Tonight is a good night to celebrate. Ending 2008, what I would call one of the most disappointing years in gaming that I can remember.
It started right off in January. Two of my favorite franchises, Burnout and Devil May Cry, were getting the next-gen treatemnt with Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4. They both garnered a good amount of hype and were looking to start 2008 on the right foot. Burnout Paradise turned out to be a bit too experimental (though I applaud them for trying something new) with the open world concept. Forcing you to rely on your microscopic mini-map and arrow indicators during a high-octane race was a horrible idea; the game used to just be about blazing down a linear path and trashing all that's in your way. In Paradise I was too focused on optimizing my route to the goal to think about actually enjoying the game. Add in annoyances like a lack of a "restart race" button and the lack of the much-loved Crash mode, as well as same-screen multiplayer, and the result was a package that was original and pretty, but just not that great.
Devil May Cry 4 was also a terrible letdown. Coming off from the stellar 3rd installment that got me into the series, DMC4 had definitely had some expectations to fill. What came out was a lackluster and uninspired entry to the series. Simplified mechanics trashed the complex and customizable weapon swapping and combat style systems for a simple grabbing mechanic, where you can grapple enemies from afar and slice them up. The combos in general felt less technical and more button mashing. The simplified controles and downgraded difficulty leads to what I would call "casual-i-fying" the series.
My hope was renewed in the prospect of the extremely hyped Smash Brothers Brawl. Daily updates on its website was a great hype device, but began to slowly make clear a sad truth - there really isn't much new in Brawl. While Melee was a milestone upgrade from 64 (crisp graphics, a ton of new mechanics and moveset expansion, trophy collecting and a roster that over doubled in size), Brawl only offered a few upgrades, none of which were that interesting. The fleshed out adventure mode turned out to be nothing more than some shallow platforming stages and decent boss fights, along with nonsensical cinematics (YOU try crafting a story with 35 characters that can't speak a word, and keeping it somewhat sensical). The only game mechanic changes (other than more subtle ones like weaker gravity) is in the form of final smashes which were only handed out through an item. Instead of creating an overdrive bar that charges when the character hits / gets hit, they leave it to the random spawns / locations of items to determine when someone can get a game-breaking attack. They can be somewhat fun in casual matches but anyone decently competitive turns them off entirely. The only real upgrade was adding in some new characters, but their appeal wore off relatively quickly, even the surprise appearances from non-Nintendo Sonic and Snake. And don't get me started on the absolutely terrible online support.
The next victim was possibly the biggest letdown of 08 to me, which was GTA4. While it was certainly met with critical success, I just didn't see it personally. The graphics were amazing, the city felt alive, the story was well presented and the new aim / cover mechanics worked great most of the time. The problem was that none of those things are really what GTA is about. The reason I used to spend hours on end in the lands of Vice City and the other PS2 entries was the sheer amount of fun things there were to do. There were hospital and firefighting minigames with gameplay rewards if completed, properties I could buy with missions attached to them, jetpacking around, torching people with flamethrwers or beheading them with katanas, finding hidden packages that gave you awesome upgrades with every 10 collected, just to name a few. You can do none of that in GTA4. While they do still have vigilante missions and hidden packages (well, pigeons this time) they have no tangible reward other than some achievement points. The exciting minigames of GTA4 include activities like watching fake television, browsing their fake internet, and playing virtual pool or darts with one of your virtual friends. Sure, taking them out enough give you some perks, but the entire affair felt tedious and repetitive. The weapon selection was as bare bones as possible with nothing interesting or fun to use. The cars have a realistic feel to them which makes extreme maneuvering a much more difficult affair (and less fun) affair. Money was entirely useless past the first 5th of the game since you never lose your weapons (unless you're bad enough to actually get arrested), so there's no real risk in stocking up on expensive weapons anymore, as well as no property to buy. Pestering the cops isn't even that fun anymore; in past games you could play cat and mouse with them for a while before they really took you seriously, but in 4 by the time you're starting to really have fun you'll hit 6 stars and get trampled by army men soon after (don't expect tanks though, since they removed those too). It just felt like GTA plus realism, minus the soul of the franchise. It felt empty, cold, and uninteresting outside of the main plot.
The next big release was Rock Band 2 in the fall. Now here's a hard thing to screw up; the game got rave reviews last year and pretty much perfected plastic band gameplay already. Instead of keeping to that and upgrading some aspects, they managed to change nearly nothing and actually remove some aspects of the original. Namely I speak of the game keeping track of your star ratings in individual songs; the fact that it no longer does was a glaring and absurd oversight in my eyes. As I just said nothing was really added to the game (other than songs, obviously). The world tour mode was the same as last year's mode, with a few gimmicks like managers you can hire and some more clothes for your virtual rock star. The solo tours were completely removed. There's still no way to do band vs band online play, just 1 vs 1. The battle of the bands mode past the first couple of weeks is just a glorified ad to buy more songs so you can play their setlist challenges that you upload to leaderboards that are forgotten about a week later. Promised modes like jukebox mode and a special mode for a person playing vocals and an instrument simultanously never made the cut. Songs with no vocals can't be played unless you exit the game, take out the vocals player, and go back in the game, just to play that song. The instruments were upgraded but most people didn't need more plastic guitars or drums in the first place. A lot of this is nitpicking but I expect a sequel to have something new or interesting. The only saving grace is being able to transfer 55 of the original game's songs into this one. But overall, collosal letdown on the whole.
Guitar Hero: World Tour had a chance to innovate on Rock Band's formula but fell flat on its head. Their take on the RB interface was a jumbled mess and key components like saving other players and unison bonuses were completely absent. Vocals were horribly done with a painfully strict pitch window and nonsensical combo system. The shared star power system is horribly done and leads to people hogging SP and making SP activations only last for a few seconds at a time. The solo / band tour modes are extremely drab and linear "play pre-done setlists to advance" experiences that were not compelling at all. Their biggest chance to step-up from Rock Band, the music creator, was a flop as well. It gives you no creative expression in making the actual chart (notes are pre-deterined based on the sounds used, and SP placement is 100% random), vocals arn't allowed at all, and the guitar / bass / drums are just terrible sounding midi samples. The only songs worth looking into are random mario / zelda / final fantasy songs redone and insane random solos designed for those crazy people that can 5 star Dragonforce songs. No matter what the song, the result was always a bit jarring for the ears.
A few other letdowns rounded out the year. Fable II, like its predecessor, was supremely overhyped by Peter Molyneux and underwhelmed, with game-breaking glitches to top off the mediocre experience. GTA 4's downloadable expansion got delayed until '09. The blockbuster hits for the Wii this holiday season composed of Animal Crossing, which may as well be a port of the DS version with some new furniture and a couple of gimmicks, Mario Kart Wii, which turned out to be nothing new other than the trick system, gimmicky controls and a gimped battle mode, and Wii Fit, which I just have no words for. Nintendo still doesn't care about finding any solution to its storage problem on the Wii. Playstation 3's Home was a floundering mess and, while still in beta, is already widely considered a failure. And Xbox 360's are still Red Ringing (though less so these days).
I mean, 2008 wasn't a complete failure. Brawl and Rock Band 2, while not really innovating much, remained fun as hell to play. The 360 got an interface overhaul that sent it from having the weakest OS this generation, to the best one. Games like LittleBigPlanet and indie gem Braid gave me faith that original titles can still fare well in the giant pool of sequels that we see these days. Perhaps I'm jaded because all the titles that really did well this year were in the genre I despise most - 1st / 3rd person shooters. Resistence 2, Gears 2, Fallout 3 (please don't try to tell me that this game is an RPG, if anything it's a shooter with some light RPG aspects and an overhyped targeting system), Left 4 Dead, and MGS4 just off the top of my head. I really get worried that in a few years I'll be able to just use the [shooter series' name] [number] format for every popular game released.
Here's hoping that 2009 will have a few less shooters, a few more risks, and some truly worthy AAA titles. To all those that read (and write for) TSG, Happy New Years!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
6 Reasons Why I Sold My Wii
Enough is enough, Nintendo. After the sub-par performance of the Gamecube I was really hoping you would deliver something to make me believe in you again. At first it seemed like you pulled it off - the Wii looked like an amazing innovative package full of quality games and groundbreaking motion sensitivity. Well, after bringing you to my dorm this year only to turn you on about 1 or 2 times for the semester, I sold you. And I couldn't be happier. Here's a list of reasons why the Wii has failed, in my eyes.
1) Nintendo has abandoned the seasoned gamer
I refuse to stereotype myself as a "hardcore gamer," but I've played enough games to be pretty well versed in them. Back when the Wii came out we were promised plenty of challenging games from established franchises. Out of all of them the only ones worth playing to me were Mario Galaxy and Brawl. Metroid Prime 3, while equipped with the best implementation of the Wii controller I've ever seen, completely Halo-fied itself and lost what it was originally about, exploring an open world as a lone bounty hunter. Zelda was a complete joke difficulty-wise, both for combat and puzzles. Mario Kart is pretty much like every other Mario Kart, but with bike / stunts / wiimote gimmicks.
This would all be forgivable if Nintendo started to up the quality. It's understandable to make mostly subpar games with new hardware. Alas, there is nothing. Nintendo promised a new big hit for veteran gamers at E3 this year, and what did we get?
A new...Animal Crossing...seriously? Not only is this game aimed for non-gamers, but it's virtually a port of the DS version, with a few new furniture items, and a "city" section which is just a bunch of shops lined up for you. And there's just nothing else, take a look at the upcoming releases for the Wii if you don't believe me. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/releases.html
So if that's true, how the hell is Nintendo rocking this generation in terms of sales? Well, to my next point...
2) Nintendo now caters exclusively to children and soccer moms
Remember their other big announcement for E3? Wii Fit. Not a game, a fitness application. Nintendo went from having a sub-division for the non-gamer to being their exclusive market. They stopped making technically brilliant games and stepped down to shallow experiences like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Sure, these excursions were fun for a little while with the right crowd, but they got stale fast. I went to the Nintendo store a while back to get some kirby plushies with my girlfriend; we saw that they were holding a massive event for a new game. A few years ago this would undoubtedly be for the next big Zelda or Mario or Pokemon game. Instead we found...Wii Carnival Games. Seriously?
Nintendo is not dumb. They are in fact brilliant. They discovered just how untapped the 4-10 and 40+ demographic is with video games. They figured out that by producing tons of low quality games and hyping them to death with motion gimmicks, people will buy them in troves. They no longer need massive development teams to put together masterpieces like Ocarina of Time or Mario Galaxy - they just need to find the next real-life activity to simulate with Wiimote gestures, whether it be golf, cooking, or raising babies.
2a) Third parties figured out the same thing
Third parties, almost absent entirely in the Gamecube era, came rushing back to Nintendo when they realized they can do cheap cash ins with awesome games like Dogz and Catz. Barely any developer wants to make a serious port to the Wii due to inferior hardware and the lack of their demographic. Why would they, when they can put in half as much money on a cash-in and make twice the profit?
3) The Wiimote does NOT work as promised
When the Wii remote was announced everyone touted it as the revolutionary control device to change games as we know it. Hell, even I did. Wii Sports did a good job of creating the illusion that it actually follows your arm movements as they said, but as games came out it became more and more obvious how off the controller is from their original vision.
First, the movement is NOT one to one, not even close. Besides the gyroscope / accelerometer (which can only detect relative movement) the main way for the remote to work is to position itself with the Wii's sensor bar. What this means is, your pointing is always limited by how your orientation works relative to the bar. The result is that you're very rarely ever projecting your cursor the way you point it. Everything is relative to the sensor bar. Countless times I had to flail the remote around to re-orient the sensor and get a bearing of where it is. Slight movements of the remote shot my cursor across the screen in a flash. One of my original dreams of the Wii, to have an entire genre of awesome light gun games, cannot happen due to this. All attempts at a light gun game are forced to show a cursor on screen, since the player cannot actually aim, fire, and hit accurately. They can only move their remote relative to where their cursor already is on screen.
The other gestures are just as inaccurate. Some of the best Wiimote interactions were the ones that didn't try too hard to be 1 to 1 - like flicking the remote in Metroid as a grapple beam or shaking the remote for a spin attack in Zelda. They don't actually care how hard you flick or fast you turn, just the fact that you did it. In essence, it's a button press remapped to a gesture. And it really feels like a gimmick more often than not. Relying too much on how the remote moves, like in Red Steel's sword fighting, result in a control nightmare.
(A note on the Motion Plus add-on - it shows promise. But I'm sure it'll be wasted on more casual games anyway)
4) The online experience is abysmal
This doesn't really need much explanation. The best thing Nintendo has done here is make it free (though future games may have fees attached to them for online play). The rest is just terrible. Instead of having one uniform ID that you choose, you're forced to have a different 12-16 digit code randomly assigned to you for each online game you know. You can't send friend requests either - both sides have to tediously enter those numbers to play that specific game. If you don't like friend codes, then enjoy the completely paltry random matchups, which include no names, no communication, no way to friend a person after a match, and nearly no options for customizing a match (Brawl is always a 2 minute 4 player fight on a random map with medium items), as well as no real ranking system. There is no community to speak of other than drab ideas like the "Everybody Votes" channel and a Mii fashion show. After giving up on Brawl's online I only used it for occasional firmware updates.
5) The market is ripe for selling
The Wii continues into another Christmas season with completely absurd levels of demand and Nintendo failing to produce enough, resulting in shortages everywhere. The result? People will give an arm and a leg for a Wii. I got rid of my Wii in a trade for a person's PS3 with a controller and game - that's right, I gave him nothing but a Wii and what it shipped with, and I got a system worth $150 more AND a game. Maybe he was dumb, but that's just an example of the demand this system mongers. If you're like me and haven't touched your Wii in months, now's the best time to sell.
And finally..
6) The Wii is a threat to the future of the video games industry
Okay, I'm going a bit out on a limb here, but hear me through. Nintendo is shunning seasoned gamers while obtaining a massive following from the casual audience. Game quality is rapidly dropping while sales continue to improve. Microsoft and Sony, while initially reluctant, feel obliged to compete with Nintendo's dominance over the casual market. Microsoft recently released avatars for their system, which are really just Miis in higher resolution. They have a storm of casual games coming out as well.
While it would be a different article for me to write, it is also my opinion that 2008 was a disappointing year for games. One thing in particular that bothered me is how easy / casual games are becoming. Games like Fable 2 and Prince of Persia no longer even punish you for dying; they are instead like a continuous movie that never ends in a game over. While this can be argued as video games evolving to a greater level of visceral entertainment, I really believe they are just becoming movies where you occasionally press buttons.
Put these two together, and I come up with two very scary outcomes for the future:
1 - The death of hardcore video games. It's simple math really. "Hardcore" games are getting easier and easier, while casual games are becoming larger and larger. The inevitable intersect is video games becoming, more often than not, simple interactive experiences. They are no longer about gaining skills and dexterity and knowledge in the context of the game world,but linear experiences that unfold the same way every time, and just need simple user interaction to move them along. The only exceptions would be more and more "applications" like Wii Fit, which barely even qualify as a game in the first place.
2 - The next video game crash. To those who think the casual gamers of today will be the hardcores of tomorrow: I disagree. A 40 year old playing Wii Tennis will be content playing Wii Tennis; I can't see him popping in a disc of Gears of War or Mass Effect. What this means is the market will continue to inflate with casual games and people will continue to buy into them. But one magical day they will wake up and grow tired of flinging the remote around like a baseball bat or tennis racket. They'll want to *gasp* do the real activity instead. The Wii carnival games were cool for a while, but they can never replace a real carnival's atmosphere. Wii Fit was nifty, but going to the gym is really the more effective way to go. The hype will die, and casual gaming will fall apart in a flash. Nintendo will scramble to meet sales expectations and fail, and Microsoft / Sony will abandon their casual ventures back to what's left of the softened "hardcore" games, which will satisfy fewer and fewer of the seasoned gamers. We'd much stick to the old school NES through PS2 days of quality games anyway. In short ,the industry would collapse.
By selling my Wii, I am completing my statement that I refuse to support Nintendo's endeavor into the casual market. I only have my DS left which has a flash card anyway, so they won't get a penny more out of me. I gave them one last chance, and they have failed even more miserably than last time in my eyes.
1) Nintendo has abandoned the seasoned gamer
I refuse to stereotype myself as a "hardcore gamer," but I've played enough games to be pretty well versed in them. Back when the Wii came out we were promised plenty of challenging games from established franchises. Out of all of them the only ones worth playing to me were Mario Galaxy and Brawl. Metroid Prime 3, while equipped with the best implementation of the Wii controller I've ever seen, completely Halo-fied itself and lost what it was originally about, exploring an open world as a lone bounty hunter. Zelda was a complete joke difficulty-wise, both for combat and puzzles. Mario Kart is pretty much like every other Mario Kart, but with bike / stunts / wiimote gimmicks.
This would all be forgivable if Nintendo started to up the quality. It's understandable to make mostly subpar games with new hardware. Alas, there is nothing. Nintendo promised a new big hit for veteran gamers at E3 this year, and what did we get?
A new...Animal Crossing...seriously? Not only is this game aimed for non-gamers, but it's virtually a port of the DS version, with a few new furniture items, and a "city" section which is just a bunch of shops lined up for you. And there's just nothing else, take a look at the upcoming releases for the Wii if you don't believe me. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/wii/releases.html
So if that's true, how the hell is Nintendo rocking this generation in terms of sales? Well, to my next point...
2) Nintendo now caters exclusively to children and soccer moms
Remember their other big announcement for E3? Wii Fit. Not a game, a fitness application. Nintendo went from having a sub-division for the non-gamer to being their exclusive market. They stopped making technically brilliant games and stepped down to shallow experiences like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Sure, these excursions were fun for a little while with the right crowd, but they got stale fast. I went to the Nintendo store a while back to get some kirby plushies with my girlfriend; we saw that they were holding a massive event for a new game. A few years ago this would undoubtedly be for the next big Zelda or Mario or Pokemon game. Instead we found...Wii Carnival Games. Seriously?
Nintendo is not dumb. They are in fact brilliant. They discovered just how untapped the 4-10 and 40+ demographic is with video games. They figured out that by producing tons of low quality games and hyping them to death with motion gimmicks, people will buy them in troves. They no longer need massive development teams to put together masterpieces like Ocarina of Time or Mario Galaxy - they just need to find the next real-life activity to simulate with Wiimote gestures, whether it be golf, cooking, or raising babies.
2a) Third parties figured out the same thing
Third parties, almost absent entirely in the Gamecube era, came rushing back to Nintendo when they realized they can do cheap cash ins with awesome games like Dogz and Catz. Barely any developer wants to make a serious port to the Wii due to inferior hardware and the lack of their demographic. Why would they, when they can put in half as much money on a cash-in and make twice the profit?
3) The Wiimote does NOT work as promised
When the Wii remote was announced everyone touted it as the revolutionary control device to change games as we know it. Hell, even I did. Wii Sports did a good job of creating the illusion that it actually follows your arm movements as they said, but as games came out it became more and more obvious how off the controller is from their original vision.
First, the movement is NOT one to one, not even close. Besides the gyroscope / accelerometer (which can only detect relative movement) the main way for the remote to work is to position itself with the Wii's sensor bar. What this means is, your pointing is always limited by how your orientation works relative to the bar. The result is that you're very rarely ever projecting your cursor the way you point it. Everything is relative to the sensor bar. Countless times I had to flail the remote around to re-orient the sensor and get a bearing of where it is. Slight movements of the remote shot my cursor across the screen in a flash. One of my original dreams of the Wii, to have an entire genre of awesome light gun games, cannot happen due to this. All attempts at a light gun game are forced to show a cursor on screen, since the player cannot actually aim, fire, and hit accurately. They can only move their remote relative to where their cursor already is on screen.
The other gestures are just as inaccurate. Some of the best Wiimote interactions were the ones that didn't try too hard to be 1 to 1 - like flicking the remote in Metroid as a grapple beam or shaking the remote for a spin attack in Zelda. They don't actually care how hard you flick or fast you turn, just the fact that you did it. In essence, it's a button press remapped to a gesture. And it really feels like a gimmick more often than not. Relying too much on how the remote moves, like in Red Steel's sword fighting, result in a control nightmare.
(A note on the Motion Plus add-on - it shows promise. But I'm sure it'll be wasted on more casual games anyway)
4) The online experience is abysmal
This doesn't really need much explanation. The best thing Nintendo has done here is make it free (though future games may have fees attached to them for online play). The rest is just terrible. Instead of having one uniform ID that you choose, you're forced to have a different 12-16 digit code randomly assigned to you for each online game you know. You can't send friend requests either - both sides have to tediously enter those numbers to play that specific game. If you don't like friend codes, then enjoy the completely paltry random matchups, which include no names, no communication, no way to friend a person after a match, and nearly no options for customizing a match (Brawl is always a 2 minute 4 player fight on a random map with medium items), as well as no real ranking system. There is no community to speak of other than drab ideas like the "Everybody Votes" channel and a Mii fashion show. After giving up on Brawl's online I only used it for occasional firmware updates.
5) The market is ripe for selling
The Wii continues into another Christmas season with completely absurd levels of demand and Nintendo failing to produce enough, resulting in shortages everywhere. The result? People will give an arm and a leg for a Wii. I got rid of my Wii in a trade for a person's PS3 with a controller and game - that's right, I gave him nothing but a Wii and what it shipped with, and I got a system worth $150 more AND a game. Maybe he was dumb, but that's just an example of the demand this system mongers. If you're like me and haven't touched your Wii in months, now's the best time to sell.
And finally..
6) The Wii is a threat to the future of the video games industry
Okay, I'm going a bit out on a limb here, but hear me through. Nintendo is shunning seasoned gamers while obtaining a massive following from the casual audience. Game quality is rapidly dropping while sales continue to improve. Microsoft and Sony, while initially reluctant, feel obliged to compete with Nintendo's dominance over the casual market. Microsoft recently released avatars for their system, which are really just Miis in higher resolution. They have a storm of casual games coming out as well.
While it would be a different article for me to write, it is also my opinion that 2008 was a disappointing year for games. One thing in particular that bothered me is how easy / casual games are becoming. Games like Fable 2 and Prince of Persia no longer even punish you for dying; they are instead like a continuous movie that never ends in a game over. While this can be argued as video games evolving to a greater level of visceral entertainment, I really believe they are just becoming movies where you occasionally press buttons.
Put these two together, and I come up with two very scary outcomes for the future:
1 - The death of hardcore video games. It's simple math really. "Hardcore" games are getting easier and easier, while casual games are becoming larger and larger. The inevitable intersect is video games becoming, more often than not, simple interactive experiences. They are no longer about gaining skills and dexterity and knowledge in the context of the game world,but linear experiences that unfold the same way every time, and just need simple user interaction to move them along. The only exceptions would be more and more "applications" like Wii Fit, which barely even qualify as a game in the first place.
2 - The next video game crash. To those who think the casual gamers of today will be the hardcores of tomorrow: I disagree. A 40 year old playing Wii Tennis will be content playing Wii Tennis; I can't see him popping in a disc of Gears of War or Mass Effect. What this means is the market will continue to inflate with casual games and people will continue to buy into them. But one magical day they will wake up and grow tired of flinging the remote around like a baseball bat or tennis racket. They'll want to *gasp* do the real activity instead. The Wii carnival games were cool for a while, but they can never replace a real carnival's atmosphere. Wii Fit was nifty, but going to the gym is really the more effective way to go. The hype will die, and casual gaming will fall apart in a flash. Nintendo will scramble to meet sales expectations and fail, and Microsoft / Sony will abandon their casual ventures back to what's left of the softened "hardcore" games, which will satisfy fewer and fewer of the seasoned gamers. We'd much stick to the old school NES through PS2 days of quality games anyway. In short ,the industry would collapse.
By selling my Wii, I am completing my statement that I refuse to support Nintendo's endeavor into the casual market. I only have my DS left which has a flash card anyway, so they won't get a penny more out of me. I gave them one last chance, and they have failed even more miserably than last time in my eyes.
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