Ubisoft DRM: An Overreaction and an Inevitable Future
Posted on
Friday, February 19, 2010
by Gary A. Ballard
I don't often talk about DRM these days, other than in derisory tones. After all, the truth of DRM is that it is practically useless for stopping a determined "pirate" from getting their grubby hands on whatever data it is the DRM is meant to protect. While the theory of DRM, ensuring that a product is not copied and used without being legitimately purchased, is a good one, in practice it has been less than a speed bump for crackers and an inconvenient pain in the ass for the legit purchasers of the product. Wildly inflated claims of sales lost due to piracy have been trumpeted by almost every industry involved, from the RIA (music) to Hollywood (movies) and from book publishers to video game developers. Their numbers always make me think of Rumsfeld's famous quote - "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." Or in other words, how do you prove you lost a sale from piracy when the pirate went out of his way not to purchase the product in the first place? Would perfect, unbreakable DRM have actually encouraged him to buy the product, or would he simply have moved on?
With that in mind, I take the news of video game publisher UbiSoft' s new PC game DRM scheme as proof that some people just don't get it. Furthermore, their responses to PC Gamer's questions about the subject paints a clearer picture of an outfit that doesn't give a rat's ass how their idiotic scheme affects real consumers. Here's how it works.
You buy a PC game from UbiSoft, say Assassin's Creed 2. You must be connected to the Internet at all times to play this game, even though there are NO Internet components to the gameplay. It is not multiplayer, you do not interact with other players at all, and there is no benefit to being online when playing this other than the game saves being available online from any computer. That in itself isn't the idiotic part - after all, Steam requires the same thing for authentication on the products purchased through their service, at least when the product is first activated. But the UbiSoft scheme goes further. Not only is an Internet connection required to start the game, if your connection drops at any time during gameplay, whether through your own actions or the vagaries of the Internet, you are kicked out of the game and all progress since your last save are lost.
Does anyone anywhere have an Internet connection they expect to be working 24/7 without one drop ever? If so, I'd like to know who your provider is because it isn't Comcast or any other provider I've ever used. At some point, those servers controlling that DRM connection will go down, whether through maintenance, hacking, hardware failure or they become too expensive for UbiSoft to run. In the second link, the UbiSoft rep will not guarantee those servers will always be available - after all, they can't guarantee that. As a consumer, someone who pays money for this product, why would I bother? There are a ton of other games to play. No matter what sort of Robot Jesus a game using this DRM might turn out to be, it's still not worth the hassle of having progress in the game lost because my Internet connection crapped out. I have better things to spend my money on, things that don't piss in my face and tell me it's rain.
Since the rep explains that the DRM check can be patched out in future if need be, that means it's absolutely breakable, and probably much quicker than they anticipate. When that happens, the only one who loses is the customer, who paid money to be saddled with a pain in the ass while other people gleefully pirate the cracked game. I'm quite sure that in typical myopic fashion, UbiSoft will take the lowered sales on Assassin's Creed 2 that this sort of shit will cause as proof that pirating is killing their business, and come up with something worse. Maybe their next DRM will require a blood sample, retinal scan and voice print ID before allowing the customer to play.
Measures of this extremity are doomed to failure. It will be cracked. It will cause some customers to get the crack simply so they don't lose progress in the game to an Internet outage. You don't beat pirates by being more extreme, you beat piracy by respecting your customers. Stardock has offered their games DRM-free for years and it hasn't hurt their sales. Far from it, they seem to be selling well.
It's a simple equation. People who take the necessary effort to pirate your game were very unlikely customers in the first place. Pirating a game, even in today's BitTorrent-fueled anything at your fingertips Internet world, takes more effort than it's worth for 90% of potential customers. There's probably another 2 or 3% that won't buy the game under any circumstances. The rest might buy your game, unless you continue to treat them like criminals, at which point they raise their middle fingers and continue downloading your shit for free and laughing at your pathetic, futile attempts to keep them from doing it. For every 1 of these fuckers you sue into oblivion, 99 get away with it in obscurity.
The PC game market is shrinking, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the ease of use a console system offers. Times are too tough to be pissing off any percentage of your customers in some misguided attempt to stop the 2-3% of idiots who will pirate your games no matter what.
With that in mind, I take the news of video game publisher UbiSoft' s new PC game DRM scheme as proof that some people just don't get it. Furthermore, their responses to PC Gamer's questions about the subject paints a clearer picture of an outfit that doesn't give a rat's ass how their idiotic scheme affects real consumers. Here's how it works.
You buy a PC game from UbiSoft, say Assassin's Creed 2. You must be connected to the Internet at all times to play this game, even though there are NO Internet components to the gameplay. It is not multiplayer, you do not interact with other players at all, and there is no benefit to being online when playing this other than the game saves being available online from any computer. That in itself isn't the idiotic part - after all, Steam requires the same thing for authentication on the products purchased through their service, at least when the product is first activated. But the UbiSoft scheme goes further. Not only is an Internet connection required to start the game, if your connection drops at any time during gameplay, whether through your own actions or the vagaries of the Internet, you are kicked out of the game and all progress since your last save are lost.
Does anyone anywhere have an Internet connection they expect to be working 24/7 without one drop ever? If so, I'd like to know who your provider is because it isn't Comcast or any other provider I've ever used. At some point, those servers controlling that DRM connection will go down, whether through maintenance, hacking, hardware failure or they become too expensive for UbiSoft to run. In the second link, the UbiSoft rep will not guarantee those servers will always be available - after all, they can't guarantee that. As a consumer, someone who pays money for this product, why would I bother? There are a ton of other games to play. No matter what sort of Robot Jesus a game using this DRM might turn out to be, it's still not worth the hassle of having progress in the game lost because my Internet connection crapped out. I have better things to spend my money on, things that don't piss in my face and tell me it's rain.
Since the rep explains that the DRM check can be patched out in future if need be, that means it's absolutely breakable, and probably much quicker than they anticipate. When that happens, the only one who loses is the customer, who paid money to be saddled with a pain in the ass while other people gleefully pirate the cracked game. I'm quite sure that in typical myopic fashion, UbiSoft will take the lowered sales on Assassin's Creed 2 that this sort of shit will cause as proof that pirating is killing their business, and come up with something worse. Maybe their next DRM will require a blood sample, retinal scan and voice print ID before allowing the customer to play.
Measures of this extremity are doomed to failure. It will be cracked. It will cause some customers to get the crack simply so they don't lose progress in the game to an Internet outage. You don't beat pirates by being more extreme, you beat piracy by respecting your customers. Stardock has offered their games DRM-free for years and it hasn't hurt their sales. Far from it, they seem to be selling well.
It's a simple equation. People who take the necessary effort to pirate your game were very unlikely customers in the first place. Pirating a game, even in today's BitTorrent-fueled anything at your fingertips Internet world, takes more effort than it's worth for 90% of potential customers. There's probably another 2 or 3% that won't buy the game under any circumstances. The rest might buy your game, unless you continue to treat them like criminals, at which point they raise their middle fingers and continue downloading your shit for free and laughing at your pathetic, futile attempts to keep them from doing it. For every 1 of these fuckers you sue into oblivion, 99 get away with it in obscurity.
The PC game market is shrinking, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the ease of use a console system offers. Times are too tough to be pissing off any percentage of your customers in some misguided attempt to stop the 2-3% of idiots who will pirate your games no matter what.
Labels: Video Games
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You're Doing It Wrong
Posted on
Friday, February 20, 2009
by Gary A. Ballard
Two bits of interesting news came my way in the last day, both of which reinforced a thought I've had for a while now. The video game industry has been doing it wrong, it being unit pricing. I am known as one cheap bastard, this I will confess. My initial reaction to the announcement of the XBox 360's release was that the console was too expensive, and I was practically apoplectic at the PS3's insane release price point. The fact that games for both those systems are $10 more than their predecessors and their competitors on the Wii makes me even more stabby. PC Games have thankfully not followed suit, hovering between $40 and $50 for a new release - a price I rarely pay. But in such trying economic times, when many people are worried about losing their jobs and their homes and much of the video game industry is quivering in fear of impending layoffs and forced relocation and consolidations, those numbers are a pretty big spend. The times are dire and entertainment is one of the first things cut. So why are games so goddamn expensive?
The industry would have you believe that the high price points are a vital necessity due to low sales, and for PC games, they may be right. However, the entire video game industry has continued to grow and despite the shitting itself layoff reactions many of the publishers have been having lately, the numbers seem to say the industry as a whole is doing ok even with flat sales. In times like these, businesses are more concerned with not losing money as opposed to growing profits - keeping the lights on as it were. Generating revenue at a break even point is success - anything more is gravy, anything less is dire. This is the time to examine long-held beliefs about the way to do business and see if there's a better way. I believe that the better way forward is in lowering unit prices on video games.
I realize that is heresy to some. After all, the industry model is that most of the money to be made on a product (excluding recurring revenue products like subscription-based MMOG's) is made in the first two weeks to a month. If a product isn't a hit in that time, it's a failure and any sales after that are just residuals. Entire studios have folded because their product didn't immediately fly off the shelf. The early adopter customer is forced to pay a premium, while the lollygaggers get the game on discount six months or more from release. If there are more of the former than the latter, success. Thus, we have price points in the $50-$60 range.
Gabe Newell of Valve has put paid to the notion, however. During a DICE keynote, he threw out some interesting numbers relating to discount sales they've run on Steam lately. Last weekend's 50% off sale of the hit product Left 4 Dead produced an astounding 3000% increase in sales - and those numbers outstripped the release date sales of the product. The huge holiday sale on Steam which saw some products discounted as much as 75% saw even more jaw-dropping increases. To quote:
Notice those numbers are not units shipped - those are REAL DOLLAR SALES INCREASES. That's money in the bank. We can certainly assume that some of that increase is attributable to the fact that these are SALES - everyone loves a sale. But even if half of those increases are due to the lowered price point, that's a monumental difference.
Let's take the 50% price point reduction. If the game sells for half price ($25 instead of $50), the company makes half as much money per unit sold. If that 320% increase in sales is halved (assuming half the purchases were because of ZOMGSALEFEVER!), that's a 160% increase in real dollar sales over the $50 price point. So you make 1.6 times more revenue than you made at the higher price point. Revenue keeps the lights on, keeps the employees paid and funds future development. Even if you only made the same amount of money at the lower price point but you shipped more units, the upshot is that you had more people buying videogames. And that means you have more potential FUTURE customers - not only of new products but of expansions to the product they just bought?
The second bit of news is not a surprising one. Gamestop, that by now monolithic shitheap of a company that has nevertheless become just about the only exclusively video-game brick and mortar merchant out there, is still making money. In fact, their 2008 sales showed an increase of 24% over their 2007 sales, and this was with the economy dropping a deuce for the last six months of the year. This was without any new console releases and one of the worst Christmas seasons in memory. They predict that 2009 will be even better even with the economy in tatters. How do they do it?
Used games. That's right, as fucked up as that system is, as disgusting as it is to sell a returned game for $5 off the new game price only a week after the release even though they "paid" half the retail price in trade, the system makes Gamestop money. Lots and lots of money. It's what has not only kept them afloat, it's made them blockbuster profits. The simple reason is that people like me can't or won't pay those insane price points for a game. The last game I bought with my own money at full price was Warhammer Online for the PC. I'd rather wait a few months until it's gone down to about half the release price (and for PC games, when the game has been patch-fixed) and either buy it used or at a discount. I'd wager there will be more like me as the economy worsens.
Certainly there are other mitigating factors than price. For Valve, the success of the Steam platform and its concurrent efficiencies (no physical product, cheaper distribution costs, ability to stockpile a huge backcatalog) can certainly contribute to the ability to sell products for less. Digital distribution is something console video games are only now getting into with Live Marketplace, PSN and WiiWare titles. And no matter how cheap a game is, it still must be a good game to succeed. But for the future of the industry, I think now is the time to take a hard look at the price point assumptions and distribution methods that have led the industry to the point it's at today. While it has made the industry money, that doesn't mean it isn't currently broken.
The industry would have you believe that the high price points are a vital necessity due to low sales, and for PC games, they may be right. However, the entire video game industry has continued to grow and despite the shitting itself layoff reactions many of the publishers have been having lately, the numbers seem to say the industry as a whole is doing ok even with flat sales. In times like these, businesses are more concerned with not losing money as opposed to growing profits - keeping the lights on as it were. Generating revenue at a break even point is success - anything more is gravy, anything less is dire. This is the time to examine long-held beliefs about the way to do business and see if there's a better way. I believe that the better way forward is in lowering unit prices on video games.
I realize that is heresy to some. After all, the industry model is that most of the money to be made on a product (excluding recurring revenue products like subscription-based MMOG's) is made in the first two weeks to a month. If a product isn't a hit in that time, it's a failure and any sales after that are just residuals. Entire studios have folded because their product didn't immediately fly off the shelf. The early adopter customer is forced to pay a premium, while the lollygaggers get the game on discount six months or more from release. If there are more of the former than the latter, success. Thus, we have price points in the $50-$60 range.
Gabe Newell of Valve has put paid to the notion, however. During a DICE keynote, he threw out some interesting numbers relating to discount sales they've run on Steam lately. Last weekend's 50% off sale of the hit product Left 4 Dead produced an astounding 3000% increase in sales - and those numbers outstripped the release date sales of the product. The huge holiday sale on Steam which saw some products discounted as much as 75% saw even more jaw-dropping increases. To quote:
10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
25% sale = 245% increase in sales
50% sale = 320% increase in sales
75% sale = 1470% increase in sales
Notice those numbers are not units shipped - those are REAL DOLLAR SALES INCREASES. That's money in the bank. We can certainly assume that some of that increase is attributable to the fact that these are SALES - everyone loves a sale. But even if half of those increases are due to the lowered price point, that's a monumental difference.
Let's take the 50% price point reduction. If the game sells for half price ($25 instead of $50), the company makes half as much money per unit sold. If that 320% increase in sales is halved (assuming half the purchases were because of ZOMGSALEFEVER!), that's a 160% increase in real dollar sales over the $50 price point. So you make 1.6 times more revenue than you made at the higher price point. Revenue keeps the lights on, keeps the employees paid and funds future development. Even if you only made the same amount of money at the lower price point but you shipped more units, the upshot is that you had more people buying videogames. And that means you have more potential FUTURE customers - not only of new products but of expansions to the product they just bought?
The second bit of news is not a surprising one. Gamestop, that by now monolithic shitheap of a company that has nevertheless become just about the only exclusively video-game brick and mortar merchant out there, is still making money. In fact, their 2008 sales showed an increase of 24% over their 2007 sales, and this was with the economy dropping a deuce for the last six months of the year. This was without any new console releases and one of the worst Christmas seasons in memory. They predict that 2009 will be even better even with the economy in tatters. How do they do it?
Used games. That's right, as fucked up as that system is, as disgusting as it is to sell a returned game for $5 off the new game price only a week after the release even though they "paid" half the retail price in trade, the system makes Gamestop money. Lots and lots of money. It's what has not only kept them afloat, it's made them blockbuster profits. The simple reason is that people like me can't or won't pay those insane price points for a game. The last game I bought with my own money at full price was Warhammer Online for the PC. I'd rather wait a few months until it's gone down to about half the release price (and for PC games, when the game has been patch-fixed) and either buy it used or at a discount. I'd wager there will be more like me as the economy worsens.
Certainly there are other mitigating factors than price. For Valve, the success of the Steam platform and its concurrent efficiencies (no physical product, cheaper distribution costs, ability to stockpile a huge backcatalog) can certainly contribute to the ability to sell products for less. Digital distribution is something console video games are only now getting into with Live Marketplace, PSN and WiiWare titles. And no matter how cheap a game is, it still must be a good game to succeed. But for the future of the industry, I think now is the time to take a hard look at the price point assumptions and distribution methods that have led the industry to the point it's at today. While it has made the industry money, that doesn't mean it isn't currently broken.
Labels: Video Games
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:05 AM
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Raging Douchebag Week: Day 2
Posted on
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Today's Raging Douchebag award winner comes from the world of video games, specifically the running sore on my video game taint called Massively Multiplayer Online Games. I've written about MMOG's a good bit in the past, though the last few years has found me unable to manage much beyond incomprehensible rage at the whole medium. If ever there was a medium that had pissed away more potential and ruined more talented minds since the dawn of time, I cannot think of one. MMOG's have the capacity for fantastic, shared experiences and yet time after time we are given the same refried plate of game turd hyped with ever more disingenuous buzzwords to hide the basic principle that these games are the same grindy skinner boxes force fit into another tortured intellectual property. Today's Raging Douchebag is the purveyor of two such MMOG's, both of which frustrate with equal measures of the same rage-inducing affliction. The affliction for 2008 is Warhammer Online and the Raging Douchebag in question is Mark Jacobs, GM/VP/CEO of Mythic Entertainment, Inc.
I have in the past been guilty of giving Mark Jacobs a modicum of respect. After all, Mythic's first major release (after years of minor indie releases), Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), was a blueprint for success in the MMOG industry. It took middleware tools like the Gamebryo graphics engine, melded with Mythic's in-house networking tools and created a real alternative MMOG to the reigning game of the day, Everquest (EQ). It was even fun at times. Its flaws were many, but in a time when it seemed nothing could challenge Everquest's grindtastic grip on the MMOG market, seeing an indie house challenge the likes of Sony Online Entertainment and last year's video game Raging Douchebag Brad McQuaid was refreshing. Adding a successful PVP aspect to the game pushed the genre forward. Yes, it eventually degenerated into a different sort of treadmill gameplay as EQ, and its PVE gameplay was never as good, it was still an alternative to endless planes raids with mouthy, arrogant cockmunchers. At least in DAoC, one could kill the mouthy fuckers if the opportunity presented itself.
The release of Warhammer Online should have been a triumph. After all, Mythic and Jacobs specifically had learned many lessons of building an RVR game from DAoC, how could they possibly repeat those mistakes? Quite easily. Though the Warhammer IP probably wasn't well-suited to a two-faction RVR game, they did somehow manage to make an entertaining game out of it... initially. As I've said before, once the player reaches level 20, the game goes to hell in a handbasket, as the player is sucked into the worst, most mundane grind in existence. Whether one chooses to do the same PVP scenario 100 times a night or the pedestrian PVE with its dearth of rewarding quests, or attempts to level based on the horribly scant RVR action going on, a-grinding you will go.
During the first few months of release, the game's problems were blindingly apparent. Open RVR needed much greater rewards to balance out the ease of use and guaranteed experience that scenarios provided. PVE was and is just plain boring, but high-level PVE was always a weak point of Mythic's games. Regardless of how good it was, competing with World of Warcraft on the PVE front is fruitless. The reigning champion just does it better and has four years of content over a just-released game. Quests just dried up post-20, and in like all other aspects of the game, the response from Mythic was myopic.
RvR doesn't reward enough? We'll give a measly 10-20% experience boost. Not enough quests? Here's some quests you can REPEAT, as if the repetition of content wasn't the problem. Nerfing scenario rewards? Can't do that, people are actually playing the scenarios as opposed to RVR. And the final straw, the final indignity? The end game, which is supposed to be a PVP, PLAYER-VS.-PLAYER experience, was predicated on a steep ward gear grind - a gear grind which required multiple PVE raids against an ever-escalating series of overpowered NPC's. The PVP endgame was cockblocked by PVE.
All of this can blamed on multiple designers, coders and producers at Mythic, so why name Mark Jacobs? I name Mark Jacobs because he's the guy in charge, and more importantly, he's the guy who insisted on repeating the idea that the game's problems, the problems the customers are continually complaining about, are not that significant. Yes, Mark, they are. The customer isn't always right, I will give you that. But when discussing MMOG's, one has to admit that they are SERVICES, and when a customer is not enjoying the given service, he stops paying for the service. The talk of the solutions to the game's problems reminded me all too much of last year's Raging Douchebag Brad McQuaid and his ridiculous Vision™. And then there was this.
The preceding link is a video of Paul Barnett, Warhammer's Creative Director, dressing down one of the head coders over a bug that slipped into the game's code. Now, this video was in jest, that much is obvious. When people responded negatively to the video, he posted another that allowed the coder to pie him in the face. Regardless of whether the dressing down was in jest or a thinly-veiled peen-waving by Mr. Burnett is irrelevant. The main point is that this type of behaviour is barely acceptable when running an Internet startup out of your fucking garage. On a multimillion dollar project that is floundering while its high-level creators are merrily fiddling their way to the bottom of the goddamn ocean, it is unprofessional to the extreme. I got the joke, it's just not very funny when I am paying money to be entertained - and am consequently, NOT BEING ENTERTAINED. As GM/CEO/whatever at Mythic, Mark Jacobs should have dickslapped every moron involved in the production of the first video and apologized to the paying customers, much less allowed a second video to be filmed. My sense of humor ends when my money gets pissed away. The fact that the ward gear kerfuffle announcement came one day after I had renewed my subscription only added to the stinging sense of being rear-ended.
For all the missteps, mishaps and repeated mistakes of Warhammer Online, I name Mark Jacobs the Raging Douchebag of Video Games for 2008. Fix the fucking game, Mark, kill the grind and we'll talk for 2009. The good news is I'm sure someone in the video game industry is waiting in the wings to be an even bigger douche than you've been this year.
I have in the past been guilty of giving Mark Jacobs a modicum of respect. After all, Mythic's first major release (after years of minor indie releases), Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), was a blueprint for success in the MMOG industry. It took middleware tools like the Gamebryo graphics engine, melded with Mythic's in-house networking tools and created a real alternative MMOG to the reigning game of the day, Everquest (EQ). It was even fun at times. Its flaws were many, but in a time when it seemed nothing could challenge Everquest's grindtastic grip on the MMOG market, seeing an indie house challenge the likes of Sony Online Entertainment and last year's video game Raging Douchebag Brad McQuaid was refreshing. Adding a successful PVP aspect to the game pushed the genre forward. Yes, it eventually degenerated into a different sort of treadmill gameplay as EQ, and its PVE gameplay was never as good, it was still an alternative to endless planes raids with mouthy, arrogant cockmunchers. At least in DAoC, one could kill the mouthy fuckers if the opportunity presented itself.The release of Warhammer Online should have been a triumph. After all, Mythic and Jacobs specifically had learned many lessons of building an RVR game from DAoC, how could they possibly repeat those mistakes? Quite easily. Though the Warhammer IP probably wasn't well-suited to a two-faction RVR game, they did somehow manage to make an entertaining game out of it... initially. As I've said before, once the player reaches level 20, the game goes to hell in a handbasket, as the player is sucked into the worst, most mundane grind in existence. Whether one chooses to do the same PVP scenario 100 times a night or the pedestrian PVE with its dearth of rewarding quests, or attempts to level based on the horribly scant RVR action going on, a-grinding you will go.
During the first few months of release, the game's problems were blindingly apparent. Open RVR needed much greater rewards to balance out the ease of use and guaranteed experience that scenarios provided. PVE was and is just plain boring, but high-level PVE was always a weak point of Mythic's games. Regardless of how good it was, competing with World of Warcraft on the PVE front is fruitless. The reigning champion just does it better and has four years of content over a just-released game. Quests just dried up post-20, and in like all other aspects of the game, the response from Mythic was myopic.
RvR doesn't reward enough? We'll give a measly 10-20% experience boost. Not enough quests? Here's some quests you can REPEAT, as if the repetition of content wasn't the problem. Nerfing scenario rewards? Can't do that, people are actually playing the scenarios as opposed to RVR. And the final straw, the final indignity? The end game, which is supposed to be a PVP, PLAYER-VS.-PLAYER experience, was predicated on a steep ward gear grind - a gear grind which required multiple PVE raids against an ever-escalating series of overpowered NPC's. The PVP endgame was cockblocked by PVE.
All of this can blamed on multiple designers, coders and producers at Mythic, so why name Mark Jacobs? I name Mark Jacobs because he's the guy in charge, and more importantly, he's the guy who insisted on repeating the idea that the game's problems, the problems the customers are continually complaining about, are not that significant. Yes, Mark, they are. The customer isn't always right, I will give you that. But when discussing MMOG's, one has to admit that they are SERVICES, and when a customer is not enjoying the given service, he stops paying for the service. The talk of the solutions to the game's problems reminded me all too much of last year's Raging Douchebag Brad McQuaid and his ridiculous Vision™. And then there was this.
The preceding link is a video of Paul Barnett, Warhammer's Creative Director, dressing down one of the head coders over a bug that slipped into the game's code. Now, this video was in jest, that much is obvious. When people responded negatively to the video, he posted another that allowed the coder to pie him in the face. Regardless of whether the dressing down was in jest or a thinly-veiled peen-waving by Mr. Burnett is irrelevant. The main point is that this type of behaviour is barely acceptable when running an Internet startup out of your fucking garage. On a multimillion dollar project that is floundering while its high-level creators are merrily fiddling their way to the bottom of the goddamn ocean, it is unprofessional to the extreme. I got the joke, it's just not very funny when I am paying money to be entertained - and am consequently, NOT BEING ENTERTAINED. As GM/CEO/whatever at Mythic, Mark Jacobs should have dickslapped every moron involved in the production of the first video and apologized to the paying customers, much less allowed a second video to be filmed. My sense of humor ends when my money gets pissed away. The fact that the ward gear kerfuffle announcement came one day after I had renewed my subscription only added to the stinging sense of being rear-ended.
For all the missteps, mishaps and repeated mistakes of Warhammer Online, I name Mark Jacobs the Raging Douchebag of Video Games for 2008. Fix the fucking game, Mark, kill the grind and we'll talk for 2009. The good news is I'm sure someone in the video game industry is waiting in the wings to be an even bigger douche than you've been this year.
Labels: Raging Douchebag Week, Video Games, Warhammer, Warhammer Online
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Shooting Synergy in the Foot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii) Review
Posted on
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
There are some pairings so perfect, so obvious, so absolutely made for each other that thinking of one will automatically cause the other to come to mind without urging. Peanut butter and jelly, the Internet and porn, Kirk and Spock, these things just fit together so well one can hardly be blamed for preferring the combination over its individual parts. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind when I saw the Wii in action was Star Wars. How perfect would the nerdgasm be were Lucasarts to create a lightsaber-focused Jedi game with the Wiimote's motion-controls? Without question, Star Wars and videogame nerds everywhere got chubby in the corduroys upon seeing the videos of the release title Red Steel, with all its sword-fighting glory. Why is it then that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii is such a stunning disappointment?
All the stars were aligned. A Star Wars game about Darth Vader's hidden Sith apprentice with customisable force powers, motion-controlled light saber fighting and two-player duels would be the ultimate geek wet dream. But from the very get-go, I was left with a puzzled disappointment. Leaving aside the ultimately irrelevant narrative retcon of the Star Wars mythos, the presentation of the game is mediocre at best. The graphics are not even on par with the better PS2 games, and games like Metroid Prime: Corruption has already ably demonstrated that the system has the horsepower to push some impressive graphics. Yet this title is rife with flat texture works and inconsistent use of lighting and shading. Star destroyers in particular look awful, flat colored polygons with tiny bits of detail and no lighting effects. Yet your character's personal ship has plenty of detail and shading applied. The technical aspects of the system's graphics hardware count for nothing if the artists half-ass their way through the game.
The voice acting suffers from a similar inconsistency. While Vader and the Stormtroopers are certainly well-represented, the main character cannot seem to decide whether to speak with an affected British accent or an accentless American reading. This could all be forgiven if the game play lived up to the potential. Unfortunately, that is the exact area where the game falls apart the worst.
Now I realize that the original Wiimote with the addition of the upcoming MotionPlus attachment is probably not as precise an instrument as I at first thought. But a very flawed game like Red Steel managed to do what a Star Wars game could not, make sword-fighting fun even though the Wiimote does not map 1:1 arm movement onto the screen. Perhaps it was Red Steel's use of first-person perspective as opposed to the FU's 3rd person, a change which makes a big difference in immersion. But I tend to think the reason FU doesn't feel that immersive is because the controls are downright sloppy. Not only does the character not respond in kind to the Wiimotions, I never felt like I needed to do anything more than flail around in order to kill anything but a boss. I am reminded of the typical gameplay of No More Heroes, which was overly boring except on the boss fights. The force powers are fun, but many require motions on the nunchuk that aren't intuitive. The 3rd person camera was one great big bag of dick, constantly flipping around the character unbidden, causing me to lose my target. Though the D-pad allows me to control the camera, the D-pad isn't really well-placed for the kind of quick use I needed to switch the camera in combat situations. The Nunchuk's imprecise analog stick doesn't help in this respect either.
But one of the most irritating things about the game involved the boss fights. Rather than the exciting swingfests of a game like No More Heroes, the boss fights in FU are tedious affairs littered with jarring QTE's (Quicktime events). Rather than relying on the player's skill with the lightsaber and force powers to defeat bosses, every boss has certain stages of health loss that necessitate passing a QTE. Failure results in the boss's health being reset to the last stage. While some games use these effectively (Resident Evil 4 comes to mind), the use of QTE's in FU just breaks what little immersion the game has. Two hours into the game and I decided that I had had enough. The story wasn't interesting enough to endure mediocre gameplay and sloppy controls.
Seeing the mess that Lucasarts came up with for FU (a wholly appropriate acronym I might add) makes me appreciate the flawed brilliance of No More Heroes' boss fights even more. The fact that FU for the Wii has a duel mode that is not online-enabled is just another sore spot. Given the sloppiness of the controls, the weak graphics and voice acting, I'm forced to give this title a 5 stars out of 10. The only thing saving it from a lower score is the fun force powers like Choke and Lightning. But not even choking the shit out of a Stormtrooper can make up for the title's shortcomings.
All the stars were aligned. A Star Wars game about Darth Vader's hidden Sith apprentice with customisable force powers, motion-controlled light saber fighting and two-player duels would be the ultimate geek wet dream. But from the very get-go, I was left with a puzzled disappointment. Leaving aside the ultimately irrelevant narrative retcon of the Star Wars mythos, the presentation of the game is mediocre at best. The graphics are not even on par with the better PS2 games, and games like Metroid Prime: Corruption has already ably demonstrated that the system has the horsepower to push some impressive graphics. Yet this title is rife with flat texture works and inconsistent use of lighting and shading. Star destroyers in particular look awful, flat colored polygons with tiny bits of detail and no lighting effects. Yet your character's personal ship has plenty of detail and shading applied. The technical aspects of the system's graphics hardware count for nothing if the artists half-ass their way through the game.
The voice acting suffers from a similar inconsistency. While Vader and the Stormtroopers are certainly well-represented, the main character cannot seem to decide whether to speak with an affected British accent or an accentless American reading. This could all be forgiven if the game play lived up to the potential. Unfortunately, that is the exact area where the game falls apart the worst.
Now I realize that the original Wiimote with the addition of the upcoming MotionPlus attachment is probably not as precise an instrument as I at first thought. But a very flawed game like Red Steel managed to do what a Star Wars game could not, make sword-fighting fun even though the Wiimote does not map 1:1 arm movement onto the screen. Perhaps it was Red Steel's use of first-person perspective as opposed to the FU's 3rd person, a change which makes a big difference in immersion. But I tend to think the reason FU doesn't feel that immersive is because the controls are downright sloppy. Not only does the character not respond in kind to the Wiimotions, I never felt like I needed to do anything more than flail around in order to kill anything but a boss. I am reminded of the typical gameplay of No More Heroes, which was overly boring except on the boss fights. The force powers are fun, but many require motions on the nunchuk that aren't intuitive. The 3rd person camera was one great big bag of dick, constantly flipping around the character unbidden, causing me to lose my target. Though the D-pad allows me to control the camera, the D-pad isn't really well-placed for the kind of quick use I needed to switch the camera in combat situations. The Nunchuk's imprecise analog stick doesn't help in this respect either.
But one of the most irritating things about the game involved the boss fights. Rather than the exciting swingfests of a game like No More Heroes, the boss fights in FU are tedious affairs littered with jarring QTE's (Quicktime events). Rather than relying on the player's skill with the lightsaber and force powers to defeat bosses, every boss has certain stages of health loss that necessitate passing a QTE. Failure results in the boss's health being reset to the last stage. While some games use these effectively (Resident Evil 4 comes to mind), the use of QTE's in FU just breaks what little immersion the game has. Two hours into the game and I decided that I had had enough. The story wasn't interesting enough to endure mediocre gameplay and sloppy controls.
Seeing the mess that Lucasarts came up with for FU (a wholly appropriate acronym I might add) makes me appreciate the flawed brilliance of No More Heroes' boss fights even more. The fact that FU for the Wii has a duel mode that is not online-enabled is just another sore spot. Given the sloppiness of the controls, the weak graphics and voice acting, I'm forced to give this title a 5 stars out of 10. The only thing saving it from a lower score is the fun force powers like Choke and Lightning. But not even choking the shit out of a Stormtrooper can make up for the title's shortcomings.
Labels: Entertainment, George Lucas, Lucasarts, Nintendo, Science-Fiction, Star Wars, Video Games, Wii
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No, You Can't Have My Stuff: Warhammer Online Part 1
Posted on
Friday, November 14, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Every forum with even a marginal interest in MMOG's has experienced the "I Quit" thread. These are usually started by a self-important jackass who feels the irresistible urge to not only inform everyone on the Internet that he has quit his latest MMOG to end all MMOG's, but also to wax eloquent on all the myriad reasons why said MMOG is a failure on how it could be improved by just following his suggestion. Of course, most of these first posts, no matter how well-reasoned or how utterly incomprehensible they are, will be followed by a reply that says, "Can I have your stuff?" This is the first in an irregular series of posts by this self-important jackass who just quit Warhammer Online and wants to tell you why. No, you can't have my stuff, but you can have my opinions.
My first impressions of Warhammer Online contain the seeds of my dissatisfaction. Perhaps I should have gone with my first instinct and resisted the urge to play the game after release, but I was weak. One of the most obvious flaws in the game design was the levelling curve. I predicted that players starting six months from release would have a devil of a time leveling, because much of the content players use to level is in public quests and scenarios, both of which require other players to succeed. One cannot finish a public quest without at least a 3-man group in the early stages, and for a scenario to launch requires 2-3 full groups on both sides. What I did not foresee was that not one month after release, many of the public quests for the midlevel ranges were completely deserted, and thus the quick experience and gear received from public quests was just not available. It was not uncommon for my witch hunter to be completely alone in the tier 3 zone Talabecland, unable to complete most solo quests in the zone because he was too low level to compete against the mobs he was forced to fight. Adding insult to this injury was the realization that most of the quest rewards would not be usable for another two levels.
The gear and level disparity problems could be solved easily, but the public quest problem cannot. One simply cannot progress a public quest beyond the first stage without help. In most cases, one cannot progress past stage 2 without the "holy trinity" of groups, including a tank, healer and damage-dealer of some kind. Stage 3 invariably requires a full group which must have the holy trinity as its core. Had the population not been so spread out among so many faction areas, this might still have been a problem based on faction imbalances. For instance, until Mythic adds the Knights of the Burning Sun class back into the game, the Empire faction does not have a tank class. It must rely on a dwarven Ironbreaker or a High Elven Shadow Warrior to make the trek to the Empire area just to be able to absorb the damage that stage 2 champions can inflict. The Empire healing class, Warrior Priest, must be involved in combat to build power for healing; without a tank to absorb the blows from stage 2, he will fall too quickly to succeed. Stage 3 is an even worse proposition.
So why are the zones deserted? Without even floating the idea that people have left the game, I can offer one hypothesis. The zones are deserted because even if one had the perfect party to complete these quests, the rewards for completion are a joke. While the elite gear is certainly nice, the amount of influence required to get to elite gear is high. It requires completion of all the public quests per chapter, as well as returning to some of the quests to continue to gain influence. Each PQ creature killed gives 100 influence - unless of course, it is killed by a group, in which case the influence is split proportionally. Remember that you need a group to survive stage 2 of a public quest? Yep, that's right, in order to finish a public quest, you need a group but to get the rewards of the public quest system, grouping actually means you elongate the time it takes to reap the chapter rewards. But yes, finishing all stages of a public quest do give the participants a random roll on a random piece of loot. The more group members you have, the less chance you have of winning the best rewards, which makes soloing the quest more rewarding if you could actually finish the quest solo - which you can't. Once that flaw in the system is exposed, there really isn't anymore reason to do the public quests unless you have another quest that leads you into the area and you have a steady group you can call on to help.
What makes this even more infuriating is the rate of experience in public quests. Again, during the tier 3 levels, the experience needed per level continues to increase. At level 25, I was staring into the abyss of over 300,000 experience points needed to advance. Some of the more challenging PVE mobs in public quests gave no more than about 1000 xp. Killing those mobs in a group would slice that number proportionally. Compare this to PVP scenarios such as Tor Anroc, where a typical loss yields somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 xp for less than 10 minutes of PVP, which I can access from anywhere without needing a ready-made group. Even the less rewarding scenarios would still give me as much if not more experience than killing public quest mobs until my eyes bleed. Is it any wonder people in tier 3 choose Tor Anroc, the most rewarding scenario (and unfortunately, the least fun) over and over again? Tor Anroc gets really old after 10-15 tries, but nothing and I mean nothing compares to the experience gained.
Meanwhile, the selling point of the game, the whole thing that is supposed to separate Warhammer Online from its competitors, is the world PVP, called open RVR or oRVR. The rewards for oRVR are pitiful. While yes, you can get passable experience killing other players in oRVR, you are not likely to find them because you can get better, more reliable experience in Tor Anroc. Going into one of the 6 RVR lakes for your tier doesn't guarantee you any action, and without action, you get no experience. Solo play in the RVR lakes is a dicey proposition at best. In order to be successful, you must be really good, as well as lucky enough not to meet one of the classes for which your class has no hope of defeating in one-on-one combat. If one is lucky enough to be able to get a warband of 2 full groups, you can then participate in the taking of a battlefield objective (which yields no chance at gear drops) or a keep assault. Keep assaults are great in theory, but if no players come to the keep's defense, it is essentially a drawn out public quest - pure PVE where experience is often minimal because there are so many people splitting the pitiful experience gains. And once the keep is taken, a public quest random roll for a few pieces of random gear is given as the reward, and there are many anecdotal stories of this system being buggy at best, incredibly broken at worst.
The largest flaw in the whole oRVR process is the fact that defenders get no rewards for defense. Other than points for player kills, defenders are shit out of luck. Why defend? The keeps have nothing of value to a player. Sure, there are some skill trainer NPC's, but these same skills are available in the capital cities. Guilds who claim a keep get no benefits from the keep, only the significant money drain of maintenance costs. So why defend? Or for that matter why participate in oRVR at all, seeing as how scenarios like Tor Anroc offer so much more bang for the buck? Why burden yourself with the hassle of getting a group to finish a public quest when you'll have to do that quests over and over again to get any sure rewards from it? Just go to a warcamp, grab the quest that rewards you for participating in the Tor Anroc scenario and queue up.
MMOG developers can channel player behavior in very simple ways. Reward the things you want the players to do. Make sure the greatest rewards are given for playing the game "as intended." When the game rewards scenarios more than any other activity, then scenarios will be what most of the player base will do. Since scenarios are also more convenient than any other activity, even if the rewards were exactly even between all three phases of the game, people would still choose scenarios because convenience is a reward too. If Mythic wanted to make a game that was nothing more than a lobby for instanced, even-sided PVP fights, they should have skipped the whole "massive world" business and just focused on making a Guild Wars clone. As it is, they have an entire world of content that people either ignore because it's not rewarding enough, or that people suffer through to get to the good stuff. That is the definition of grind.
oRVR has got to have great improved rewards unless scenario rewards are horribly nerfed. Public quests either need to be made soloable, or grouping needs to give experience and influence bonuses, not splits. But the real culprit isn't so much the out of whack reward structure. The real problem is that an exponential leveling curve is horribly horribly bad. It is my self-important jackass theory that most developers believe that the longer the leveling curve, the longer a typical subscription will last. This is no longer true. Games like World of Warcraft have proven that you don't need a 6-month to cap leveling curve to succeed, even when the choice of activities after the cap is fairly weak. In a PVP environment, the endgame content is other people - a dynamic source of content that costs the developer nothing to develop. And yet we still see the idea that without a long PVE-focused leveling curve, people won't stick around. The opposite is true in PVP. The longer the distance to the cap, the fewer the number of people who will stick it out. In PVP, the Haemish Rule of 11 is a universal constant: If the dial goes to 11, 10 will never ever do.
This is not the only flaw with Warhammer Online, but it's one of the main ones driving my cancellation. Come back next week to see the self-important jackassery continue. No, you can't have my stuff, and neither can Warhammer Online.
My first impressions of Warhammer Online contain the seeds of my dissatisfaction. Perhaps I should have gone with my first instinct and resisted the urge to play the game after release, but I was weak. One of the most obvious flaws in the game design was the levelling curve. I predicted that players starting six months from release would have a devil of a time leveling, because much of the content players use to level is in public quests and scenarios, both of which require other players to succeed. One cannot finish a public quest without at least a 3-man group in the early stages, and for a scenario to launch requires 2-3 full groups on both sides. What I did not foresee was that not one month after release, many of the public quests for the midlevel ranges were completely deserted, and thus the quick experience and gear received from public quests was just not available. It was not uncommon for my witch hunter to be completely alone in the tier 3 zone Talabecland, unable to complete most solo quests in the zone because he was too low level to compete against the mobs he was forced to fight. Adding insult to this injury was the realization that most of the quest rewards would not be usable for another two levels.
The gear and level disparity problems could be solved easily, but the public quest problem cannot. One simply cannot progress a public quest beyond the first stage without help. In most cases, one cannot progress past stage 2 without the "holy trinity" of groups, including a tank, healer and damage-dealer of some kind. Stage 3 invariably requires a full group which must have the holy trinity as its core. Had the population not been so spread out among so many faction areas, this might still have been a problem based on faction imbalances. For instance, until Mythic adds the Knights of the Burning Sun class back into the game, the Empire faction does not have a tank class. It must rely on a dwarven Ironbreaker or a High Elven Shadow Warrior to make the trek to the Empire area just to be able to absorb the damage that stage 2 champions can inflict. The Empire healing class, Warrior Priest, must be involved in combat to build power for healing; without a tank to absorb the blows from stage 2, he will fall too quickly to succeed. Stage 3 is an even worse proposition.
So why are the zones deserted? Without even floating the idea that people have left the game, I can offer one hypothesis. The zones are deserted because even if one had the perfect party to complete these quests, the rewards for completion are a joke. While the elite gear is certainly nice, the amount of influence required to get to elite gear is high. It requires completion of all the public quests per chapter, as well as returning to some of the quests to continue to gain influence. Each PQ creature killed gives 100 influence - unless of course, it is killed by a group, in which case the influence is split proportionally. Remember that you need a group to survive stage 2 of a public quest? Yep, that's right, in order to finish a public quest, you need a group but to get the rewards of the public quest system, grouping actually means you elongate the time it takes to reap the chapter rewards. But yes, finishing all stages of a public quest do give the participants a random roll on a random piece of loot. The more group members you have, the less chance you have of winning the best rewards, which makes soloing the quest more rewarding if you could actually finish the quest solo - which you can't. Once that flaw in the system is exposed, there really isn't anymore reason to do the public quests unless you have another quest that leads you into the area and you have a steady group you can call on to help.
What makes this even more infuriating is the rate of experience in public quests. Again, during the tier 3 levels, the experience needed per level continues to increase. At level 25, I was staring into the abyss of over 300,000 experience points needed to advance. Some of the more challenging PVE mobs in public quests gave no more than about 1000 xp. Killing those mobs in a group would slice that number proportionally. Compare this to PVP scenarios such as Tor Anroc, where a typical loss yields somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 xp for less than 10 minutes of PVP, which I can access from anywhere without needing a ready-made group. Even the less rewarding scenarios would still give me as much if not more experience than killing public quest mobs until my eyes bleed. Is it any wonder people in tier 3 choose Tor Anroc, the most rewarding scenario (and unfortunately, the least fun) over and over again? Tor Anroc gets really old after 10-15 tries, but nothing and I mean nothing compares to the experience gained.
Meanwhile, the selling point of the game, the whole thing that is supposed to separate Warhammer Online from its competitors, is the world PVP, called open RVR or oRVR. The rewards for oRVR are pitiful. While yes, you can get passable experience killing other players in oRVR, you are not likely to find them because you can get better, more reliable experience in Tor Anroc. Going into one of the 6 RVR lakes for your tier doesn't guarantee you any action, and without action, you get no experience. Solo play in the RVR lakes is a dicey proposition at best. In order to be successful, you must be really good, as well as lucky enough not to meet one of the classes for which your class has no hope of defeating in one-on-one combat. If one is lucky enough to be able to get a warband of 2 full groups, you can then participate in the taking of a battlefield objective (which yields no chance at gear drops) or a keep assault. Keep assaults are great in theory, but if no players come to the keep's defense, it is essentially a drawn out public quest - pure PVE where experience is often minimal because there are so many people splitting the pitiful experience gains. And once the keep is taken, a public quest random roll for a few pieces of random gear is given as the reward, and there are many anecdotal stories of this system being buggy at best, incredibly broken at worst.
The largest flaw in the whole oRVR process is the fact that defenders get no rewards for defense. Other than points for player kills, defenders are shit out of luck. Why defend? The keeps have nothing of value to a player. Sure, there are some skill trainer NPC's, but these same skills are available in the capital cities. Guilds who claim a keep get no benefits from the keep, only the significant money drain of maintenance costs. So why defend? Or for that matter why participate in oRVR at all, seeing as how scenarios like Tor Anroc offer so much more bang for the buck? Why burden yourself with the hassle of getting a group to finish a public quest when you'll have to do that quests over and over again to get any sure rewards from it? Just go to a warcamp, grab the quest that rewards you for participating in the Tor Anroc scenario and queue up.
MMOG developers can channel player behavior in very simple ways. Reward the things you want the players to do. Make sure the greatest rewards are given for playing the game "as intended." When the game rewards scenarios more than any other activity, then scenarios will be what most of the player base will do. Since scenarios are also more convenient than any other activity, even if the rewards were exactly even between all three phases of the game, people would still choose scenarios because convenience is a reward too. If Mythic wanted to make a game that was nothing more than a lobby for instanced, even-sided PVP fights, they should have skipped the whole "massive world" business and just focused on making a Guild Wars clone. As it is, they have an entire world of content that people either ignore because it's not rewarding enough, or that people suffer through to get to the good stuff. That is the definition of grind.
oRVR has got to have great improved rewards unless scenario rewards are horribly nerfed. Public quests either need to be made soloable, or grouping needs to give experience and influence bonuses, not splits. But the real culprit isn't so much the out of whack reward structure. The real problem is that an exponential leveling curve is horribly horribly bad. It is my self-important jackass theory that most developers believe that the longer the leveling curve, the longer a typical subscription will last. This is no longer true. Games like World of Warcraft have proven that you don't need a 6-month to cap leveling curve to succeed, even when the choice of activities after the cap is fairly weak. In a PVP environment, the endgame content is other people - a dynamic source of content that costs the developer nothing to develop. And yet we still see the idea that without a long PVE-focused leveling curve, people won't stick around. The opposite is true in PVP. The longer the distance to the cap, the fewer the number of people who will stick it out. In PVP, the Haemish Rule of 11 is a universal constant: If the dial goes to 11, 10 will never ever do.
This is not the only flaw with Warhammer Online, but it's one of the main ones driving my cancellation. Come back next week to see the self-important jackassery continue. No, you can't have my stuff, and neither can Warhammer Online.
Labels: Game Design, Game Reviews, MMOG, Video Games, Warhammer, Warhammer Online
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:34 AM
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Unfathomable Devolution: Madden NFL '09 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
It's that time of the year again, that time when the air starts getting colder and football fans everywhere are inevitably disappointed by another year's rehashing of the familiar Madden NFL video game formula. And to celebrate the annual disappointment, it's time for me to review this year's version of that storied, beaten-to-a-pulp franchise for the Wii. Yes, most versions of the game could be reviewed with a simple, one-line hyperlink to archived reviews of a previous year's entry. However, it is an annual tradition, and I feel compelled to offer at least something new on each version that I play, so without further ado, I present my review of Madden NFL '09 for the Nintendo Wii.Â
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.Â
Wow, that was easy.Â
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).Â
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.Â
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.Â
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.Â
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.Â
Wow, that was easy.Â
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).Â
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.Â
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.Â
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.Â
Labels: Madden, NFL, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:30 AM
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I Am So Weak
Posted on
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Yes, it was just last week that I reviewed Warhammer Online, giving it a mediocre rating. I gave the game a bit of stick for not really innovating on the MMOG formula, labelling it an inferior WoW-clone. I also said that I would not be buying the game. However, I am a weak, weak man, and throughout the rest of the week, I felt the urge to play the game again. Something about MMOG level grinds and character creations is addicting, and when my wife offered to buy the game for me, I finally relented. I lasted about 4 days. As of last night, I began playing Cromwell, the Empire Witch Hunter on the Ulthuan server. I feel so dirty... so unclean. Yes, that pretty much makes me a hypocritical, raging douchebag.Â
Labels: MMOG, Raging Douchebag Week, Video Games
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:24 AM
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Evolution in Action: Warhammer Online Open Beta (MMOG PC) Review
Posted on
Monday, September 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I have not been eagerly anticipating the impending release of the PC MMORPG Warhammer Online. As a matter of fact, I've been critical of Mythic Entertainment for the conduct of their beta. Not only did they not bother to invite me to the beta, giving me the free preview of the game I demand before I will spend money on an MMOG these days, but they held the non-disclosure agreement over the heads of the testers for entirely too long. Keeping an NDA in effect until just a few weeks before release always makes me seriously doubt the quality of the final product, reminding me of the bad old days prior to the release of Anarchy Online, World War II Online and other such notable flops. But once I finally gained access to the Fileplanet Open Beta this past weekend, my fears were allayed. Warhammer Online is not a colossal failure, a bug-ridden cluster fuck or an empty clone of other games. Unfortunately, while it certainly iterates successfully on the formula of previous successes in the genre, the new features of the game don't raise it beyond the level of other competitors.Â
Before I begin my obvious comparison, let me be clear. I am well-versed in the Warhammer universe, having played the tabletop miniature version Warhammer Fantasy Battles for many years. I am quite well aware that the Warcraft universe was an almost direct homage to the Warhammer universe, and that all things Warcraft owe more to the Warhammer universe than Warhammer Online owes to World of Warcraft. And yes, I'm also aware that the Warhammer universe is a darker re-imagining of the Tolkien universe through the drug-addled lens of British metalheads. So do believe that I have ample background to claim that Warhammer Online is at its heart a fun mashup of World of Warcraft and Dark Age of Camelot, taking parts of both games and successfully creating a PVP-focused, casual-friendly MMORPG.Â
If you've played any of the ever-growing number of fantasy DIKU-based MMORPG's that have infested the medium since the success of Everquest, you know the mechanics Warhammer Online. Create a character of various classes, move him with the WASD key configuration, attack monsters or other players and hit hotkeys 0-9 to launch special abilities until you gain enough experience to raise your level and purchase new gear and special abilities. Along the way, your character will perform quests for various NPC's that wait around in warcamps. Some of those quests will bring the player in conflict with other players from the opposing faction. The gameplay is really nothing new. In execution, it lies somewhere between World of Warcraft's frantic style and Dark Age of Camelot's slower version of the same thing. In short, if you aren't sick to death of this style of game, you'll enjoy WAR as well as you would other games.Â
WAR improves on its predecessors in a few areas, namely the public quests, tome of knowledge, open parties and integration of PVP objectives into each character's narrative. The public quests are entertaining and easy to find. As a matter of fact, the player will usually trip over a public quest without even knowing it exists. As long as that player is in the area, he can contribute to the quest by killing certain mobs or completing objectives, all of which are tracked on the player's HUD so long as he remains in the PQ area. One need not be in an existing party to contribute, and all who aid in the quest have a chance at getting one of six rewards which are comparable to the best gear for that player's level. Combining the best parts of raiding without the catassery normally required, public quests are a fun way to gear up and gain experience.Â
The tome of knowledge takes the place of the quest journal from other MMOG's, and improves upon it greatly. Not only is every monster cataloged in the bestiary, but maps, quests and just about any other useful information in the character's career is tracked and cataloged. The tome is rife with achievements that grant custom titles to the player, and is a OCD collector's wet dream. The tome is a feature that every MMORPG developer needs to copy and improve on, because it is a slick way to build a character's individual place in the world.Â
Open parties is another improvement on the normal MMOG grouping mechanic. A group can declare itself open, meaning that anyone can join the party just by being in the area. In a game where many objectives will require groups, removing the need for the traditional "looking for group" tools is genius. A party can turn off the feature if it desires to avoid the pitfalls of pick-up groups, but for the solo player, the ability to find a group that easily is a godsend. In addition, if the normal group is filled but finds it needs more slots for friends or to increase its strength, it can declare itself a "warband," opening up more group slots. Guild leaders should trumpet this feature from hill to dale, because it should significantly improve the problem guilds have had in the past with certain members feeling they are being ignored for groups.Â
Finally, the integration of PVP into the natural narrative of the character's career is almost seamless. While PVP isn't required ever, it feels so natural both for the setting and the mechanics that I can't imagine why anyone would avoid it. The PVP is very similar mechanically to both World of Warcraft and Dark Age of Camelot. Both open world obejctives and instanced battleground scenarios are available, and all PVP progress is tracked zone wide, leading to bonuses for the side winning the most battles in the zone. Level disparities in PVP are diminished in comparison to other games, as all players are boosted to three levels below that area's maximum level. While this does help lower-leveled players compete in PVP, there are drawbacks. While levels are added, the player does not get that level's commiserate special abilities, making them underpowered against the highest level characters in the area. Lower level characters aren't quite speedbumps in the RVR areas, but they aren't exactly what I would call competitive. It does encourage players to achieve at least the minimum level before engaging in significant PVP.Â
All is not rosy with WAR, despite the positives I have mentioned. There are certainly bugs, as one would expect of an MMOG these days. Network lag was also a bit of a problem at various times during the weekend, which is again to be expected during an "open beta." As the game matures, new players will find their progress stunted because the majority of the population will outlevel the starting areas. I shudder to think of the grinding difficulties a player starting the game six months from now will find when trying to finish public quests all by their lonesome. Population imbalances among different factions may also become a significant problems, and I'm not sure anyone has found a solution this problem that plagues all PVP-enabled games.Â
The game is fun, of that there is no doubt. Still, during the entire time I played, I couldn't help wanting more out of the game. At its most basic level, the core gameplay isn't that different from World of Warcraft or other games of its type. And as someone who is entirely too experienced with that sort of gameplay, I am inevitably bored by it. While the world is well-realized, and is worth exploring, I don't think it has enough new features to be worth my money. For those who aren't hopelessly burnt out on DIKU, I can recommend it as an entertaining alternative to World of Warcraft. I can't say that it is better or worse, just different. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give the game a 7.5. It's not spectacular or innovative, but it's entertaining for those who like that sort of thing.Â
Labels: Entertainment, Game Design, Game Reviews, MMOG, Tolkien, Video Games
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:51 AM
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Circling the Bases: MLB 2k8 Baseball (Wii) Review
Posted on
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Since the demise of the High Heat Baseball franchise and my adoption of the console as my platform of choice for yearly baseball video games fix, the MLB 2k series of games has been outstanding. Though not always the prettiest or most bug-free, the series has generally been the best action-oriented baseball simulation on the market. But after the abysmal failure that was The Bigs for the Nintendo Wii by the same development studio, I had my doubts about the Wii version of MLB 2k8. If the game had adapted the execrable interface and sloppy controls of the arcadey The Bigs, it would have been a dramatic failure. I'm delighted to report that is not the case, as the 2k8 version of the series holds its own with any of its predecessors.
Those interested in an action-oriented sim with licensed player names and stats will not be disappointed with this game. Those looking for a solid, fun baseball experience will also not be disappointed. The stats are all there, the graphics are decent though not incredible, which is par for the course with this series. It contains season and franchise modes as well as home run derby minigames. It unfortunately lacks online play for those who want that sort of thing. But like any Wii game, the first question to answer is about the motion controls.
2k8's motion controls are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pitching interface is slick and intuitive, and unlike The Bigs, doesn't make the player feel the need to strain his shoulder throwing as hard as possible. Someone with any knowledge of pitching at all should handle the pitching controls easily. The catcher will place his glove where he wants the ball pitched, and the pitcher should try to match that, as his advice is sound.
But where the game stumbles a bit is in the batting interface. This is completely puzzling to me, because it would seem that batting would be the no-brainer for this system. Wii Sports' baseball had the batting swing interface down, and this game doesn't really capture the same feel. Rather than feeling the need to stand in a batter's stance and swing for the fences, the game's controls inspire only small flicking motions. There is a disconnect between the swing and the screen that is hard to pinpoint but it creates a noticeable distance from the game that shouldn't be there. I want to make clear that the batting controls aren't bad at all. They just lack the oomph I expected out of a title with a motion-sensing stick as its main form of input. The fielding, throwing, and baserunning are all solid, and the management options in exhibition and franchise modes are as strong as the last version I played, MLB 2k6 for the XBox.
The game also stumbles on a part of the design that I'm finding is difficult for all Wii titles, the menu system. The 2k8 menus all use the shiny glass button art style that is so prevalent in Wii titles, probably because it mimics the look of the systems main console, the Wii Menu. Unfortunately, this art style is carried through all of the menus, including the screens that display stats. Baseball is a stat-heavy game, and just making up a lineup can require looking through multiple stat categories for the entire bench team. All of it is rendered with entirely too much graphical polish. Too much effort is expended on making the menus look shiny, while the information contained within is often cramped and requires side-scrolling to read properly. Baseball stats are usually presented horizontally and so much screen real estate is needlessly wasted, making menus take longer to read than necessary. Unfortunately, this is a problem in multiple Wii titles, especially sports titles like all of the EA Sports titles I've reviewed, including NBA Live '08, FIFA '08 and Madden NFL '08. I can't say whether this is a Nintendo mandate or just bad UI design, but it's becoming quite irritating.
Despite these flaws, MLB 2k8 is a damn fine game of baseball, the first good serious sports sim on the system. I would recommend it for anyone who wants a good baseball game for their Wii. The game deserves an 8.5 out of 10 for its depth of play, quality of presentation and fun mechanics. Perhaps next year's version will include online play and even online leagues. Until then, MLB 2k8 is a fine addition to any Wii sports fan's library.
Those interested in an action-oriented sim with licensed player names and stats will not be disappointed with this game. Those looking for a solid, fun baseball experience will also not be disappointed. The stats are all there, the graphics are decent though not incredible, which is par for the course with this series. It contains season and franchise modes as well as home run derby minigames. It unfortunately lacks online play for those who want that sort of thing. But like any Wii game, the first question to answer is about the motion controls.
2k8's motion controls are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pitching interface is slick and intuitive, and unlike The Bigs, doesn't make the player feel the need to strain his shoulder throwing as hard as possible. Someone with any knowledge of pitching at all should handle the pitching controls easily. The catcher will place his glove where he wants the ball pitched, and the pitcher should try to match that, as his advice is sound.
But where the game stumbles a bit is in the batting interface. This is completely puzzling to me, because it would seem that batting would be the no-brainer for this system. Wii Sports' baseball had the batting swing interface down, and this game doesn't really capture the same feel. Rather than feeling the need to stand in a batter's stance and swing for the fences, the game's controls inspire only small flicking motions. There is a disconnect between the swing and the screen that is hard to pinpoint but it creates a noticeable distance from the game that shouldn't be there. I want to make clear that the batting controls aren't bad at all. They just lack the oomph I expected out of a title with a motion-sensing stick as its main form of input. The fielding, throwing, and baserunning are all solid, and the management options in exhibition and franchise modes are as strong as the last version I played, MLB 2k6 for the XBox.
The game also stumbles on a part of the design that I'm finding is difficult for all Wii titles, the menu system. The 2k8 menus all use the shiny glass button art style that is so prevalent in Wii titles, probably because it mimics the look of the systems main console, the Wii Menu. Unfortunately, this art style is carried through all of the menus, including the screens that display stats. Baseball is a stat-heavy game, and just making up a lineup can require looking through multiple stat categories for the entire bench team. All of it is rendered with entirely too much graphical polish. Too much effort is expended on making the menus look shiny, while the information contained within is often cramped and requires side-scrolling to read properly. Baseball stats are usually presented horizontally and so much screen real estate is needlessly wasted, making menus take longer to read than necessary. Unfortunately, this is a problem in multiple Wii titles, especially sports titles like all of the EA Sports titles I've reviewed, including NBA Live '08, FIFA '08 and Madden NFL '08. I can't say whether this is a Nintendo mandate or just bad UI design, but it's becoming quite irritating.
Despite these flaws, MLB 2k8 is a damn fine game of baseball, the first good serious sports sim on the system. I would recommend it for anyone who wants a good baseball game for their Wii. The game deserves an 8.5 out of 10 for its depth of play, quality of presentation and fun mechanics. Perhaps next year's version will include online play and even online leagues. Until then, MLB 2k8 is a fine addition to any Wii sports fan's library.
Labels: Baseball, MLB, Nintendo, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:28 PM
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Misplaced Priorities: The Age of Conan PVP Weekend Beta Rant Review
Posted on
Sunday, April 27, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Last weekend was the Age of Conan PVP Beta weekend for those like myself lucky enough to get into the extra-special free preview of this upcoming MMOG. I would have reported my thoughts earlier, but I've been suffering from the chest cold from hell all last week. Said cold is still lingering in my concave chest, and though my head is fuzzy, my thoughts on AoC are clear. The game releases in May and I can safely say I will not be buying this game.
Age of Conan, for those who were unaware, is Funcom's follow up to Anarchy Online, an MMOG based in the world of Robert E. Howard's Conan character, Hyboria. It boasts of an innovative, action-packed combat system, a mature attitude containing both copious amounts of blood and nudity (except in the US!), mini-game and world-based PVP and the buzzword of all unreleased MMOG's, innovation! It also boasts a DX10 capable graphics engine that is rumored to be gorgeous. As someone whose computer was not built next year, I can't vouch for that, as what I saw was butt ugly.
The PVP weekend consisted of the first five levels of the PVE game, which can be played solo offline, and a couple of PVP minigames that bump your character's level to 20 automatically and allows the player to select different skill options and respec those options at will. The player could make multiple characters, so I dialed up both a melee character that I played into the PVP minigame and a caster that I did not.
The combat gameplay is "innovative" in that unlike other MMOG's, it doesn't have a form of auto-attack. You must actively produce every attack, every swing, every special ability and power and spell. Similar to Guild Wars and City of Heroes, this type of combat system is much more immersive than the auto-attack systems, but it means combat tends to be a lot of furious button-mashing. Where AoC differs from other games is its addition of attack zones. Each combatant has three zones it can be attacked from, left, center and right. The player can choose to both attack into one zone, as well as shift his defenses to favor one zone over others, leaving him vulnerable in another zone. Attacking a zone that is not shielded causes extra damage. In addition, special abilities can be used in conjunction with specific zone attacks to increase damage, add buffs or debuff opponents. Compared to older auto-attack systems such as say Everquest, it's a fun take on typical MMOG combat. It works particularly well for PVE content, because the player can always see where his opponent's shields are gathered, while this information is hidden in PVP. The combat wasn't so incredible that it could override my biggest complaints about this beta.
Limping Through Mud
Age of Conan was built to take advantage of DirectX 10 and the latest greatest hardware available for the PC. What that means, however, is those with less than stellar computer specs are shit out of luck. If you are one of the unlucky many who do not upgrade your computer every 12-24 months, if you do not have a video card made in the last year, you will likely not enjoy this game very much at all. I'll start by listing my meager computer specs:
AMD FX64 2800+
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 w/ 256 MB RAM
Windows XP
Yes, I fully realize the video card is decrepit, probably even out of spec for this game. However, I'm flabbergasted at just how badly the game looked when I finally got it to a playable framerate. I don't mean it was mediocre, I mean it looked like it had been rendered in crayon by a crack-addled five year old. Not only that, but any length of playtime resulted in the screen exploding in gigantic polygonal artifacts, or worse, the interface going kablooey and becoming totally unreadable. This might be acceptable if that made the game playable, but it couldn't even approach that. Framerates were dismal and the artifacting caused me to restart the game every 20 minutes or so. Again, if my card just won't render this game at an acceptable level, the game should just tell me that upfront and refuse to run. The fact that it doesn't is going to lead me to expect at least some level of playability.
And this is where the review turns into a rant. The MMOG market is becoming more crowded every day, even if one discounts the glut of cloned Korean MMOG's being foisted off on the American market. Even where it not crowded, the competition from World of Warcraft is likely insurmountable, especially considering the type of gameplay (both PVP and PVE) is targeted at those who also like World of Warcraft. From a technical perspective, someone leaving World of Warcraft for another MMOG of similar playstyle is going to expect performance that is at least comparable to their departed MMOG. AoC doesn't provide that. A very large part of World of Warcraft's raging success has to be chalked up to its tolerance for older, mediocre machines. Guild Wars success can likewise owe something to its tolerant, yet capably-degrading graphics performance. Running like a hobbled pig in slop with graphics that can be charitably described as "wouldn't fuck her with YOUR dick" ugly is suicide. It's a guarantee that the service will suffer from lower than expected subscriptions.
Now, Age of Conan is never going to get WoW numbers, even if it did degrade gracefully. But every barrier to entry thrown up for little gain is one less subscriber. In a market as crowded and competitive as subscription MMOG's are right now, there is nothing more damaging than poor performance. In a game with a significant focus on PVP, performance is going to be critical to the most vocal proponents of that gamestyle, because performance is the difference between life and death. Making players lose matches because they don't have a $500 video card in a $2000 machine is yet another barrier to entry. Competitive PVP'ers are people who turn off shadows immediately to gain 2 FPS. All the money and development time you spent on specular lighting and shading, pixel shaders for DirectX 10 and the like are going to be completely wasted on the PVP customer.
It's all a damn shame too, because I had looked forward to AoC, and from my limited playtime, I could tell there seemed to be a worthwhile game underneath all that fluff. But I fear it will be wasted on a Vanguard level of failure, simply because the developers wanted to create for only the latest and greatest without any thought to the rest of the pack. If you have a decent computer and the will to sit through what will likely be a bumpy release with multiple bugs, I'd say Age of Conan might be worth it. If not, wait for something like Warhammer, which is almost guaranteed to be more tolerant to aging hardware.
Age of Conan, for those who were unaware, is Funcom's follow up to Anarchy Online, an MMOG based in the world of Robert E. Howard's Conan character, Hyboria. It boasts of an innovative, action-packed combat system, a mature attitude containing both copious amounts of blood and nudity (except in the US!), mini-game and world-based PVP and the buzzword of all unreleased MMOG's, innovation! It also boasts a DX10 capable graphics engine that is rumored to be gorgeous. As someone whose computer was not built next year, I can't vouch for that, as what I saw was butt ugly.
The PVP weekend consisted of the first five levels of the PVE game, which can be played solo offline, and a couple of PVP minigames that bump your character's level to 20 automatically and allows the player to select different skill options and respec those options at will. The player could make multiple characters, so I dialed up both a melee character that I played into the PVP minigame and a caster that I did not.
The combat gameplay is "innovative" in that unlike other MMOG's, it doesn't have a form of auto-attack. You must actively produce every attack, every swing, every special ability and power and spell. Similar to Guild Wars and City of Heroes, this type of combat system is much more immersive than the auto-attack systems, but it means combat tends to be a lot of furious button-mashing. Where AoC differs from other games is its addition of attack zones. Each combatant has three zones it can be attacked from, left, center and right. The player can choose to both attack into one zone, as well as shift his defenses to favor one zone over others, leaving him vulnerable in another zone. Attacking a zone that is not shielded causes extra damage. In addition, special abilities can be used in conjunction with specific zone attacks to increase damage, add buffs or debuff opponents. Compared to older auto-attack systems such as say Everquest, it's a fun take on typical MMOG combat. It works particularly well for PVE content, because the player can always see where his opponent's shields are gathered, while this information is hidden in PVP. The combat wasn't so incredible that it could override my biggest complaints about this beta.
Limping Through Mud
Age of Conan was built to take advantage of DirectX 10 and the latest greatest hardware available for the PC. What that means, however, is those with less than stellar computer specs are shit out of luck. If you are one of the unlucky many who do not upgrade your computer every 12-24 months, if you do not have a video card made in the last year, you will likely not enjoy this game very much at all. I'll start by listing my meager computer specs:
AMD FX64 2800+
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 w/ 256 MB RAM
Windows XP
Yes, I fully realize the video card is decrepit, probably even out of spec for this game. However, I'm flabbergasted at just how badly the game looked when I finally got it to a playable framerate. I don't mean it was mediocre, I mean it looked like it had been rendered in crayon by a crack-addled five year old. Not only that, but any length of playtime resulted in the screen exploding in gigantic polygonal artifacts, or worse, the interface going kablooey and becoming totally unreadable. This might be acceptable if that made the game playable, but it couldn't even approach that. Framerates were dismal and the artifacting caused me to restart the game every 20 minutes or so. Again, if my card just won't render this game at an acceptable level, the game should just tell me that upfront and refuse to run. The fact that it doesn't is going to lead me to expect at least some level of playability.
And this is where the review turns into a rant. The MMOG market is becoming more crowded every day, even if one discounts the glut of cloned Korean MMOG's being foisted off on the American market. Even where it not crowded, the competition from World of Warcraft is likely insurmountable, especially considering the type of gameplay (both PVP and PVE) is targeted at those who also like World of Warcraft. From a technical perspective, someone leaving World of Warcraft for another MMOG of similar playstyle is going to expect performance that is at least comparable to their departed MMOG. AoC doesn't provide that. A very large part of World of Warcraft's raging success has to be chalked up to its tolerance for older, mediocre machines. Guild Wars success can likewise owe something to its tolerant, yet capably-degrading graphics performance. Running like a hobbled pig in slop with graphics that can be charitably described as "wouldn't fuck her with YOUR dick" ugly is suicide. It's a guarantee that the service will suffer from lower than expected subscriptions.
Now, Age of Conan is never going to get WoW numbers, even if it did degrade gracefully. But every barrier to entry thrown up for little gain is one less subscriber. In a market as crowded and competitive as subscription MMOG's are right now, there is nothing more damaging than poor performance. In a game with a significant focus on PVP, performance is going to be critical to the most vocal proponents of that gamestyle, because performance is the difference between life and death. Making players lose matches because they don't have a $500 video card in a $2000 machine is yet another barrier to entry. Competitive PVP'ers are people who turn off shadows immediately to gain 2 FPS. All the money and development time you spent on specular lighting and shading, pixel shaders for DirectX 10 and the like are going to be completely wasted on the PVP customer.
It's all a damn shame too, because I had looked forward to AoC, and from my limited playtime, I could tell there seemed to be a worthwhile game underneath all that fluff. But I fear it will be wasted on a Vanguard level of failure, simply because the developers wanted to create for only the latest and greatest without any thought to the rest of the pack. If you have a decent computer and the will to sit through what will likely be a bumpy release with multiple bugs, I'd say Age of Conan might be worth it. If not, wait for something like Warhammer, which is almost guaranteed to be more tolerant to aging hardware.
Labels: Entertainment, MMOG, Video Games
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 7:20 PM
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Wooo-hoooo!!! Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, March 14, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I am not a fan of the Mario Bros. series of games. Yes, I'm old enough to have played the original Donkey Kong in arcades when it was brand spanking new. I've played Super Mario on the original NES and Super Mario World on the Super NES. But I never really liked platform jumping games, probably because I suck so horribly at platform jumping. I always preferred the Sonic or Crash Bandicoot games over Mario if I wanted to indulge in that kind of gameplay, but only rarely and without any real zeal. When Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii came up in my queue, it was the kind of game I wanted to play if only to review it for this blog. What I found was an incredibly surprising game, the kind of innovative take on an old genre that is so fun, the game transcends its genre trappings.
Super Mario Galaxy is about something. There's a story involving Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser again, but really, the story is about as coherent as an acid trip. For this type of game, story is essentially a meaningless contextualizing of the natural imperative to finish the level. The game would be just as entertaining with or without the story. Like most of the other first-party Wii games, such as Metroid Prime: Corruption, or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, this game is really a puzzle game masquerading as a platform jumper. Mario is sent to different galaxies, most of which are mini-planetoids floating in space. Mario must find his way to unlock the planetoid, which will either allow him to move to another planetoid or rescue one of the Power Stars he is sent to collect. Getting the power star finishes the galaxy, or in the case of multi-star galaxies, it opens up another set of planetoids.
The planetoid designs are fantastic. Each is an almost perfectly-sized morsel of fun, with some inventive puzzles that challenging, sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. The game isn't a HARD game, per se, as its gameplay is simplistic enough for all ages. The motion-controls are used sparingly, so that the game doesn't really give much of a workout except on some rare planetoids. But it will make you think about how to navigate through the puzzles or beat the bosses. The game's level design and gameplay philosophy remind me of Valve's Portal because of how different from other games of its apparent genre it really is. Though I think Portal is a better game, mainly because its FPS genre trappings are more my style than platform jumping, Galaxy is still one of the best games I've played on the Wii.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous, proving once again that High-Definition graphics are not necessary to make a good game. Walking about on the planetoids isn't quite dizzying, but the way in which the topsy-turvy gravity of the planetoids is implemented makes the game much more immersive than a non-first-person game should be. The sound is also top-notch, though Mario's "Wooo-hoooo!" has always grated on my nerves. My one complaint about the game is that the Wii's nunchuk analog stick can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable over long periods of play, though that's hardly the game's fault.
Super Mario Galaxy is one of those "tons of fun in small, easily digestible chunks" games, and as such is as close to a must-buy game on the system as there can be. I would rate the game as a 9.2 out of 10, because it just really is that much fun. Though I didn't finish the game, it was only because of the release of a real baseball game on the Wii (MLB 2k8 which I will be reviewing). I plan on putting the game back in my queue at a later time to continue my star collection.
Super Mario Galaxy is about something. There's a story involving Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser again, but really, the story is about as coherent as an acid trip. For this type of game, story is essentially a meaningless contextualizing of the natural imperative to finish the level. The game would be just as entertaining with or without the story. Like most of the other first-party Wii games, such as Metroid Prime: Corruption, or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, this game is really a puzzle game masquerading as a platform jumper. Mario is sent to different galaxies, most of which are mini-planetoids floating in space. Mario must find his way to unlock the planetoid, which will either allow him to move to another planetoid or rescue one of the Power Stars he is sent to collect. Getting the power star finishes the galaxy, or in the case of multi-star galaxies, it opens up another set of planetoids.
The planetoid designs are fantastic. Each is an almost perfectly-sized morsel of fun, with some inventive puzzles that challenging, sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. The game isn't a HARD game, per se, as its gameplay is simplistic enough for all ages. The motion-controls are used sparingly, so that the game doesn't really give much of a workout except on some rare planetoids. But it will make you think about how to navigate through the puzzles or beat the bosses. The game's level design and gameplay philosophy remind me of Valve's Portal because of how different from other games of its apparent genre it really is. Though I think Portal is a better game, mainly because its FPS genre trappings are more my style than platform jumping, Galaxy is still one of the best games I've played on the Wii.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous, proving once again that High-Definition graphics are not necessary to make a good game. Walking about on the planetoids isn't quite dizzying, but the way in which the topsy-turvy gravity of the planetoids is implemented makes the game much more immersive than a non-first-person game should be. The sound is also top-notch, though Mario's "Wooo-hoooo!" has always grated on my nerves. My one complaint about the game is that the Wii's nunchuk analog stick can sometimes feel a little uncomfortable over long periods of play, though that's hardly the game's fault.
Super Mario Galaxy is one of those "tons of fun in small, easily digestible chunks" games, and as such is as close to a must-buy game on the system as there can be. I would rate the game as a 9.2 out of 10, because it just really is that much fun. Though I didn't finish the game, it was only because of the release of a real baseball game on the Wii (MLB 2k8 which I will be reviewing). I plan on putting the game back in my queue at a later time to continue my star collection.
Labels: Mario, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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Dribbling for Dullards: NBA Live 08 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, February 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
I am not a fan of the current incarnation of the NBA and am not a fan of basketball in general. My first exposure to the game in over a decade came during last year's NBA Finals, and only because my favorite player LeBron James had made it to the championship series. As a result, a "casual-focused" NBA action simulation game should be right up my alley. The Wii version of NBA Live 08 from EA Sports should be that game. The fact that it isn't highlights the defects of the EA Sports' overall design philosophy for Wii games. In short, they are designing dumbed down, barely-interactive imitations of their popular series from other platforms, and doing it quite badly.
This review will be similar to the review I gave of FIFA 08 last year, because that game shares so many similarities with this one, as well as with Madden 08. Though NBA Live 08 does not share the bugs of Madden, all three games use the exact same menu system, a menu system that blows like Orca. While the menus are pretty, they are horribly slow, and often deliberately short of necessary information. For instance, during season mode, trading a player or signing a free agent is an exercise in frustration. The player cannot sort the columns of information, so that searching for a Point Guard with an overall rating of 70 or higher means sifting through every single player until that point guard is found. For the free agent list, that is over 50 players to sort through, with a painfully slow scroll feature. Once a player is selected, there is no additional information about that player beyond his name, position and overall rating. No biographical information, no age, no breakdown of his skills, just an overall rating. The information is there, as it shows up on team roster screens, so why isn't it available when scouting the player?
Like FIFA, the game is incredibly light on the typical game modes expected of an EA Sports title, or any "serious" sports title for that matter. There are exhibition games, the casual "Party" mini-games, season, playoffs and tournament modes, as well as online games. Unlike the other versions of the title, there is no dynasty mode, which is what most fans of this type of game will want to play. What's so galling about the exclusion of Dynasty mode is that there really is no design needed on such a mode, since it's been in previous versions of the title for years as well as current versions on other platforms. It's an infuriating design decision. Just as with FIFA 08, the target audience for this type of game is going to be fans of the previous games in the series and people who are NBA fans. Dynasty mode is exactly what those fans will come to expect, and any game that does not contain it will be considered inferior. It's almost as if the designers at EA don't want people to purchase the game for the Wii, which is ludicrous and bordering on tinfoil hat territory.
But beyond all the extra modes expected of a franchise such as this, how does the on-court action perform? That's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the game is fun, more so than FIFA 08 and with fewer bugs than Madden 08. Here to, the game fails at the fundamental design level. Like the other EA Sports titles, NBA Live includes a "Family Play" option, something EA Sports has touted as a means of balancing the game among different skill levels. Younger kids or less accomplished gamers can use the Family Play controls, which only use the Wiimote to pass, shoot and play some defense, while more skilled gamers use the advanced controls which adds the nunchuk and the ability to control the players' movements. I applaud the concept. However, the actual design and execution falls well short of the stated goal. Rather than evening the balance, it hamstrings the more accomplished player by removing options. The advanced player feels disconnected from the actions on the screen, mainly because there are so few actions the player can perform when compared to other games of this type on other platforms.
Motion-sensitive controls are supposed to be about immersing the player deeper into the game by mimicing real-life motions. Mapping the game's controls to the restrictive nature of the Family Play set of controls actually makes the player feel less immersed, because of how little freedom with shot selection, shot skill and juke moves the controls allow. Once the basic controls are mastered, there don't seem to be anywhere else for the player to improve, and his actions feel divorced from the actions the players are peforming onscreen. FIFA 08 suffered from the same problem, and it is a fundamental flaw of the Family Play design. If EA wishes to target sports games to a younger, less savvy audience, it would seem to make more sense not to use the existing "hardcore" NBA Live franchise to do so. For myself, it leads me to prefer to purchase the game on the PS2, which is disappointing in the extreme. Motion controls are supposed to make the Wii version preferable, because of how much more immersive they can make the game, and EA Sports has failed miserably time and time again.
It's high time that the EA Sports Wii division be replaced from the top-down with those who understand that existing franchises come with expectations that are not being met. I shudder to think of how badly this design philosophy would diminish the NHL franchise. Sports gamers who want serious sports games on the Wii are being criminially underserved. I would rate NBA Live 08 a 6 out of 10, only worth purchasing in the bargain bin by people who care nothing about NBA seasons and just want a midly fun, 30-minute basketball-flavored diversion.
This review will be similar to the review I gave of FIFA 08 last year, because that game shares so many similarities with this one, as well as with Madden 08. Though NBA Live 08 does not share the bugs of Madden, all three games use the exact same menu system, a menu system that blows like Orca. While the menus are pretty, they are horribly slow, and often deliberately short of necessary information. For instance, during season mode, trading a player or signing a free agent is an exercise in frustration. The player cannot sort the columns of information, so that searching for a Point Guard with an overall rating of 70 or higher means sifting through every single player until that point guard is found. For the free agent list, that is over 50 players to sort through, with a painfully slow scroll feature. Once a player is selected, there is no additional information about that player beyond his name, position and overall rating. No biographical information, no age, no breakdown of his skills, just an overall rating. The information is there, as it shows up on team roster screens, so why isn't it available when scouting the player?
Like FIFA, the game is incredibly light on the typical game modes expected of an EA Sports title, or any "serious" sports title for that matter. There are exhibition games, the casual "Party" mini-games, season, playoffs and tournament modes, as well as online games. Unlike the other versions of the title, there is no dynasty mode, which is what most fans of this type of game will want to play. What's so galling about the exclusion of Dynasty mode is that there really is no design needed on such a mode, since it's been in previous versions of the title for years as well as current versions on other platforms. It's an infuriating design decision. Just as with FIFA 08, the target audience for this type of game is going to be fans of the previous games in the series and people who are NBA fans. Dynasty mode is exactly what those fans will come to expect, and any game that does not contain it will be considered inferior. It's almost as if the designers at EA don't want people to purchase the game for the Wii, which is ludicrous and bordering on tinfoil hat territory.
But beyond all the extra modes expected of a franchise such as this, how does the on-court action perform? That's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the game is fun, more so than FIFA 08 and with fewer bugs than Madden 08. Here to, the game fails at the fundamental design level. Like the other EA Sports titles, NBA Live includes a "Family Play" option, something EA Sports has touted as a means of balancing the game among different skill levels. Younger kids or less accomplished gamers can use the Family Play controls, which only use the Wiimote to pass, shoot and play some defense, while more skilled gamers use the advanced controls which adds the nunchuk and the ability to control the players' movements. I applaud the concept. However, the actual design and execution falls well short of the stated goal. Rather than evening the balance, it hamstrings the more accomplished player by removing options. The advanced player feels disconnected from the actions on the screen, mainly because there are so few actions the player can perform when compared to other games of this type on other platforms.
Motion-sensitive controls are supposed to be about immersing the player deeper into the game by mimicing real-life motions. Mapping the game's controls to the restrictive nature of the Family Play set of controls actually makes the player feel less immersed, because of how little freedom with shot selection, shot skill and juke moves the controls allow. Once the basic controls are mastered, there don't seem to be anywhere else for the player to improve, and his actions feel divorced from the actions the players are peforming onscreen. FIFA 08 suffered from the same problem, and it is a fundamental flaw of the Family Play design. If EA wishes to target sports games to a younger, less savvy audience, it would seem to make more sense not to use the existing "hardcore" NBA Live franchise to do so. For myself, it leads me to prefer to purchase the game on the PS2, which is disappointing in the extreme. Motion controls are supposed to make the Wii version preferable, because of how much more immersive they can make the game, and EA Sports has failed miserably time and time again.
It's high time that the EA Sports Wii division be replaced from the top-down with those who understand that existing franchises come with expectations that are not being met. I shudder to think of how badly this design philosophy would diminish the NHL franchise. Sports gamers who want serious sports games on the Wii are being criminially underserved. I would rate NBA Live 08 a 6 out of 10, only worth purchasing in the bargain bin by people who care nothing about NBA seasons and just want a midly fun, 30-minute basketball-flavored diversion.
Labels: Basketball, EA Sports, NBA, Nintendo, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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No Idea: No More Heroes (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, February 01, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Imagine the immature, socially-retarded cousins of Sid Vicious and Johnny Knoxville met, fell in love and had babies. Now imagine those babies were raised on Atari 2600 games, mixed with a liberal dose of Grand Theft Auto 3 and anime. Imagine that child grew up to be a game designer. Had that hypothetical scenario been a reality, that demon spawn would have produced No More Heroes for the Nintendo Wii.
The developer, Suda 51, is the fevered mind behind the game Killer 7, which I have routinely criticized as a game too interested in being a pretentious, avant garde statement on the concept of video games than in being a playable game. I'm happy to say that NMH is not that kind of game. It is a puzzling game, nonetheless.
The main character is Travis Touchdown, a Johnny Knoxville-inspired anime assassin looking to raise his world assassin ranking by killing the ten assassins ranked above him. For some reason, he's also hoping to get into the pants of his handler, the blonde Frenchie named Sylvia, who appears to be more interested in abusing Travis than getting freaky with him. Armed with his lightsaber-like beam katana, he has to work odd jobs and various assassination missions to pay for the entry fees to his ranked fights. Yes, I'm well aware that this entire scenario makes no sense whatsoever. At best, it's a manga storyline told with as much sardonic disdain as abject reverence. At worst, it's just a mishmash of things that the developer thought would be funny.
I have a difficult time trying to define an audience that would like this game. On the one hand, it's a third-person adventure game, similar to Prince of Persia without the acrobatics or really anything other than slicing and dicing. Travis mows through hordes of faceless thugs, with the occasional mini-boss, before reaching a boss battle. Between those boss battles (called ranked fights), Travis is given timed missions which are either action missions, or really irritating mini-games. All the mini-games and missions are strung together in a Grand Theft Auto-style city that Travis drives around on his motorcycle.
With one notable exception, all of these different types of gameplay are at best mediocre, such as the thug-killing missions. At worst, they are downright insulting, especially the collection mini-games. One such mini-game involves Travis karate chopping trees until coconuts fall out, gathering up the coconuts and pressing the A-button Track-and-Field style to run back to the coconut turn-in point. At some points of the game, these mini-games are not optional, because they make Travis the money he needs to enter the ranked fights. The driving game is poorly controlled and seems to serve no purpose other than to pay homage to the Grand Theft series. The city is uninteresting. Running over pedestrians causes no consequences, Travis can't perform any jumps or tricks with his bike, and in the 4 hours I played, there seemed to be no emergent gameplay in these sections. The long corridors of thug-bashing gets old really quickly, as there seems to be little strategy needed to dispatch the hordes, and it all serves to distract from the best parts of the game, the boss battles.
Had NMH just focused solely on making boss battles and lots of them, it would have been a fantastic game. The boss battles are challenging, exciting affairs, where tactics are needed to overcome the enemy. But knowing there are likely only 10 boss battles (with perhaps a few more added as challengers come after Travis' rank) means the game will have very little worthwhile gameplay chopped up by mediocre and irritating mini-games. None of the mini-games will stand out on its own. As a result, the game likely won't appeal to most fans of any of those types of games, which makes me confused as to who the real audience would be.
The game's main selling point seems to be its style. While some will find it humorous or downright hysterical, I just found it was trying too hard to be "punk" and "irreverant." Things like making Travis take a dump to save the game, or his begging Sylvia to "do it" didn't make me laugh so much as cringe. The crew of Jackass might enjoy these parts, but I'm not sure who else would. The graphics are a mixed bag, using a jagged, cel-shaded art style which works well at times. At other times, the scenery is horribly anti-aliased, worse than I've seen on most Wii games. The system is capable of better visuals.
The game uses the Wii's motion controls sparingly, as finishing moves on combos, or gimmicky sections of the mini-games. There is nothing done with these controls that couldn't be accomplished with a PS2 controller, and that's a real shame. A lightsaber/sword game with motion controls would have been more interesting than the control scheme used.
In all, the game is worthy of a rental at best, and then only if the things mentioned above aren't a hindrance. For me, four hours was enough to know I wouldn't care to finish the game. The boss battles were great, but the majority of the game wasn't worth slogging through to get to them. I'd rate the game a 6 out of 10.
The developer, Suda 51, is the fevered mind behind the game Killer 7, which I have routinely criticized as a game too interested in being a pretentious, avant garde statement on the concept of video games than in being a playable game. I'm happy to say that NMH is not that kind of game. It is a puzzling game, nonetheless.
The main character is Travis Touchdown, a Johnny Knoxville-inspired anime assassin looking to raise his world assassin ranking by killing the ten assassins ranked above him. For some reason, he's also hoping to get into the pants of his handler, the blonde Frenchie named Sylvia, who appears to be more interested in abusing Travis than getting freaky with him. Armed with his lightsaber-like beam katana, he has to work odd jobs and various assassination missions to pay for the entry fees to his ranked fights. Yes, I'm well aware that this entire scenario makes no sense whatsoever. At best, it's a manga storyline told with as much sardonic disdain as abject reverence. At worst, it's just a mishmash of things that the developer thought would be funny.
I have a difficult time trying to define an audience that would like this game. On the one hand, it's a third-person adventure game, similar to Prince of Persia without the acrobatics or really anything other than slicing and dicing. Travis mows through hordes of faceless thugs, with the occasional mini-boss, before reaching a boss battle. Between those boss battles (called ranked fights), Travis is given timed missions which are either action missions, or really irritating mini-games. All the mini-games and missions are strung together in a Grand Theft Auto-style city that Travis drives around on his motorcycle.
With one notable exception, all of these different types of gameplay are at best mediocre, such as the thug-killing missions. At worst, they are downright insulting, especially the collection mini-games. One such mini-game involves Travis karate chopping trees until coconuts fall out, gathering up the coconuts and pressing the A-button Track-and-Field style to run back to the coconut turn-in point. At some points of the game, these mini-games are not optional, because they make Travis the money he needs to enter the ranked fights. The driving game is poorly controlled and seems to serve no purpose other than to pay homage to the Grand Theft series. The city is uninteresting. Running over pedestrians causes no consequences, Travis can't perform any jumps or tricks with his bike, and in the 4 hours I played, there seemed to be no emergent gameplay in these sections. The long corridors of thug-bashing gets old really quickly, as there seems to be little strategy needed to dispatch the hordes, and it all serves to distract from the best parts of the game, the boss battles.
Had NMH just focused solely on making boss battles and lots of them, it would have been a fantastic game. The boss battles are challenging, exciting affairs, where tactics are needed to overcome the enemy. But knowing there are likely only 10 boss battles (with perhaps a few more added as challengers come after Travis' rank) means the game will have very little worthwhile gameplay chopped up by mediocre and irritating mini-games. None of the mini-games will stand out on its own. As a result, the game likely won't appeal to most fans of any of those types of games, which makes me confused as to who the real audience would be.
The game's main selling point seems to be its style. While some will find it humorous or downright hysterical, I just found it was trying too hard to be "punk" and "irreverant." Things like making Travis take a dump to save the game, or his begging Sylvia to "do it" didn't make me laugh so much as cringe. The crew of Jackass might enjoy these parts, but I'm not sure who else would. The graphics are a mixed bag, using a jagged, cel-shaded art style which works well at times. At other times, the scenery is horribly anti-aliased, worse than I've seen on most Wii games. The system is capable of better visuals.
The game uses the Wii's motion controls sparingly, as finishing moves on combos, or gimmicky sections of the mini-games. There is nothing done with these controls that couldn't be accomplished with a PS2 controller, and that's a real shame. A lightsaber/sword game with motion controls would have been more interesting than the control scheme used.
In all, the game is worthy of a rental at best, and then only if the things mentioned above aren't a hindrance. For me, four hours was enough to know I wouldn't care to finish the game. The boss battles were great, but the majority of the game wasn't worth slogging through to get to them. I'd rate the game a 6 out of 10.
Labels: Video Games, Wii
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Beautiful Puzzles: Metroid Prime Corruption (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, January 18, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Having never played the Metroid Prime series on the GameCube, or any Metroid games at all, I came into Metroid Prime Corruption for the Nintendo Wii with a completely blank slate. The only preconceived notions I had going in were that the game was a pretty, neon-infested first-person shooter sequel which had garnered rave reviews in previous incarnations. Those notions were somewhat incorrect. While the game appears on the surface to be a first-person shooter, it is really much more.
At heart, Corruption is a puzzle game, masquerading as an action-adventure shooter. The game does look and play like a shooter, but the shooting is secondary to the real fun in the game, the various puzzles embedded into the landscape surrounding the main character. Dressed up by a story involving an alien race called space pirates and their attacks on the Galactic Federation, the story is a thin context for the conflict that drives the player forward. While the story is good, it's certainly not deep, reminiscent of many anime movies. There are parts of the story that do not resolve to any coherent conclusion such as the origin of Dark Samus, the player's evil counterpart, but overall the story is satisfactory. The voice acting is solid throughout, and the visual effects and cutscenes are well-done. The game itself is gorgeous, with a distinctive style that leans heavily on the neon. It is easily on par with the best-looking games on the system, like Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The gameplay itself is spectacular. As I mentioned above, the shooting is secondary to the main gameplay element. Using the Wii Remote as an aiming device, the aiming is precise and can be augmented with a target lock (though the player must still aim at the enemies). Beyond the aiming, there isn't a lot of "waggle" gameplay. The only other use of the motion controls is the use of the electro-grapple, which uses the nunchuk to control an electromagnetic whip, but it's used well. The game's puzzles are fantastic. Most are decipherable with the visual context given, but there were a number of puzzles that caused me to go to Gamefaqs to solve. The puzzles are fun, though I wonder about a world that builds structures that require a person to roll themselves into an armored spheroid in order to power gigantic machines. In the context of the game, it all makes a weird sort of sense, and the armorball gameplay is an interesting mechanic, though I certainly prefer the upright gameplay over the marble madness.
The exclusion of an online multiplayer function, which had been rumored as a feature months before release, is a damn shame. The dynamics of the electro-grapple and armor ball would likely make for some incredibly interesting multiplayer combinations, both in team-based and deathmatch-style games. Hopefully the design team will consider that and come back with a less expensive online-only Metroid game in the future (but I won't hold my breath for that). As it is, the game has between 15-20 hours of gameplay and a low replay value. Finishing the main story opens up a "Hypermode" difficulty, giving those who enjoy replaying the same game on a higher difficulty some replay value.
Overall, the game serves as a great reason to own a Wii. While certainly not a perfect game, Corruption proves that the system can combine gorgeous graphics with solid gameplay and subtle yet appropriate uses of the motion controls. I would rate the game an 8.5 out of 10, certainly worth a purchase or a very long rental.
At heart, Corruption is a puzzle game, masquerading as an action-adventure shooter. The game does look and play like a shooter, but the shooting is secondary to the real fun in the game, the various puzzles embedded into the landscape surrounding the main character. Dressed up by a story involving an alien race called space pirates and their attacks on the Galactic Federation, the story is a thin context for the conflict that drives the player forward. While the story is good, it's certainly not deep, reminiscent of many anime movies. There are parts of the story that do not resolve to any coherent conclusion such as the origin of Dark Samus, the player's evil counterpart, but overall the story is satisfactory. The voice acting is solid throughout, and the visual effects and cutscenes are well-done. The game itself is gorgeous, with a distinctive style that leans heavily on the neon. It is easily on par with the best-looking games on the system, like Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The gameplay itself is spectacular. As I mentioned above, the shooting is secondary to the main gameplay element. Using the Wii Remote as an aiming device, the aiming is precise and can be augmented with a target lock (though the player must still aim at the enemies). Beyond the aiming, there isn't a lot of "waggle" gameplay. The only other use of the motion controls is the use of the electro-grapple, which uses the nunchuk to control an electromagnetic whip, but it's used well. The game's puzzles are fantastic. Most are decipherable with the visual context given, but there were a number of puzzles that caused me to go to Gamefaqs to solve. The puzzles are fun, though I wonder about a world that builds structures that require a person to roll themselves into an armored spheroid in order to power gigantic machines. In the context of the game, it all makes a weird sort of sense, and the armorball gameplay is an interesting mechanic, though I certainly prefer the upright gameplay over the marble madness.
The exclusion of an online multiplayer function, which had been rumored as a feature months before release, is a damn shame. The dynamics of the electro-grapple and armor ball would likely make for some incredibly interesting multiplayer combinations, both in team-based and deathmatch-style games. Hopefully the design team will consider that and come back with a less expensive online-only Metroid game in the future (but I won't hold my breath for that). As it is, the game has between 15-20 hours of gameplay and a low replay value. Finishing the main story opens up a "Hypermode" difficulty, giving those who enjoy replaying the same game on a higher difficulty some replay value.
Overall, the game serves as a great reason to own a Wii. While certainly not a perfect game, Corruption proves that the system can combine gorgeous graphics with solid gameplay and subtle yet appropriate uses of the motion controls. I would rate the game an 8.5 out of 10, certainly worth a purchase or a very long rental.
Labels: Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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Vivendi Tries to Make EA Jealous
Posted on
Monday, December 03, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
The video game news this morning is disappointing for video gamers. Yet another big video game merger has occurred, this time involving Vivendi and Activision. Not content with the cash cow that is World of Warcraft, Vivendi has merged its game division with Activision, publisher of such hits as Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Call of Duty. The new merged company will be called Activision Blizzard, with Vivendi holding a 52% stake in the venture. Of course, there is one thing to notice about this new company. Every successful game they have is some kind of sequel.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is an MMOG sequel to Blizzard's madly successful Warcraft series. All of the Activision titles listed in the linked article are franchise properties as well, with each having at least three different titles in the series. Blizzard's upcoming products include an expansion for WoW and a sequel to its classic RTS Starcraft series. The trend is unmistakable. Vivendi has built a company to rival Electronics Arts, following the same formula. That formula is to buy up developers with successful properties and leverage those properties into sequel after sequel after sequel.
While I believe WoW's success in the MMOG market has caused investment money to flow back into MMOG development, meaning more MMOG's will be made, I do worry that such money will be spent on shitty, slapdash attempts to clone WoW's gameplay. And the last thing the video game industry needed was another gigantic publisher with kneejerk sequelitis. Sequels are not by themselves bad things, and most accounts of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty sequels are positive. I myself even rated Call of Duty 3 for the Wii highly.
That said, giant corporate publishers with the means and desire to gobble up small developers like Electronic Arts have hurt the game industry. EA Sports acquisition of the exclusive NFL video game license has resulted in buggy rehashes of the Madden franchise, a series showing almost as much age as its namesake. We gamers do not need another monolith trying to out-shovel EA, we already have Ubisoft. Perhaps the three of them can get together and form the massive Blandotron, spitting out Splinter Cells, Maddens and Tony Hawks with the regularity of bowel movements.
Gird your loins. The sequel onslaught has begun.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is an MMOG sequel to Blizzard's madly successful Warcraft series. All of the Activision titles listed in the linked article are franchise properties as well, with each having at least three different titles in the series. Blizzard's upcoming products include an expansion for WoW and a sequel to its classic RTS Starcraft series. The trend is unmistakable. Vivendi has built a company to rival Electronics Arts, following the same formula. That formula is to buy up developers with successful properties and leverage those properties into sequel after sequel after sequel.
While I believe WoW's success in the MMOG market has caused investment money to flow back into MMOG development, meaning more MMOG's will be made, I do worry that such money will be spent on shitty, slapdash attempts to clone WoW's gameplay. And the last thing the video game industry needed was another gigantic publisher with kneejerk sequelitis. Sequels are not by themselves bad things, and most accounts of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty sequels are positive. I myself even rated Call of Duty 3 for the Wii highly.
That said, giant corporate publishers with the means and desire to gobble up small developers like Electronic Arts have hurt the game industry. EA Sports acquisition of the exclusive NFL video game license has resulted in buggy rehashes of the Madden franchise, a series showing almost as much age as its namesake. We gamers do not need another monolith trying to out-shovel EA, we already have Ubisoft. Perhaps the three of them can get together and form the massive Blandotron, spitting out Splinter Cells, Maddens and Tony Hawks with the regularity of bowel movements.
Gird your loins. The sequel onslaught has begun.
Labels: Corporate Corruption, Game Design, PS3, Video Games, Wii, X-Box
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:19 AM
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Why Bother? Driver: Parallel Lines (Wii) Review
Posted on
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
This review will likely take more time to write than it took me to play Driver: Parallel Lines for the Wii. The lack of time spent on both playing and writing isn't to say the game is short, because I've no idea how short the game is. What the game is can be shortened into an acronym: YASP, which stands for Yet Another Shitty Port. The review is short because I couldn't stand to play this game for more than twenty minutes and neither should anyone else.
Not having played any of the previous Driver games, I can't comment on how it compares to the rest of the series. It bears a startling similarity to the Grand Theft Auto series of games, complete with Pulp Fiction-esque cinematics. The story follows a young driver in 1970's New York, just a wacky guy who takes odd jobs being the getaway driver for all manner of criminal enterprises. The game part of this story involves stealing cars, driving the cars around to various waypoints and evading the police to complete whatever mission is presented to the player.
All of that might be fun, if it weren't for the controls. The game is a wasteful mess, a good concept wrapped around sloppy, sluggish controls. Driving is an exercise in frustration, using the Nunchuk's analog stick to terrible effect. The stick is unresponsive and hard to use, as if the developers didn't want to bother tweaking the software to respond to this particular set of hardware. In the short time I played, I found no use of the Wii's motion controls at all. Given how badly the analog stick was utilized, I should probably be thankful I wasn't forced to use bad waggle just to justify the game's existence on the Wii.
In short, the game is a terrible, terrible port that is a complete waste of a DVD. No one should buy, rent or play this game. It is a YASP of the lowest kind, yet another shitty port that disrespects the system and its fans.
Not having played any of the previous Driver games, I can't comment on how it compares to the rest of the series. It bears a startling similarity to the Grand Theft Auto series of games, complete with Pulp Fiction-esque cinematics. The story follows a young driver in 1970's New York, just a wacky guy who takes odd jobs being the getaway driver for all manner of criminal enterprises. The game part of this story involves stealing cars, driving the cars around to various waypoints and evading the police to complete whatever mission is presented to the player.
All of that might be fun, if it weren't for the controls. The game is a wasteful mess, a good concept wrapped around sloppy, sluggish controls. Driving is an exercise in frustration, using the Nunchuk's analog stick to terrible effect. The stick is unresponsive and hard to use, as if the developers didn't want to bother tweaking the software to respond to this particular set of hardware. In the short time I played, I found no use of the Wii's motion controls at all. Given how badly the analog stick was utilized, I should probably be thankful I wasn't forced to use bad waggle just to justify the game's existence on the Wii.
In short, the game is a terrible, terrible port that is a complete waste of a DVD. No one should buy, rent or play this game. It is a YASP of the lowest kind, yet another shitty port that disrespects the system and its fans.
Labels: Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 8:15 PM
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A Kick in the Balls: Fifa Soccer 08 (Wii) Review Turns into a Rant
Posted on
Monday, October 15, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Fifa Soccer 07 for the X-Box, while flawed, was the game I played the most over the last year. The game was not perfect, nor was it a completely realistic simulation of football, and yet its outstanding action play, its deep managerial simulation and plethora of club and international teams and leagues was overwhelming. Most sports video games wear out their welcome by the second or third month of play, often before I've even finished an entire season, but not Fifa 07. When my X-Box finally died, I spent a few weeks missing the game, and eventually ended up purchasing a copy of the Gamecube version to play on my Wii to tide me over until the 08 version showed up for the Wii. It was with a great deal of breathless anticipation that I looked forward to seeing an updated, motion-controlled version of one of my favorite sports video games of all time. In the weeks before its release, however, I began to get worried. My fears were justified. EA Sports has kicked me in the balls.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
Labels: Football, Nintendo, Soccer, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:41 AM
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Wasting the Waggle
Posted on
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
I've been a vocal supporter of the Nintendo Wii and its motion-sensitive Wiimote. Since I saw the first video of the sword-fighting in Red Steel, I was hooked on the concept of using intuitive motions to execute video game actions as opposed to the established thumbstick and button-pushing interfaces of the past few generations. The waggle, as it's been somewhat derisively labeled, was a step along the path towards making video games not only accessible to more people, but more immersive in ways that didn't involve buying expensive HDTV's and adding more pixels. But I remain concerned that many developers are wasting the waggle by releasing half-assed games which use waggle because they feel obligated to waggle. Down that path lies the Virtual Boy, the Power Glove and other gimmicky controllers in video game history.
The Wii has so far shown itself to be a fantastic "party game" machine, with such sterling examples as Wii Sports, Super Mario Party 8, and Rayman Raving Rabbits. There's nothing wrong with these mini-game laden offerings targeted at people who are not traditionally considered gamers. Wii Parties as a cultural phenomenon aren't a bad thing, despite what many pissy elitist game developers and hardcore gamers might claim. Opening the market to non-traditional casual gamers means more money for developers, which should translate into more games and more games should be what every gamer wants.
That said, tossing out half-assed efforts with tacked-on waggle is going to do nothing to help anyone. Games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance are a perfect example of what I mean by tacked-on waggle. The game should have been something akin to Robot Jesus for comic book geeks like myself, but it failed miserably to attract me. The main reason, as my review states, is because the motion-controls were so obviously just button combinations mapped to specific Wiimote waggles. Why not use motions which feel organic to the action performed by the character onscreen? Why not make the player actually throw Captain America's shield instead of just flipping the Wiimote one direction? Why not map one button to Thor's hammer and let the direction and speed of the hammer throw depend on the player's arm motion? Why not use another button to select Thor's or Storm's lightning attacks and make the player reach to the skies and drag down lightning at the target the Wiimote is pointed at? In short, why was no imagination shown in adding waggle to the game? The most likely answer is money, of course. I'm positive Raven Software was forced to release the game during the launch window, and as a result took the easy way out, but they wasted a fantastic opportunity to create a true classic.
Another game which has wasted the waggle is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. While I must say this game is one of the better games for the system, it's use of motion-control is paltry and weak. The only motions used are for sword-fighting and chain-tossing when in Dark Prince mode. Other than that, there is no use of the Wiimote's uniqueness. The sword-fighting use of the waggle is weak, another obvious use of static motions mapped to replace button combinations from other versions of the game. The controls are imprecise and for most of the combat, the harder to execute motions aren't needed. Unlike Ultimate Alliance, the game is spectacular in all other aspects, and the weak waggle controls don't detract from the game enough to earn a negative judgement on the game. Why again wasn't the Prince's sword mapped to the player's movements? Why wasn't his sword arm controlled organically by the Wiimote while his body's combat acrobatics were mapped to nunchuk waggles? Even something along the lines of Red Steel's swordfighting would have made combat more exciting. Again, the game was excellent, in part because it's focus was the acrobatic puzzle-solving instead of the ho-hum combat. But it could have been so much more with a little thought
Waggle controls should be used with some serious thought. If the waggle doesn't add anything to the game that couldn't be achieved better with a button press, don't use it. Mario Strikers Charged is a perfect example. The waggle is used in exactly two spots. The Wiimote can be flicked to execute a tackle, and the Wiimote's pointer is used to block megastrikes (similar to penalty kicks in real football). That's all, and that's all that's needed. While there might have been more uses of it, they may not have added anything to the gameplay. The release of EA Sports FIFA '08 in two weeks will use more waggling, and I anticipate it with excited trepidation. EA's track record on the Wii is not good, it's latest version of Madden NFL '08 actually a step backwards from the previous version.
One of the Wii's most vocal critic is Shiny founder David Perry, who has criticized the system's non-HD graphics hardware before. His latest comments exhibit a nonsensical criticism of the system by claiming that the Wii has "sloppy" waggle control. What he misses is that the sloppiness of the controls aren't a result of the hardware, but the software driving the games. Yes, there have been games with very sloppy waggle. EA's Need for Speed: Carbon, the aforementioned Ultimate Alliance and Far Cry: Vengeance come to mind as games with sloppy controls. Other games don't suffer from this, such as Zelda, Mario Strikers, Super Swing Golf and Call of Duty 3. The software has to be written well, not half-assed, and the blame for sloppy controls has to be placed squarely on the heads of the developers of the software, not the hardware.
The Wiimote's waggle won't revolutionize the video game interface without good, innovative design and careful, competent programming. Nintendo must ensure that the third-party developers who have flocked to the system because of its initial success aren't using the Wii as a dumping ground for sloppy, half-assed cheap development to fund their AAA titles on the systems elitist developers want to work on. If one year from now, developers are still allowed to release drek such as Far Cry or shovelware like Ultimate Alliance, the Wii WILL fade from the video game industry no matter how profitable its initial run was for the Big N. It's time to stop wasting the waggle, there's only so much wiggle room in the industry these days.
The Wii has so far shown itself to be a fantastic "party game" machine, with such sterling examples as Wii Sports, Super Mario Party 8, and Rayman Raving Rabbits. There's nothing wrong with these mini-game laden offerings targeted at people who are not traditionally considered gamers. Wii Parties as a cultural phenomenon aren't a bad thing, despite what many pissy elitist game developers and hardcore gamers might claim. Opening the market to non-traditional casual gamers means more money for developers, which should translate into more games and more games should be what every gamer wants.
That said, tossing out half-assed efforts with tacked-on waggle is going to do nothing to help anyone. Games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance are a perfect example of what I mean by tacked-on waggle. The game should have been something akin to Robot Jesus for comic book geeks like myself, but it failed miserably to attract me. The main reason, as my review states, is because the motion-controls were so obviously just button combinations mapped to specific Wiimote waggles. Why not use motions which feel organic to the action performed by the character onscreen? Why not make the player actually throw Captain America's shield instead of just flipping the Wiimote one direction? Why not map one button to Thor's hammer and let the direction and speed of the hammer throw depend on the player's arm motion? Why not use another button to select Thor's or Storm's lightning attacks and make the player reach to the skies and drag down lightning at the target the Wiimote is pointed at? In short, why was no imagination shown in adding waggle to the game? The most likely answer is money, of course. I'm positive Raven Software was forced to release the game during the launch window, and as a result took the easy way out, but they wasted a fantastic opportunity to create a true classic.
Another game which has wasted the waggle is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. While I must say this game is one of the better games for the system, it's use of motion-control is paltry and weak. The only motions used are for sword-fighting and chain-tossing when in Dark Prince mode. Other than that, there is no use of the Wiimote's uniqueness. The sword-fighting use of the waggle is weak, another obvious use of static motions mapped to replace button combinations from other versions of the game. The controls are imprecise and for most of the combat, the harder to execute motions aren't needed. Unlike Ultimate Alliance, the game is spectacular in all other aspects, and the weak waggle controls don't detract from the game enough to earn a negative judgement on the game. Why again wasn't the Prince's sword mapped to the player's movements? Why wasn't his sword arm controlled organically by the Wiimote while his body's combat acrobatics were mapped to nunchuk waggles? Even something along the lines of Red Steel's swordfighting would have made combat more exciting. Again, the game was excellent, in part because it's focus was the acrobatic puzzle-solving instead of the ho-hum combat. But it could have been so much more with a little thought
Waggle controls should be used with some serious thought. If the waggle doesn't add anything to the game that couldn't be achieved better with a button press, don't use it. Mario Strikers Charged is a perfect example. The waggle is used in exactly two spots. The Wiimote can be flicked to execute a tackle, and the Wiimote's pointer is used to block megastrikes (similar to penalty kicks in real football). That's all, and that's all that's needed. While there might have been more uses of it, they may not have added anything to the gameplay. The release of EA Sports FIFA '08 in two weeks will use more waggling, and I anticipate it with excited trepidation. EA's track record on the Wii is not good, it's latest version of Madden NFL '08 actually a step backwards from the previous version.
One of the Wii's most vocal critic is Shiny founder David Perry, who has criticized the system's non-HD graphics hardware before. His latest comments exhibit a nonsensical criticism of the system by claiming that the Wii has "sloppy" waggle control. What he misses is that the sloppiness of the controls aren't a result of the hardware, but the software driving the games. Yes, there have been games with very sloppy waggle. EA's Need for Speed: Carbon, the aforementioned Ultimate Alliance and Far Cry: Vengeance come to mind as games with sloppy controls. Other games don't suffer from this, such as Zelda, Mario Strikers, Super Swing Golf and Call of Duty 3. The software has to be written well, not half-assed, and the blame for sloppy controls has to be placed squarely on the heads of the developers of the software, not the hardware.
The Wiimote's waggle won't revolutionize the video game interface without good, innovative design and careful, competent programming. Nintendo must ensure that the third-party developers who have flocked to the system because of its initial success aren't using the Wii as a dumping ground for sloppy, half-assed cheap development to fund their AAA titles on the systems elitist developers want to work on. If one year from now, developers are still allowed to release drek such as Far Cry or shovelware like Ultimate Alliance, the Wii WILL fade from the video game industry no matter how profitable its initial run was for the Big N. It's time to stop wasting the waggle, there's only so much wiggle room in the industry these days.
Labels: Game Design, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:43 AM
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