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Et tu, Kojima?
This breaks my heart to say, but Metal Gear Solid 4 is unequivocally the worst game in Hideo Kojima's otherwise brilliant series. If "worst" among some of the best games of the past decade doesn't sound so bad, I'll elaborate and suggest that Metal Gear Solid 4 isn't an especially good or bad game, though in the context of its phenomenal predecessors, producer Kojima's latest is depressingly disappointing.
Lest frequent readers of my frequently critical opinions assume I just like to hate, let me make clear the following: Metal Gear Solid is probably my favorite franchise in all of video gaming. I expected Metal Gear Solid 4 to be a great game.
If you're not a complete gameplay nerd like I am then some of my reasoning may seem obtuse or unnecessarily critical, but I love the Metal Gear Solid games for their impeccable gameplay, not for the fancy cinematics or the engaging (if ridiculous) story that I feel are most responsible for the franchise's notoriety. At the core of the gameplay is a complex set of steadfast, consistent AI rules that govern the player's tactics and operate hand-in-hand with the brilliant level design. Metal Gear Solid 2 is the best of this design--I don't care that Rose is whiny or that the last quarter of the game is nonsense without Wikipedia at hand--but each of the first three MGS games offers a unique variation of the formula while maintaining a consistent base of clearly defined rules.
It may take Wikipedia and a hit of acid to understand MGS2's story, but the impeccable gameplay and level design is where the good stuff's at.
Metal Gear Solid 4 abandons this tradition of excellence, its gameplay marred by flagrant inconsistencies and incongruous designs lifted from Western game philosophy and awkwardly shoehorned into Metal Gear's classically tight, perfect play.
Take, for instance, the mixed alert system rules that vary as Snake moves between areas. Traditionally, getting spotted triggers an alert during which guards actively attack Snake. The alert is followed by an evasion status, in which guards search for Snake, and that phase gives way to caution status that leaves beefed up security to patrol the area where Snake was spotted. Sensible. But Metal Gear Solid 4 doesn't always play by these rules, occasionally and transparently switching to another set of rules when Snake enters an area where PMC and militia forces are fighting each other. In these war zones, an alert means roughly the same thing as usual, but the evasion phase is completely negligible and caution never even occurs.
Those very familiar with the AI rules in Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater know that tranquilized and knocked out guards eventually wake up, and that knocked out guards remember that they were knocked out while sleeping enemies awaken and remember nothing but their patrol. Timid guards held up at gun point from behind assume the position indefinitely until they see that Snake is no longer minding them (or until an alert sounds). These rules apply in Metal Gear Solid 4, but only some of the time. When embattled with the rebel militia in the Middle East, PMC guards never wake up from knockouts or tranquilizers, not even if Snake tries to rouse them. And further dissolving any semblance of consistency, hold ups in these war zones only last as long as Snake holds his gun at the enemy's back. Turn away and the held-up targets immediately try to escape.
Mysteriously in the first Frog battle, knockouts and tranks are permanent, though later Frogs don't follow the same rules. Why the inconsistency?
There is no indication that the rules have changed in these war zone areas, and it's only by extensive trial and error that a player can grasp the rules and understand that which should be clearly defined.
There's a pretty easy solution that Kojima could have implemented to solve most of the inconsistencies of the war zone areas; he should have made war zones in a constant state of evasion. Doing so solves the alert system issue by preventing a caution from ever occurring and explains why held-up guards won't stay put. As well, the visual indication of an evasion status on screen hints to the player that the area he's wandered into is different than usual, though the rules from before still jive with consistent reasoning. Forcing all war zones into a constant evasion status doesn't explain the permanent knockouts, though--that's something only Kojima's design team can explain.
But even when I thought I'd figured out the unnecessary inconsistency of enemy AI routines in the presence of militia combatants, the game confounds the rules further in Act 2. In the very first area of Act 2, Snake can trigger a fight between the PMC guards and militia forces. "War zone rules," I assumed. But no, in this instance there's a strange hybrid rule set, in which the normal alert modes apply to Snake, knock outs and tranquilizers are still temporary, but hold ups no longer last indefinitely. As well, any enemy guards that were held up by Snake before the fight broke out decide to stand up even though there's no visible alert status that would normally rouse them--and these guards have no recollection of ever being held up by Snake, and so they don't trigger a caution phase as they would normally when breaking a hold up.
As if that hybrid rule set wasn't convoluted enough, a few areas later, at the Power Station, things get even more incomprehensible. The militia fights on one side of the large area, engaging PMC enemies to the west, but to the east is a host of PMC guards on patrol as if their comrades aren't engaged in battle on the other side of the hill. I successfully put all of the hilltop guards into indefinite hold-up positions, save for a pair of snipers overlooking the battlefield below from the western lip of the hill. When I tried to hold up the snipers, they resisted, trying to stand up as if following the aforementioned war zone rules--this was more or less understandable considering that the snipers were actively engaged in fighting the militia, though being in such close proximity to a group of guards that didn't play by these rules was disconcerting. The snipers never got to trigger an alert. They'd try to stand up, I'd put them back down, and eventually I settled on tranquilizing the pair before they were able to utter so much as a "!" in recognition of spotting Snake.
I couldn't have predicted what happened next. All of the guards I had previously put into indefinite hold-up status stood up and resumed their patrols as if nothing had happened, without triggering any sort of caution to acknowledge that Snake had engaged them earlier. Not only had all my stealthy work been undone by a strange inconsistency in the rules (there was no alert to rouse them out of their hold ups), but the guards inexplicably didn't follow the pattern of signaling a caution when recovering from a non-tranquilized position.
In this area, the Confinement Facility, all enemies operate on the same rule set except for the guy guarding prisoners. I held up everyone in the base but this guy's obstinance in the presence of militia fighters caused every other enemy in the base to stand up and resume their normal patrols.
I replayed the same area a number of times to confirm my findings, and an almost identical situation unfolded in a later area of Act 2 (Confinement Facility).
Metal Gear Solid gameplay is wholly contingent on its AI rules. Without consistency, the gameplay is essentially broken. These aren't nit-picky complaints, I'm explaining serious structural faults.
But the strange consistency issues with enemies aren't the only holes in Metal Gear Solid 4's design. The congruous Japanese design of the past games is spoiled by the sloppy implementation of some Western influences, most notably the nebulous ally system that lets Snake befriend militia forces to negate half of the threat on certain battlefields. The rules for getting the militia on your side aren't at all made clear. And the grand reward for achieving a rapport with the militia is that you essentially remove meaningful gameplay from certain levels. Sneaking through the Militia Safe House in Act 1 is one of the more compelling moments of the game, though if you befriend the militia early you can simply waltz through the underground area without implementing an iota of stealth. There are significant areas of Act 2 that are either grossly simplified or outright completed for the player if the militia gets early aid from Snake. Some great reward.
The nebulous alliance system is unwelcome in a series defined by evident rule sets.
The first half of Act 3 strikes me as a lazy concession to Western tastes that plays like a poor man's Hitman. With emphasis on trial and error, rather than execution based on prior gameplay learnings, the Act 3 sequence offers yet another undefined and unnecessary deviation from the normal rules of Metal Gear Solid gameplay.
Other Western influences are less egregious but similarly telling, such as the rotating camera angle, over-the-shoulder shooting and dual analog, FPS-style controls. While these are far from game-breaking introductions to Metal Gear, they do further dilute the qualities that make Metal Gear the unique gameplay experience that it is. The Western design influences strike me less as meaningful additions to gameplay and more as a calculated effort to maximize the Western appeal of the series, which traditionally sells better in Western markets than in Japan.
Kojima's assertion that video games aren't art certainly rings true in light of such marketing-influenced design.
I've also got qualms with the story and presentation, though I won't pretend that they ruin the game for me. The mission briefings are painful. The vast majority of non-action cut scenes are numbingly slow. Too many characters from the past are senselessly brought back and too conveniently fit into the plot. The staggering worldwide scope of Metal Gear's overarching plot is condensed to a handful of characters that never were especially important in their original appearances, and the execution comes across as patronizing. It's as contrived as the character-stuffed story in Smash Bros. Brawl, except that people actually want to care about Metal Gear.
The boss characters are the most interesting additions to Metal Gear lore, but the actual fights are disappointing in the wake of Snake Eater's excellent battles.
The game's boss fights aren't on par with those in past Metal Gear Solid games. Level design in general is weak, save for a few notable areas like Act 1's Millennium Park. Act 4 is a brilliant surprise let down by uninspiring gameplay. And the Mk. II spoils the urgency of MGS stealth gameplay with no incentive to not abuse it.
It's difficult to wrap up my feelings about Metal Gear Solid 4, as I presume it was difficult for Hideo Kojima to wrap up Metal Gear's plot, so forgive my mind for wandering. I just hope that the core of my argument is more solid than the core of Metal Gear Solid 4 gameplay.
Grand Theft Auto's clothes same as before; invisible, please join in pointing it out
I'm not a huge fan of Grand Theft Auto. I got my giggles from the top-down games on PC and PSone over a decade ago and found Grand Theft Auto III and its subsequent PS2 spawn to be more of the same, but buggier. Needless to say, I wasn't among the choir joyously welcoming the franchise to the HD era. I have to admit, GTA IV's swelling hype that seemed to sway respected coworkers who previously shared my general dislike of the series planted in my mind the idea that this go round things might be different. With early impressions of gameplay filtering into the office, I almost believed that Rockstar had crafted, for once, a polished product worthy of the celebration.
Early screenshots and impressions conveyed that this time, GTA was right...
That impression lasted all of one second when I saw the game played in front of me, and a week's worth of personal playtime confirms my conditioned reservations with regard to modern Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto IV is the same as its PS2 precursors, plagued by mostly identical design and execution faults that kept me from drinking the preemptive rounds of Kool-Aid in the weeks before IV's release. Its flaws are flagrant and copious, but Grand Theft Auto IV is nevertheless the most critically acclaimed video game of ever and this fact is hurting my brain.
...But turn on the game and it's evident that little is fixed.
I've spent the better part of this week trying to ascertain the impetus behind this sycophantic slobbering. I can deal with people liking bad games--I'm occasionally guilty, but I'll admit to losing myself in Oblivion without feigning excuse for its faults. I don't take issue with anyone's enjoyment of GTA IV, just the impossible denial of the game's egregious shortcomings.
GTA IV is the video game equivalent of America's Funniest Home Videos, a breeding ground of comedic domino effects relentlessly hitting the player with circumstantial punchlines that convey the sensation of fun. That's fine, I f***ing love AFV, but let's call a spade a spade. Grand Theft Auto IV is no more the best video game this decade than Bob Saget is host of television epitome.
Behold the depth of GTA's appeal.
Grand Theft Auto is and always has been instantly entertaining in the sense that seeing someone get kicked in the nuts is hilarious comedy, but any deeper critical look at the games reveals both myriad technical flaws and a sucking void of substance, unbecoming traits passed on to Grand Theft Auto IV. Not one of the game's play mechanics is especially well done, most are sloppy at best. There is no depth to Grand Theft Auto gameplay. There are no systems to master. There is nothing but a multitude of shallow options.
Games don't have to be 100% mechanics, but they certainly should have them at their cores.
The epitome of mechanical and cerebral gameplay systems in video games is best represented by competitive fighting games (I'm partial to Street Fighter), and though that level of depth and exacting execution isn't wholly possible in single player excursions--or at least hasn't yet been achieved--some degree of mechanical or intellectual depth should be prerequisite for any game aspiring to greatness. Grand Theft Auto IV fails to deliver gameplay with more depth than an average YouTube clip spread by IM, and moreover fails technically with camera control issues, constant framerate hiccups, disjointed animation, and sloppy controls.
It's not that I don't get why everyone loves GTA--I get it. But as someone that feels video gaming is more than a brainless distraction, I take serious issue with the assertion that Grand Theft Auto IV is as good as it gets. Video gaming is better than this crap.
Spelling corrections attributable to the magnanimous trgfsk8.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008 |
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Xbox in five years; what we'll remember as Microsoft's great mistakes
Nintendo smashed Microsoft's dream of being the generation's top dog with a console named by a euphemism for pee. In less than a year's time, Wii launched and overtook Xbox 360 in worldwide console sales, accomplishing in twelve months what Microsoft couldn't in twenty-four.
That summary is a bit harsh, but it's also true. While Microsoft is actually making Xbox a profitable venture this go round, bringing in an estimated half-billion dollars in the second half of 2007, there's little doubt that Xbox will once again finish second best, at best. When all's said and done, I expect the Xbox 360 to end in third place worldwide while retaining its second place position in North America.
Chart, uh, borrowed from the dope folks at Next-Gen.biz.
Before I rip into Microsoft's morbid mistakes, I'll recognize the company's successes. Xbox 360 has, so far, solidly outpaced sales of the original money-pit Xbox. In the immortal words of a former co-worker, that's good, but not great. Even more impressive are the Xbox 360 software sales which continue to rock me--in the U.S., the Xbox 360 has a software attach rate over seven games per console sold, versus just over four games per console for Wii and PlayStation 3. That's great. Those excellent software numbers are no doubt largely responsible for Xbox's first posted profit since late 2004, and are by far Microsoft's most compelling suggestion of success.
Where Microsoft is failing is in expanding its market past the audience that bought into the original Xbox, the audience that cost Microsoft billions and dragged them to a distant second place. Xbox still appeals to the core U.S. audience, but it's not getting anywhere else; Microsoft's not hitting the mainstream and it's not penetrating far beyond its homeland borders. This stunted headway may be enough to bring in some change, as evidenced by the company's recent earnings report, but it won't make Xbox the Windows of the living room. Not even close.
The mistakes are many.
Price -- Chew on this: More than two years after the Xbox 360 hit the market, the console is still more expensive than any leading console from the past. This is almost entirely due to Xbox 360's main competition still being priced above it, but Microsoft's making a big mistake by waiting for Sony to encroach on its territory. This waiting game is costing Microsoft the benefit of its head start and let Sony creep into striking distance--the 40GB PlayStation 3, which is much more viable than the 360's budget SKU, is priced within fifty dollars of the 360, a gap that Sony can easily erase. It is absurd what Microsoft has done with their price advantage. By the end of 2008, maybe earlier, the price argument will be moot.
Microsoft's only good ads get pulled from TV. They instead air tripe.
Games -- As earlier conceded, Xbox 360 software is doing excellent in the U.S. market. Some publishers, mostly western, are making a killing off of 360, and the system has amassed a compelling library of games that cater to a certain kind of gamer. That type of gamer is the core U.S. buyer that loves online gaming and feeds on shooters. What that type of gamer isn't is mainstream, mass market, international. That type of gamer also isn't anything different from the folks that bought Microsoft's first Xbox. The Xbox 360's heavy emphasis on shooters and online isn't expanding the Xbox brand, and Microsoft's attempts to broaden the software appeal to foreign and mainstream markets with games like Blue Dragon and Scene It! have proven disappointingly unsuccessful.
Marketing -- While the 360's games attract the core users on their own, Microsoft uses some pretty poor advertising to stretch the console's appeal. One particular PlayStation ad seems to be the inspiration for much of Microsoft's direction, especially its Jump in adverts that miss the clever appeal of Sony's PlayStation 2 spots and come across as desperate in their message. Microsoft's summer '07 spot struck me as similarly desperate and missing the point. Sadly, Microsoft's best commercials were pulled from the airwaves.
Freddie Mercury belted Xbox 360's anthem twenty-five years before the fact.
Reliability -- Though Microsoft's pretty well captured the core U.S. gamer, it's also inadvertently soiled its rapport with that audience by failing to address serious hardware faults for quite near two years. Among the multitudinous Xbox 360 systems in the IGN stable, very few have dodged the Three Red Light bullet, and even assuming our large sample is an unlikely statistical anomoly, it's reasonable to infer that the platform suffers a failure rate in excess of fifty percent. That's a hell of a legacy for the Xbox brand, a legacy that a three year we'll-replace-your-broken-Xbox-with-another-one-that-will-soon-bite-the-dust warranty can't hide.
After a year of teasing the PlayStation 3 mess, it's easy to miss Microsoft's own mistakes. But looking into the future of 2008 and beyond, it all seems rather vivid.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008 |
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Introducing the IGN Guides team mascot
It was May 13, 2006. Mentally ravaged by the week's festivities, editors Erik Brudvig, Craig Harris, Marc Nix and yours truly embarked on the somber trek north to San Francisco, leaving behind another defeated Electronics Entertainment Expo.
It's tough to convey the mental state of IGN editors on the Saturday morning following the close of E3. But I think this is pretty representative.
To an IGN editor on the Saturday morning following the close of E3, a giant dill pickle from a convenience store off I-5 somewhere between The Grapevine and Coalinga sounds like a good idea. When we pulled off the highway to max out our daily food budget with junk food and slurpees, Erik Brudvig chose this monstrosity for a road trip snack. Unbeknownst to anyone that day, it was a fateful purchase.
Erik never ate that pickle. Instead, still feeling the effects of E3-onset fatigue, he dubbed it the Guides team mascot. Almost two years later, it's still here, boosting morale.
The key to the longevity of the Guides team mascot is the impossible text at the bottom of the package that insists "no refrigeration needed." Look hard and you still won't find an expiration date on this dill--it is eternal. But a mysterious evil threatens to end the run of the Guides team mascot.
After a year of dutiful service, the mascot sprung a leak. A hole formed near the top of the packaging, exposing the precious contents to unspeakable dangers. But miraculously, a crusty substance formed around the hole, lovingly guarding the dill pickle from the elements that threaten to rot it.
No one knows for sure where the crusty substance came from or what it is. Some speculate that it's a mold, while others insist it's a salt formation birthed from the urine-like brine encasing our beloved pickle. But like the identity of Superman, it's all irrelevant. No matter where it's from or who or what it is, this crust has protected the Guides team mascot for almost an entire year. And we expect it will continue to serve and protect for years to come.
Things that suck, vol. 1: Quick saves
To begin, I want to dedicate this update to André Adair Segers, without whom I would have to steal inferior ideas from the intellectually blunter Colin Null Moriarty instead.
This afternoon I was complaining, as I often do when I'm not busy bitching, and a brief conversation ensued in the brilliance-studded Guides/Insider section of the office that reminded me of something I hate. I hate quick saves. The ability to save state mid-play and on a whim endlessly reload is quite probably the most poorly conceived convention of gaming.
The source of the PC-elitist's confidence: F6.
Quick saves spoil difficulty balance, and not always in the player's favor. If it's not obvious how quick saves make games too easy, allow me to laboriously explain: quick saves empower the player to retry every step of gameplay without consequence, like an authorized, more tedious god mode. Quick saves are easily abused to the point of stupid, and the only limit to how stupid I play is an eventual loss of self-respect.
I discovered another nasty side-effect of quick saves due to my inexperience with them. I don't often play PC games, and as such I am not conditioned to hitting F6 after every enemy encounter or successful platform jump. I find it then frustrating that PC games are often designed with the assumption that the player is abusing quick saves. Sudden, instant kills and impossible first-try challenges seem more common in PC-originated first person shooters than in more soundly limited console games. And as these PC-originated games make their way to consoles in increasing frequency, it's an issue that'll bother me more and more until developers recognize the folly.
I barely remember Quake 4, except that its design relies on quick saves.
I appreciate the ability to save and stop play at any time, but the more limited temporary saves of modern Castlevanias and Virtual Console games make more sense. They offer the practical luxury of saving whenever the player is ready to stop without spoiling the intrinsic difficulty balance of a game.
The next time a PC-elitist gamer tells me about the dumbing down of console games, I'll insolently remind him that quick saves are stupid.
While pondering this topic, I wondered what David Sirlin would think. You might not know David Sirlin, but he's an accomplish Street Fighter tournament player and now does game design, currently working on Super Street Fighter II HD Remix. He writes some very cool articles at Sirlin.net, and didn't let me down with his article on save systems. I considered writing a similar piece, but having found his article, my own seems rather unnecessary.
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Thursday, November 29, 2007 |
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Assassin's Creed good? Nonsense
The ongoing debate over Assassin's Creed is about as polarized as I've yet seen in the online forum. I was at no point in its development even remotely interested by the game, so it came as little surprise to me that Assassin's Creed received a number of mild reviews. At the same time, the high scores the game earned from other publications were sort of expected given the consuming hype surrounding Creed. Hyped games tend to earn glowing reviews, whether they're deserved or not. It's a sad truth.
I initially attributed Creed's high scores to the hype, but the enduring excitement for the game weeks after release tells me that there are players that genuinely think Assassin's Creed is a great game. I've played Creed a fair bit, and I can see why people dig it. At its best moments, Assassin's Creed looks phenomenal. The sprawling cities are packed with the sort of detail and bustle not usually expected of non-linear sandbox games. It's impressive to see the sort of detail that goes into more narrowly focused games expanded to Assassin's Creed's scope.
Pull away from the streets and the cities look fantastic.
And it's not like the game's flaws are glaring, as the obvious things that often go wrong with games are pretty solid; the controls are generally sharp, the game runs (mostly) well, and the premise is engaging. Assassin's Creed is good enough in the right places that it'll satisfy a lot of players. But that doesn't make it a good game.
Blending with scholars is one of many half-conceived designs.
I say this honestly, without an ounce of bias in defense of IGN's review: Assassin's Creed is a bad video game. Though the game demonstrates competence in execution, Creed was crippled at its inception. The game's core design is rife with half-baked ideas and a general misunderstanding of what makes games good. Assassin's Creed relies on its size and freedom, but those attributes alone don't equate quality gameplay. The fine details and mechanics that comprise the core of the game are consistently and unequivocally poor.
Perhaps the most alluring promise of Assassin's Creed is the exploration and the impressive acrobatics involved in scaling towering structures and freight-training through busy city streets and their accessories. A shame, then, that all the intricate rooftop dancing, the ballet through hustling crowds and precise steps across narrow platforms that highlight Creed's early press are executed by simply holding down two buttons and pressing forward on the control stick. There's no substance to Creed's free-run mechanic, and the exploration is rendered empty and unrewarding.
Enemies have no answer for the horse, so why even worry about alerts?
Similarly shallow are the game's repeating objectives, like eavesdropping that requires the player to sit on a bench and press a button, and pickpocket missions completed by another singular button press. Everything looks pretty and is presented elegantly, but any semi-critical player should instantly decry the conspicuous absence of content. Strip away the attractive veneer and Assassin's Creed is emptiness on loop.
Like most games that aren't Metal Gear Solid, Creed's stealth mechanics are nebulous, inconsistent and buggy, which is about the worst description I can give a game. The impact of the awful stealth system is minimized, however, by the revelation that stealth hardly matters. The penalty of being outed in the overworld is little more than the annoyance of a beeping icon (enemies can't catch a player on horseback). In cities, the game's exploitable combat easily remedies accidental sightings. That combat is probably the best mechanic at work in Assassin's Creed, but it's too forgiving and sloppy to offer more than a casual diversion from even more mediocre designs.
But there are many superior video game diversions, especially this time of the year. In the presence of Super Mario Galaxy, it's nonsense to declare Assassin's Creed a great, or even good, game.
Anton Ego's 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2007 (Revisited?)
I'm tough to please. When tasked with deciding my ten most anticipated games for 2007, I winced. Deciding ten upcoming games that genuinely excite me is a pretty tall order, but I surprisingly managed it. There's a load of exciting titles on the horizon, with big games for most all genres to satisfy everyone; even me.
10) Hannah Montana: Music Jam (Nintendo DS)
Seriously. If you don't believe me, just ask this guy, who'll bust your face over his Harley's gas tank and simultaneously strum a few chords with Hannah. I bellowed a few guffaws in the faces of editors that suggested this game might be cool, but after checking out the E3 demonstration video I'm actually kinda stoked for a Hannah Montana game. Seriously.
09) Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)
Count me among the neo-fans of Castlevania, the bandwagon poseurs that jumped in circa 1997 when Castlevania: Symphony of the Night originally released. I missed a number of the earlier Castlevania games, including the often celebrated Rondo of Blood, so I'm naturally excited to get a chance to play it (in English) on a modern system. Too bad that system happens to be the PSP, and too bad they've gone and muddied up the 2D graphics with 3D noise. Here's hoping the updated PSP (the PSP P--again, seriously) comes with an improved directional pad for conquering Drac's haunts.
08) Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)
I honestly don't know much about Zack & Wiki, except for these few things: 1) It's from Capcom, who I generally like; 2) It looks like a novel concept, which I appreciate; 3) It's got an awful name, which I'm prepared to endure. I'm looking forward to a reason to turn on my Wii, and I've got hope that this original title will warrant the minimal effort required to unwrap a DVD box and lean forward to turn on the console.
07) The Orange Box (Xbox 360)
Confession time: I haven't played Half-Life 2. I'm sternly against playing games on PC, so I never got around to playing what many argue was the best game of 2004. Though as much as I'd like to finally crack some Combine skulls, I'm actually more interested in the other Orange Box inclusions. Team Fortress 2 should be dope, and Portal looks straight-up bomb.
06) Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)
Though Gran Turismo 4 doesn't hold a candle to the 32-bit era's best racing games, it is without a doubt my favorite racer of the newly departed generation. I'd probably wet my pants in anticipation for Gran Turismo 5, but Prologue will hold me off (and keep me dry) in the interim. Here's desperately hoping that the paltry Prologue roster includes a 2006 Pontiac GTO... Phantom Black Metallic... With red leather interior... And a six-speed.
05) Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
I'm among the biggest Halo: Combat Evolved fans around, and not so coincidentally among the most vocal detractors of Halo 2 in the office. Halo 2's multiplayer balancing stinks, and I've got dreams that Halo 3 will make things right again. If Halo 3 manages the superior balancing of Combat Evolved to compliment the outstanding online interface of Halo 2, I'll be one (trigger) happy guy. British children, beware my xenophobic vitriol!
04) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
I was nursed on Street Fighter II growing up, so the Smash Bros. games have never earned the blessing of my fandom. This may change for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which I'm prepared to give an honest chance. Having come to the sad realization that fighting games will never be better than Street Fighter II, I'll be satisfied if Smash Bros. Brawl gives me a common ground to compete with fellow IGN editors. First, I've got my eyes on noobie Colin Moriarty, with aspirations of someday taking down the grand poobah of Nintendo dorkdom, Francis Mirabella III.
03) BioShock (Xbox 360)
I don't usually get excited for PC-originated first person shooters, but BioShock looks different in a decidedly good way. The unique setting, original pacing and otherwise creative aspects of BioShock have me very excited, for the first time in a long time, to dive into a game from a PC-focused developer. (P.S. I'll be playing it on Xbox 360.)
02) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
The first Metroid Prime is, in my estimation, among the top five games of this century. Naturally, I'm very anxious to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I'm vaguely concerned that the new control scheme will skew the game more shooter than adventure, and a bit worried by the dull, human-ridden Prime 3 environments we've seen so far. But these concerns come from the deep appreciation I have for Metroid Prime, and I can't help but hope for the best.
01) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Anyone that's played Donkey Kong Jungle Beat on the GameCube should be very excited for Super Mario Galaxy. The games share developers, and if Jungle Beat is any indicator, Galaxy will be astounding. It's direly important for Galaxy to be a success, so I'm confidently anticipating what I suspect will be my favorite game of 2007.
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007 |
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Game technology's orphans
As technology races ahead, generating an original vernacular rivaling the obscurity of the Choctaw code, am I alone in doubting the benefit of the industry's eager adoption of everything new? Live this, 1080p that, and meanwhile gaming remains burdened with technical blocks from decades past.
Now loading screens--why do these still exist? The industry jumped to optical media more than a decade ago, but it hasn't yet overcome perhaps the only downfall of the medium switch. Data access times for CD- and DVD-ROMs are longer than loads from the cartridge ROMs of yore. Fair enough. But Crystal Dynamics pulled off a no-load-screen game ten years ago (Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver--play it, it's good), so why do we still tolerate these destroyers of the fourth wall?
Bullet Witch: In what crazy dimension are games required to run 720p but not required to run a decent framerate?
It's completely backwards that 720p and Live Aware are mandated standards while loading screens and sub-par framerates continue to plague many of the industry's premiere products. Despite being a habitual late adopter, I am all for pushing technology forward. But I find it confounding, nay, absurd that everyone's so eager to dabble in new distractions before overcoming nagging, ancient problems.
Eight years ago, as the launch of Dreamcast fast approached, I joined the choir in excitedly welcoming the age of online gaming. Nevermind that it took three or four more years for consoles to do online well (thanks, Microsoft). Nintendo 64 had moved multiplayer gaming forward with its plethora of four-player split-screen games, and jumping to online was the logical next step. Sadly, as I early feared and later confirmed, the industry-wide enthusiasm for online play orphaned split-screen gaming.
Actual photo of my Seattle apartment on one of many Halo nights. Online will never match the living room multiplayer experience.
My first experience with the Xbox introduced the awesome potential of split-screen gaming and network play. Three Xbox consoles, three TVs, and ten friends crammed in my apartment like sardines in a matchbox (but smelling worse), shouting and cursing over an all-night game of Halo. Surely, this is just the beginning, I assumed a half-decade ago.
But with the exception of Halo's sequel, that quality of split-screen network play has yet to be matched or even vaguely rivaled. Instead, the industry marches on with a zeal for online gaming, an experience which has never been and never will be as good as playing in a living room packed with friends. It is endlessly frustrating and disheartening to watch the industry abandon the superior living room experience in favor of online pursuits--and revel in the decline.
Recently, I'm puzzled by the enthusiasm for downloadable content technology. Virtua Fighter 5 released on PlayStation 3 in February, and some reviewers cleverly excused its lack of online play, knowing that online Virtua Fighter would be no good (it really would be awful--just look at Street Fighter 2 Turbo on Xbox Live for proof). But some reviewers insisted that, instead of impossible online play, Virtua Fighter 5 should have offered online extras like downloadable costumes. Why?
Guitar Hero II: Remember when extra content was free? Often it still is, but no need to embrace DLC for technology's sake.
When Guitar Hero first released on PlayStation over a year ago, I heard from many folks, "Can't wait for an Xbox 360 version, can't wait to download new songs." Eighteen months later and Guitar Hero is now on Xbox 360 with a library of downloadable extras ready for the eager. Again, why the enthusiasm for this? What is the appeal of downloading extras that should be included on the game disc? (That the Guitar Hero II downloads are ready as the game releases is proof that they could and should be on the disc.) It's technology obsession.
Like I said before, I'm a habitual late adopter. To point, I'm writing this entry in Windows 2000. Maybe in Notepad. But I don't fancy myself a technophobe. I just hate to see worthwhile efforts orphaned in favor of advancing a lesser enterprise.
I'm tempted to end this by parallelling the Choctow code, which the US used to defeat the Germans in World War II, with technology obsession that the industry may use to defeat us gamefans. But that's a bit melodramatic, and I'd be calling myself a Nazi.
Nintendo, Sony--this one's on us! Love, Microsoft
The honest truth is that when I wrote my last entry, suggesting that Microsoft soon drop the price of their Xbox 360, I believed the Xbox 360 Elite rumors were nothing more than wishful thinking. That's wishful thinking by selfish Internet dweebs with no appreciation for the market and Microsoft's financial success, the sort of clueless folks that threw a fit when Devil May Cry 4 got multi-platform'd.
Microsoft to Sony: So this is what it's like to be stupid expensive.
With so much backlash against the PlayStation 3 and its exorbitant price--backlash that manifested in February as abysmal monthly sales for the system--what sense does it make for Microsoft to increase the price of the 360 to add a pair of features that so few care about? The answer is "none," I assumed before writing that now is the right time for Microsoft to kick Sony in the groin with an Xbox 360 price drop. But they did the opposite.
Microsoft just upped the price of the Xbox 360. Forget that the Premium and Core packs are both still around (and both still at their unchanged price points). By releasing the Elite pack, Microsoft just made their flagship Premium system dated. The Xbox 360 Premium pack has been, by far, the better selling of Microsoft's two current SKUs, largely because it's perceived as the "better" unit. Consumers don't want an inferior product, a notion also supported by sales of the PlayStation 3. The vast majority of PS3 sales are 60GB pack purchases.
Confused about which you should get? Imagine Mom's dilemma.
As well as driving up the perceived cost of the system, Microsoft is further confusing the market. Both Microsoft and Sony's double SKUs have little (if any) success in diffusing the sting of the platforms' prices, and instead only make consumer decisions fuzzy. If you need proof that adding a third SKU to the Xbox 360 lineup is confusing, just read the words of Albert Penello, Director of Global Platform Marketing for Microsoft. "We now have three SKUs and we predict the primary seller will continue to be the Pro system." The Pro system? Microsoft's own marketing director can't get the names straight.
Let's assume that this is all worst case scenario, that there's merely a chance that consumers will perceive the system's price to increase and it's only a gamble that this might add confusion to the market. What does the gamble achieve? Microsoft adds an HDMI port and a bigger hard drive to appease--what?--point-five percent of the market?
The Elite is wrong for Microsoft. The 360 has already run into trouble reaching out to the mainstream market needed to make the system a real success. The Xbox 360 Elite pack does nothing to alleviate the problem, and instead probably worsens it. Maybe introducing the Elite sets up Microsoft to nix the 360 Core pack, drop the Premium to $299 and continue to sell a $399 console, fleecing the market willing to pay that much money. I think that's the best case scenario, much less likely than the worst.
Choose your own adventure, game industry edition
SCENARIO
You're a would-be victim in a slasher film, cornered in a dark alley by the feared killer. You see him and take the first shot, throwing whatever you can before dashing into the darkness. You keep running, looking over your shoulder, hoping to see that you're gaining ground. A quick cell phone call to 911 and the cops are on their way. It's not over yet.
You take cover behind a dumpster and peer backwards to see the enemy, wounded from your volley. Better still, the killer has suffered self-inflicted wounds as he wildly struggled to catch up. As the monster falls to his knees, gasping to catch his breath, you run these options through your head:
With the faint sound of sirens in the distance, knowing that help is on the way, do you stay out of sight and catch your breath?
If yes, continue to ENDING A.
OR
Do you grab the nearest blunt object and bum rush the fallen slasher, aiming to lay him out before he regains composure?
If yes, continue to ENDING B.
ENDING A
Before you know it, slasher Sony's bounced back from the brink of destruction and is on the offense. Your 911 call to Halo 3 and Mass Effect came too late.
ENDING B
You come out swinging with a price drop and hit Sony square on its sore spot. The Q4 cavalry arrives to put away the enemy for good.
I'm not the best with analogies--some would say I'm the worst--but this is how I see Microsoft's current standing. Sony's wild chase has left them badly damaged. This is Microsoft's chance to make a bold move, delivering a blow to PlayStation's weakest leg--its price.
Neither ending is certain, both are exaggerated. But Microsoft can't afford to wait for Sony to do itself in. Microsoft, it's time to choose your own adventure.
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