans get a bonus disc if we preorder a copy.
I hear what you're saying about characters not being around, or parties being too large to concentrate on specific characters. Thinking back on it, many of my favorite RPGs have fairly small parties. I couldn't stand Chrono Cross because it was a gigantic-party game that tried, desperately, to be personal and intimate, and I think it failed MISSERABLY. People generally don't develop by having major epiphonies, they change gradually, over long periods of time. Games should be especially delicate, since they have the added bonus of viewing a group of people over a long period of (playing) time. Events that would take 2 hours in a film, take place over 40+ hours in a game, so there's no reason to expect any kind of sudden character shifts... although many RPGs do it.
However, some games are able to keep fairly good character-driven works together even when Characters move in and out of the picture. Final Fantasy IX, for instance, has some of the most effective character portrayals of any RPG, yet the party splits up numerous times. So, I think it can be accomplished that characters move in and out of the picture, but it has to be done with a lot of care for it to work.
I'm going to have to dissagree about the quality of recent films, this seemed to be a typical "grass is greener" response. I love a lot of classics, but for every remembered classic there were a few dozen real crappers that have long since been forgotten. Meanwhile, especially recently, there have been a number of really really good films. Capote and Good Night & Good Luck... both released the same year, are up for movies of the decade in my book. Both show a certain subtlety that may very well go above and beyond that of even the big classics. Previously, you've got Fight Club, Brazil, The Big Lebowski, and a number of top-notch films, released in the last two decades. I think we've got some absolutely stunning material right here and now, but it's much harder to sort through the bullshit to find it. The 80s sucked it hard, very little worthwhile came out of that decade, the the last 15 years have been pretty impressive. Film is probably better now than it's been since the early 70s with things like China Town.
Grandia 2's story is kinda second rate, but its characters and dialog are some of the best the genre has ever seen. We're talking Lunar/Lunar2 level dialog, or better. Sure, the basic character archetypes are all fairly cliche, but they're much more flushed out than any other RPG. As a RPG fan, I've sorta lost interest in "story", because it's almost always the same standard fare bullshit... but what really gets me is when they're able to bring about realistic and well crafted character personalities during gameplay. Grandia 2 is completely first-rate in this regard. THIS is why it kicks the crap out of Grandia 3, despite an upgraded battle-system, and slightly better story, the characters in G3 are so rediculusly predictable that it hurts, and I finally just stopped playing it.
I've found that, in many cases, attention to well-crafted, and subtle-developing characters in RPGs is inversely proportional to the complexity of the storyline. You have something like Xenogears, of which the story is incredibly thick and complex, while the characters' personalities (and I'm not talking about paranormal bullshit like artifact-induced "multipul personality disorder") are about as subtle and well-crafted as a cement block. On the flip side, you have a game like this, Grandia 2, of which the story is completely standard RPG fare, but it gave the characters a chance to really shine. Oh, and Cam Clarke voicing Ryudo didn't hurt.
It just kills me that the DC version is the ONLY playable version out there worth anything. I had the PC version for a while, but GameArts decided to be total assholes, released it AFTER XP came out, and refused to support anything above Windows ME, it felt like they were actually trying to kill the PC port. Meanwhile, the PS2 port has earned a place on the videogame hall of fame as the worst port ever. I'm hoping for the slight possibility that DC games will be playable on the Wii.
Don't get me wrong, Grandia 2 is an extremely flawed game. It has some story sequences which are like nails on a chalk board... and has a terrible character death/reseraction rate. The creators also totally wussed out from making any cohesive decisions about the ending and last 1/3rd of the game. Even so, it will always stick out as one of the best character-driven games out there.
Ironically, the first thing that comes to people's minds when they see a Nintendo DS, actually doesn't have the word "Nintendo" in it... it's a "Game Boy". The term "Game Boy" is probably even more synonomous with handheld gaming than "Nintendo" ever was with TV gaming. Most people STILL think the thing is called the "Game Boy DS" (especially since everyone was bombarded by the term "SP" last round, so many people don't question the idea that you just put two letters after the words "Game Boy").
But you do draw an insteresting distinction. The Playstation will always be a "Playstation", the "Playstation 2" will always be a "PS2" or "Playstation", and not "A Sony". The XBox and XBox360 will always be "XBox" and "360", and never "A Microsoft". The NES and SNES were most definitely "Nintendos" though.
I must admit, though, that the use of the term "Nintendo" to mean any game console did go down hill after the Super Nintendo, due to a number of things:
Since there were now three large companies in the game, and Nintendo was no longer the top dog, people were gradually weined off using the term "Nintendo" as a generic.
The term "N64" no longer had the word "Nintendo" in it, it was the "N 64", even the logo drove that home.
"Super Nintendo" was about as reliavent as saying "Nintendo 2". "Super" doesn't mean anything, and to be honest, it isn't a very hip word to say all the time in English (unlike in Japanese). "64" actually has meaning, therefor, there was reason to use it as a designation.
Gaming changed... drastically. The introduction of 3D gaming, new control devices (the analog stick), the introduction of cinematics, and the whole genre of "party gaming" really separated Nintendo's 3rd outing from its first two. The Super Nintendo was advertised and accepted as a more powerful NES, where-as the N64 was something totally different, as it brought many more new things to the table. Therefor, it had to be distinguished from previous generations.
I dunno, man. The DS isn't just a handheld, though. For the first time, it's a portable console that offers something that TV consoles can't (besides portability), and it's starting to feel less and less like a console you would ONLY play while waiting in line at the DMV. By that, I mean, it's starting to become a part of the prime-time gaming market, as well as the "quick and simple" handheld market. If Metroid Prime Hunters hadn't sucked so much (having nothing to do with the hardware), during the late evenings, I might have found myself in bed playing it, instead of being out in the living room playing PS2 or Gamecube. It has the potential to be, practically, a prime time system, unlike its predicessors. The PSP is already there, but it's ONLY there... it's a prime time system that has very little potential of being taken into line at the DMV.
There has even been some question as to whether DS sales will erode into Wii sales (as well as 360 and PS3), which I think will be quite minimal, but it's the first time a portable console even had the POTENTIAL to do that. However, until I can play Okami on it (*sob*), I'll stick with TV-based systems, for the most part.
Although the story (and acting in particular) are somewhat melodramatic
Just to point out, that was really the style of the time. Film was just finding it's way around (in the dark) narrative, and had basically been just transplanted from the theatre (of which mellodrama is much more of a requirement, due to suspension of disbelief issues). Fritz was one of the first guys to begin to realize film as something more than recorded theatre, but he was still very naive. Also, the lack of sound required actors to grossly over-do facial expressions, gestures, and body language. See "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" for an even more blatent example. Also, remember that the early part of the 20th century is still not far from the romantic period, where mellodrama was the status quo.
BTW: I think we're about at this stage now in video games. You see the glimour of people who are on the right track (things like Okami and Spore come to mind), but I don't think we have our Fritz Lang yet... or at least he hasn't proven himself to be that. I think we're on the verge of it, though; expect this next decade to be a real turning point for the future of games as an artistic/entertainment medium.
By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left!
I think he's saying that us guys will finally get a taste of our own medicine: we'll finally learn how crappy it is when the girl gets up and leaves before WE'RE done.
You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.
Insert obligitory, "I put my earbud in your mom's ear!" joke here.
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Good point. While I agree that Rootkit fiascos, Lik-Sang shut down, and even press blunders are only going to be heard by a very small percentage of their customers (even the public address blunders require that you be constantly tuned into tech news), it DOES reach the press, who starts to get an increasingly negative view of their products. When the press starts rooting against a console (or a politician, or anything), then the console's got problems, because that inherently negative attitude from the press will start to affect the popular consensus. A huge majority of tech news sites online have a very bad impression of the PS3. Hell, I was in GameStop yesterday, and one of the clerks was even voicing his feelings against the system... and when you have the very people who are supposed to be pushing your system's, voicing their opposition, you're SCREWED.
It's all a snowball effect. Maybe I was wrong to overlook the small, geeky concerns of one tiny demographic. Sure, in the end maybe only 0.1% of the population will know what a Root Kit is, but the negativity that trickles down through tech news sites because of that could have a huge impact on the long-term popularity of the system. Now, the people that are suggesting that a Root Kit debacle itself will have any impact on the minds of the masses, need to get their heads out of their collective asses... but it might be a bit short-sided to overlook the larger problems it could cause.
I do agree that it's a gimmick. I used to roll my eyes when people would shove a "rumble pack" into their N64 controllers. That said, it could actually serve as some surprisingly effective tactile feedback in the Wiimote, we'll see, but maybe rumble has finally found its purpose. Unfortunately, the rumble in the Wiimote is extremely basic. Now, 50 years from now, when all controllers have high velocity gyros and can mimick the feel of actually making contact with an object, then we'll talk.
no offense dude... but you just NOW noticed that?
...is what the right would say. But, seriously, it's free speech, it may be tacky, but since when did we ever make a law against something being tacky? I mean, we have tabloids, for god's sake! No reason for Google to get involved unless any laws are being broken, or people put in danger.
This is exactly what I'm concerned about, there is such a thing as having a controller that's "too light". After a point, it just feels flimsy and cheap, and becomes a constant reminder that it's a toy. The Dualshock controllers were quite good, just the right amount of weight, any lighter, and it begin to feel cheap. I do use Wavebird GCN controllers, but those are a little larger, giving them a bit more weight than the SIXAXIS will probably have, and I still wish (for all their greatness) they had a little more heft to them.
The PS3 is a $600 console, it's being marketted as a media entertainment center, and as something slightly more sophisticated than JUST a game console (supposedly), having a really light-weight controller is sort of going against their overarching image.
Which brings me to another point. What is Sony's overarching philosophy for this console? They don't seem to have a very unified idea in mind: art-deco looking console, utilitarian interface, lightweight controllers with motion sensors, with an Xtreme Gen Y sounding name... all these things really don't fit together to create a unified whole. If it has no unique feel in mind, then why should I buy it over the other guys' consoles? Nintendo spent YEARS developing a finely crafted gestalt that followed their unique philosophy on gaming, so much that the Wii almost has a living, breathing, personality. Microsoft a bit less so, but they've at least met the status quo in terms of having a unified feel (it's just not that original). But the PS3 just seems schizophrenic, it has no gestalit. It's as if each piece was designed completely independantly and the thing was just thrown together. Seriously, why should I get excited about something that was built with such an unprofessional looking attitude in design philosophy? While Joe Public may not be analyzing it like this, it comes across, subliminaly, as being unsure of itself and unable to deliver a really solid feel that will win people over.
Oh boy... dude, I don't think you could be more far off. In looking back on many long-running series, it's almost an assurence that the second game is the weakest. Let's see:
- Final Fantasy II (Japanese) - commonly criticized for having one of the worst magic/stat systems in RPG history
- Mario II - if you're counting The Lost Levels, then I need not explain myself. Meanwhile, Mario 2 USA, while still pretty good, is usually considered one of the weakest in the series
- Metroid II - I happen to dissagree with this, but it's still a common conception that this game isn't very good
- Zelda II - Highly revered for being "unique", highly criticised for being almost entirely unplayable.
- Devil May Cry 2 - need I say more?
- Halo 2 - well, we'll have to see if the rest of the series can hold up
- Metroid Prime: Echos - not terrible, but miles below the first
- Xenosaga 2 - argggg
There's only a very few examples where Game #2 was considered one of the best in the series:I'll argue that for video games, Game #3, more often than not, is a defining moment in the series, just look at this list of just a few #3 games:
In fact, almost no long-running series I can think of has a bad #3 game. If #2 is good, #3 will usually be good (Mega Man, Sonic, incluced), if the #2 game sucks, well there's a very good chance of redemption at #3. Many series, however, had such weak #2 games that the series died right then and there.
So, what you're saying is that we're supposed to think that everyone's out to make us (the consumers) happy and realize that Microsoft and the Developers are all really generous and caring organizations, and that we should just collectively shut our yap? Oh, wow, gee, I never looked at it like that before! How could I have been so out of touch all these years. Wait...
FUCK YOU!
I think the correct term is:
"beat the hoe"
Solid Snake's gonna be VERY disappointed...
...wait, what DARPA were we talking about, again?
With all the accessories you're required to buy with the XBox360, Sony is full of shit.
You're really off base. In fact, aside from "Toys", all the examples you gave there are MANY adverts aimed at teens. If you're a teenage girl, almost every clothing commercial on TV is aimed at YOU. Most fast-food commercials star teens and are aimed at teens/young adults as a way of establishing their places as hang outs. Teens have access to LOTS of money, especially for smaller, more entertainment-driven items (food, clothing, etc). Most video games are marketted toward teens. The thing is that the older adolecent years is a good bulls-eye, if you can hit it correctly, you're likely to strike it with many older children and young adults. If you hit the 18-year-old mark, you're likely to attract people anywhere from 13 to 28.
There are toys for teens too... they're just called condoms.
I'll second that. Metroid Prime and Super Metroid are some of the creepiest games ever made. Going deeper and deeper into the Phazon Mines, in which you start encountering giant glow-in-the-dark mushrooms, objects that you can only see in the X-Ray scope (which itself, was really creepy vision) and completely dark rooms just creeped me out. It didn't help that every so often, you were suddenly faced with a giant, mutant space pirate. And to top it off, at the end you face off with Omega Pirate, quite possibly one of the strangest bosses ever... I mean, the guy will suddenly disappear from normal space, and then you're watching his spinal column regenerate itself in the X-Ray scope... fucked up. Similarly, that 8-eyed monster inside Norfair (Super Metroid) who's skin eventually melts off while he screems is pretty fucked up too... when he re-appeared again (the first time I played the game), I almost shit myself!
Prime Echos almost had it, but some things irked me about that game, and kinda took away from the suspense. And the "Dark Aether" crap just felt like they were trying too hard.
You do realize that 95% of the time, when you turn on your TV, you're hearing some form of MIDI, right? Most commercials, and all but something like 8 shows use almost exclusively synthesized instruments... and most people will never hear the difference. MIDI isn't just Sound Blaster Bleeps and Bloops anymore.
As a composer, MIDI is a godsend, even if the final product is a live orchestral score, it really enables you to do changes on the fly, and be able to run it by directors / clients / producers, without re-recording orchestra. So no, not everyone hates MIDI.
Well, I wouldn't completely be satisfied unless he was able to go back and license Lamb Lies Down on Broadway... but that would mean getting through to Phil Collins, which would be a nightmare.
Alright I fucking HATE this description (and I've heard it before) that notes consist of "tone" and "noise". That's just a really detremental way of looking at sound. Most of that "noise" consists of harmonics, as well as other resonating frequencies thrown into the mix, so many that it "appears" to be random. Fuck, how simple do you want to get? is anything that's not a pure sine wave, "noise"? Take my 20% pulse wave, that's pretty fucking "noisy". God, I had a first year electronic music professor use this description, it screwed with my head for weeks until I realized that it was a total bullshit way of looking at sound. Thankfully, she got fired, and none of my other electronic music profs ever used that model again. "Noise" is random, very little sound is entirely random, it's just complicated enough that noone wants to bother breaking it down. But do some complex Fourier transformations on tones, and you'll see just how much "noise" that shit really is.
Sorry for sounding like an ass, I've just heard that description before, and it seems like a way you would describe sound on Seseme Street.
But video games ARE Hands-On activities. For the past 50 years, Children have been simply watching TV, instead of becoming actively involved in their entertainment. Video Games may well be the key to getting people to actually enjoy DOING THINGS again, instead of simply being spoon-fed mindless entertainment. The thought process that you go through when bettering youself in a video game is extremely complicated, and very similar to that of practicing an instrument, which development experts have known for decades increases mental awareness. The only difference is that practicing an instrument is rewarding for people other than the one doing the practicing, where-as videogames are not... but this makes no difference when discussing the more over-arching issue of developing general mental capability. People have a problem thinking one-step removed of what is going on. Most parents sit their kid in front of a piano because they dream of them one day being a sophisticated concert pianist, but then they'll boast to their friends that their kid is ALSO learning mental functionality. No parent dreams of their child becoming a video game prodegy, so there-for practicing video games is a "waste of time". It's all extremely biased.
And this is coming from someone who's a conservatory-trained musician and composer.
This would be good for "Greatest Hits" titles, re-released a year after a game's innitial release, if it goes double platinum (or something). I think a game only deserves to have commentary if the game actually becomes something of a classic, even if it's only a phenominon for a year or so. This way, the developers have time to collect their thoughts, survey the reception of their game, and reflect back on its creation later. Also, we don't have to hear designers jizzing over how great their game was, when it was unanomously considered a POS by the gaming community. The only acception is Japanese games that take a lot of time to be translated. Basically, after it goes to the localization house, the developers have relinquished control of the title anyway (at least the day to day hard work on it). FF12 is here something like 8 months after its innitial release. Which is why us Americans get a bonus disc if we preorder a copy.
I hear what you're saying about characters not being around, or parties being too large to concentrate on specific characters. Thinking back on it, many of my favorite RPGs have fairly small parties. I couldn't stand Chrono Cross because it was a gigantic-party game that tried, desperately, to be personal and intimate, and I think it failed MISSERABLY. People generally don't develop by having major epiphonies, they change gradually, over long periods of time. Games should be especially delicate, since they have the added bonus of viewing a group of people over a long period of (playing) time. Events that would take 2 hours in a film, take place over 40+ hours in a game, so there's no reason to expect any kind of sudden character shifts... although many RPGs do it.
However, some games are able to keep fairly good character-driven works together even when Characters move in and out of the picture. Final Fantasy IX, for instance, has some of the most effective character portrayals of any RPG, yet the party splits up numerous times. So, I think it can be accomplished that characters move in and out of the picture, but it has to be done with a lot of care for it to work.
I'm going to have to dissagree about the quality of recent films, this seemed to be a typical "grass is greener" response. I love a lot of classics, but for every remembered classic there were a few dozen real crappers that have long since been forgotten. Meanwhile, especially recently, there have been a number of really really good films. Capote and Good Night & Good Luck... both released the same year, are up for movies of the decade in my book. Both show a certain subtlety that may very well go above and beyond that of even the big classics. Previously, you've got Fight Club, Brazil, The Big Lebowski, and a number of top-notch films, released in the last two decades. I think we've got some absolutely stunning material right here and now, but it's much harder to sort through the bullshit to find it. The 80s sucked it hard, very little worthwhile came out of that decade, the the last 15 years have been pretty impressive. Film is probably better now than it's been since the early 70s with things like China Town.
Grandia 2's story is kinda second rate, but its characters and dialog are some of the best the genre has ever seen. We're talking Lunar/Lunar2 level dialog, or better. Sure, the basic character archetypes are all fairly cliche, but they're much more flushed out than any other RPG. As a RPG fan, I've sorta lost interest in "story", because it's almost always the same standard fare bullshit... but what really gets me is when they're able to bring about realistic and well crafted character personalities during gameplay. Grandia 2 is completely first-rate in this regard. THIS is why it kicks the crap out of Grandia 3, despite an upgraded battle-system, and slightly better story, the characters in G3 are so rediculusly predictable that it hurts, and I finally just stopped playing it.
I've found that, in many cases, attention to well-crafted, and subtle-developing characters in RPGs is inversely proportional to the complexity of the storyline. You have something like Xenogears, of which the story is incredibly thick and complex, while the characters' personalities (and I'm not talking about paranormal bullshit like artifact-induced "multipul personality disorder") are about as subtle and well-crafted as a cement block. On the flip side, you have a game like this, Grandia 2, of which the story is completely standard RPG fare, but it gave the characters a chance to really shine. Oh, and Cam Clarke voicing Ryudo didn't hurt.
It just kills me that the DC version is the ONLY playable version out there worth anything. I had the PC version for a while, but GameArts decided to be total assholes, released it AFTER XP came out, and refused to support anything above Windows ME, it felt like they were actually trying to kill the PC port. Meanwhile, the PS2 port has earned a place on the videogame hall of fame as the worst port ever. I'm hoping for the slight possibility that DC games will be playable on the Wii.
Don't get me wrong, Grandia 2 is an extremely flawed game. It has some story sequences which are like nails on a chalk board... and has a terrible character death/reseraction rate. The creators also totally wussed out from making any cohesive decisions about the ending and last 1/3rd of the game. Even so, it will always stick out as one of the best character-driven games out there.
Ironically, the first thing that comes to people's minds when they see a Nintendo DS, actually doesn't have the word "Nintendo" in it... it's a "Game Boy". The term "Game Boy" is probably even more synonomous with handheld gaming than "Nintendo" ever was with TV gaming. Most people STILL think the thing is called the "Game Boy DS" (especially since everyone was bombarded by the term "SP" last round, so many people don't question the idea that you just put two letters after the words "Game Boy").
But you do draw an insteresting distinction. The Playstation will always be a "Playstation", the "Playstation 2" will always be a "PS2" or "Playstation", and not "A Sony". The XBox and XBox360 will always be "XBox" and "360", and never "A Microsoft". The NES and SNES were most definitely "Nintendos" though.
I must admit, though, that the use of the term "Nintendo" to mean any game console did go down hill after the Super Nintendo, due to a number of things:
I dunno, man. The DS isn't just a handheld, though. For the first time, it's a portable console that offers something that TV consoles can't (besides portability), and it's starting to feel less and less like a console you would ONLY play while waiting in line at the DMV. By that, I mean, it's starting to become a part of the prime-time gaming market, as well as the "quick and simple" handheld market. If Metroid Prime Hunters hadn't sucked so much (having nothing to do with the hardware), during the late evenings, I might have found myself in bed playing it, instead of being out in the living room playing PS2 or Gamecube. It has the potential to be, practically, a prime time system, unlike its predicessors. The PSP is already there, but it's ONLY there... it's a prime time system that has very little potential of being taken into line at the DMV.
There has even been some question as to whether DS sales will erode into Wii sales (as well as 360 and PS3), which I think will be quite minimal, but it's the first time a portable console even had the POTENTIAL to do that. However, until I can play Okami on it (*sob*), I'll stick with TV-based systems, for the most part.
Just to point out, that was really the style of the time. Film was just finding it's way around (in the dark) narrative, and had basically been just transplanted from the theatre (of which mellodrama is much more of a requirement, due to suspension of disbelief issues). Fritz was one of the first guys to begin to realize film as something more than recorded theatre, but he was still very naive. Also, the lack of sound required actors to grossly over-do facial expressions, gestures, and body language. See "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" for an even more blatent example. Also, remember that the early part of the 20th century is still not far from the romantic period, where mellodrama was the status quo.
BTW: I think we're about at this stage now in video games. You see the glimour of people who are on the right track (things like Okami and Spore come to mind), but I don't think we have our Fritz Lang yet... or at least he hasn't proven himself to be that. I think we're on the verge of it, though; expect this next decade to be a real turning point for the future of games as an artistic/entertainment medium.
I think he's saying that us guys will finally get a taste of our own medicine: we'll finally learn how crappy it is when the girl gets up and leaves before WE'RE done.
Insert obligitory, "I put my earbud in your mom's ear!" joke here.