I wanted to kick Malstrom's candy ass when he said that the original Sonic The Hedgehog (the Genesis version, not the crappy Master System version) wasn't as good as Super Mario World. OK, maybe it isn't, but he said it as if he meant that Sonic was never that good when we all know that the Genesis-era Sonic games all rocked hard (as did the Dreamcast-era Sonic games, if only to a lesser degree).
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I wanted to kick Malstrom's candy ass when he said that the original Sonic The Hedgehog (the Genesis version, not the crappy Master System version) wasn't as good as Super Mario World. OK, maybe it isn't, but he said it as if he meant that Sonic was never that good when we all know that the Genesis-era Sonic games all rocked hard (as did the Dreamcast-era Sonic games, if only to a lesser degree).
It was the first of the series. Mario World was obviously not. 2 and 3 were major improvements.
A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.
Back from my trip in Japan, and oh boy, alot of things happened when I was gone, now wasn't it?
Well, better start catching up.
KungKras said:
*Sigh*
About the Other M debate. I'll list the reasons Malstrom has given about complaining about the game.
1: Sakamoto has made statements about Metroid that makes it questionable if he really knows what Metroid is about. Malstrom has quoted these statements, but I'm too lazy to look them up so someone else will have to look for them in the blog.
2: Sakamoto has said that Samus' character will be more explored and that players will learn more about her maternal instincts.
Does this even need an explanation? Noone has ever thought about Samus' feelings when playing Metroid. Samus is just a badass space soldier, sort of like an avatar for the player. She's also the only female game character who's not suffering from stereotypes precisely because she doesn't have a story, and now Sakamoto wants to explore her 'maternal instincts'? Metroid was about the gameplay, not about maternal instincts! If he wants to make a game about maternal instincts he should make a new game universe instead of messing up that of Metroid!
3: Sakamoto does not have a good track reckord.
Fusion was supposed to be an heir to Super Metroid and the 'safe' game when Fusion and Prime launched. Fusion was nothing like Super Metroid and got trashed by Prime in sales. Zero mission messed up the Metroid storyline by trapping Samus in a biologial armour making any sequel impossible (unless said sequel is to ignore everything that took place in Zero mission) Zero mission wich had the original Metroid in it as an extra was also outsold by a remake of Metroid for GBA, now THAT is pathetic.
Fact is, the only good Metroid games Sakamoto worked on were the ones were he had Gunpei Yokoi as his superior, and there is probably a good reason for that. All sakamoto ever did after Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo was to make Metroid games that were destructive to the series. Metroid is Yokoi's series, not Sakamoto's, personally I'd rather see metroid go to the grave with Yokoi than see Sakamoto in charge of Metroid.
This can also be measured in sales. Fusion and Zero Mission did poorly in the market. They put people off.
Now there are reasons for people to belive that the game actually can turn out good. Like Team Ninja being on board and the so far amazing graphics. But still, you have to understand that Malstrom is making some really valid points about the game.
Also, he's trying to predict the future with the facts that he has in the present. We will see eventually how well Other M does. But don't be surprised if he's right.
*Sigh*
Oh here we go. Another mindless DALEK SEAN parroting fan trying to use nonsensical garbage poorly disguised as an arguement against me. Well...
1. Therefore you have no actual evidence of these remarks that you personally find somehow to be offensive. I'm also not the least bit suprised that you are lazy, which you can find out right about a few sentences later.
2. The very stupidity of this arguement is too much for me to answer. But I will try anyway.
First of all, Samus is not Master Chief nor Gordon Freeman. It has been established since Metroid II that Samus is her own independent character(And Metroid II was prduced by Gunpei Yokoi) and from Super Metroid that the games have an actual backstory. Not to mention that this not an age that tolerates cardboard cutouts as easily as it did before, simply put. This also applies to story and even several aspects of gameplay, such as difficulty. Also, Metroid is, along with Zelda, a potential for Nintendo to greater storytelling(which they unfortunately only utilised for Mother 3 AKA. The greatest video game of all time. No Objections.), and that is something cannot be denied. Not using that potential would simply be a bad move from the creators. You might question the way of using that potential, but you cannot simply ignore it and call it whatever you like without actual thought.
Speaking of which, what the hell is up with people against Samus having maternal instincts(I also like how specifically you talk about it, like it's nothing but that)? Is it simply SO WRONG for you that a badass character has actual character depth? I cannot shake the impression of macho teenagers acting tough and think emotions are for babies. Here's a news for you, buddy, characters can still be badass even when they have actual human emotions and weaknesess. Emotion and character weakness doesn't ruin the character, it enhances them. This is the exact kind of Yahtzee always talks about. Here, here, here and here. Read them, and actually learn something for a change.
3. That's because you are too lazy to use that magical thing called "Google".
I'm also going to assume that you never actually played any Metroid games, because all the remarks made here are complete nonsense. And I assume you didn't read my arguement at all, since it pretty much contains all the counters against the second half of your post. Too lazy to find it? Here:
Yoshio Sakamoto both directed and designed Super Metroid, whereas Gunpei Yokoi was only a designer along side with Makoto Kanoh and also the general manager. And I will never understand your claim(or rather, DALEK SEAN's claim that you are so obnoxiously parroting) on Fusion's quality. Because I belong to several communities, I know alot of people who not only DON'T think Fusion is bad, but think it as one of the best in the whole franchise. I dare to guess that you've never even played Metroid Fusion(or any Metroid game, for that matter), but only read how there are complaints about it on the internet, rather than seeing it yourself and actually do the research. Again, no research. Last time I checked, there do not exist any evidence that supports or disagrees with the claim that re-release of Metroid NES sold more than Zero Mission and Fusion, which means that DALEK SEAN's claim is most likely fabricated so he can make more insane arguements. Second, even if it was true, there is a perfect reason that has nothing to do with the quality of the game itself. As we all know, Nintendo has a ability to play with people nostalgias. So re-releasing a NES game for gamers is a great way of earning more cash. Let's not forget that at the time the only way to play NES games was to either own the console itself or an emulator. Virtual Console didn't exist back then.
Then there's that little arguement that sales is NOT the definitive indicator of it's quality (as a indicator of popularity among common people, on the other hand...). Hell, even a couple of people on this very thread said that.
Also, your delusional fantasy of Gunpei Yokoi being somehow superior to Yoshio Sakamoto is also rather idiotic. You're basically backing up your point by comparing two primitive and rather poorly aged games to pretty much every game of the series that can all be consider best of series or be among people's top 10 lists.
Oh, I forgot to mention. After further investigation, I found out that Yoshio Sakamoto is also involved with the development of the first Metroid game, as the director no less. That means he's basically involved with almost every game in the franchise, with the exception of Metroid II, which was in turn considered to be the black sheep of the series.
So here's a tip for you guy, do your homework before you talk to me. Otherwise you are wasting time and insulting my intelligence with your puny attempts at making an arguement without actual point, reasoning and backup, but using nothing but repeats of DALEK SEAN's arguements. The equivalent of that in weapon form is a broken slingshot and a handful of raisins. I should have found out about your post earlier, so it can be exterminated much faster.
And I will not only be suprised if he was right, I will personally see that he will fall and then destroy his unholy shrine he manage to built. Someone as insane as he is should never serve as our "gaming oracle", which in itself is unwanted.
... Incidentially, I imagined reading this post with a Christopehr Lee voice. You suggest you to do so too, if that kind of thing amuses you. Oh, and everything that seems slightly angry is because you see it the wrong way. The right approach should be "Insufferable Genious looking down on you". Not that I am a genious, though, as I pointed out several posts ago.
allaboutthegames885 said:
I wanted to kick Malstrom's candy ass when he said that the original Sonic The Hedgehog (the Genesis version, not the crappy Master System version) wasn't as good as Super Mario World. OK, maybe it isn't, but he said it as if he meant that Sonic was never that good when we all know that the Genesis-era Sonic games all rocked hard (as did the Dreamcast-era Sonic games, if only to a lesser degree).
Remember to call me when you do so. Maybe I can offer some help.
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
Malstrom declares Eternal Victory over the “Hardcore”
Because the victory really is eternal…
Some delightful fellows on the forum, Neo-GAF, dug into the past and found classic game magazines and pre-WWW ‘Message Forums’ full of ‘hardcore gamers’ decrying that evil Nintendo, and other Japanese companies, defiling their precious gaming in the 80s with easier games that are so cute their mothers want to play.
Woke up this morning with an intense craving for Japan. Crawled over to the tube and flipped on Mothra, wondered if the two tiny princesses who sing to the big bug grew up to be Pink Lady, and felt a little better. Then I went out for some sushi. Scarfed (can you truly “scarf” food that looks like tinker toys?) some kappa maki, maguro, ebi. Still unsatisfied. So got on the subway, pretended it was the “Bullet Train” to Kyoto with Mount Fuji rising above the smog layer in the distance, made it up to Fascination in Times Square, and threw quarters into Donkey Kong.
Let the new wavers slice off their hair, suburbanites brag about gas mileage, and businesswomen get awestricken by Theory Z. When I want Japan, I head for Donkey Kong. Got to be honest: I’m an old fart pinball nonwizard who’s yet to see the elevators, except on the machine of the 8-year-old juvenile delinquent playing next to me. But bathing in the radiating glow of the Donkey Kong screen enlightens me, like an electronic muse.
The question then for today is: Philosophically speaking, do Japanese video games differ from their American counterparts? The answer is… (game show music here, Richard Dawson kissing a housewife on the mouth)… a complicated one, of course. After all, we’re talking about Japan.
Theory #1: “Up and Down, not In and Out” When delving into the essence of a thing, it often helps to examine its outer appearance, especially when this exterior carries with it historical import. Soon, given the usual trend of global capitalism, American and Japanese games may all look and play the same, but as of now they still retain some of the elements of their respective cultures. When I was in Tokyo, I spent hours in noisy, grubby places called “Pachinko parlors.” These are Japanese arcades filled with rows of Pachinko machines. I never quite got good at it, but Pachinko is essentially an upright pinball game with a two-dimensional board, face-high to the player. You deposit silver balls into the cabinet, which then filter from the top of the machine to the bottom. The idea is to capture the balls in the little “house” on the board for “reward” balls that you can exchange for prizes.
Pachinko is very popular in Japan, and its basic set-up is seen in many of the “flat” maze video games coming from Nippon. The first screen in Donkey Kong is the virtual video equivalent of Pachinko. Space Invaders, with its rows of descending aliens, is another example of “up and down.”
On the other hand, Americans have long preferred the three-dimensional “coming-at-ya” feeling of a horizontal approaching ball. With all of the pinball companies going into video you can see many of these distinctly pinball characteristics turning up on the little TVs in the arcades. Stuff is always flying at you in American games.
Theory #2: The Decline of the Sperm Game I was going over the differences between East and West video game styles with Eugene Jarvis, the 27-year-old designer of such “hardcore” games as Robotron, Stargate, and Defender, the other day when he brought up the notion that the Japanese, with the “easier” games “were giving a boost to the novice player, but ripping off the expert.” If this continued, Jarvis maintained, it could wipe out the cult of the “pinball wizard” and the “video freak.” I thought about this and decided it was absolutely true. Top Japanese games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man are far more accessible to the “novice” and appeal to a wider group of people. They are colorful, cartoony, friendly, inviting. The “plots” are basically benign. Mario’s love for the girl in Donkey Kong, and his persistence in pursuing her, is sort of sweet. Pac-Man’s dot-eating proclivities are nothing if not cute. My mother in law, a Pac-Man fan who doesn’t care for many of the American games, says “eating things is much nicer than blowing them up.” In fact, Pac-Man is often described as a woman’s game, with all the implications of the term “woman’s drink.”
This is exactly what Jarvis was talking about. Formerly, a typical video game player might be a warty teenager, a National Lampoon reader, blasting AC-DC in his room, who went to the arcade to kick a machine’s butt. “From shit to God for a quarter,” Jarvis commented. The games this type of player favors are almost invariably the American ones: Tough to play, intimidating to the novice, shooting-driving-destroying paranoid filled games. “Sperm games,” Jarvis calls them. But now, he went on, these elitist video cowboys might be as extinct as their doggiepunching pinball forerunners. Says Jarvis: “How can you feel cool if your mother is playing in the same arcade? It’s like she put your Led Zep record and liked them better than you.”
A reason for this trend can be found in the Japanese idea of the “youth-culture.” Quite simply, there isn’t one. In Japan, a trip to the arcade is often a family outing, which probably accounts for why Japanese games tend to be easier to play. (Nintendo’s Japanese version of Donkey Kong is a breeze compared to the company’s American one.) So, as video games begin to break big, demographically, in the States, it makes sense that the games leading the pack would be the “less intense” Japanese creations.
Theory #3: Bomb Innocence Ever wonder where the Japanese come up with bizarro notions like making the “Carpenter” in Donkey Kong an Italian? I dunno, he looks Italian to me, and I hear he looked Italian enough to the American ad agency who handles Nintendo’s account to name him Mario (the Japanese simply call him “jumpman” — but they did come up with Donkey Kong, which means “stupid monkey”). Japanese pop culture is full of weird items. Most of the cartoons on their television, stuff never intended for export, feature blonde and blue-eyed heroes (i.e., Astroboy) and heroines. This, from a country that is as close to a “pure” race as there is in the world. In Japan, almost everyone is “Japanese.” I have always imagined this apparent free association had something to do with a twisted inferiority complex that somehow, coupled with national grace, came out being very winning and innocent.
This pop culture innocence runs deep: The cartoon shows, like the video games, are not just for kids—they play round the clock. If you stay at a ryokan (a Japanese-style hotel), you’ll find stacks of magazines to read on your futon, almost all cartoon books. Even the sex-porno lit is done in cartoons. Call it extended childhood, call it a preponderance of ghostlike unreality surrounding daily life. Whatever, it turns up all over, and the playfulness of the video games is only one aspect.
What other culture could have created Godzilla as the symbol of horror of the atomic age and then turn him into a lovable, almost goofy savior of children? And why would Nintendo resurrect King Kong in a video game? Could it be that the Japanese are simply more at ease that we are with the all-too-obvious burgeoning of terrors of the modern world, more at home with technology and less afraid of its dubious side effects, and therefore not nearly as paranoid about the potential apocalyptic visions swirling inside humanity’s head? Could this have something to do with having already experienced, at Hiroshima and Nagasaka, what we all fear? After all, what’s the driving force of most American video games? Isn’t it dread?
Theory #4: Buddha’s Bluebeam Screen Eugene Jarvis has a pretty philosophical outlook on his world within a box. The metaphysical differences between American and Japanese games, he says, “comes down to a concept of Free Will. Japanese games are basically pattern games. There are set paths, predetermined courses. The attitude is life is a rigged thing, you’ve got to recognize the correct way to go and go that way. Like in Scramble and Donkey Kong, there isn’t a lot of choice about which way to move your man. You either do it a certain way, or you’re going to get zapped. Just follow the right way and you’ll win. It’s like there’s a trick to happiness, and if you know it, you’ll be happy.
“American games are more random,” Jarvis continues. “In Tempest or Defender, you can go whichever way, basically, you want. There’s no pattern, the grid isn’t a fixed thing. You go on your competence, abstract skill is what counts. You don’t have to memorize anything, no teacher is asking you, “Well, was Lake Michigan discovered in 1519 or 1615?’ Sure, you can get blasted out in the first minute, but that’s life. American games give you a chance to absolutely fail.”
Listening to all this made me think of an article in a recent Harper’s magazine which purports to explain the Japanese character to Americans and vice-versa. The article depicts the American hero as a lone ranger riding off into the sunset, the Japanese hero as the person who, by most closely conforming to the path prescribed as perfect, contributes the greatest good to the group as a whole. A close look at each country’s video game products bears this thesis out.
But, this is a whole lot to think about when you’re trying to dodge a fireball and jump onto a moving elevator platform. A smart and shifty player wouldn’t want to get weighted down with this sort of baggage. Still, being a reporter at heart (and an 8,000-point Donkey Kong player at best), I asked a preteen kid named Johnny, who announced himself as being “from uptown” and wore a green running suit, if he saw a difference between American games and Japanese games.
“No difference,” he said, continuing to throttle his joystick, “Just line ‘em up, I’ll knock ‘em down, Watch me carve my name in this one.” Which he did. A moment later, with more than 100,000 points to his credit, Johnny typed “J27″ to the machine’s program. He’d just made the highest score of the day on Donkey Kong. So I figured, you pays your quarter, you takes your choice.
————————— Jacobson, Mark (1983) Zen & The Art of Donkey Kong Video Games Illustrated, 1(4),30-33.
______________________________________________
Jarvis, the creator of Defender, Stargate, and Robotron, is describing ‘hardcore’ games similar to how I have been. I’ve called them ‘macho games’, he calls them ‘sperm games’. And I’ve talked much about how Eastern games favor a linear path where Western games tend to be non-linear, or as Jarvis says pattern based versus random.
Take a look at three genres, as examples: platformers, RPGs, and shmups. With platformers, as defined by Super Mario Brothers, the path is very clear. But in the West, the platformer became more exploratory. Daniel Crane’s Pitfall 2 and even Boy and his Blob were not linear. You could explore a huge environment in any direction. With RPGs, as defined by Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, the RPG is very linear and very much simplified and cutified. Western RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry allowed far more freedom and were not exactly cute. Witty, yes, but no one describes Ulitma as ‘cute’.
Lately, one who worked on the original Dragon Quest actually said the above that Dragon Quest was designed to be an easier and simplified game to the RPGs at the time like Ultima. This is why I laugh when people point to Dragon Quest as a ‘hardcore’ game. Japanese RPGs were like Western RPGs on training wheels. This linearitiy, however, did allow the Japanese RPGs to highly develop their stories and put in plot twists. Even Ultima began to imitate the Japanese RPG (see Ultima VII: Part II).
And one thing that has been forgotten is the Western shmup. When we think of shmups, we only think of the Japanese games like Gradius. Games like Gradius have the starship fly on a linear path that ends with a boss. The Western shmup, like Uridium, like Space War, like Star Control, exists in a type of arena. I would include Paradroid as such a Western shmup. But those are the later and even last Western shmups (excluding ones like Geometry Wars which is also arena based). Jarvis’s Defender, Stargate, and Robotron were Western shmups, and they are all arena based.
Here is one message from a ‘hardcore gamer’ in 1989:
Personally, I think the Nintendo is a piece of right wing garbage akin to the IBM PC. Slow, out of date, but heavily marketed so that mindless dweenies will think it’s the hottest thing since Zelda had her first period. I have yet TO SEE A SINGLE GAME ON THE THING SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER THAN STUFF I PLAYED ON MY OLD ATARI 800 SEVEN YEARS AGO…..Yes, there are some nice games, but they do not do anything extraordinary and in fact clearly show the glaring limitations of the thing’s inferior pre-VLSI hardware.
On the subject of the Sega Genesis and the Turbografix 16. At least these guys are using hardware invented after the Apple II, give ‘em credit! The graphics in these games are NICE! I really can’t give a decent opinion as to which is better, they’re both fantastic!
But now I get to stand on my soapbox and have some fun. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the Atari 7800 superior hardware wise to the NES? I heard thing could manipulate 64 BIG sprites at once. It was developed right when the slump hit the videogame industry, and two fantastic and innovative games Rescue at fractalus and Ballblazer NEVER got the recognition they deserved. I have yet to see ANYTHING on the NES half as good as these wondrous creations from Lucasfilm. All I ever see are variations on the horizontal/ vertical scrolling find the magic trinket and or blow it up while a host of randomly drawn stick figures get in your way theme. I’d rather pay 25 cents in an arcade and at least get decent graphics and sound.
This gets us to another topic. Anyone who believes the Gamebody superior to the Lynx is a complete loony. However, I think there is a good chance the Lynx will fail simply because the Gameboy is saturing the market. I hope this does not happen because I do not see anyone else creating truly innovative software for home video games. Even the Sega and NEC systems are only offering souped up versions of the aforementioned theme…
The only really nifty games are being written for Amigas and ST’s with sorry adaptions made for befuddled PC users who gladly shuck out the bucks when they see screenshots from the ST and Amiga versions (usually the Amiga version :)), and get the Nintendosized version of a formerly fantastic game. One could probably write neat stuff for the Mac II, but who wants to pay $7000 for a video game ? The saddest part about this tale is that the PC version by far outshines the combined profits of Amiga and ST versions so now some programmers are dropping the Amiga and ST and limiting their horizons simply for the bucks.
I’m writing what I hope is a truly innovative video game myself right now, I am writing it on an Atari ST with plans for both Amiga and PC adaptations, but the key word here IS adaptations. The Amiga version will certainly be a little better with the nifty sound and blitter chip, but I will need to write the PC adaptation to make the thing truly profitable and that will be by far the hardest part. Anyone out there looking for games for the NEC or Genesis? This game would be PERFECT! I already know the thing would crash and burn on an NES
In closing, this post rambled ALOT, but I have wanted to broadcast my views on the NES monopoly and the general creative decline it has triggered for a very long time…
The NES monopoly! Nintendo triggering a ‘creative decline’ in gaming! And the only “nifty” games are being written for computers like the Amiga! Oh, how I loved the 80’s.
Let us move forward to 1992. Read this and see how someone is complaining about people referring to Nintendo as the ‘Anti-Christ’ of gaming:
It was back then said that Nintendo’s success was due to monopoly, due to marketing, due to ‘non-hardcore’ gamers, but there is one cause for Nintendo’s success the ‘hardcore’ of that time period always leaves out: that Nintendo put out the best quality games.
Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, we can safely say that the NES had the best games of its time. The type of quality games that were on the NES could not be found on the computer or on the Atari machines. This is why I triumphantly say the best selling games defined the measuring sticks of quality we still use today.
What is so valuable about these old usenet posts and old gaming article is that it absolutely destroys the myth of ‘Casual Gaming’. Video games did not become what they were in the past because of developer preference or because of ‘the technology’. The market forced video games to be what they were in order for them to sell. The market rejected Computer Space and accepted PONG.
The myth of ‘casual gaming’ is that ‘simple’ and ‘accessible’ games are ‘new’ and non-young male consumers are ‘new’. But this was the market when video games began. These are the old-school gamers. What has been occurring is a long decline for video games as they became more ‘sperm games’ and less and less accessible. This decline was masked by growing population growth, rapid increase in spending money of gamers (children who grew up on video games became adults and kept playing), and the whole computer revolution thing that went on. Even though sales may have been going up, the decline was already there. Eventually, the sales performance began to match the decline when the computer revolution stopped being revolutionary, when population wasn’t increasing, and when the pipeline of adult gamers stopped increasing.
Old school gamers have been talking about the decline in gaming for quite some time. These gamers were ignored and said they were only nostalgic for the past. Yet, the ‘New Market’ games are Old School games.
History is not repeating
Some people will say these old quotes show that history is cyclical. But history is not repeating.
There are two major changes from the past which shows the future from this point on will not resemble the 90s.
1) Economic boom was rippling forth from the 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed. The Berlin Wall was torn down. The economic boom masked the true decline in the market and allowed many businesses to enter video games.
2) Nintendo pursued the ‘Red Ocean’ against Sega with the Super Nintendo.
Instead of economic boom, we will have fierce economic decline. 2011 will be worse than 2010, 2012 worse than 2011, you get the picture. People will be unable to retire.
Unless Nintendo completely loses it, they have no intention to do a ‘red ocean’ type competition with other video game companies.
So what will the result of the future be?
Due to the downward current of the economy, sales of gaming will decline. Nintendo will be on top because they are the only ones interested in fighting the decline. The Core Market has been disintegrating in the harsh current (e.g. what happened to all those PS2 owners?).
While Nintendo’s successors to the DS and Wii will not outsell either system, people will mistake this as a ‘decline’ for Nintendo. If Nintendo maintains sales numbers for DS and Wii with their succeeding hardware, that would be an almost miraculous feat. It would be shown Nintendo is fighting the decline successfully. Most likely, the numbers will fall but by fighting the decline, they will not erode as much as they would have. If Nintendo lets the depression forge them, their hardware will radically explode in sales once the depression is over.
Imagine if Nintendo didn’t jump into the Red Ocean with Sega twenty years ago. Imagine if Nintendo never stopped making 2d Mario. The Wii generation is very tragic in that it shows all the missing growth areas passed over in favor of ‘console war’. And this was during good economic periods. Nintendo has run out of time, and the currents will be stacked against them until the depression is over.
I honestly don’t see Microsoft in the hardware video game business for too much longer. Microsoft has two main cashflow streams from Windows and Office and everyone knows they are in big trouble. And Microsoft has seen no success from their entertainment division. All it takes is cashflow from Windows and Office being gored to have Microsoft quickly pull the plug from its ‘hobbies’.
Sony has issues, but they may be able to ride out the depression. Sony’s game console sales are more evenly global (unlike Microsoft).However, Sony’s view on video games seems archaic and doesn’t belong in the future. Sony trying to make ‘multimedia’ devices that have gaming also means Sony doesn’t see video games as a revolution in and of themselves. This points a grim picture to any future Sony innovation.
Above: Can video games survive the maelstrom of economic depression?
Decades from now, you will talk about the revolution that the Wii brought to gaming. You will say how you could sell a used Wii for a higher price than a brand new Wii because demand was so high. Of course, future generations will not believe you as future generations never believe the old ones.
In the future, people will have grown up with motion controls and the Wii. They will look at the Wii not as a transformational console, which it is, but as an extremely archaic device. The future will not know what gaming was before the Wii. The Wii will be seen only as a first link in a chain to future consoles. The PS3 and Xbox 360, both used by heavily older people, will likely not be remembered at all.
Today, people view the NES as a very archaic system, as a first link in the chain of succeeding consoles. But the NES was a very transformational console at the time. Like the Wii, the NES transformed the video game controller and ended the trend of console games becoming more like computer games. The Atari Era consoles are not remembered today. They are dismissed as ‘stone age’ echoes. In order to fully understand the NES, one has to understand what gaming was prior to the NES. And the will be true with the Wii: to truly understand the Wii’s impact, one has to know what gaming was prior to the Wii.
My point is that a person’s sense of history begins on the day they are born. Many who grew up with the NES or on later systems, do not realize how much changed. Kids who are growing up with the Wii will think the Wii as the ‘norm’, as the ‘standard of gaming’, but will not realize what changed since they were too young to participate in earlier gaming.
Future generations will not care that the Wii is SD and Xbox 360 and PS3 are HD. They will see all three consoles with ‘horrible graphics’ because they do not have 3d outputs (like ‘modern’ consoles of the future will). People will look at these earlier motion controls and think ‘what horrible controls!’ compared to the slick and smooth devices we will have in the future. The question of which current software ages well versus software that doesn’t age well will be interesting to see in the future. While games like Wii Sports will age like milk, games like Mario 5 will age like wine.
In the future, no one will remember what was said here or the drama that ensued. No one will remember anything the analysts said. No one will remember the ‘hardcore’ melting down in message forums that the Wii was defiling their gaming. No one will remember the ‘Revolution’. They will perceive this generation as a type of ‘first generation’, and the Wii will be seen as very archaic prototype to the future consoles to come. The consoles before the Wii will likely be forgotten about, except due to ‘video game history enthusiasts’, just as the pre-NES consoles have been totally forgotten.
It is not so much that gaming is the closed circle, it is the sense a brand new cycle is starting. Let us hope the future generations do not make the same mistakes we did.
Above: Game companies realize it is better join together to fight off the demon of disinterest during the ravages of the depression. The roots of gaming will heal in time.
The forums from the 80's really blows my mind. Those guys talk almost identically to forums nowadays.
This confirms that the NES was considered 'casual' and that Nintendo had a reputation as an evil empire of video games when the SNES launched. No wonder third parties tried to destroy Nintendo, they simply hold a grudge against them. Hell, even Donkey Kong and Pac Man were considered 'casual' by 'hardcore' players before the NES even launched.
The argument that "Nintendo used to be great now they have lost it" really seems pretty weird now, since the Wii is about as close to the NES as can be.
I know, its hilarious, I imagine in 20-25 years, no one will remember all the Wii hate and all the whining about how Nintendo is no longer the company it was (Actually it is, just more like the NES era Nintendo than the N64/GCN Nintendo), and they'll be new gamers whining how the Nintendo omni-matrix is too casual and lacking in power, with too much shovelware and how Nintendo is no longer the company it was.
Above: Manly men with southern accents, big guns, with them smoking cigars? This is my type of game.
One of the reasons why I haven’t been updating this site is because I’ve been playing so much beta. And before I am asked, “Malstrom, what race do you play? OMG! Where are you on the ladder? zOMG!” I’m upper mid range on the ladder, but it kept changing during the beta. I was higher ranked than in Phase II. When 3v3 and 4v4 as well as custom maps and AI games became available, I think the league players dropped and only the people who knew how to play were doing ladder games (Koreans playing on the North American server certainly pushed many of us down).
The race I play is Zerg.
Anyway, Starcraft 2 is totally my type of game. I haven’t been excited for a game since Mario 5. I’ve always been a RTS junkie. One of the reasons why RTS games went into decline is because game companies kept trying to insert ‘more strategy’ which translated to ‘more units’. Instead of Real Time Strategy, companies forgot about the Real Time and games became very slow. Games like Starcraft 1 were from an era before the decline hit. Many games around that time hit the ‘real time’ aspect pretty well (Dark Reign was a blazingly fast game).
Games like Red Alert and Warcraft 2 were phenomenons. I played them both to death. When Command and Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun came out, people had high expectations and great hopes. Yet, many people were disappointed. Something seemed off. But Red Alert 2 (while I’m not a fan of them treating the universe as a parody) was very different and felt far more like a true successor. The game was good and fast. Everything was solid. Much of this could be due to its designer, Dustin Browder.
Above: “Terrible, terrible damage!”
If you haven’t played Starcraft 2′s beta but plan to play the game eventually, the first thing that will shock you is just how fast the game is. In fact, the game speed was bumped from its ‘normal’ setting to a ‘faster’ setting (which all the APM numbers are all screwed up and are lower than what they actually are). The game moves so incredibly fast, it is very tough for new players to keep up. Even to the best players, the game still moves very fast.
My point is that shifting the focus back on the ‘real time’ and not on the ‘strategy’ (i.e. more units!) is what will reinvigorate the RTS genre.
I am also very interested in cracking into the absurdity of whatever the hell is going on in Korea with Starcraft. Just look at the below and marvel at the absurdity.
Above: The most absurd game video ever made. To this day, it still stuns me with its… insanity.“Sunken colony! Sunken colony!!!”
Anyway, I could tell you about my exploits in the game, but I will instead focus on a more amazing feat: of how I taught a 40 yr old to play Starcraft 2. You may ask, “Why is this a feat?” If you notice, Starcraft 2 is dominated by fast fingered young males. To be more precise, fast fingered young Korean males. I am citing this experience so if you have people you know who want to be part of the Starcraft 2, you’ll likely have to go through this process.
When I played with him, he was SOOOO horrible that it was as if he would make like 10 probes and then stop. He might make one or two zealots, and then he would think he ‘got a ton of units’ and try to attack me.
First Step: Keep Comparing Harvester Count
To begin, I went through the replay with him, placed it on 2x, and placed the tab as ‘Income’. This shows the harvester count. I told him to just watch the harvester count through the replay. He could see that his max harvester count was around 18 and mine would be like 50. “Oh…” it dawned on him he had to make probes, tons of probes.
So I assigned him the mission to ‘just make probes’. No matter what he did, he kept making probes. Eventually, it became second nature to him.
Second Step: Bring him into the Starcraft 2 fold
Most people would eventually get annoyed at ‘making probes’ and stop playing the ‘silly game’. So in order to make the game relevant to him, I had him watch replays and games of higher players (such as Husky or HD casts). I turned him on to Day[9].
He told me, after watching Day[9] videos, that he imagined a little Day[9] on his shoulder shaking his head when he would mess up his build, “These bronze players,” the little Day[9] would say, “just need to learn the mechanics. They don’t practice, they don’t smooth out their build…” now the practice began to have a ‘big picture’ type of way for him.
Third Step: Rush, rush, rush!
Playing 2v2 with my friend demanded the patience of Job. When your ally sucks so bad, you will get the lower bronze tier (which we hit). Luckily, I got him to consistently make probes. But I needed him to make units.
What I did was have us adopt an extremely aggressive stance. We would play our games only one way: rush. Now, rushing is very common in most games especially in 2v2. However, I felt it was necessary to adopt an extremely aggressive stance since most new players have a tendency to play Sim City. Playing aggressively also is more fun, more exciting, and makes shorter games. It leads to a higher probability of a win as well.
It took a long, long time before he finally figured out how to make the right units. It took him a long time to stop trying “tricks” such as “I’m only making Void Rays” (WTF! Oh no you are not) or “I will be sneaky with dark templars” (won’t work!). I just want him to make tons of stalkers and attack with me. In Starcraft 2, doing this fast and doing it cleanly is actually very hard for the new player. It took him a long time for him to emotionally realize that he just needs to focus on mechanics.
I’ve gotten him to the point where he makes probes faster than any player he faces (especially since he chronoboosts). I’ve also gotten him used to the point where he makes tons of units as fast as possible. Now when our rushes do not work, the game turns into a dance between the two sides (as it should). This, I think, has placed the groundwork for him branching off into more strategy elements into the game.
Not all the steps are done and there are more that I will discover. So I will let you know how it goes. So it is possible for a 40 yr old man to learn how to play Starcraft 2 and go up against wizards. His 1v1 performance shot up as he began bronze and soon was being matched up against silver players.
Now, the reader may laugh at all this. “Stupid old man!” the reader may be shouting at the screen. But keep in mind it is much harder for someone much older. (Using Skype is also very helpful to the experience (the microphone code in Starcraft 2 is garbage). )
BTW, has anyone been watching the latest games with these so-called ‘top players’? My playstyle is most like Dimaga. I am extremely aggressive as Zerg, and I reject the notion that Zerg is a ‘passive, reactionary race that loves to make drones’. Drones suck. Aggression rocks. For some strange reason, every Zerg strategy from one base is labeled ‘cheese’. Why are Zerg not allowed to play from one base? Protoss and Terran do it all the time. Doing the aggression route is far more fun than playing the boring android macro mode like Idra does.
I’ve been saying for a long while that you can expect White-Ra to drop out of playing SC 2. The reason why is biological. Anytime a gamer gets married (as White-Ra is about to), his game skills plummet. When he has a kid, as he says he plans to, his game skills will be gone for good. Don’t laugh, reader, you know what I am saying is true. “It is because,” some might say, “he is realizing there are things more important than video games.” I say that is just woman’s propaganda to brainwash the husband into thinking doing yardwork or working long hours is “more important than video games”. Anyway, one good thing is that when a young gamer gets married, the fiance disapproves of his extensive video game collection and he dumps it on Ebay for bargain basement prices (which being the happy bachelor, I pick up these wonderful deals). This is how I got a motorcycle for very cheap too! The woman will like the motorcycle until it is time for marriage. Then the motorcycle suddenly has to ‘go’ because it might attract another female. So they sell the motorcycle for cheap to me.
It is good to be the Malstrom.
Anyway, I greatly look forward to Starcraft 2. I expect to play it through the depression.
I recently came across your website after being linked to it on a message board. Having read some of your articles and most of your recent blog posts, much of what you say seems to be wholly accurate. This is especially true about the new Metroid game.
I also recently played Metroid Prime: Corruption. Now, I’m not what you refer to as an Old-School Gamer – my first experience with Samus Aran was with Metroid Prime on the Gamecube. But having played all three games, it is easy to recognise what makes the games fun and what doesn’t make them fun. What makes the games fun is the combat, the new environments, the range of weapons available.
One thing that stuck out at me when I played Corruption was the lack of alternative weapons. In Prime, you have four Beams, Missiles, Super Missile variants for each Beam, Bombs, and Power Bombs. In Echoes, you get the same thing, but with an unpleasant ammo constraint that often forces you to limit use of other Beams. But in Corruption, you do not get to switch between different Beams (additional Beams are simply ‘keys’ to solve new puzzles or open new doors, and no more powerful than the regular Power Beam), and Super Missiles and Power Bombs no longer exist. I ended up with over two hundred leftover Missiles at the end of the game. There is Hypermode, but later enemies are so tough to defeat normally, Hypermode is almost forced upon you, until the game finally bites the bullet and has the entire last level played out through Hypermode. The only saving grace was the superior control scheme to the Gamecube controller.
Corruption was also fairly cutscene heavy. Metroid Prime had no story scenes whatsoever, and it was better off for it. I didn’t like having to run around performing errands for the Federation in Corruption, or having to endure the other bounty hunters showing off when I could have been kicking ass. There would have been a far easier way to show them off - while you run through a corridor or have your own fight, the bounty hunters get to fight in the background. They should not be taking center stage. The action should be center stage, at all times. The presence alone of other characters is fairly jarring. Part of what made Metroid Prime appealing was the sense of being alone, of being in a hostile environment, of not sharing the stage with Space Marine copies or bounty hunters or Luminoth.
I think that Nintendo do not understand Metroid’s success. They see a lot of games with Samus Aran selling well. So they think that Samus Aran is the key to success, and by focussing the game on Samus, people will enjoy it. But people do not play Metroid games because the main character is an attractive female blonde (with maternal instincts). The Castlevania games, with similiar gameplay, have been popular despite the lack of Samus. We do not even see Samus’ true face for most of Metroid games, and she never has dialogue, yet they have been popular nevertheless. They play it for the gameplay and the content. Sadly, I have heard that Other M is going to be set on a large Federation spaceship with a lava environment and a cold environment and a rainforest environment. But we have already seen Federation spaceships in the Metroid Prime trilogy. We have seen hot lava environments in MP1 and MP3. We have seen cold environments in those same games. The best bits in Metroid Prime 2 and 3 were exploring environments that had no counterpart in 1. The Sanctuary was something wholly unique. So was SkyTown, and the Leviathans (Phaaze was boring, though. Who would have thought that the planet where Phazon came from would be blue and covered in Phazon?). I am not really excited to explore an environment that sounds identical to the environment in Fusion. What I would like to see is a Metroid game that has more open and epic environments to explore instead of another poky spaceship. The environments in Prime were nice, but generally you end up crawling around tunnels and holes and corridors.
Other M will sell well. And while I have often bought games when I should have known better, and they ended up being disappointing (such as Spirit Tracks), I do not think I will buy it.
Incidentally, even though by completing MP3 I have unlocked an additional difficulty mode, I do not really care to play it again. I’m probably going to re-play Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (a series with very good replay value) instead.
Emailer, I could try to come up with something interesting to say. But I cannot. I have no explanation as to why Nintendo thinks Metroid is about ‘maternal instincts’. The more I think about it, the more of a headache I get.
Just thought you would like to know, Blizzard, after listening to the gamers, has decided not to use names when people post on their forums.
Also I agree that the best thing to do to deal with forum trolls, idiots, etc.. is to get rid of the forums altogether. I already decided not to include any forums within my software development company (If I can get it off the ground). I’m really not into treasure hunting to find useful info about something. And i’ll bet that’s the case for most of the WoW player-base.
Blizzard’s move into real ID was seen as a hostile action by consumers and as an invasion of privacy and exposing the consumer to the threats on the Internet. When the CEO breaks the news that the company will not be doing it, you know it reached the big time.
So why did Blizzard even go down the real ID route? People blame Activision for everything bad Blizzard does, but Activision wouldn’t have any role over this. And it doesn’t seem the Real ID was the CEO’s decision. It seemed like it would have been a decision made by someone underneath him.
One thing you guys have to understand about business is that changes in the law totally alter the landscape of business. In other words, a business’s plans for the future changes drastically when the law changes. If the law keeps changing wildly, the business will just sit on its hands and wait for the law to stop changing so the business can expand and invest.
The decision behind Real ID at Blizzard very well could have resulted from a legal reason within South Korea. A Harvard blog elaborates:
US customers of game maker Blizzard are up in arms tonight as news of a new policy is set to require all posts on the Blizzard forum to use their Real ID system. That means that every post is accompanied by the real first and last name of the user. People are unsure what to make of this and I haven’t seen any communication from Blizzard stating why they are making this change.
Given these facts it might not make sense why South Korea might enforce the Real Name system on Blizzard. My guess would be that the government is very aware of the immense popularity of Starcraft in South Korea. Some have joked it is their national sport. South Korea even has professional SC leagues with sponsors and packed arenas. I don’t think Blizzard can take the Google approach here and just ban South Korean users from posting to their forums. The South Korean market must make a ton of profits for Blizzard and unlike Google they don’t have revenue coming in from other sources.
South Korea law very well could be a driving factor in the Real ID. Since most of Starcraft 2 customers are going to be in South Korea, it makes sense for Blizzard to apply a universal setting across all their markets. Of course, South Korea’s ‘real ID’ law would be illegal in the United States (First Amendment) which is part of the reason why the response was so explosive against.
So says the ‘hardcore’ gamer. Here is his picture:
Above: Hardcore gamer
But this is what the Wii is: old Nintendo. Old Nintendo had a very simple controller (Wii controller is like the NES controller). Old Nintendo had light gun games (Wii has ‘gun’ games). Old Nintendo had 2d Mario (Wii has 2d Mario). Old Nintendo was a family console where Human females even played at (just like the Wii).
For a decade, I have been demanding ‘Old Nintendo’ back. The problem is ‘New Nintendo’. The problem is Nintendo who stopped making a console for the family, the Nintendo who stopped making 2d Mario, the Nintendo who made insane controllers with three prongs, and the Nintendo who was more interested in competing with its competitors instead of competing against disinterest.
The problem, all along, was ‘new’ Nintendo. If Nintendo remained being ‘new’ Nintendo, the Wii console would have been named Extreme Gaming XXR3Y, and it would have sold five million copies worldwide.
It is because it is not about markets, it is about marketing. No one would pay a penny for analysts’ babbling. The idea is for the analyst to babble so much that when he accidentally says something correct, he can hold that up high and use it for marketing purposes. “Correctly predicted blah blah” while all the stuff that was incorrect gets forgotten.
Video game analysts are in big trouble lately. The gaming market is not healthy despite all the analysts jumping up and down saying how ‘rapidly growing’ the gaming market is. The analysts also squeal and shout about ‘casual gaming’ which is an imaginary market they came up with in their heads (as imaginary as Munchkin Land is in Wizard of Oz).
Above: The Lollipop Guild or Video Game Analysts? I cannot tell the difference.
The last time Kotaku ran an ‘analyzing the analysts’ was also when the analysts were in trouble. Remember when Pachter called a journalist from VH1 a “jerk”? Immediately, Pachter got an episode on ‘Bonus Round’ to ‘explain himself’ and somehow dragged poor Billy Pigeon on just so it won’t be only Pachter.
Kotaku’s little spiel is so laughable in how they cherry pick the quotes. For example, you don’t see Pachter’s “Wii HD coming in 2010, absolutely sure about it!” comments he kept making over and over and over again. You don’t see the quotes where Pachter explains the Wii’s December 2009 sales (highest sales for a video game console in a month in NPD history) as a ‘Wal-Mart special’ or where he says consumer interest in Wii Fit had declined (when sales were down because demand exceeded supply).
You may ask, “Why do these journalists act as doormats for these people?” The answer is that these type of ‘journalists’ have never left high school. In high school, everyone wants to be part of the big ‘clique’, everyone wants to be part of the in crowd. I’ve noticed journalists, of all stripes, want to be part of the ‘in crowd’. Game journalists, for example, want to show off just how much they are part of the ‘in crowd’ as possible by taking photos of review games which the public will not see for weeks.
Who controls the reputation of video game analysts? It would be the analysts themselves. People like me certainly do not shape their reputation. It is their own behavior that makes them a laughingstock, not because of anything a blogger or a commentator might say.
Instead of relying on starry eyed journalists to keep carrying their water, it is time for analysts to stand firmly on what they say like real men and stop acting like politicians.
as the little sibling of some of the playstation gamers, i realize that they just all stop playing. my older cousins were heavy devotees of the playstation one and two, but they stop and i think most playstation generation gamer like my older cousins should be between their late twenties to late thirties. one of my playstation gamers cousin did go on and bought the ps3 although due to work and other responsibility it is cover in dust right now and he only has street fighter 4 for it. i believe the playstation generation was the real fad, all the game and content that resonate with this crowd was base on gritty teen angst like the high selling final fantasy, kingdom hearts, grand theft auto series, and tony hawk games. however age change my cousins and their fellow ps generation perception (thank god for that!!!) and even though the ps3 has the same kind of gritty angst fill games with a cooky strange story line all playstation gamers now just look at it as something stupid they believe in and did when they were young and do not have the time and effort to do it again.
What! Did you just call the Playstation Era a FAD? The Industry will be very unhappy with you! A video game analyst might even call you arrogant. Beware!
I've been saying for ages that we've had a blatant repeat of the late 80s with this current wave of "hardcore vs. casual" mentality, so it's hardly surprising to me that someone has unearthed Usenet posts verifying it. The so-called "console wars" were nothing more than an exploiting of that divide, and ultimately culminated in Sony using their marketing muscle to create the PlayStation craze of the mid-90s and early 2000s (and of course Microsoft trying to edge into that market to keep Sony from sneaking into the PC market via the PlayStation line).
Even during my resurgence of interest in console games in my teenage years, I noticed that something seemed "off" about the games on PS1 and PS2. It wasn't really the visuals or the music or anything so obvious, more like the gameplay was getting sloppier and generally less engaging. All of the polish was going towards aforementioned visuals and audio, and none of it was left to make the games actually fun. Games like Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VIII, and Dark Cloud felt more like half-completed engines that nobody had bothered to take past the beta-testing phase (FF8 and DC especially; the latter is practically unplayable).
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