I'm trying to find a decent RPG to get into right now. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne has been sitting in my PS2 for a while now, but I'm just not feeling the style at this particular moment. For those Megaten fans out there, I did not just say that Nocturne was bad in any way. I'm simply saying that I'm looking for something new. As you may have guessed from previous posts, I'm looking for something with a little more than the standard RPG experience. TRPGs are on my mind a lot right now, but in general, it's becoming more difficult to find an RPG that strikes that careful balance between playability, fun, and story.
Playability is pretty easy to figure out. When you get an RPG, you would expect that there isn't much to take care of in the gameplay department. There are four-directional menus and eight directions you could possibly use on the field, and you press A or X to say "yes" to something and B or circle to say "no" to something. It isn't that hard. Occasionally, a developer will challenge your patience by making a game so convoluted and confusing that all that simplicity is thrown out the window. People often wonder why I don't have a high opinion about Working Designs, and I'll throw Dragon Force right back at them as that game I desperately want to get into and love, it's just that the game never ceases to confuse the hell out of me right after the introduction with no explanation whatsoever.
Fun is why I didn't thrash Shining Force CD last review. RPGs can sometimes fail in all other areas yet maintain an addictive game. Will I play Final Fantasy X again? No. Was it fun while I was there? Battles were fun and the sphere grid was a neat gimmick to toy with, so I was able to persist to the end without. The Persona series on its own shows what happens when a developer chooses to throw a little more addiction into its games, and thankfully we have Persona 3 and 4 to show for it.
Story. That's where everything falls apart, and while I have only begun to touch upon this in the past, it's time for a revisit to this lost art. This may just be me, but when I play an RPG, I mainly play it for the story. Yes, I can be accused of loving the good JRPGs a little too much, but there's nothing like interacting with a deep world and an epic plot rather than just slaying the dragon and calling it a day. The trouble is that with most of these games, the plot is either epic or its not, and if it's the latter, it's just not worth playing in my eyes. With each Final Fantasy installment, you're achieving a goal that is simply massive in scope, and once the world is safe, you feel very accomplished.
Maybe I'm just bitter about not having success finding a new game, but if you've got a suggestion, drop me a line.
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January 28, 2010
January 27, 2010
Play testers, yes. Cliche testers, not so much.
It's everywhere you go now. Long gone are the days when the little SD characters in your Final Fantasy game could be linked to an elaborate Amano character portrait. All on their own, the paintings dove well beyond the standard roles that video game PCs (and unfortunately thousands more NPCs) seem to fall into in every title. It wasn't even the right time for design creativity, and that's part of the reason why Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger stick out in most people's minds as legendary. We're talking about a time when games still had a lot of evolution to do, and so long as the mechanics grew up as we did, an RPG party made up of a squishy wizard, a staff chick, and a hero with giant sword didn't even phase us. This is the same generation that embraced a blue hedgehog with tennis shoes and a fat Italian man chasing mushrooms. We weren't asking for much, but somehow we had something original slip in here and there when it came to character design, even if it was ludicrous.
You would think that now we have games a generation away from photorealism with analog controllers in our hands that the mechanics have refined themselves to the point where creativity would run rampant. Yet here we are in 2010 looking at a stable of newcomer characters that reads like everything else you've seen before, and sometimes developers are even skipping the "new" step in some cases and running straight into the cliche bin.
As I'm looking back in my growing retro collection, I started to notice things that were bothering me with characters that never bothered me before. At one point, the "you gotta have blue hair" approach was pretty fun, since in most cases games were meant to be as colorful as possible and it worked out for everyone. I realized that the reason why it bothered me so much is because developers haven't seemed to figure out a way to evolve beyond that. If you're playing a Japanese designed game, the odds are high that you're going to be controlling someone with blue hair, a giant sword, a metal suit, or an obvious set of knockers. If you're playing a western release, then you'll either be a scruffy bald guy, carrying a big gun, using metal armor, or have a huge set of knockers. Come to think of it, it's all running together now.
God of War and Bayonetta is where the argument pretty much starts and ends. Aside from the fact that the games are obviously comparable in style and genre, the two characters share something in common. They are the furthest thing from original as you can get, yet somehow manage to bring something new to the table. Kratos is pretty much Riddick on steroids and the powers of a god, so being bald and painted is all part of the gimmick. If he had long hair, then he would be closer to the Prince of Persia series, and we would never think of Kratos the same way again. So while the man is a walking cliche of design, the game itself is about kicking copious amount of ass in the most brutal ways possible. It's complete indulgence. The game itself made that character great. Stick Kratos in the role of the Hitman, and you probably wouldn't have achieved the same result or impact.
Likewise, there's Bayonetta, who takes the indulgence sell-point and runs naked through her game with it. She doesn't have much of a personality "yet" (I haven't beat the game yet, but I'd be shocked if she somehow decided to change her approach), and it's not like sex appeal hasn't been done before. The thing that separates her from your token jiggly girl on a fighting roster is that the game is based around her going completely ballistic (literally) with her sex appeal and letting it fly all over the place. She spends the entire game naked, but she's covered by her hair...which looks like a cat-suit. She has guns for heels, does stripper moves while fighting, uses lollipops to heal herself, and tells everyone she meets to piss off. That's just to start things off, but you get the idea. There's no character, only fan service. Do we care? No, because it's actually sort of original to just go nuts with this kind of character once and a while.
So a great game can make an otherwise "we've seen this before" character into something neat, and thankfully those two at least have every reason in the world for being who they are. They have a reason to be able to get away with the things they do. The rest don't.
Sadly, it dawned upon me while writing this that there is a better way to demonstrate everything that I'm trying to say. So 15 minutes later, I threw together what was already in my brain. Squeenix, thank you for making this so easy on me. All I had to do was turn down the blue on Rinoa.
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You would think that now we have games a generation away from photorealism with analog controllers in our hands that the mechanics have refined themselves to the point where creativity would run rampant. Yet here we are in 2010 looking at a stable of newcomer characters that reads like everything else you've seen before, and sometimes developers are even skipping the "new" step in some cases and running straight into the cliche bin.
As I'm looking back in my growing retro collection, I started to notice things that were bothering me with characters that never bothered me before. At one point, the "you gotta have blue hair" approach was pretty fun, since in most cases games were meant to be as colorful as possible and it worked out for everyone. I realized that the reason why it bothered me so much is because developers haven't seemed to figure out a way to evolve beyond that. If you're playing a Japanese designed game, the odds are high that you're going to be controlling someone with blue hair, a giant sword, a metal suit, or an obvious set of knockers. If you're playing a western release, then you'll either be a scruffy bald guy, carrying a big gun, using metal armor, or have a huge set of knockers. Come to think of it, it's all running together now.
God of War and Bayonetta is where the argument pretty much starts and ends. Aside from the fact that the games are obviously comparable in style and genre, the two characters share something in common. They are the furthest thing from original as you can get, yet somehow manage to bring something new to the table. Kratos is pretty much Riddick on steroids and the powers of a god, so being bald and painted is all part of the gimmick. If he had long hair, then he would be closer to the Prince of Persia series, and we would never think of Kratos the same way again. So while the man is a walking cliche of design, the game itself is about kicking copious amount of ass in the most brutal ways possible. It's complete indulgence. The game itself made that character great. Stick Kratos in the role of the Hitman, and you probably wouldn't have achieved the same result or impact.
Likewise, there's Bayonetta, who takes the indulgence sell-point and runs naked through her game with it. She doesn't have much of a personality "yet" (I haven't beat the game yet, but I'd be shocked if she somehow decided to change her approach), and it's not like sex appeal hasn't been done before. The thing that separates her from your token jiggly girl on a fighting roster is that the game is based around her going completely ballistic (literally) with her sex appeal and letting it fly all over the place. She spends the entire game naked, but she's covered by her hair...which looks like a cat-suit. She has guns for heels, does stripper moves while fighting, uses lollipops to heal herself, and tells everyone she meets to piss off. That's just to start things off, but you get the idea. There's no character, only fan service. Do we care? No, because it's actually sort of original to just go nuts with this kind of character once and a while.
So a great game can make an otherwise "we've seen this before" character into something neat, and thankfully those two at least have every reason in the world for being who they are. They have a reason to be able to get away with the things they do. The rest don't.
Sadly, it dawned upon me while writing this that there is a better way to demonstrate everything that I'm trying to say. So 15 minutes later, I threw together what was already in my brain. Squeenix, thank you for making this so easy on me. All I had to do was turn down the blue on Rinoa.
Weight has nothing to do with it.
As mentioned in the previous posts, I'm on a bit of a retro kick. By a bit, I mean that I'm gorging myself in it these days to make sure that I've significantly played some games I may want to bash in the future. Today's adventure was on the Sega CD with a title you may have heard of: Shining Force CD. I couldn't actually play it on the Sega CD itself because getting myself prepped to see where in the complete storyline the game took place gave me an immediate finger.
Apparently, in order to fully experience the game, you need one of those Sega CD Backup RAM carts which go for about $60-80, and I wasn't about to shell out the cash to play it and Road Rash. I may be wrong about this, and if I read it all right there's a workaround for Shining Force CD, but those two games apparently use up a little too much system-save RAM and may not actually save at a certain point because of it. Instead of testing the workaround of deleting save games before you start a Book (in a way, there's 4 games on one disc) but after completing an earlier Book without resetting, I said "screw it" and went for the trusted and always awesome Kega Fusion emulator.
To set the stage, Shining Force CD is one of the agreed "gems" on the Sega CD, and fans of the series and system constantly hope for it to be released again, whether it be on the DS or as a Virtual Console download (I just can't see this game making it to XBLA or PSN, sorry). The Fire Emblem inspired tactical RPG works exactly the same as Nintendo's offering with a few minor changes in how the system works. Promotions can be given out at the users discretion rather than automatically achieved at a certain level, weapon types are already predetermined for each character and cannot be chosen between, and one character's death will NOT have you throwing your controller and angrily mashing the reset button.
Seeing as how America didn't get the Fire Emblem series, or even a character from it, until over a decade after its release, Shining Force on the Genesis was the series that most Westerners grew up loving. Yet, it's a straight up clone of everything Nintendo did. The major differences are, of course, in the aesthetics. Sticking with the 16-bit era, a player would find that the Sega offering had that cheap arcade style crossed with a little bit of anime from the time with a music track filled with that Genesis synth-sound. Nintendo would of course stick with its SNES music style that's prevalent in Mario, Zelda, and Metroid on the system with tighter graphics. That's about it.
Playing Shining Force CD was actually fun for a while. The game doesn't bog you down with a zillion choices and the controls are easily memorized for those who just wanted to get on with playing the game rather than to sift through menu's and waste a lot of time. In fact, battle preparations never took me but 5 minutes at the most in between fights. The entirety of the game is based around the simplicity of things, which may have something to do with the game being a port of two gaiden Shining Force titles on the Game Gear. If you love the style of the game and absolutely hate the verboseness of Fire Emblem, then you'll be pleased to know that the "talk" button in your camp just gives you a sentence rather than a drawn out speech expressing how they feel after every single fight you get into...
...which leads right into the game's failures. Unlike Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle, or almost any TRPG out there, Shining Force CD is pretty much devoid of any depth whatsoever. There is no story. The game has a few plot-twists that are so lamely executed that they can hardly be considered twists at all. The game is split into four Books, with the first two being the Game Gear games and the second two being original to the Sega CD, and the final "twist" of the first Book was so bad that it stopped me from even wanting to pick up the second game. In order to play the final two Books, I have to beat the second Book. What I should have done was skipped to the second, but I'm a completist and I didn't think it would be that bad.
Now, if this were on the Genesis like the first two Shining Force games or on its original Game Gear hardware, I wouldn't hate it nearly as much. Yet, they were dealing with the Sega CD, and apart from the elaborate three musical scores and two voiceovers beginning and ending Book 1, there was nothing done to this game to give it any extra oomph.
Though it's not necessarily the game's fault, the system in place is too easy. If you fail a mission or choose to leave it, you can simply restart the mission while keeping all of your gold, items, and experience gained from the original battle. This means that every battle has a purpose (no random or "travel" battles). Pair that with the lack of perma-death and you have yourself an easy-mode game immediately. I found myself loaded with cash and easily 25% more leveled than I'm sure I was supposed to be because I was pretty sure the infamous "reality check" battle would come to remind me how weak I was, but it never came. I ended the game with 8 bona-fida superheroes, and the final bosses were barely denting me. As I said, it's not so much the game's fault, because it made the game a lot less annoying than Fire Emblem. If a character died, I could at least finish the battle at hand.
A few tips before I conclude:
- For those wondering when you should promote characters, don't promote them immediately, but don't wait until level 20 regardless of what FAQ you read. Supposedly, the later Books are a little tougher, but 14-16 is fine. I promoted at 17 and 18 only to find that I turned into an army of marching overkill.
- Stats are randomly assigned as far as I can tell, so if you see that a unit of a particular type isn't matching up well with a similar unit and you're running out of room, just leave him behind and don't think twice. Don't even bother wasting your time leveling up someone who's already in the dust.
- If your original hero, archer, warrior, and knight get beefy early in the game, then you're pretty much invincible for the rest of Book 1.
- If you want something, buy it. You'll rarely run out of money. The most expensive item in the game still leaves you with tons of leftover money if you only did one mission replay, and while I never used it, I pretty much gather that if I did, the final battles would have been a joke.
People have told me to go play Shining Force, and one day I just might. I may even continue to play this game, because for all I can say about it, it's addictive. There's zero depth in Book 1 anyway, and I imagine that it's not going to get any more complicated. If you like simple TRPGs, this can waste hours of your free time and it won't be such a bad thing. I personally just hate the fact that this game was so highly recommended that I dove into it, and the lack of depth and story just made me wonder if I should even bother with the rest of the series. I'm not looking forward to playing through Books 2 and 3 just to unlock Book 4 for the sole privilege of determining whether it gets any better, so I won't. It does make me wonder if the other games have anything more to offer, so I'm not writing this series off yet. Should anyone wish to explain to me how Shining Force CD does get better if I were to persist, then feel free to leave me an e-mail or comment explaining why I shouldn't write this title off.
For its time, this may have been good, but there's little holding this game up to time. It's a time waster, and so far, it's not what I expected one of the "few Sega CD classics" to be. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
Apparently, in order to fully experience the game, you need one of those Sega CD Backup RAM carts which go for about $60-80, and I wasn't about to shell out the cash to play it and Road Rash. I may be wrong about this, and if I read it all right there's a workaround for Shining Force CD, but those two games apparently use up a little too much system-save RAM and may not actually save at a certain point because of it. Instead of testing the workaround of deleting save games before you start a Book (in a way, there's 4 games on one disc) but after completing an earlier Book without resetting, I said "screw it" and went for the trusted and always awesome Kega Fusion emulator.
To set the stage, Shining Force CD is one of the agreed "gems" on the Sega CD, and fans of the series and system constantly hope for it to be released again, whether it be on the DS or as a Virtual Console download (I just can't see this game making it to XBLA or PSN, sorry). The Fire Emblem inspired tactical RPG works exactly the same as Nintendo's offering with a few minor changes in how the system works. Promotions can be given out at the users discretion rather than automatically achieved at a certain level, weapon types are already predetermined for each character and cannot be chosen between, and one character's death will NOT have you throwing your controller and angrily mashing the reset button.
Seeing as how America didn't get the Fire Emblem series, or even a character from it, until over a decade after its release, Shining Force on the Genesis was the series that most Westerners grew up loving. Yet, it's a straight up clone of everything Nintendo did. The major differences are, of course, in the aesthetics. Sticking with the 16-bit era, a player would find that the Sega offering had that cheap arcade style crossed with a little bit of anime from the time with a music track filled with that Genesis synth-sound. Nintendo would of course stick with its SNES music style that's prevalent in Mario, Zelda, and Metroid on the system with tighter graphics. That's about it.
Playing Shining Force CD was actually fun for a while. The game doesn't bog you down with a zillion choices and the controls are easily memorized for those who just wanted to get on with playing the game rather than to sift through menu's and waste a lot of time. In fact, battle preparations never took me but 5 minutes at the most in between fights. The entirety of the game is based around the simplicity of things, which may have something to do with the game being a port of two gaiden Shining Force titles on the Game Gear. If you love the style of the game and absolutely hate the verboseness of Fire Emblem, then you'll be pleased to know that the "talk" button in your camp just gives you a sentence rather than a drawn out speech expressing how they feel after every single fight you get into...
...which leads right into the game's failures. Unlike Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle, or almost any TRPG out there, Shining Force CD is pretty much devoid of any depth whatsoever. There is no story. The game has a few plot-twists that are so lamely executed that they can hardly be considered twists at all. The game is split into four Books, with the first two being the Game Gear games and the second two being original to the Sega CD, and the final "twist" of the first Book was so bad that it stopped me from even wanting to pick up the second game. In order to play the final two Books, I have to beat the second Book. What I should have done was skipped to the second, but I'm a completist and I didn't think it would be that bad.
Now, if this were on the Genesis like the first two Shining Force games or on its original Game Gear hardware, I wouldn't hate it nearly as much. Yet, they were dealing with the Sega CD, and apart from the elaborate three musical scores and two voiceovers beginning and ending Book 1, there was nothing done to this game to give it any extra oomph.
Though it's not necessarily the game's fault, the system in place is too easy. If you fail a mission or choose to leave it, you can simply restart the mission while keeping all of your gold, items, and experience gained from the original battle. This means that every battle has a purpose (no random or "travel" battles). Pair that with the lack of perma-death and you have yourself an easy-mode game immediately. I found myself loaded with cash and easily 25% more leveled than I'm sure I was supposed to be because I was pretty sure the infamous "reality check" battle would come to remind me how weak I was, but it never came. I ended the game with 8 bona-fida superheroes, and the final bosses were barely denting me. As I said, it's not so much the game's fault, because it made the game a lot less annoying than Fire Emblem. If a character died, I could at least finish the battle at hand.
A few tips before I conclude:
- For those wondering when you should promote characters, don't promote them immediately, but don't wait until level 20 regardless of what FAQ you read. Supposedly, the later Books are a little tougher, but 14-16 is fine. I promoted at 17 and 18 only to find that I turned into an army of marching overkill.
- Stats are randomly assigned as far as I can tell, so if you see that a unit of a particular type isn't matching up well with a similar unit and you're running out of room, just leave him behind and don't think twice. Don't even bother wasting your time leveling up someone who's already in the dust.
- If your original hero, archer, warrior, and knight get beefy early in the game, then you're pretty much invincible for the rest of Book 1.
- If you want something, buy it. You'll rarely run out of money. The most expensive item in the game still leaves you with tons of leftover money if you only did one mission replay, and while I never used it, I pretty much gather that if I did, the final battles would have been a joke.
People have told me to go play Shining Force, and one day I just might. I may even continue to play this game, because for all I can say about it, it's addictive. There's zero depth in Book 1 anyway, and I imagine that it's not going to get any more complicated. If you like simple TRPGs, this can waste hours of your free time and it won't be such a bad thing. I personally just hate the fact that this game was so highly recommended that I dove into it, and the lack of depth and story just made me wonder if I should even bother with the rest of the series. I'm not looking forward to playing through Books 2 and 3 just to unlock Book 4 for the sole privilege of determining whether it gets any better, so I won't. It does make me wonder if the other games have anything more to offer, so I'm not writing this series off yet. Should anyone wish to explain to me how Shining Force CD does get better if I were to persist, then feel free to leave me an e-mail or comment explaining why I shouldn't write this title off.
For its time, this may have been good, but there's little holding this game up to time. It's a time waster, and so far, it's not what I expected one of the "few Sega CD classics" to be. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
January 22, 2010
It'll get you drunk.
With all of the retro goodness coming out on the XBLA, PSN, and Virtual Console, you would think that somebody out there would really take some pride in doing good work on the actual home consoles they are based on. It's rare, but occasionally there's a pet project out there that takes advantage of the resources our generation has to make this possible. Pier Solar, for example, is a Genesis (optional Sega CD bonuses) RPG currently in development that will be released on actual carts by the homebrew community. The potential is there, but who's taking advantage of it?
Most people limit their idea of "homebrew" to the creation of mods for current IPs. At times, the ideas work really well. Someone once ported Sonic to one of the earlier 3D engines (Doom, Quake, Half Life....I really don't remember nor can I find it) a while back, and it actually looked like it was more fun to play than the vast majority of modern 3D Sonic games because it kept the feel, look, and mechanics intact while making the 3D jump more natural. That's the main problem with the fan community out there for older IPs: something is lost in many of the translations. You absolutely have to have the authenticity to make these projects work, and while I applaud gamers at any point when it comes to putting an original creation out there, I think that when it comes to honoring the past, nothing ruins the acceptance of an idea than to take one single aspect of the retro scene and running with only that.
Staying with Sonic, there's a Sonic fan project site that hosts Sonic Megamix, a combination of 2D Sonic elements into one game that plays like it's completely official. The difference, I think, is that it takes all aspects of what people liked about Sonic games and incorporated them all into something different, yet familiar. It's one thing to make a first person Sonic mod for Half-Life, but it winds up being a novelty in the end compared to something with a little more soul in it.
So when it comes to questioning the homebrew scene, I often wonder why people waste their time with mods when they could be putting real projects into circulation. I'm not even referring to the deceased (choke on it, Square) Chrono projects that nearly made it. I'm talking about something original. Retro is more than just nostalgia. It's also about appreciation for the older game mechanics that have been lost along the way and giving the old hardware news legs. Sometimes, it begins with a simple fan translation project that can be dumped onto a real card or burned to disc. Other times, as with Pier Solar, it gets beyond that.
While I can't speak for programmers, I'd like to imagine that it isn't impossible with the knowledge and resources available to us to make something happen with those old consoles. Consoles such as the Jaguar, Sega CD/32x, 3DO, CD-I, and the Virtual Boy were considered to be terrible consoles, but the limited library of games often made me wonder what kind of games were possible on them if their potential was ever really tapped. The CD-I, for example, had a firm grasp on multimedia applications and offered up some of the cleanest visuals despite extremely limited gaming power. The 3DO and Jaguar have a difficult time proving themselves due to some really shoddy games and severe problems with polygons which were becoming standard at the time, but there was so much power in those consoles to do hundreds of other things really well. The Jaguar never had a game that pushed the hardware, and it makes you wonder. The Virtual Boy had some surprisingly good power behind the goggles, but no one ever even tried to do anything with it because of the crippling red color scheme. The Sega CD and 32x combination never quite caught on the way that Sega hoped, but each addon added more functionality to the Genesis that was only touched in a couple of games.
The majority of these systems have something in common, and that's the CD format. Either the system itself or an appropriate addon gave these systems CD functionality, and I think that the homebrew community has really glossed over this when it comes to choosing projects. Considering that there is zero copy protection on any of those systems, it sort of makes you wonder what's possible.
I dare to dream, but take the FMV movement as an example. YouTube is starting to be experimented with more and more as time goes by, and I've actually seen an interactive game or two hosted through video clips on the site as an experiment. Take that to a console that can handle it, and you've got yourself a homebrew game on your hands that could conceivably get cross released for retro gamers looking for a nostalgia bomb. I doubt any retro fans would pass up a popcorn opportunity to play through a purposefully cheesed horror game in FMV, fully original and littered with tongue in cheek humor about the old days.
Digitized fighting games that cloned Mortal Kombat such as Tattoo Assassins, Way of the Warrior, and Kasumi Ninja weren't the pinnacle of control or quality, but if Bikini Karate Babes has taught us anything, it's that new life can get into this genre at any moment. But why stop there? All it takes is for someone to take it a little more seriously, throw down with some good controls, and suddenly the charm is back. If you don't believe that's possible, find someone versed in the M.U.G.E.N. system and you'll find yourself talking to someone who knows just how feasible that could be.
The point is that while people are out there making useless mods for everything modern, there's still a lot of potential for the retro systems to get their due. With unused hardware to play with, it's not even bold to say that the best games on each of these systems haven't even been made yet. I challenge the homebrew community to stop porting for a week and take a good look into what's possible on those forgotten consoles. It's not only interesting to push boundaries, but to be honest, most of the current projects just don't live up to the retro feel. The spirit has been lost somewhere in translation, and it's time to bring the devotion back to the consoles that inspired you in the first place. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
Most people limit their idea of "homebrew" to the creation of mods for current IPs. At times, the ideas work really well. Someone once ported Sonic to one of the earlier 3D engines (Doom, Quake, Half Life....I really don't remember nor can I find it) a while back, and it actually looked like it was more fun to play than the vast majority of modern 3D Sonic games because it kept the feel, look, and mechanics intact while making the 3D jump more natural. That's the main problem with the fan community out there for older IPs: something is lost in many of the translations. You absolutely have to have the authenticity to make these projects work, and while I applaud gamers at any point when it comes to putting an original creation out there, I think that when it comes to honoring the past, nothing ruins the acceptance of an idea than to take one single aspect of the retro scene and running with only that.
Staying with Sonic, there's a Sonic fan project site that hosts Sonic Megamix, a combination of 2D Sonic elements into one game that plays like it's completely official. The difference, I think, is that it takes all aspects of what people liked about Sonic games and incorporated them all into something different, yet familiar. It's one thing to make a first person Sonic mod for Half-Life, but it winds up being a novelty in the end compared to something with a little more soul in it.
So when it comes to questioning the homebrew scene, I often wonder why people waste their time with mods when they could be putting real projects into circulation. I'm not even referring to the deceased (choke on it, Square) Chrono projects that nearly made it. I'm talking about something original. Retro is more than just nostalgia. It's also about appreciation for the older game mechanics that have been lost along the way and giving the old hardware news legs. Sometimes, it begins with a simple fan translation project that can be dumped onto a real card or burned to disc. Other times, as with Pier Solar, it gets beyond that.
While I can't speak for programmers, I'd like to imagine that it isn't impossible with the knowledge and resources available to us to make something happen with those old consoles. Consoles such as the Jaguar, Sega CD/32x, 3DO, CD-I, and the Virtual Boy were considered to be terrible consoles, but the limited library of games often made me wonder what kind of games were possible on them if their potential was ever really tapped. The CD-I, for example, had a firm grasp on multimedia applications and offered up some of the cleanest visuals despite extremely limited gaming power. The 3DO and Jaguar have a difficult time proving themselves due to some really shoddy games and severe problems with polygons which were becoming standard at the time, but there was so much power in those consoles to do hundreds of other things really well. The Jaguar never had a game that pushed the hardware, and it makes you wonder. The Virtual Boy had some surprisingly good power behind the goggles, but no one ever even tried to do anything with it because of the crippling red color scheme. The Sega CD and 32x combination never quite caught on the way that Sega hoped, but each addon added more functionality to the Genesis that was only touched in a couple of games.
The majority of these systems have something in common, and that's the CD format. Either the system itself or an appropriate addon gave these systems CD functionality, and I think that the homebrew community has really glossed over this when it comes to choosing projects. Considering that there is zero copy protection on any of those systems, it sort of makes you wonder what's possible.
I dare to dream, but take the FMV movement as an example. YouTube is starting to be experimented with more and more as time goes by, and I've actually seen an interactive game or two hosted through video clips on the site as an experiment. Take that to a console that can handle it, and you've got yourself a homebrew game on your hands that could conceivably get cross released for retro gamers looking for a nostalgia bomb. I doubt any retro fans would pass up a popcorn opportunity to play through a purposefully cheesed horror game in FMV, fully original and littered with tongue in cheek humor about the old days.
Digitized fighting games that cloned Mortal Kombat such as Tattoo Assassins, Way of the Warrior, and Kasumi Ninja weren't the pinnacle of control or quality, but if Bikini Karate Babes has taught us anything, it's that new life can get into this genre at any moment. But why stop there? All it takes is for someone to take it a little more seriously, throw down with some good controls, and suddenly the charm is back. If you don't believe that's possible, find someone versed in the M.U.G.E.N. system and you'll find yourself talking to someone who knows just how feasible that could be.
The point is that while people are out there making useless mods for everything modern, there's still a lot of potential for the retro systems to get their due. With unused hardware to play with, it's not even bold to say that the best games on each of these systems haven't even been made yet. I challenge the homebrew community to stop porting for a week and take a good look into what's possible on those forgotten consoles. It's not only interesting to push boundaries, but to be honest, most of the current projects just don't live up to the retro feel. The spirit has been lost somewhere in translation, and it's time to bring the devotion back to the consoles that inspired you in the first place. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
January 21, 2010
Star Control II: What a game should be.
I got a 3DO, and through all of my excitement, I wasn't entirely sure what to fire up first. I popped in Slayer and was treated to a 5 minute load of crap that spawned (I need to clean the lens) a now often used "give up" phrase between my friends and I. When it came to good games, though, I was stuck between giving Wing Commander III a go on a standard controller, taking the easy route and popping in Road Rash, or lending myself to the dedicated side of gaming and give Star Control II another chance.
I'll preface this with some history.
I first played Star Control for the Genesis in my grandparents basement when a friend of the family knew that I was going to be in town for a couple of weeks and needed something to do as a kid when the parents wanted to have a glass of wine and play cards upstairs. Star Control actually got my dad sucked in, and he advised me to give it a shot because it was more tactically approached. It just so happened I was a freakin' genius back in the day, so this was right up my ally. I was also a paranoid kid, so the "bad" endings littered throughout the game mixed with the setting of space sort of disturbed me, as things like black holes, supernovas, and the empty void of space tended to make me think way too much into things and get freaked out and depressed.
To be fair, that still happens, but more on that in a second. The bottom line is that the original Star Control gave me a feeling that sat inside of me for years. Strangely, picking up the game again was a complete shock to the lower regions, as it appeared as if someone stomped on my nostalgia with an ugly stick and broke the thing into tiny bits. I just couldn't play it.
The sequel was a game I never knew about until years later when I was trying to remember the name of the Genesis game that was etched in my head. I found out about Star Control II, which sounded a hell of a lot like the game I wanted to remember. Then I gave The Ur-Quan Masters a shot, only I didn't know what the hell I was doing and decided that it wasn't worth my time to find out. It looked like a DOS game whose interface simply didn't age well.
I was wrong.
When my 3DO arrived, I decided I should give it a decent shot on a true console, and found the exact game that I wished somebody would have made. There isn't even a nostalgia filter when it comes to describing it, it's just damned good. There is a reason why it makes all-time lists. The nostalgia filter is sort of humorous when you consider that what awesomeness I remembered from the original game was exactly what I got from the sequel over a decade later.
The story is pretty simple from the start. You were on a mission away from Earth and stumbled across Protocult-...I mean, a Precursor base that turned out to be an automated shipyard. That race was ancient and disappeared long ago for no explained reason, but you return to Earth's doorstep in the ship only to find that there's an impenetrable red force-field surrounding what should have been a pretty blue planet. Humans are now slaves of the Ur-Quan, who seek to do the same to the rest of the universe. Or galaxy. Or whatever, so long as there's a civilization that can be enslaved that they know about.
Your mission, of course, is to take your one ship and forge an alliance capable of defeating the Ur-Quan. To do this, you need to spread out and discover literally thousands of locations in order to seek out friends, scout your enemies, explore for alternate means of help through items and exploration, and gather resources to fuel the fight. It's so freakishly expansive that the at first, the game seems boring, dull, and lonely.
However, this expansiveness is exactly what makes Star Control II the freakishly good experience that most RPGers wish they could find. The feeling of void is echoed in the game's design right down to the musical score and the way you interact on an everyday level within the game, so what seems dull at first turns out to be a massive strength for the title. The thing is, you ARE alone, so parading through the nearly conquered galaxy making as much noise as possible isn't a recipe for success. At first, the game forces you to save your game often and plan out trips with the knowledge given to you while looking over your shoulder all the while, less you be deadified by the Big Bad. Or those crystal guys. Or the spore men. Or....forget it. A lot of the game wants you dead unless you know how to talk your way out of the frying pan.
That isn't to say that everything is hostile, because there are some genuine pansies amongst the stars. Each race in the game has a particular behavior that you can exploit to your own advantage, but you really have to know what you're looking for. Just as I said that trip planning takes thought, so does everything else in the game. You absolutely have to learn about what's going on or you will never succeed, and it is one of the few games out there that completely expects you to do a little homework before waving guns around.
Some of the information is useless, but it really helps you know about the "how" and "why" factors. Most all of the information is useful for that exact same reason. This goes with just about every race in the game, but there is one specific example that sums it all up. Inevitably, you will run into a race with no designated region of occupation. They're everywhere, and it's only a matter of time before one shows up to try and make peaceful relations. Trouble is, they aren't very sentient, and no matter what you do or how nice the conversation begins, it always ends the same way: they try and kill you. You don't exactly know why, but little mentions are made of them during your travels. If you can piece what information you have together and explore in the right area, you can put a stop to the attacks for good.
Because of this, your first foray into the game world is almost certain to end badly or very unproductively. The sheer lack of confidence and knowledge will force newcomers to progress slowly and to be more defensive than anything else, as you will more than likely be suckered into one of the game's not-so-obvious methods to get the "game over". The second time around, however, is where the game really shines. Armed with a little more knowledge and experience, the confidence levels boost and you're off to do some dirty work.
Technically, the game has one small fault against it in that it's just plain dated. Things look a little bland in some areas, but they don't really affect gameplay. Everything else is on the money. Controlling battles takes some getting used to, but they can wind up being extremely fun. Menus are simple enough, and the resource management for your fleet is not only balanced, but sensibly uncomplicated. Conversation is straight forward and easy to get into, and a full voiced cast not only sounds great, but it adds so much more to the experience.
Ultimately, the game is about character. Star Control II fleshes out the personalities, voices, tendencies, culture, and history of each race. You will spend most of your time gathering resources, exploring, and traveling to important locations, but you do all of your interacting and learning through conversation. As I said, the first playthrough is really a primer for things to come, while the second one is putting what you need to know for survival into play while then making your moves to figure out what makes each race tick. It's a joy to put a random fact about a race that you overheard in conversation to good use with impactful results.
Results are what matters, in the end, which is why it's important to consider what makes this game great. Every action you do has an impact on the game world. Well, not every action. Picking up a lump of iron isn't going to make waves, but you can be damned sure that if you figure out what the item you're holding in inventory does, you will definitely affect the entire game world. Even biding your time before getting into a fight can produce valuable information which can not only affect your quest, but give you the verbal ammo you need to avoid the fight and alter the game world all at the same time.
People love this game for a reason, and it's old appearance shouldn't dissuade you from trying. The learning curve can be steep at first, but once it's figured out, the galaxy is yours for the taking. Plunder worlds, make friends and enemies, blow things up, and discover secrets about the galaxy nobody else knew about...it's all there, and it's fun to play. Backed by full voice acting and terrific atmosphere, it's really hard to put the game down once you're familiar with it. More games should try to be like Star Control II. The best part is? It's free here. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
I'll preface this with some history.
I first played Star Control for the Genesis in my grandparents basement when a friend of the family knew that I was going to be in town for a couple of weeks and needed something to do as a kid when the parents wanted to have a glass of wine and play cards upstairs. Star Control actually got my dad sucked in, and he advised me to give it a shot because it was more tactically approached. It just so happened I was a freakin' genius back in the day, so this was right up my ally. I was also a paranoid kid, so the "bad" endings littered throughout the game mixed with the setting of space sort of disturbed me, as things like black holes, supernovas, and the empty void of space tended to make me think way too much into things and get freaked out and depressed.
To be fair, that still happens, but more on that in a second. The bottom line is that the original Star Control gave me a feeling that sat inside of me for years. Strangely, picking up the game again was a complete shock to the lower regions, as it appeared as if someone stomped on my nostalgia with an ugly stick and broke the thing into tiny bits. I just couldn't play it.
The sequel was a game I never knew about until years later when I was trying to remember the name of the Genesis game that was etched in my head. I found out about Star Control II, which sounded a hell of a lot like the game I wanted to remember. Then I gave The Ur-Quan Masters a shot, only I didn't know what the hell I was doing and decided that it wasn't worth my time to find out. It looked like a DOS game whose interface simply didn't age well.
I was wrong.
When my 3DO arrived, I decided I should give it a decent shot on a true console, and found the exact game that I wished somebody would have made. There isn't even a nostalgia filter when it comes to describing it, it's just damned good. There is a reason why it makes all-time lists. The nostalgia filter is sort of humorous when you consider that what awesomeness I remembered from the original game was exactly what I got from the sequel over a decade later.
The story is pretty simple from the start. You were on a mission away from Earth and stumbled across Protocult-...I mean, a Precursor base that turned out to be an automated shipyard. That race was ancient and disappeared long ago for no explained reason, but you return to Earth's doorstep in the ship only to find that there's an impenetrable red force-field surrounding what should have been a pretty blue planet. Humans are now slaves of the Ur-Quan, who seek to do the same to the rest of the universe. Or galaxy. Or whatever, so long as there's a civilization that can be enslaved that they know about.
Your mission, of course, is to take your one ship and forge an alliance capable of defeating the Ur-Quan. To do this, you need to spread out and discover literally thousands of locations in order to seek out friends, scout your enemies, explore for alternate means of help through items and exploration, and gather resources to fuel the fight. It's so freakishly expansive that the at first, the game seems boring, dull, and lonely.
However, this expansiveness is exactly what makes Star Control II the freakishly good experience that most RPGers wish they could find. The feeling of void is echoed in the game's design right down to the musical score and the way you interact on an everyday level within the game, so what seems dull at first turns out to be a massive strength for the title. The thing is, you ARE alone, so parading through the nearly conquered galaxy making as much noise as possible isn't a recipe for success. At first, the game forces you to save your game often and plan out trips with the knowledge given to you while looking over your shoulder all the while, less you be deadified by the Big Bad. Or those crystal guys. Or the spore men. Or....forget it. A lot of the game wants you dead unless you know how to talk your way out of the frying pan.
That isn't to say that everything is hostile, because there are some genuine pansies amongst the stars. Each race in the game has a particular behavior that you can exploit to your own advantage, but you really have to know what you're looking for. Just as I said that trip planning takes thought, so does everything else in the game. You absolutely have to learn about what's going on or you will never succeed, and it is one of the few games out there that completely expects you to do a little homework before waving guns around.
Some of the information is useless, but it really helps you know about the "how" and "why" factors. Most all of the information is useful for that exact same reason. This goes with just about every race in the game, but there is one specific example that sums it all up. Inevitably, you will run into a race with no designated region of occupation. They're everywhere, and it's only a matter of time before one shows up to try and make peaceful relations. Trouble is, they aren't very sentient, and no matter what you do or how nice the conversation begins, it always ends the same way: they try and kill you. You don't exactly know why, but little mentions are made of them during your travels. If you can piece what information you have together and explore in the right area, you can put a stop to the attacks for good.
Because of this, your first foray into the game world is almost certain to end badly or very unproductively. The sheer lack of confidence and knowledge will force newcomers to progress slowly and to be more defensive than anything else, as you will more than likely be suckered into one of the game's not-so-obvious methods to get the "game over". The second time around, however, is where the game really shines. Armed with a little more knowledge and experience, the confidence levels boost and you're off to do some dirty work.
Technically, the game has one small fault against it in that it's just plain dated. Things look a little bland in some areas, but they don't really affect gameplay. Everything else is on the money. Controlling battles takes some getting used to, but they can wind up being extremely fun. Menus are simple enough, and the resource management for your fleet is not only balanced, but sensibly uncomplicated. Conversation is straight forward and easy to get into, and a full voiced cast not only sounds great, but it adds so much more to the experience.
Ultimately, the game is about character. Star Control II fleshes out the personalities, voices, tendencies, culture, and history of each race. You will spend most of your time gathering resources, exploring, and traveling to important locations, but you do all of your interacting and learning through conversation. As I said, the first playthrough is really a primer for things to come, while the second one is putting what you need to know for survival into play while then making your moves to figure out what makes each race tick. It's a joy to put a random fact about a race that you overheard in conversation to good use with impactful results.
Results are what matters, in the end, which is why it's important to consider what makes this game great. Every action you do has an impact on the game world. Well, not every action. Picking up a lump of iron isn't going to make waves, but you can be damned sure that if you figure out what the item you're holding in inventory does, you will definitely affect the entire game world. Even biding your time before getting into a fight can produce valuable information which can not only affect your quest, but give you the verbal ammo you need to avoid the fight and alter the game world all at the same time.
People love this game for a reason, and it's old appearance shouldn't dissuade you from trying. The learning curve can be steep at first, but once it's figured out, the galaxy is yours for the taking. Plunder worlds, make friends and enemies, blow things up, and discover secrets about the galaxy nobody else knew about...it's all there, and it's fun to play. Backed by full voice acting and terrific atmosphere, it's really hard to put the game down once you're familiar with it. More games should try to be like Star Control II. The best part is? It's free here. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
January 13, 2010
I'll tell you what the effect is...
Apple fans generally go nuts when rumors of the latest iToy hit the tubes. It's sort of cultist in a way, but also a testament to the community that Apple has developed over the last ten years they have spent developing a powerful brand image with mass appeal. More people are jumping over to the Mac side of the force every day, and it's largely due to their marketing penetration that began with the smart designs of the Mac and Macbook lineup and spread out to the iPods, iPhones, and other non-computer devices that really put them back on the map.
With all the talk about the iTablet or whatever it will be called, it started to make me wonder about many things Apple.
First, their devoted fans are sort of nuts, and this announcement sealed the deal. When people get excited over whether or not the iTablet will include a camera, I look at my iPod Nano that does have a camera and wonder why this is big news. It's a camera. People have cameras all over the place. It was a big-ISH deal when the DSi had one, because it was the first time that a gaming system really broke the games-only barrier by adding functionality beyond the game itself. A computer not having a camera is not news, and the fuss I've seen reminds me of a Star Wars convention. The bad kind, I mean, not the good kind.
On top of that, the very second rumors started to get out, every other YouTube link was some extremely white guy reading off the pre-printed list about how everything about it is big news. They even said something along the lines of "my sources tell me..."
You don't have sources. You have the Internet just like everyone else. How do I know? You're "reporting" over YouTube, and you're doing it badly. Of course, if you decided to just lick the iPhone instead, a website may just ignore your useless banter and hire you anyway.
I hate to continue with the Apple bashing, but I have to, because this next part is a mixed bag that both benefits and hurts them all at the same time.
Nothing Apple has ever done has been original. As a matter of fact, Apple's MO is generally to take an idea that has existed for years, patent it, then enforce as much control as possible over it. Laptops existed before the MacBook, MP3 players were widespread before the iPod came around, smartphone users in Japan have for years had the advanced features of the iPhone, and the tablet has been commonplace since before Stargate: Atlantis launched. I say this because they flaunted those tablets every chance they got because Dell was paying them obscene amounts of money to do so.
Nothing about Apple is earth shattering, original, or creative.
Where they succeed, however, is doing what no one else does. Functionality. Yes, there are arguments, and I will be the first to bring them up, but Apple products are generally solid and much more reliable than the jumbled mess of components a PC can turn into. MP3 players used to be garbage. If it wasn't a flimsy plastic piece of crap to begin with, they never stood up to any regular use, were a pain to get music onto, and were obsolete within the year it was bought. Apple changed that into an overpriced product, but they gave it the pride, usability, support, and pipeline that music lovers didn't know they wanted all along. Macs have come a long way, too, becoming functional workstations when serious business needed to be taken care of with as little fuss as possible. The entertainment industry has pretty much preached for years that powerful applications for movie, music, and graphics are much more intuitive on a Mac. iPhones are standard social toys now because they wrap 100 useless products into a single useless product that works well.
This all could have happened before if someone stepped up, but Apple pretty much led the charge when it came to stealing ideas and making them functional. Granted, you're completely limited if you choose them, because there is always a distinct lack of options with it comes to Apple. They choose their hardware so that everything works right every time, but that is usually all you'll ever get. You are literally paying Apple the premium to be organized and nothing else. I've seen idiots set up a wireless Apple household down to the Apple TV. I've seen geniuses fight to get their customized rigs to work right.
Why has no one else stepped up? Well, it's a problem that leads to my third and final remark.
That lack of organization is going to come back and bite someone in the ass sooner than later, and that someone is Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't quite realize it fully, but they know the danger is there. The reason that they are pushing themselves into gaming more now is that they know that they do one thing extraordinarily well, and that is to mercilessly advance things beyond the points of usability. Unfortunately, that also carries risks, but Microsoft is trying to strategically place themselves at a point of power in gaming, and this goes way beyond the XBox brand. Their tech is being used, their ideas are being implemented, and they threw so much money into gaming a decade ago because they knew that there was going to be an endless flow of cash that they wanted to be a part of. They are trying to expand themselves because the monopoly is crumbling fast.
Apple is simply doing what makes too much sense. Microsoft develops something and throws it into the clusterf*** that is the Windows infrastructure, then forgets about it. Apple picks it up, organizes it, waits until they can make it work right, then releases it for a lot of money. Apple has started small, getting their devices into people's pockets without them ever buying a Mac. Google started small on the internet, and is now proving that they can make an impact outside of the browser. The Linux crowd is always dangling the "it's free, and it works better" sign in front of them, and for good reason. Microsoft is left with Windows, but that's not going to last too much longer.
Soon, all three are going to make an emphatic push all at once. Google's OS is going to nab the netbook hold from Windows XP, and in doing so, they will take aim at the flagship. Apple is working its way up, but one day, people are going to realize that the iTablet is only a whisker away from being a Mac, and there will be too much comfort there to ignore. Linux is going to get experimented on more and more by people looking to delve deeper into how a computer works. There isn't much room left for Microsoft after that.
Not that I'm legitimizing Apple, don't get me wrong. It's just that Microsoft could have really pushed the hardware guys to give us a good tablet years ago. You know, when it was new and original. At least when Apple releases the iTablet, it won't cost so damned much to go buy one I'll actually use. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
With all the talk about the iTablet or whatever it will be called, it started to make me wonder about many things Apple.
First, their devoted fans are sort of nuts, and this announcement sealed the deal. When people get excited over whether or not the iTablet will include a camera, I look at my iPod Nano that does have a camera and wonder why this is big news. It's a camera. People have cameras all over the place. It was a big-ISH deal when the DSi had one, because it was the first time that a gaming system really broke the games-only barrier by adding functionality beyond the game itself. A computer not having a camera is not news, and the fuss I've seen reminds me of a Star Wars convention. The bad kind, I mean, not the good kind.
On top of that, the very second rumors started to get out, every other YouTube link was some extremely white guy reading off the pre-printed list about how everything about it is big news. They even said something along the lines of "my sources tell me..."
You don't have sources. You have the Internet just like everyone else. How do I know? You're "reporting" over YouTube, and you're doing it badly. Of course, if you decided to just lick the iPhone instead, a website may just ignore your useless banter and hire you anyway.
I hate to continue with the Apple bashing, but I have to, because this next part is a mixed bag that both benefits and hurts them all at the same time.
Nothing Apple has ever done has been original. As a matter of fact, Apple's MO is generally to take an idea that has existed for years, patent it, then enforce as much control as possible over it. Laptops existed before the MacBook, MP3 players were widespread before the iPod came around, smartphone users in Japan have for years had the advanced features of the iPhone, and the tablet has been commonplace since before Stargate: Atlantis launched. I say this because they flaunted those tablets every chance they got because Dell was paying them obscene amounts of money to do so.
Nothing about Apple is earth shattering, original, or creative.
Where they succeed, however, is doing what no one else does. Functionality. Yes, there are arguments, and I will be the first to bring them up, but Apple products are generally solid and much more reliable than the jumbled mess of components a PC can turn into. MP3 players used to be garbage. If it wasn't a flimsy plastic piece of crap to begin with, they never stood up to any regular use, were a pain to get music onto, and were obsolete within the year it was bought. Apple changed that into an overpriced product, but they gave it the pride, usability, support, and pipeline that music lovers didn't know they wanted all along. Macs have come a long way, too, becoming functional workstations when serious business needed to be taken care of with as little fuss as possible. The entertainment industry has pretty much preached for years that powerful applications for movie, music, and graphics are much more intuitive on a Mac. iPhones are standard social toys now because they wrap 100 useless products into a single useless product that works well.
This all could have happened before if someone stepped up, but Apple pretty much led the charge when it came to stealing ideas and making them functional. Granted, you're completely limited if you choose them, because there is always a distinct lack of options with it comes to Apple. They choose their hardware so that everything works right every time, but that is usually all you'll ever get. You are literally paying Apple the premium to be organized and nothing else. I've seen idiots set up a wireless Apple household down to the Apple TV. I've seen geniuses fight to get their customized rigs to work right.
Why has no one else stepped up? Well, it's a problem that leads to my third and final remark.
That lack of organization is going to come back and bite someone in the ass sooner than later, and that someone is Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't quite realize it fully, but they know the danger is there. The reason that they are pushing themselves into gaming more now is that they know that they do one thing extraordinarily well, and that is to mercilessly advance things beyond the points of usability. Unfortunately, that also carries risks, but Microsoft is trying to strategically place themselves at a point of power in gaming, and this goes way beyond the XBox brand. Their tech is being used, their ideas are being implemented, and they threw so much money into gaming a decade ago because they knew that there was going to be an endless flow of cash that they wanted to be a part of. They are trying to expand themselves because the monopoly is crumbling fast.
Apple is simply doing what makes too much sense. Microsoft develops something and throws it into the clusterf*** that is the Windows infrastructure, then forgets about it. Apple picks it up, organizes it, waits until they can make it work right, then releases it for a lot of money. Apple has started small, getting their devices into people's pockets without them ever buying a Mac. Google started small on the internet, and is now proving that they can make an impact outside of the browser. The Linux crowd is always dangling the "it's free, and it works better" sign in front of them, and for good reason. Microsoft is left with Windows, but that's not going to last too much longer.
Soon, all three are going to make an emphatic push all at once. Google's OS is going to nab the netbook hold from Windows XP, and in doing so, they will take aim at the flagship. Apple is working its way up, but one day, people are going to realize that the iTablet is only a whisker away from being a Mac, and there will be too much comfort there to ignore. Linux is going to get experimented on more and more by people looking to delve deeper into how a computer works. There isn't much room left for Microsoft after that.
Not that I'm legitimizing Apple, don't get me wrong. It's just that Microsoft could have really pushed the hardware guys to give us a good tablet years ago. You know, when it was new and original. At least when Apple releases the iTablet, it won't cost so damned much to go buy one I'll actually use. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
January 5, 2010
The return
It's been quite a long time between posts, and the hiatus hasn't been very inspiring. Too many games became available to me at once, and most of them have been due to the retro bug hitting me quite hard. The good news is that I've managed to reclaim a Dreamcast, then turn right around and score 2 Sega CD's and a 3DO in the span of a month. That also means that I haven't had time for anything new between that and the holidays.
Returning from it all, I had the knowledge that the Dante's Inferno demo was available for download, so I checked out the PSN to find even more goodies waiting for me. I decided to give three game demos a legitimate change to catch my attention, with one coming out as a decisive winner.
First up is Dante's Inferno, an extremely indilgent vacation through the levels of hell as Kratos. I mean, Dante. God of War of written all over this game, and if nobody has noticed, we seem to be in a 3-D beat-em-up golden age. If you haven't seen the new Castlevania trailer, then get on Youtube and look for yourself, but with that on the way, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and God of War III on the way, you're in for some serious good times if you're a fan of the genre. To top it all off, the lot of them are looking to be golden.
I haven't been into the genre much, but it doesn't take a lot to jump right back into it. The descent into Hell is colorful, and yes, you get to see your first rack in the first cinematic. It's a greatly stylized game, but it's still the exact same as God of War, not that you'll care. I can appreciate taking an already good thing and changing an already amazing setting to something equally badass, and that's what Dante's Inferno does.
Second up was MAG's public beta, and I have extremely mixed feelings about what on paper came out sounding like a FPSers wet dream. 256 players. MMO. Player interaction with the overarching "war". Massive maps. Rank actually meaning something other than longevity. Vehicles. Insane amounts of customization.
Trouble is that Modern Warfare 2 is out. I know that we're talking about two completely separate styles with completely different server/processor demands, but the difference slaps you in the face. MAG is accurate, don't get me wrong, but you're going to spend most of your time passively fighting a war rather than directly fighting for every breath of your AMP infused live. The frame rate doesn't chug and the graphics are amazing, but they are most lacking that crisp feeling that draws people into MW2 among all other games.
As a Battlefield killer, it may just have the stuff, though I didn't get to experience all of that goodness because the map I played was pretty limited in scope and I got bored. If you're into Battlefield, give this a shot because it's right up your ally, but if not, you may end up bored like me.
Finally, there was Bayonetta...which immediately put everything else I played to shame. Dante's Inferno may wait for the discount bin before I try it, because Bayonetta did enough with its demo to convince me to buy that without question. It does everything Devil May Cry and God of War do, just better. I was actually done buying games this winter until I played this game.
That's all for the roundup. Brief, yes, but I'm still busy with life so all I can spare is the ten minutes for the moment. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
Returning from it all, I had the knowledge that the Dante's Inferno demo was available for download, so I checked out the PSN to find even more goodies waiting for me. I decided to give three game demos a legitimate change to catch my attention, with one coming out as a decisive winner.
First up is Dante's Inferno, an extremely indilgent vacation through the levels of hell as Kratos. I mean, Dante. God of War of written all over this game, and if nobody has noticed, we seem to be in a 3-D beat-em-up golden age. If you haven't seen the new Castlevania trailer, then get on Youtube and look for yourself, but with that on the way, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and God of War III on the way, you're in for some serious good times if you're a fan of the genre. To top it all off, the lot of them are looking to be golden.
I haven't been into the genre much, but it doesn't take a lot to jump right back into it. The descent into Hell is colorful, and yes, you get to see your first rack in the first cinematic. It's a greatly stylized game, but it's still the exact same as God of War, not that you'll care. I can appreciate taking an already good thing and changing an already amazing setting to something equally badass, and that's what Dante's Inferno does.
Second up was MAG's public beta, and I have extremely mixed feelings about what on paper came out sounding like a FPSers wet dream. 256 players. MMO. Player interaction with the overarching "war". Massive maps. Rank actually meaning something other than longevity. Vehicles. Insane amounts of customization.
Trouble is that Modern Warfare 2 is out. I know that we're talking about two completely separate styles with completely different server/processor demands, but the difference slaps you in the face. MAG is accurate, don't get me wrong, but you're going to spend most of your time passively fighting a war rather than directly fighting for every breath of your AMP infused live. The frame rate doesn't chug and the graphics are amazing, but they are most lacking that crisp feeling that draws people into MW2 among all other games.
As a Battlefield killer, it may just have the stuff, though I didn't get to experience all of that goodness because the map I played was pretty limited in scope and I got bored. If you're into Battlefield, give this a shot because it's right up your ally, but if not, you may end up bored like me.
Finally, there was Bayonetta...which immediately put everything else I played to shame. Dante's Inferno may wait for the discount bin before I try it, because Bayonetta did enough with its demo to convince me to buy that without question. It does everything Devil May Cry and God of War do, just better. I was actually done buying games this winter until I played this game.
That's all for the roundup. Brief, yes, but I'm still busy with life so all I can spare is the ten minutes for the moment. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit
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