Gaming
Why Next-Gen Consoles Are Skill Downgrades
Posted By Jeff On July 4, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
I think it’s been a fair statement for some time that there are those ‘classic gamers’ and then there are the games that play the latest and ‘greatest’ consoles. The two sides can easily be grouped and interchangeable from an outsider’s POV, but there are always going to be the extremists on both sides. For mere convenience we’re going to say everything from the Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation2 era and newer is a Next-Gen console. Everything 64 bits or lower is ‘classic’. I’ve chosen this margin because this is where there is the largest noticeable difference in the switch between the two types of games.
I’m not actually getting into where I stand on the scale, but will point the one fact that you all should know: Next-Gen consoles are breading gamers that don’t know how to play a game.
The definition of Game:
noun /gām/
games, plural
A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.
You’ll notice it doesn’t say “Everybody wins”. It requires skills, strength or luck. I would also add into this time. If you can open a game and have it beaten completely in 4 hours, you should ask for your money back.
Let’s compare two games; one from classic gaming and one from next-gen gaming.
Let’s go with Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988 for NES) and Halo 3 (2007 on Xbox 360).
Super Mario Bros. 3 was one of those games that if you beat it, you were it as a badge of honor. Heck, it’s fair to say if you even got to World 8 you were good. There was no cheat codes, you either knew how to do it or you didn’t. You either had the timing and skill down to hit it just right, or didn’t. You pressed two buttons and did it right to win. Button mashing wasn’t even an option for NES, unless the game required you to just press buttons quickly, which it never did.
Halo 3, on the other hand is often referred to as child’s play when it comes down to difficulty. This game can easily be beaten in one sitting, with time to spare, and you can save it. Throw in the fact that the game is engineered in the gamer’s favor so that they do not get stuck or have to over think (or think at all in most cases) to get to the end. Button mashing, grunting and yelling at the TV will easily get you through it. The game does have an extended multiplayer mode, but still on the same premise.
This brings up the question: Are games getting easier to please the new gamers, or are the gamers getting dumber? I feel the answer is yes to both. The current generation is used to winning all the time, because losing may hurt their feelings. We wouldn’t want somebody to be sad, would we?
I hooked up my N64 earlier today and popped in Perfect Dark. I will always love this game. It was challenging, but was fun. You had levels of difficulties and tons of scenarios to work with. It was FPS, but you needed to work through it to get to the end. This included the clunky, over-sized controllers and unrealistic graphics (and deadly paintball mode!). It took my brain about 15 minutes to adjust to thinking again, but it was there. Unfortunately, it took the younger gamer beside me 10 to decide it was ‘too hard’ and quit.
Newer FPS may have you controlling a whole platoon, but how often do you need to pull the trigger and come up with the strategy yourself?
Guess I’ll just become better by process of elimination. Everybody can’t be winners, they don’t give gold stars to losers. Wait, yes they do. Damn.
So what do you think about the current evolution/devolution of gaming? Let me know in the comments!
Breaking News: NY City destroyed by pixels!
Posted By Jeff On April 10, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
If you’ve ever wanted to see New York city completely taken over and taken apart by your favorite 8-bit characters, now is the time to do so. Patrick Jean did an amazing job on this, I’m astounded and in awe.
PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. – Arts and animation videos.
[Via Mashable!]
Dr. Horrible in 8-Bit
Posted By Jeff On April 9, 2010 @ 9:15 am
I don’t know what to say other than ‘Holy crap’ and ‘I want to play this game!’. A guy (or gal) going by the name DoctorOctoroc redid the first act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s NPH in Nintendo form, that’s totally and utterly badass! I don’t even want to get into how incredibly epic the soundtrack is. It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Watch it, love it, then go buy me the DVD off Amazon kthx.
[Via Mashable]
eRepublik: The New World
Posted By Jeff On June 8, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
Have you ever wished that you could live your life all over again? I have!
The idea behind eRepublik is that you can create an account and live it day to day as you would in real life. Boring? Nah.
After inital sign up you’re forced to pick a job and horrible wages and work. Sucky? For now. After you work two days you’ll level and get something a little better as well as join the army and train. At level 5 (I think it was 5) you can participate in any wars your country is in. Eventually you can vote for political parties and what not as well.
Personally I’m still pretty newb at this, but looking into the future of the game with user-created political parties, different countries and regions and fluctuating economies it can hold a lot of potential. A key factor that interests me is that the game is based on real-time logic, so those with more time on their hands won’t overrun the game.
I’d recommend to give it a try for a week or so, see how it plays out. I like the idea of being able to represent my region. Look me up while you’re there, name is Egen.
Games: No More Heroes
Posted By Jeff On January 22, 2009 @ 9:00 am
Right off the bat, this game is SO not a kids game. If anything, No More Heroes
UBI Soft’s No More Heroes’ gameplay is a typical beat ‘em up, but with a very adult-oriented theme. Instead of trying to save a princess, you’re killing other assassins so that you can be number one. That’s it. Along the way, you’re forced to do odd jobs like collect coconuts and mow lawns to earn money so that you can enter the battle against the next ranked assassin. This keeps the game from getting too boring too quick. (Imagine his resume: Travis Touchdown, Assassin and part-time lawn mower)
The style of this game is strange at first glance as it seems to have a choppy-anime’ish look. After around 15 minutes or so, they seem to smooth out and you realize how incredibly amazing the look of this game really is. The dialoge between characters in the cinematic scenes are fantastic and incredibly witty. However, during the game the taunts get quite repetitive, and could use some fine tuning (even if that just means being removed completely).
The controls are generally just push the button or hold the button down to attack. You can either attack with punch/kick and wrestling moves (B) or with your bean katana (A). an interesting twist on the controls though is that for wrestling moves you have to move the wiimote and nunchuck in the same direction to do the attack. Also with the beam katana when in a draw, you draw circles to win it. It’s strange, but to be expected for the Nintendo Wii. Overall fairly easy controls to get used to.
One of the coolest things about this game is that he has a cell phone. Whenever you get a call on his phone, your wiimote vibrates. When you push the button to answer it, the voice (other person on the phone) comes through on the wiimore speaker, not the TV speakers. So you actually have to hold the wiimote up to the side of your head. Strange? Yes. Entertaining? You betcha!
Though only about 1/3 of the way through the plot, I’m having one problem with this game when it comes to the missions. If a mission is failed, you can not simply ‘retry’, you have to go all the way back to where the mission was picked up, get it again, then go try the mission once more. This is frustrating when it takes you 10 minutes to travel between the two locations. Though the missions are pretty easy for the most part, it would be nice if they didn’t waste my time with the odd one that I mess up on.
The game is fairly cheap to pick up (Amazon has it for $20) so might be worth adding to your collection. Given that 95% of the games currently out for the Wii are targeted at family/children this is a nice change. I’d recommend it if not just to be able to say you own it, it’s right up there with Conker’s Bad Fur Day for N64.
Games: Battle of the Bands
Posted By Jeff On January 15, 2009 @ 9:21 am
As promised last week, today we’re going to take a look at
Battle of the Bands
At first glance, this game looks like it can be a lot of fun. Well, it can once you get past the lack of content in the game itself. Lets have a look at some of what the game has to offer:
- A decent variety of songs (of course, no where near some of the more costlier games on the market)
- The joy of rhythm based games without the need to have any extras hanging around
- A quirky variation to the plain old ‘hit the notes and you win’ formula
Battle of the Bands offers some classic favorite songs such as Black Betty and Jungle Boogie; mixed in with some fun songs like Feel Good Inc. by the Gorillaz and Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones. Though the songs are few, they’re good to play.
Unlike some of the other rhythm games, Battle of the Bands uses only the wiimote to hit notes (left/right/down/stab/shake). It’s a fun concept, though a little tiring on the wrist at first on some of the higher difficulty levels. Also, if the wiimote is tilted it often doesn’t hit the note. Once you get used to this though, it’s a fantastic workout for your wrist.
Above all else what makes this game worth playing is the presentation itself. The game is one big battle, so you’re always in a versus mode against either an AI or a Player. Each band gets to choose a style of music, for example country and hip-hop. While playing, if the country team is in the lead the song which they’re playing will be done in a ‘country version’ (IE redneck accent and banjos). As the teams battle, the song jumps between the two bands’ type. It’s a riot when the types are conflicting as they switch seamlessly.
Another cooky part of this game is that you can attack the opposing player. Teams get the option of 3 weapons to use, all with different steak counts. Once a team has a streak to the length of the weapon, it will fire causing the other player to miss a beat if not blocked (hitting B). It’s quite off tilt to have a battle of the bands where you can shoot lightning at the drummer on the other team, but a blast none the less.
Overall, I can understand why this game is so cheap (I got it for $15) because though the concept of it is amazing, the final execution of it is lacking. If they had access to a larger library, or even if they had more modes or unlockable content it may have made it a little more interesting. For what the game is though, it was worth the cash and I’d suggest it to any music lover out there if not only for the music player feature that allows you to switch between styles without having to actually play the game.
Games: Rock Band 2
Posted By Jeff On January 8, 2009 @ 1:56 am
Today we’re going to get some rock off with our socks off with a quick review of Rock Band 2
For those of you unfamiliar with the ‘musical gaming’ genre, Rock Band and similar products often use controllers shaped like guitars or drums. You simply hit the colored buttons on the instruments in time with the colors on the screen to play the notes. A simple concept, but incredibly fun none the less.
What first made Harmonix‘s Rock Band stand out in comparison to it’s nearest competitor Guitar Hero is that it allowed players to not only play guitar, but drum and sing as well. Though this has been evenly matched by the most recent Guitar Hero World Tour
Aside from just hitting the buttons to match colors, I think a huge part of the appeal of these games is that you can be part of a band, not just somebody playing a game at home on a Saturday night. Rock Band 2 takes advantage of this by giving players the ability to not only form a band with friends at close range, but to join with anybody online. This, for me, is a huge factor as the people online can’t see you dancing around in your PJs while playing We Got the Beat by the Go-Gos.
Rock Band 2 has also capitalized on the character creation factor of games, giving users the ability to make their avatar as normal or bizarre as they want it to be with everything from ripped jeans to a Viking helmet. Along those lines, users are able to register their bands online and put their custom bands into cool looking photos. They can even print out stickers and make t-shirts! (Check out yours truly rockin’ out here)
But what good is playing when you don’t know any of the songs? Rock Band 2 has a ton of good songs, and (whenever Nintendo gets around to it) will feature downloadable content (DLC) to allow aspiring musicians to enhance their library even further.
The only fault I’d say (if anything) this game is lacking compared to Guitar hero is the ‘oddity’ factor. This is just playing songs, where as in Guitar hero there are ‘battles’ where you can throw off your enemy and random encores through out the game. It makes it good to spice up. Rock Band does this with ‘benefit shows’ and ‘TV recordings’, but the game play is still just playing the songs. It would be nice to see a mode to make it a little more interesting in Rock Band 3. (I have picked up another musical game today completely based around being strange, keep an eye out for a review)
So are any of you rock legends? Let me know in the comments below, maybe we can do some face melting some time. Rock on!
I am Batman Pac-Man
Posted By Jeff On October 10, 2008 @ 1:08 am
Let’s stick with some gaming fun here. To follow up with the totally badass furniture that I showed last week, I have found some more cool Pac-Man stuff that I would love to own.
</a.First off, the Pac-Man Hoodie from Think Geek. If this doesn’t confuse people and earn you a hand full of cherries, an extra life and the all time high score, nothing will.
If that design made your headspin, you might be suffering from a Dot Overdose and need this shirt from Dead Zebra. Friends don’t let friends OD on Dots…But they do buy them the shirt.
And the last one for today (though not pac-man inspired) is the Most Deadly shirt from Busted Tees. You may recognize this from Perfect Dark (or maybe you don’t if you suck at it) but even the biggest lamer *cough DEL cough* can pretend to be old school now.
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