The problem, as some other have pointed out, is the "physical" medium. Unlike traditional goods, a "video game" exist only virtually.
If someone could copy a car with no repercussions, people would "pirate" car and auto-dealers would complain, car manufacturers would complain and such... Hey it's free cars and no one will arrest me, why not do it?
"Physical" games, like board games, don't have the problem, they cannot be reproduced easily. Every medium with "virtual" formatting has the same problem: music, movies and even online books, among others.
So there's *only* two possibilities to "solving" the video game pirate problem:
1) Change the way people think and treat a game pirate the same way as a car thief, with "real" repercussions.
2) Make the game "physical" instead of "virtual". This requires developpers to be inventive: Integrate the hardware component along with the software... Like Eye of Judgement on the PS3, where i cannot even imagine ANYONE pirating the game since it requires physical components to play. If they pirated the game itself, why even care as no one is even able to play it?... The same way, i don't see anyone pirating Steel Battallion, Guitar Hero, DDR or Rock Band because of their special respective controllers.
Of course, all the examples listed in solution #2 are on console, which are "somewhat" harder for Mr. average joe to pirate in the first place.
And to people thinking pirates don't have *that* much of an effect, i would point to the fact that where the PC was king of gaming, now it's on consoles, notably because it's harder for the common folk to copy, requiring mod chips and other such "heavy" modifications, which is not within reach of most people. This leaves PC gaming in a sad state indeed...
You should try Universe at War: Earth Assault for the xbox 360.
I've played LOTS of PC RTS in my life and i can say that playing UaW on the 360 comes PRETTY close to the level of control of a mouse and keyboard.
In it, Everything is accessible from one-level sub-menus. You access the various sub-menus with the triggers and the bumpers. So you never have any multiple menus to open to buid something, like in Battle for Middle Earth 2 or Command in Conquer 3...
Navigation is done through the right trigger. It opens a map of the entire battlefield where you can either move units on it (right stick) or move the main view itself (left stick).
To select multiple units, you can "paint" your units by holding the "A" button.
To select all units of the same type on the screen, double-tap "A".
to group units, press back.
the right bumper gives you access to all your grouped units. Every type of units you can build is also grouped together by default. So "selecting all infantry you have" is a 1 second job.
With those simple controls, you can navigate and select any/all the units on the map and move them where you want in a matter of seconds. ALMOST as fast as a keyboard and mouse.
Too bad the game itself has some bugs, like obvious frame-rate slowdowns... But they did nail the controls for a console RTS. And too bad everybody overlooked the game because probably of GTA4...
I saw 2 huge locked walls with 360 games, 2 huge locked walls with PS2,PSP and PS3 games, 2 huge locked walls with Wii and DS games. 2 huge walls with console accessories, some of them locked. They were locked so that you required assistance of an employee to get your product. Employee cannot "give" you the games or accessories until you have paid at the electronic department cash register. Not on any of these walls could i see a game that was more than 2 years old. Those were in the bargain bin. Even then, the bargain bin doesn't consist of games more than 3 or 4 years old.
Meanwhile, in the same WalMart, i saw 2 shelves with a bunch of PC games, not locked. A bunch of game boxes were smashed, a testimony to the fact that they have been mishandled by customers over the years that the box sat there, unsold. i could see games that were released over 5 years ago still there. Heck, they still sell Diablo 2 and the original Splinter Cell there.
THIS is a sign that the PC market is really not strong.
I wish i still had a link to the profits made by the gaming industry last year. It was around these numbers: - Console: 7 billions. - Handhelds: 2 billions. - PC games: 1 billion. Considering that i estimate around half the PC games profit in the entire industry is only for ONE game, being World of Warcraft, that basically leaves peanuts to every other single developper but Blizzard and a few others. 90% of the profits of games go to a handful of game developpers.
No wonder everybody tries to go the way of consoles and no wonder the state of PC gaming is so bad.
Also of note is that PC gaming can NEVER completely dissapear like DreamCast or other dead consoles. Simply because people HAVE PC means there will always be someone to develop for it.
RTS are going to consoles last year and this year.
on the 360 alone, last year there was Command and Conquer 3 and Battle for middle Earth 2. this year will see Halo Wars, End War and at least another whose name i always forget that sci-fi on earth VS aliens or something like that. Developpers are desperate to find a way to make RTS playable and fun on consoles. They just don't get as many revenues from their PC counterparts.
As for independants not having access to consoles platforms. I think it is also changing. At least on the 360, we can now see the results of the XNA program, where people bought a license that only costed what? 100$ (from memory) to create games for the 360 platform. The few games that were released from this program were made by average joes in their home PC and can now be found in the XNA section of the 360 marketplace.
PC VS Console, if the game is made properly, actually works with no advantage provided to the PC player.
What ShadowRun thaught us is that in MODERN fpses, PC gamers have an advantge with snipers, when they are not running like crazy while sniping and that console gamers have an advantage in close quarters, where circle strafing is much more fluid with a controller. Overall, the two cancels each other out.
So basically, you should compare FPSes on both platforms that were not made over 10 years ago. Which is what you were doing with your analogy to Quake 3.
"Popular fiction generally outsells literary fiction. Summer blockbusters generally out-gross arthouse films. Is this any different from, say, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat out-NPD-ing BioShock last year, or Madden doing the same to Shadow of the Colossus in 2005?"
MAYBE because BioShock is gruesome horror and single player only while COD4 is both single player and packs a very good online multiplayer part, not focussed on horror (which doesn't appeal to some people), has made less of a scandal (killing little girls in BioShock) AND has the better graphic quality (although BioShock is a great looker by itself).
I don't even know how to begin to know why they compared Madden to Shadow of the Colosus?
Let's compare apples to apples and orange to orange.
* It should have definable qualities which distinguish it from other consoles. As much as I like my 360, it's really not innovative in any way - more of a refinement of existing trends and technologies. Likewise, the PS3 is mostly about bigger and better hardware.
not innovative? the 360?
What about achievements?
The marketplace (it was the first console with one)?
Messaging?
Video marketplace?
GamerTags and profiles?
PC to 360 streaming of video, images and music?
Software updates?
The 360s major improvements are based on software, not hardware. Where the other two (Wii and PS3) are mostly based on hardware (BluRay and controller mainly).
Access to the silver service is included with the purchase of any 360.
Without access to Live, both silver and gold members cannot access parts of their 360.
Online gaming (gold) is just a small part of the Live service. MSN, marketplace, chat, mailing service, achievements system, leaderboards and more are all part of the package. Xbox live arcade games played on a friend's 360 also need to access Live in order to work beyond the trial versions.
Enetring my profile, then having to wait for 5 minutes until a connection can be made to live so that i can actually browse my games and demos on my own machine is a hassle for silver members. Playing Project Gotham Racing 4 and being returned to the title screen in the middle of a race with the message "your live connection has changed status, note that any unsaved progress has been lost" is not cool, even for silver members.
I may exagerate a bit, but every time you press a button on your controller, you send a signal to Live saying you are now "in the dashboard", "playing the third level in Halo 3 in single player" or "watching a DVD". With the Live service as of late, every button press to change your current gaming status can take a long while, sometimes over a minute.
So really, silver members need to be compensated just as much as gold members.
So the 360 controller can screw up a bit with other wireless signal... Well breaking news for you all: THE 360 CONSOLE ITSELF causes interference to your wireless signal... What will we do? i know: sue MS because it's console, when turned up in proximity of my wireless router, cause slowdowns in my connection speed. Let's go against Sony too, since the PS3 has the same problem... oh and Nintendo too.
Hey, i should go against my neighbor since HIS baby-radio is actually interfering with MY baby-radio (which is true).
Sorry, but i find this entire topic a little like: "Let's pass blame for every little problem in our lives to a giant mega-corporation". YOU bought a wireless and/or electronic and/or electric device... expect it to cause interference with your other wireless and/or electronic and/or electric. No matter what "band" or "radio signal" or "technology" used, you are, let's say, vastly uninformed (to stay polite) if you think it's not going to cause possible interference with anything.
People mod the console to install Linux for the fun of it, too, or to write their own games. There is no reason to allow the companies to restrict them from doing those, undoubtfully perfectly legal, activities. No period there, sorry.
Yeah, but WHO actually mod their consoles for that specific purpose? About what, 0.5% of the people who actually uses mod chips?
On some consoles anyway, like the PS3 where Linux comes out-of-the-box and on the Xbox 360, where anyone can develop games under the XNA, the concept of modding the console to allow what you have described becomes simply invalid. On those consoles, people mod their consoles strictly for playing pirated games.
Unless your software is a license. In which case what you purchased is a right to use something, not actually modify it.
Almost all software is licensed nowadays because of it.
Modding a console is not illegal in most countries because of the hardware change. It is because it affects the software in the console.
However you want to cut-it, modding a console for making backups is a very poor defense. People mod their console to play pirated and illegal games. Period.
Point in fact, most companies allow you to order a "replacement" disc for the cost of shipping + minor fee for the disc itself, if your copy is damaged.
These "rights to copy" software go back to a time where you actually bought the software for your own use and where the physical magnetic disc would degrade pretty quickly in a few years. This is not the case anymore. Most old CDs from 1995 still work today.
Looks at pong. ok Looks at Wii Tennis. Mmmm, definitely better experience.
Looks at 3D maze. ok Looks at Halo 3. Definitely better experience.
Looks at Rakathu (for those who even played that early text-only adventure game). ok. Looks at Myst IV. Definitely better experience.
Because a game is "simpler" does NOT necessarily make it better. More accessible perhaps, better, not by a long shot. Look at board games. They have the same "problem". You can play the original Risk, easy, simple to learn. Or you can play Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. A LOT more complex than Risk. Any person who played both will almost all choose to play Twilight if provided with a choice. It offers a much more rewarding experience with tactical options going beyond simple reinforcements and attacks by including diplomacy, politics, bureaucracy and technology mechanics.
It's the same if you compare Chess and Checkers. Checkers is easier to learn than Chess. Chess is nonetheless regarded as the better game.
This is another case of what i call "nostalgia syndrome". As in: "The games i've played during my time were better than the games you are playing now". There are tons of those.
You just expressed what, in my mind, is typical blind anti-Microsoft "fanboyism".
Contrary to popular belief, MS is NOT a monopoly. Anyone can go into any computer store and buy a computer that doesn't have Windows.
You can have a MAC. It can open 95% of the files from the main programs used under Windows, like Office documents.
You can also have one of the many Linuxes around. They run on the same hardware you have for Windows.
I won't talk about the other alternatives that next to no one knows about...
The bottom line is that it's not a monopoly if the customer have valid alternatives that can be found everywhere.
Windows is simply the most popular OS out there. And there is a reason for that. It's not because Windows is a perfect OS. It's because the alternatives are quite simply put: LESS GOOD for the average consumer.
Look at MAC: Great OS!!! easy to use... Really, the relative failure of MAC to sell to the average consumer isn't due to the OS. It's actually that it can only run on a very specific hardware, namely a MAC computer. Now MACs are very powerful, very stylish and very elegant, but they cost about TWICE as much as a standard PC for the same amount of "power". Most customers would prefer paying.
Look at Linux: working with Linux, i CANNOT recommend ANY of it's versions to the average man. It is simply too hard to understand for most people. You want to install a program? Good, then if your distro doesn't have the package (god forbid the latest version), you need to, in 75% of the cases, go search the web, find the program, TRY to COMPILE it on your Linux version, then debug your other missing packages once you manage to figure out why it won't compile on your computer. Open Office, the main Linux alternative to MS office, isn't up to par yet. We still have margins, fonts and other whatnot problems when opening Word or Excel documents. The layout just isn't 100% similar. This excludes Linux from "serious" office work. Linux: GREAT servers, POOR office desktop.
You are a gamer and you're just saying all the games almost only run on Windows? Well then, you ALSO have alternatives to play games on something else than Windows. Nintendo and Sony made sure of that.
So Windows remains dominant, not because of it's brilliance, but because the alternatives just don't work for the average man on his family computer.
The Metroid Prime series is a series of exploration. Yes you also shoot things in it.
See it like a first person Tomb Raider (even though a less linear one). In Tomb Raider, you shoot things constantly, yet they arn't "shooters". They are exploration and puzzle solving games that includes shooting and that plays in the 3rd person. They arn't third person shooters. They are classified as "action/adventure".
See there are TONS of descriptives for games played in the third person: - platformers, - shooters, - adventures, - puzzles, - etc.
However, there are only about one really known for 1st person: - shooter.
Well, 1st person games can be of the same kinds than 3rd person. Portal is puzzle, Metroid is adventure,
sadly, there arn't much more but for the oddball 1st person game...
There is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to import your wifes control settings into your profile. Nor should a single profile be linked to a single control set; let me create multiple control sets and rotate between them within my single profile.
I still fail to see the usefulness of it all. Why would anyone feel the need to import somebody else's preference? If you play with him/her, he'll log using his own profile. On a console like the 360, it's only a matter of clicking X and selecting the new profile. You don't even need to get out of the game.
And rotating between controls sets? In most games, you can pause and change your set-up as you go. Sure there arn't any buttons to dynamically change on-the-fly during the game, but really what's the point of that?
The problem i see with this is that some games would become overly complicated, mapping different actions to the same button, depending on your settings.
I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking it's necessary, but i really don't think it is. It would make menus overly complicated for something as trivial as this.
#1 - save games automatically - good point. do it. But don't overwrite their last save. Create a new one.
--> Games like Quake 4 do this. It leaves you after a while with dozens of save files you have to manually clean-up. Really, the best system is like TFA said. Like Halo games: Have a checkpoint auto-save system that overwrites the last save all the time. Then remember which levels he played and allow them to start in any level he previously played in. This works with almost all games but non-linear RPGs and Sand-box games.
#2 - always say "press any button" to start game. whatever. I'd say its more important to just work with the common ones. Nothings more annoying than games with non-standard or backwards 'menu navigation'.
--> And i say those menu are just plain idiotic. Period. They come from the habit of old arcade coin-ups where you had "insert coin to start". They just replaced "coin" with "start button". The whole screen is just a relic of the past to begin with. I still wonder why almost ALL games have one.
#3 - go one further - acknowledge left handed players and design a map, sure it won't match every lefties preference but nothing sucks worse than having to remap a game from SCRATCH because its totally unusable for a lefty especially since at this point we haven't played it yet and don't really know which commands are most important, a lefthanded-template to start from would be nice. (This applies mostly to keyboard / PC games of course)
--> PC games almost all allow you to remap buttons as you wish them. The problem is more on consoles, where this feature is very inconsistent from one game to the other. I still don't get why they use "presets" of control methods when it would be so easy to let the player remap their buttons how they want.
Also let us save and restore our control maps on the fly for crying out loud. More than one player plays the game, and my brother uses some whacky options. And don't lock it up in some player profile we select when we start the game. When I play NFS carbon for example my friends and frequently just hand off the controller between races in career mode, we don't want to each run our own separate career, and we want to be able to swap control preferences easily.
--> This i disagree. Profiles actually makes it that each player can have his own save, settings and preferences for himself. I don't want this to go away. I can't remember the number of times my wife or i accidentally wiped a save of each other by accident because there was no "locked" profile.
And for those new 'games for windows' that apparently have to support xbox controllers, if i don't have an xbox controller don't effing show me what my control layout looks like on one. And don't prompt me ingame to push xbox controller buttons. (I'm looking at you Lost Planet!!)
--> I'll just say that PC games will use more and more the 360 controller and will be designed around it. They are trying to get rid altogether of the mouse/keyboard set-up that, let's face it, was never designed or intended as a gaming device to begin with. (I know PC purist won't like it, but it's the current trend).
#4 - cutscenese - yeah we need to be able to skip them, especially the long one at the beginning, and doubly so for anything we might see -during- gameplay. ESPECIALY the one right before the boss fight that you'll have to redo a dozen times or so. I've given up on games because I couldn't handle the cutscene between dying and trying again. And seriously, get rid of those cutscenese that are 4 minutes long, then require you to manually walk forward 3 feet, open a door, and then launch into another 4 minute cutscene.... that's just retarded.
--> agreed 100%
#5 - good camera controls - obviously
#6 - good controls - obviously
#7 - accessibility options - meh, this is important, but not top 10.
#8 - cheap enemies is an issue. cheap level design is even worse.
Certain video games are somewhat doomed when it comes to the notion of sequels or remakes.
People that played the previous games and liked it want the sequels. People that didn't play the previous games don't want to play the "old game with old graphics" to understand what will happen in the sequel.
Unlike movies where you can watch the prior movies before seeing the newer sequel in an evening, playing the prior games before the sequel could last you several weeks which, depending on how the old games have aged, can be a chore.
For exemple, Halo 3 has just came out. It's story won't really make sense to those who didn't play the first two. In fact, we have reports of people playing it's campaign and saying: "i have no clue what i'm doing here, but i just shoot things". Going back to play the first Halo is an option. It's not "that" old of a game and yet, if you have seen it recently, it definitely shows it's 6 year old age compared to other, more recent, shooters. Some people will prefer playing the "other" shooter with a story that makes more sense.
Then the remake can make sense. Redo the old game so that new people can play it and understand the series. But then, the problem with remakes is that if you already played it, you might not want to play it again (unless it's from pure nostalgia).
You lose customers to the remake and you lose customers to the sequel.
See, as a customer, i am not really inclined to buy the next.hack game that will come out as i never played the what? 4 or 5 games that came before it... I could play the first one if it was remade for the new gen of consoles. It might actually interest me. This "new" Tomb Raider anniversary doesn't interest me one bit. Even though i played TR1, 2, 3, 4, chronicles, angel of darkness and Legends to death. I must've played through TR1 at least 4 or 5 times back in the day. I don't want to "experience it again". My time is better "devoted" to a newer game.
In a way, certain series have found a way to fight that so that this "catch 22" doesn't apply.
Make a "sequel" that is also a "remake".
For exemple: Civilization 4 is exactly the same game as the first one. The story doesn't follow from one to the other, yet it's not a "remake", but a "sequel" to the previous ones.
Zelda games also have found a way. With the exception of Link's adventure and Majora's Mask, all Zelda have always been a re-telling of the original games. They are all sequels, yet they never have story continuation. Same deal with Final Fantasies.
I'm sorry, but Super Metroid may as well be a retelling of the original Metroid, no less than Zero Mission was. Sure, they made some excuses for the same exact plot happening over again, but it was basically a retelling. Zero Mission was, once again, the same plot, and completely redesigned gameplay (and areas) from the ground up. The only difference is that ZM CLAIMED to be a retelling, where-as Super Metroid claimed to come afterwards, but that differences is mearly superficial, especially since plot is was not exactly a primary goal in the Metroid series until Prime.
I'm sorry, but i really don't agree with you.
There was a story in the old series...
Metroid / Metroid Zero: Go fight pirates in their base.
Metroid 2: Exterminate the Metroids on their home planet, one is left.
Super Metroid: Pirates come back and steal the last Metroid. Go back to their lair and fight them for a round 2. Last metroid saves you at the end.
Metroid Fusion: The natural prey of the metroid, a parasite, doesn't have it's main hunter anymore since the metroids were exterminated and wreaks havoc. You have to exterminate them.
The point is that even though Super Metroid takes place in the same "area" as the first game in the series, it's clearly not a remake. Levels are really not the same but for a few areas. Ennemies are not all the same. The plot is a continuation.
Sorry, but you havn't been keeping in touch with the Halo merchandising. AT ALL.
MS is looking VERY closely at everything published with the Halo brand. The Halo phenomenon could have been MUCH, MUCH bigger than what was shown.
Halo is viewed as an entertainment product, and not as a "videogame", by companies. So MS was approached with hundreds of proposals by numerous companies for merchandising products that were all refused.
What do we have with Halo 3? - a limited comic book series in 4 volumes by Marvel. - a new novel out at the end of october. - a collectible board game (Halo ActionClix), by WizKids. - some "action figures" by McFarlane Toys (out next spring). - some 360 video games accessories with the "halo stamp". - Mountain Dew.
Really, was the merchandising THAT bad? Don't doubt they have been asked by numerous companies to do T-Shirts, cheap board games, towels, toothpaste, gun toys, matchbox Halo "cars", 3D models of Halo vehicles, and more and more... On all of that, only the Mountain Dew is really somewhat "stange" for a video game, but then as i said, Halo is not only viewed as a videogame, but as an "entertainment product".
They have all been refused.
Now look at the second best selling (in the first day) entertainment product in history. If you don't know, it's the movie: SpiderMan 3. - the video game - the toys (which have an entire section devoted to it in WalMart and Toys R Us, including the Spiderman 3 Mr. Potato Head) - the burgers - the drinks - the towels - the T-Shirts - the bathrobes - the car stickers -... (i'll stop there, they are too numerous to count).
With the way Microsoft has been handling the Halo merchandising, it's really been kept to a minimum. Yet you seem to think it was "too much?". The only place where i have seen it be "too much", is on video games magazines websites such as gamesradar, IGN and GameSpot. Those arn't really under Microsoft control to begin with.
No really, the merchandising was kept to a minimum and the publicity was not "overblown" like so many movies (Heck i see more Project Gotham Racing 4 publicity on TV right now than i ever saw of Halo).
If anyone's to "blame" for the overexposition of Halo to you, it's the gaming "journalists", not Microsoft.
I can blame Microsoft when they do something "bad", but when they do it right, i recognize it. Halo merchandizing was very nicely made and not overblown for a product of this magnitude.
Why is this game so popular? In which ways did it revolutionize the genre?
My take about why Halo is so popular concerns numerous points:
1) Halo 1 is the FIRST console FPS that actually could rival those on PC that was any fun. Before it, the ONLY contender for FPSes that were any good on consoles were GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, for the N64. Those two titles were quite good, but nowhere near as good as the FPS found on PC, due to the single analog stick found on the N64 controller that couldn't "convey" the fluidity of movement required for an FPS.
2) Halo 1 is the first game to have introduced a "regenerative" health system that is now standard in most FPS, both on PC and consoles. This meant added "realism" as you didn't need to strategically place med packs in every office of a building (like those in F.E.A.R.) or at every corridor turn (like those in Doom 3). It meant that you were "always on edge". Regenerative health also meant several things: A) that you were always "close" to death. Meaning you always needed to be careful and not go running everywhere on the battlefield like crazy. B) that you needed to "flee" in order to take cover to let your "energy shield" (or health) recharge. Making cover actually of some use in an FPS, which was mostly useless prior Halo 1. C) It brought "fighting" more closer and personal for a different style of play. Firing at long range with an assault rifle in the off-chance of getting a few bullets in was next to useless, as the few hits you would provide would be healed a few seconds later. You were required to close the distance to your ennemy, at best trying to flank and surprise him from up-close.
3) Halo added a limit to the numbers of guns you could carry. You could only have two at a time. Every ennemy in the single player campaign was weaker to some weapons. I.E. the huge hunters were easy targets for the standard pistol, Elites were weaker for the plasma rifle that could weaken their shield quickly, The flood were pretty strong VS plasma and weak VS the shotgun. This meant you needed to "plan" the weapons you would use in the next section of the game as you couldn't "carry them all".
4) Halo used grenades as a primary weapon. The grenades were the main secondary weapons. To my knowledge, it's the first FPS where grenades were actually of any use. In games prior, you had to "switch" to grenades and they were so random that next to no one used them.
5) A.I., when set at the highest difficulty, that was actually capable of taking cover and retreating to let their own shields regenerate. To my knowledge, i never saw any A.I. do that in an FPS before Halo.
6) A very good sci-fi story that actually made you want to know how it ended. A big plot twist at about half-game completely reversed the way you fought your ennemies.
7) A.I. companions that could actually hold their own for more than 10 seconds.
8) Vehicles. Halo is about the first time i saw vehicles that were actually fun and fully integrated to the levels (rather than have a "vehicle" level that was completely different in gameplay than the rest of the game, like in No one lives forever bike sequences).
9) The soundtrack. The music of Halo 1 is still about one of the best ever seen in a video game. Period. It was actually included as a way to "enhance" the gameplay rather than just being a "background" of some sort. For example, in some cases, the music was completely silent, then you'd hear a radio message of someone screaming in urgency while he told you of ennemies invading the building you are in. At this point the music kicked in with an hard-rock version of the main theme of the game, which, against it's prior complete silence, was just jaw-breaking.
10) A sci-fi "war". You trully felt like you were in a real sci-fi war. You could stumble upon a fight that included 8 humans, 10 aliens from race A and 5 or 6 aliens from race B all at the same time, making for a big battlefield.
Scenario 1) Average Joe: I want to buy a video games console.
Clerk: Please come to me to the gaming section. There's the Wii, the PS3 and the 360. The Wii sells for less, the 360 is the middle price range, the PS3 is the highest costing one. The Wii has this motion sensor you can try over there at the demo machine.
Average Joe: Who, the Wii controller feels original and good.
Clerk: The 360 and the PS3 support HD, see how much the image is clearer on the demo machine?
Average Joe: I don't have an HDTV, so i'll take the Wii. - OR - I have an HDTV, so i'll take the 360, it's less expansive.
Scenario 2) Average Joe: I want a BluRay player,
Clerk: Please come with me to the electronics department, right next to the DVD players are the BluRay players. We have the model X and the model Y in store. One is made by A, the other is made by B. A is generally of higher quality than B, but it costs more.
Average Joe: I'll take player A as i want a quality player - OR - I'll take player B as i want a cheaper one
Conclusion: In scenario 2, the customer isn't even taken to the "gaming" department as he's not looking for games, but something else.
In scenario 1, the customer isn't even talked to about the "other" functionalities on the PS3 or the 360 (it would just take plain too long for the clerk)
Example that would take too much time to "inform" a customer about the 360: - You can play 360 games - You can play some original xbox games, but not all (now to explain why that is). - You can view pictures, movies and listen to music from an iPod, a USB key. - You can connect the console to a Windows based PC and watch content from your PC in your living room on your TV, by going through your 360 (now to explain the requirement of a "home network". - You can play online, if you have a gold subscription. - You can also access an online marketplace, with videos, movie rental system, television shows, games and games expansions. - You have a unique profile created that you can use on ANY 360, even your friends. - The 360 can also integrates into your Vista or XP media center edition PC and your Zune player seemlessly. - It has 3 different bundles, the Core, the Premium and the Elite (now to explain the differences between them).
Explaining all this would take over an hour for the clerk. He doesn't have the time. So he explain only what the customer asks (or think to ask): how much does it cost? and what do i need to get it running?
Explaining all the features of the PS3 would be equally as long. Just think of telling Linux can be installed on it and explaining it can give a clerk a nightmare.
As for the Wii, well it simply put, PLAYS GAMES. Nothing really more and nothing really less. The customers can usually also experience most of what it offers by himself directly in the store. Unlike Linux, Vista connectivity or "marketplaces" and other whatnots...
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The problem, as some other have pointed out, is the "physical" medium. Unlike traditional goods, a "video game" exist only virtually.
If someone could copy a car with no repercussions, people would "pirate" car and auto-dealers would complain, car manufacturers would complain and such... Hey it's free cars and no one will arrest me, why not do it?
"Physical" games, like board games, don't have the problem, they cannot be reproduced easily. Every medium with "virtual" formatting has the same problem: music, movies and even online books, among others.
So there's *only* two possibilities to "solving" the video game pirate problem:
1) Change the way people think and treat a game pirate the same way as a car thief, with "real" repercussions.
2) Make the game "physical" instead of "virtual". This requires developpers to be inventive:
Integrate the hardware component along with the software...
Like Eye of Judgement on the PS3, where i cannot even imagine ANYONE pirating the game since it requires physical components to play. If they pirated the game itself, why even care as no one is even able to play it?...
The same way, i don't see anyone pirating Steel Battallion, Guitar Hero, DDR or Rock Band because of their special respective controllers.
Of course, all the examples listed in solution #2 are on console, which are "somewhat" harder for Mr. average joe to pirate in the first place.
And to people thinking pirates don't have *that* much of an effect, i would point to the fact that where the PC was king of gaming, now it's on consoles, notably because it's harder for the common folk to copy, requiring mod chips and other such "heavy" modifications, which is not within reach of most people.
This leaves PC gaming in a sad state indeed...
You should try Universe at War: Earth Assault for the xbox 360.
I've played LOTS of PC RTS in my life and i can say that playing UaW on the 360 comes PRETTY close to the level of control of a mouse and keyboard.
In it,
Everything is accessible from one-level sub-menus. You access the various sub-menus with the triggers and the bumpers. So you never have any multiple menus to open to buid something, like in Battle for Middle Earth 2 or Command in Conquer 3...
Navigation is done through the right trigger. It opens a map of the entire battlefield where you can either move units on it (right stick) or move the main view itself (left stick).
To select multiple units, you can "paint" your units by holding the "A" button.
To select all units of the same type on the screen, double-tap "A".
to group units, press back.
the right bumper gives you access to all your grouped units. Every type of units you can build is also grouped together by default. So "selecting all infantry you have" is a 1 second job.
With those simple controls, you can navigate and select any/all the units on the map and move them where you want in a matter of seconds. ALMOST as fast as a keyboard and mouse.
Too bad the game itself has some bugs, like obvious frame-rate slowdowns... But they did nail the controls for a console RTS.
And too bad everybody overlooked the game because probably of GTA4...
Last time i went to WalMart,
I saw 2 huge locked walls with 360 games,
2 huge locked walls with PS2,PSP and PS3 games,
2 huge locked walls with Wii and DS games.
2 huge walls with console accessories, some of them locked.
They were locked so that you required assistance of an employee to get your product. Employee cannot "give" you the games or accessories until you have paid at the electronic department cash register.
Not on any of these walls could i see a game that was more than 2 years old. Those were in the bargain bin. Even then, the bargain bin doesn't consist of games more than 3 or 4 years old.
Meanwhile, in the same WalMart, i saw 2 shelves with a bunch of PC games, not locked. A bunch of game boxes were smashed, a testimony to the fact that they have been mishandled by customers over the years that the box sat there, unsold.
i could see games that were released over 5 years ago still there. Heck, they still sell Diablo 2 and the original Splinter Cell there.
THIS is a sign that the PC market is really not strong.
I wish i still had a link to the profits made by the gaming industry last year.
It was around these numbers:
- Console: 7 billions.
- Handhelds: 2 billions.
- PC games: 1 billion.
Considering that i estimate around half the PC games profit in the entire industry is only for ONE game, being World of Warcraft, that basically leaves peanuts to every other single developper but Blizzard and a few others. 90% of the profits of games go to a handful of game developpers.
No wonder everybody tries to go the way of consoles and no wonder the state of PC gaming is so bad.
Also of note is that PC gaming can NEVER completely dissapear like DreamCast or other dead consoles. Simply because people HAVE PC means there will always be someone to develop for it.
RTS are going to consoles last year and this year.
on the 360 alone, last year there was Command and Conquer 3 and Battle for middle Earth 2.
this year will see Halo Wars, End War and at least another whose name i always forget that sci-fi on earth VS aliens or something like that.
Developpers are desperate to find a way to make RTS playable and fun on consoles. They just don't get as many revenues from their PC counterparts.
As for independants not having access to consoles platforms. I think it is also changing. At least on the 360, we can now see the results of the XNA program, where people bought a license that only costed what? 100$ (from memory) to create games for the 360 platform. The few games that were released from this program were made by average joes in their home PC and can now be found in the XNA section of the 360 marketplace.
Look up the latest ShadowRun game (the FPS one).
PC VS Console, if the game is made properly, actually works with no advantage provided to the PC player.
What ShadowRun thaught us is that in MODERN fpses, PC gamers have an advantge with snipers, when they are not running like crazy while sniping and that console gamers have an advantage in close quarters, where circle strafing is much more fluid with a controller. Overall, the two cancels each other out.
So basically, you should compare FPSes on both platforms that were not made over 10 years ago. Which is what you were doing with your analogy to Quake 3.
MAYBE because BioShock is gruesome horror and single player only while COD4 is both single player and packs a very good online multiplayer part, not focussed on horror (which doesn't appeal to some people), has made less of a scandal (killing little girls in BioShock) AND has the better graphic quality (although BioShock is a great looker by itself).
I don't even know how to begin to know why they compared Madden to Shadow of the Colosus?
Let's compare apples to apples and orange to orange.
"Wii Play was the No. 2-selling game of last year even though it received an abysmal score of 58 out of 100 at Metacritic, which aggregates reviews. "
I think this however completely ingore the fact that Wii play came with a controller that were even thougher to find on their own than the rare Wiis.
People bought this because it was the only way they could get their hands on a second controller.
Just take this link and see where the joystick is...
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/19/xbox-360-arcade-stick/
In all it's Xbox 360 glory.
not innovative? the 360?
What about achievements? The marketplace (it was the first console with one)? Messaging? Video marketplace? GamerTags and profiles? PC to 360 streaming of video, images and music? Software updates?
The 360s major improvements are based on software, not hardware. Where the other two (Wii and PS3) are mostly based on hardware (BluRay and controller mainly).
Access to the silver service is included with the purchase of any 360.
Without access to Live, both silver and gold members cannot access parts of their 360.
Online gaming (gold) is just a small part of the Live service. MSN, marketplace, chat, mailing service, achievements system, leaderboards and more are all part of the package. Xbox live arcade games played on a friend's 360 also need to access Live in order to work beyond the trial versions.
Enetring my profile, then having to wait for 5 minutes until a connection can be made to live so that i can actually browse my games and demos on my own machine is a hassle for silver members. Playing Project Gotham Racing 4 and being returned to the title screen in the middle of a race with the message "your live connection has changed status, note that any unsaved progress has been lost" is not cool, even for silver members.
I may exagerate a bit, but every time you press a button on your controller, you send a signal to Live saying you are now "in the dashboard", "playing the third level in Halo 3 in single player" or "watching a DVD". With the Live service as of late, every button press to change your current gaming status can take a long while, sometimes over a minute.
So really, silver members need to be compensated just as much as gold members.
So the 360 controller can screw up a bit with other wireless signal...
Well breaking news for you all:
THE 360 CONSOLE ITSELF causes interference to your wireless signal...
What will we do? i know: sue MS because it's console, when turned up in proximity of my wireless router, cause slowdowns in my connection speed.
Let's go against Sony too, since the PS3 has the same problem... oh and Nintendo too.
Hey, i should go against my neighbor since HIS baby-radio is actually interfering with MY baby-radio (which is true).
Sorry, but i find this entire topic a little like: "Let's pass blame for every little problem in our lives to a giant mega-corporation".
YOU bought a wireless and/or electronic and/or electric device... expect it to cause interference with your other wireless and/or electronic and/or electric. No matter what "band" or "radio signal" or "technology" used, you are, let's say, vastly uninformed (to stay polite) if you think it's not going to cause possible interference with anything.
Yeah, but WHO actually mod their consoles for that specific purpose? About what, 0.5% of the people who actually uses mod chips?
On some consoles anyway, like the PS3 where Linux comes out-of-the-box and on the Xbox 360, where anyone can develop games under the XNA, the concept of modding the console to allow what you have described becomes simply invalid. On those consoles, people mod their consoles strictly for playing pirated games.
Unless your software is a license. In which case what you purchased is a right to use something, not actually modify it.
Almost all software is licensed nowadays because of it.
Modding a console is not illegal in most countries because of the hardware change. It is because it affects the software in the console.
However you want to cut-it, modding a console for making backups is a very poor defense. People mod their console to play pirated and illegal games. Period.
Point in fact, most companies allow you to order a "replacement" disc for the cost of shipping + minor fee for the disc itself, if your copy is damaged.
These "rights to copy" software go back to a time where you actually bought the software for your own use and where the physical magnetic disc would degrade pretty quickly in a few years. This is not the case anymore. Most old CDs from 1995 still work today.
1) Guy has a product that more or less competes with video games in their current form.
...
2) Guy says modern games are crap.
3)
4) Profit.
I think you all can fill number 3.
Looks at pong. ok
Looks at Wii Tennis. Mmmm, definitely better experience.
Looks at 3D maze. ok
Looks at Halo 3. Definitely better experience.
Looks at Rakathu (for those who even played that early text-only adventure game). ok.
Looks at Myst IV. Definitely better experience.
Because a game is "simpler" does NOT necessarily make it better. More accessible perhaps, better, not by a long shot. Look at board games. They have the same "problem".
You can play the original Risk, easy, simple to learn.
Or you can play Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. A LOT more complex than Risk.
Any person who played both will almost all choose to play Twilight if provided with a choice. It offers a much more rewarding experience with tactical options going beyond simple reinforcements and attacks by including diplomacy, politics, bureaucracy and technology mechanics.
It's the same if you compare Chess and Checkers. Checkers is easier to learn than Chess. Chess is nonetheless regarded as the better game.
This is another case of what i call "nostalgia syndrome". As in: "The games i've played during my time were better than the games you are playing now". There are tons of those.
You just expressed what, in my mind, is typical blind anti-Microsoft "fanboyism".
Contrary to popular belief, MS is NOT a monopoly. Anyone can go into any computer store and buy a computer that doesn't have Windows.
You can have a MAC. It can open 95% of the files from the main programs used under Windows, like Office documents.
You can also have one of the many Linuxes around. They run on the same hardware you have for Windows.
I won't talk about the other alternatives that next to no one knows about...
The bottom line is that it's not a monopoly if the customer have valid alternatives that can be found everywhere.
Windows is simply the most popular OS out there. And there is a reason for that. It's not because Windows is a perfect OS. It's because the alternatives are quite simply put: LESS GOOD for the average consumer.
Look at MAC: Great OS!!! easy to use... Really, the relative failure of MAC to sell to the average consumer isn't due to the OS. It's actually that it can only run on a very specific hardware, namely a MAC computer.
Now MACs are very powerful, very stylish and very elegant, but they cost about TWICE as much as a standard PC for the same amount of "power". Most customers would prefer paying.
Look at Linux: working with Linux, i CANNOT recommend ANY of it's versions to the average man. It is simply too hard to understand for most people.
You want to install a program? Good, then if your distro doesn't have the package (god forbid the latest version), you need to, in 75% of the cases, go search the web, find the program, TRY to COMPILE it on your Linux version, then debug your other missing packages once you manage to figure out why it won't compile on your computer.
Open Office, the main Linux alternative to MS office, isn't up to par yet. We still have margins, fonts and other whatnot problems when opening Word or Excel documents. The layout just isn't 100% similar. This excludes Linux from "serious" office work.
Linux: GREAT servers, POOR office desktop.
You are a gamer and you're just saying all the games almost only run on Windows? Well then, you ALSO have alternatives to play games on something else than Windows. Nintendo and Sony made sure of that.
So Windows remains dominant, not because of it's brilliance, but because the alternatives just don't work for the average man on his family computer.
Yes it actually does.
The Metroid Prime series is a series of exploration. Yes you also shoot things in it.
See it like a first person Tomb Raider (even though a less linear one). In Tomb Raider, you shoot things constantly, yet they arn't "shooters". They are exploration and puzzle solving games that includes shooting and that plays in the 3rd person. They arn't third person shooters. They are classified as "action/adventure".
See there are TONS of descriptives for games played in the third person:
- platformers,
- shooters,
- adventures,
- puzzles,
- etc.
However, there are only about one really known for 1st person:
- shooter.
Well, 1st person games can be of the same kinds than 3rd person.
Portal is puzzle,
Metroid is adventure,
sadly, there arn't much more but for the oddball 1st person game...
I still fail to see the usefulness of it all. Why would anyone feel the need to import somebody else's preference? If you play with him/her, he'll log using his own profile. On a console like the 360, it's only a matter of clicking X and selecting the new profile. You don't even need to get out of the game.
And rotating between controls sets? In most games, you can pause and change your set-up as you go. Sure there arn't any buttons to dynamically change on-the-fly during the game, but really what's the point of that? The problem i see with this is that some games would become overly complicated, mapping different actions to the same button, depending on your settings.
I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking it's necessary, but i really don't think it is. It would make menus overly complicated for something as trivial as this.
#1 - save games automatically - good point. do it. But don't overwrite their last save. Create a new one.
--> Games like Quake 4 do this. It leaves you after a while with dozens of save files you have to manually clean-up. Really, the best system is like TFA said. Like Halo games: Have a checkpoint auto-save system that overwrites the last save all the time. Then remember which levels he played and allow them to start in any level he previously played in. This works with almost all games but non-linear RPGs and Sand-box games.
#2 - always say "press any button" to start game. whatever. I'd say its more important to just work with the common ones. Nothings more annoying than games with non-standard or backwards 'menu navigation'.
--> And i say those menu are just plain idiotic. Period. They come from the habit of old arcade coin-ups where you had "insert coin to start". They just replaced "coin" with "start button". The whole screen is just a relic of the past to begin with. I still wonder why almost ALL games have one.
#3 - go one further - acknowledge left handed players and design a map, sure it won't match every lefties preference but nothing sucks worse than having to remap a game from SCRATCH because its totally unusable for a lefty especially since at this point we haven't played it yet and don't really know which commands are most important, a lefthanded-template to start from would be nice. (This applies mostly to keyboard / PC games of course)
--> PC games almost all allow you to remap buttons as you wish them. The problem is more on consoles, where this feature is very inconsistent from one game to the other. I still don't get why they use "presets" of control methods when it would be so easy to let the player remap their buttons how they want.
Also let us save and restore our control maps on the fly for crying out loud. More than one player plays the game, and my brother uses some whacky options. And don't lock it up in some player profile we select when we start the game. When I play NFS carbon for example my friends and frequently just hand off the controller between races in career mode, we don't want to each run our own separate career, and we want to be able to swap control preferences easily.
--> This i disagree. Profiles actually makes it that each player can have his own save, settings and preferences for himself. I don't want this to go away. I can't remember the number of times my wife or i accidentally wiped a save of each other by accident because there was no "locked" profile.
And for those new 'games for windows' that apparently have to support xbox controllers, if i don't have an xbox controller don't effing show me what my control layout looks like on one. And don't prompt me ingame to push xbox controller buttons. (I'm looking at you Lost Planet!!)
--> I'll just say that PC games will use more and more the 360 controller and will be designed around it. They are trying to get rid altogether of the mouse/keyboard set-up that, let's face it, was never designed or intended as a gaming device to begin with. (I know PC purist won't like it, but it's the current trend).
#4 - cutscenese - yeah we need to be able to skip them, especially the long one at the beginning, and doubly so for anything we might see -during- gameplay. ESPECIALY the one right before the boss fight that you'll have to redo a dozen times or so. I've given up on games because I couldn't handle the cutscene between dying and trying again. And seriously, get rid of those cutscenese that are 4 minutes long, then require you to manually walk forward 3 feet, open a door, and then launch into another 4 minute cutscene.... that's just retarded.
--> agreed 100%
#5 - good camera controls - obviously
#6 - good controls - obviously
#7 - accessibility options - meh, this is important, but not top 10.
#8 - cheap enemies is an issue. cheap level design is even worse.
--> I find japanese games are the most guilty of
Certain video games are somewhat doomed when it comes to the notion of sequels or remakes.
.hack game that will come out as i never played the what? 4 or 5 games that came before it... I could play the first one if it was remade for the new gen of consoles. It might actually interest me.
People that played the previous games and liked it want the sequels.
People that didn't play the previous games don't want to play the "old game with old graphics" to understand what will happen in the sequel.
Unlike movies where you can watch the prior movies before seeing the newer sequel in an evening, playing the prior games before the sequel could last you several weeks which, depending on how the old games have aged, can be a chore.
For exemple, Halo 3 has just came out. It's story won't really make sense to those who didn't play the first two. In fact, we have reports of people playing it's campaign and saying: "i have no clue what i'm doing here, but i just shoot things".
Going back to play the first Halo is an option. It's not "that" old of a game and yet, if you have seen it recently, it definitely shows it's 6 year old age compared to other, more recent, shooters.
Some people will prefer playing the "other" shooter with a story that makes more sense.
Then the remake can make sense. Redo the old game so that new people can play it and understand the series.
But then, the problem with remakes is that if you already played it, you might not want to play it again (unless it's from pure nostalgia).
You lose customers to the remake and you lose customers to the sequel.
See, as a customer, i am not really inclined to buy the next
This "new" Tomb Raider anniversary doesn't interest me one bit. Even though i played TR1, 2, 3, 4, chronicles, angel of darkness and Legends to death. I must've played through TR1 at least 4 or 5 times back in the day. I don't want to "experience it again". My time is better "devoted" to a newer game.
In a way, certain series have found a way to fight that so that this "catch 22" doesn't apply.
Make a "sequel" that is also a "remake".
For exemple:
Civilization 4 is exactly the same game as the first one. The story doesn't follow from one to the other, yet it's not a "remake", but a "sequel" to the previous ones.
Zelda games also have found a way. With the exception of Link's adventure and Majora's Mask, all Zelda have always been a re-telling of the original games. They are all sequels, yet they never have story continuation. Same deal with Final Fantasies.
I'm sorry, but i really don't agree with you.
There was a story in the old series...
Metroid / Metroid Zero: Go fight pirates in their base.
Metroid 2: Exterminate the Metroids on their home planet, one is left.
Super Metroid: Pirates come back and steal the last Metroid. Go back to their lair and fight them for a round 2. Last metroid saves you at the end.
Metroid Fusion: The natural prey of the metroid, a parasite, doesn't have it's main hunter anymore since the metroids were exterminated and wreaks havoc. You have to exterminate them.
The point is that even though Super Metroid takes place in the same "area" as the first game in the series, it's clearly not a remake. Levels are really not the same but for a few areas. Ennemies are not all the same. The plot is a continuation.
Sorry, but you havn't been keeping in touch with the Halo merchandising. AT ALL.
... (i'll stop there, they are too numerous to count).
MS is looking VERY closely at everything published with the Halo brand. The Halo phenomenon could have been MUCH, MUCH bigger than what was shown.
Halo is viewed as an entertainment product, and not as a "videogame", by companies. So MS was approached with hundreds of proposals by numerous companies for merchandising products that were all refused.
What do we have with Halo 3?
- a limited comic book series in 4 volumes by Marvel.
- a new novel out at the end of october.
- a collectible board game (Halo ActionClix), by WizKids.
- some "action figures" by McFarlane Toys (out next spring).
- some 360 video games accessories with the "halo stamp".
- Mountain Dew.
Really, was the merchandising THAT bad? Don't doubt they have been asked by numerous companies to do T-Shirts, cheap board games, towels, toothpaste, gun toys, matchbox Halo "cars", 3D models of Halo vehicles, and more and more... On all of that, only the Mountain Dew is really somewhat "stange" for a video game, but then as i said, Halo is not only viewed as a videogame, but as an "entertainment product".
They have all been refused.
Now look at the second best selling (in the first day) entertainment product in history.
If you don't know, it's the movie: SpiderMan 3.
- the video game
- the toys (which have an entire section devoted to it in WalMart and Toys R Us, including the Spiderman 3 Mr. Potato Head)
- the burgers
- the drinks
- the towels
- the T-Shirts
- the bathrobes
- the car stickers
-
With the way Microsoft has been handling the Halo merchandising, it's really been kept to a minimum. Yet you seem to think it was "too much?".
The only place where i have seen it be "too much", is on video games magazines websites such as gamesradar, IGN and GameSpot. Those arn't really under Microsoft control to begin with.
No really, the merchandising was kept to a minimum and the publicity was not "overblown" like so many movies (Heck i see more Project Gotham Racing 4 publicity on TV right now than i ever saw of Halo).
If anyone's to "blame" for the overexposition of Halo to you, it's the gaming "journalists", not Microsoft.
I can blame Microsoft when they do something "bad", but when they do it right, i recognize it. Halo merchandizing was very nicely made and not overblown for a product of this magnitude.
Why is this game so popular? In which ways did it revolutionize the genre?
My take about why Halo is so popular concerns numerous points:
1) Halo 1 is the FIRST console FPS that actually could rival those on PC that was any fun. Before it, the ONLY contender for FPSes that were any good on consoles were GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, for the N64. Those two titles were quite good, but nowhere near as good as the FPS found on PC, due to the single analog stick found on the N64 controller that couldn't "convey" the fluidity of movement required for an FPS.
2) Halo 1 is the first game to have introduced a "regenerative" health system that is now standard in most FPS, both on PC and consoles. This meant added "realism" as you didn't need to strategically place med packs in every office of a building (like those in F.E.A.R.) or at every corridor turn (like those in Doom 3).
It meant that you were "always on edge". Regenerative health also meant several things:
A) that you were always "close" to death. Meaning you always needed to be careful and not go running everywhere on the battlefield like crazy.
B) that you needed to "flee" in order to take cover to let your "energy shield" (or health) recharge. Making cover actually of some use in an FPS, which was mostly useless prior Halo 1.
C) It brought "fighting" more closer and personal for a different style of play. Firing at long range with an assault rifle in the off-chance of getting a few bullets in was next to useless, as the few hits you would provide would be healed a few seconds later. You were required to close the distance to your ennemy, at best trying to flank and surprise him from up-close.
3) Halo added a limit to the numbers of guns you could carry. You could only have two at a time. Every ennemy in the single player campaign was weaker to some weapons. I.E. the huge hunters were easy targets for the standard pistol, Elites were weaker for the plasma rifle that could weaken their shield quickly, The flood were pretty strong VS plasma and weak VS the shotgun.
This meant you needed to "plan" the weapons you would use in the next section of the game as you couldn't "carry them all".
4) Halo used grenades as a primary weapon. The grenades were the main secondary weapons. To my knowledge, it's the first FPS where grenades were actually of any use. In games prior, you had to "switch" to grenades and they were so random that next to no one used them.
5) A.I., when set at the highest difficulty, that was actually capable of taking cover and retreating to let their own shields regenerate. To my knowledge, i never saw any A.I. do that in an FPS before Halo.
6) A very good sci-fi story that actually made you want to know how it ended. A big plot twist at about half-game completely reversed the way you fought your ennemies.
7) A.I. companions that could actually hold their own for more than 10 seconds.
8) Vehicles. Halo is about the first time i saw vehicles that were actually fun and fully integrated to the levels (rather than have a "vehicle" level that was completely different in gameplay than the rest of the game, like in No one lives forever bike sequences).
9) The soundtrack. The music of Halo 1 is still about one of the best ever seen in a video game. Period. It was actually included as a way to "enhance" the gameplay rather than just being a "background" of some sort. For example, in some cases, the music was completely silent, then you'd hear a radio message of someone screaming in urgency while he told you of ennemies invading the building you are in. At this point the music kicked in with an hard-rock version of the main theme of the game, which, against it's prior complete silence, was just jaw-breaking.
10) A sci-fi "war". You trully felt like you were in a real sci-fi war. You could stumble upon a fight that included 8 humans, 10 aliens from race A and 5 or 6 aliens from race B all at the same time, making for a big battlefield.
I could go on and on..
Scenario 1)
Average Joe:
I want to buy a video games console.
Clerk:
Please come to me to the gaming section.
There's the Wii, the PS3 and the 360. The Wii sells for less, the 360 is the middle price range, the PS3 is the highest costing one.
The Wii has this motion sensor you can try over there at the demo machine.
Average Joe:
Who, the Wii controller feels original and good.
Clerk:
The 360 and the PS3 support HD, see how much the image is clearer on the demo machine?
Average Joe:
I don't have an HDTV, so i'll take the Wii.
- OR -
I have an HDTV, so i'll take the 360, it's less expansive.
Scenario 2)
Average Joe:
I want a BluRay player,
Clerk:
Please come with me to the electronics department, right next to the DVD players are the BluRay players.
We have the model X and the model Y in store. One is made by A, the other is made by B. A is generally of higher quality than B, but it costs more.
Average Joe:
I'll take player A as i want a quality player
- OR -
I'll take player B as i want a cheaper one
Conclusion:
In scenario 2, the customer isn't even taken to the "gaming" department as he's not looking for games, but something else.
In scenario 1, the customer isn't even talked to about the "other" functionalities on the PS3 or the 360 (it would just take plain too long for the clerk)
Example that would take too much time to "inform" a customer about the 360:
- You can play 360 games
- You can play some original xbox games, but not all (now to explain why that is).
- You can view pictures, movies and listen to music from an iPod, a USB key.
- You can connect the console to a Windows based PC and watch content from your PC in your living room on your TV, by going through your 360 (now to explain the requirement of a "home network".
- You can play online, if you have a gold subscription.
- You can also access an online marketplace, with videos, movie rental system, television shows, games and games expansions.
- You have a unique profile created that you can use on ANY 360, even your friends.
- The 360 can also integrates into your Vista or XP media center edition PC and your Zune player seemlessly.
- It has 3 different bundles, the Core, the Premium and the Elite (now to explain the differences between them).
Explaining all this would take over an hour for the clerk. He doesn't have the time. So he explain only what the customer asks (or think to ask): how much does it cost? and what do i need to get it running?
Explaining all the features of the PS3 would be equally as long. Just think of telling Linux can be installed on it and explaining it can give a clerk a nightmare.
As for the Wii, well it simply put, PLAYS GAMES. Nothing really more and nothing really less. The customers can usually also experience most of what it offers by himself directly in the store. Unlike Linux, Vista connectivity or "marketplaces" and other whatnots...
Actually, nothing. Access to demos requires only silver, which is free.