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03-28-24 05:42 AM
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Xeogaming Forums - Gaming Discussion - Innovation
  
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Ryan
Posts: 1664/1748
I should also point out AGAIN that graphics does not a game make. Also, Gamecube was just below the XBox's graphical capability. PS2 could handle about 15 million polygons, Gamecube could do 65, Xbox could do 75. If what I saw on a sign at a shop during sixth gen years is true anyway. And look how small the Gamecube was compared to the XBox!

Gan Ning - I do understand that is a major problem for the Wii. Motion control, in the Wiimote's current state, seems poorly adapted into games, however some use it well. No More Heroes is great with it, not even relying on motion control much apart from power moves and whether you attack with low or high attacks, and Madworld's mini quick-time events for attacks which use different motion features works well and normally follows the action.

At the moment, I'm waiting for Red Steel 2 and the Motion+ attachment.
Gan Ning
Posts: 277/278
Last generation, it's hard to deny the PS2 had the best third party support. Hell games still occassionally come out on it now!
I'm not going to enter any current-gen console debate as I don't own any recent systems, but I will say this: From what I've played of the Wii (my sister owns one so I play it every time I go to her house) it has very limited appeal.
Half of the games out for it seem to be the typical "Mini game party extravaganzathon pack" which just seem to be the same old tired games packaged differently. The same sort of games you could probably play online for free (albeit with motion control). Mario Galaxy seems okay, but nothing amazing compared to Mario 64. SSB, from what I've played of it so far, seems to be Melee with shinier graphics, a decent single player story mode, and very few new features. Although online play is a plus. Haven't played online yet, though, so I can't say how good it is. Madworld is nothing special. If it was on any other console it would have barely made a blip on the radar IMO. It's main gimmick is getting people to be shocked over the "OMG BLOOD ON THE WII" factor it has going. Mario Kart is pretty good, although I had to play with my Gamecube controller since the motion control seems really tacked on that game.

Astrophel
Posts: 2149/2724
Originally posted by Vulkar
KOTOR
KOTOR II

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Jade Empire
Fable
Advent Rising
Mech Assault series
Halo series
Unreal Championship games
Ninja Gaiden (The original was an Xbox exclusive)
Doom 3

And those are just off the top of my head.


Bolded games were also available on PC.

And as the irritated owner of a thirteen inch TV, I'm not touching the graphics argument.
Lord Vulkas Mormonus
Posts: 3266/4540
KOTOR
KOTOR II
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Jade Empire
Fable
Advent Rising
Mech Assault series
Halo series
Unreal Championship games
Ninja Gaiden (The original was an Xbox exclusive)
Doom 3

And those are just off the top of my head.

Add that to the fact that games almost always looked better on the Xbox than on other consoles, and you've got a pretty good system.
Astrophel
Posts: 2148/2724
Originally posted by Xeu
There's maybe a dozen or so good games for it,

The bulk of which, in my experience at least, were also available on either the PC or the other consoles.

Now, I had an Xbox, and I got a good bit of use out of it. Until I found out the PC version of Morrowind would work on my computer, anyway.
Xeoman
Posts: 7943/11751
I could be wrong but I think Factor 5 were also somewhat of a 2nd party for awhile.

Yeah I guess I was kind of harsh, but oh well.

Nobody get me wrong, there's a handful of classics on the N64, the GC, etc, I just think it's evident that they haven't had the best 3rd party support for a long time and it doesn't look like that'll change if they keep wanting to "be different" with their weird choices.

Come to think of it though, the first Xbox may have had it worse than any Nintendo console. I remember Capcom developed practically nothing on for that (and so it's always kind of been funny how pro-360 they are now). And yeah, the Xbox just ... sucked looking back at it, lol. There's maybe a dozen or so good games for it, but other than that I'd rather just keep my PS2 out since it has pretty much all the same stuff and an infnite amount of more.

Halo
Ninja Gaiden
Bioware games (KOTOR, Jade Empire)
Fable (I guess?)
???
Astrophel
Posts: 2147/2724
Originally posted by Xeu
If you take a look at all your favorites for the N64-Wii, how many of them aren't by Nintendo? I would imagine there's not a whole lot there.

*looks at N64 favorite games*

Heh. Actually...

Snowboard Kids 2 - Racdym
Snowboard Kids - Racdym
Forsaken 64 - Probe
Extreme-G - Probe
Super Mario 64 - Nintendo
Mario Kart 64 - Nintendo
Tetrisphere - Nintendo
Star Fox 64 - Nintendo
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron - Factor 5
Goldeneye - Rareware (probably counts with Nintendo, considering how they were at the time)
Gauntlet Legends - Midway
Doom 64 - Midway
Top Gear Rally - Boss

4 Nintendo, 7 Others, 1 Rare


I don't mean to defend the N64, it was a flawed system (FUCKING CONTROLLERS!), but I found plenty of non-Nintendo games I enjoy...
Xeoman
Posts: 7942/11751
Kind of going along with what Raoh said above (but probably not so much), I think Nintendo has basically been progressively going downhill for a long time now. A testament to this can be simply taking a look at their dwindling 3rd party support over the last few years.

Losing Squaresoft to the PSX in the mid 90's wasn't just a little stab, it was like Nintendo having a limb sliced off. Sticking to cartridges was obviously a bad move, even if it had some benefits, I think the disadvantages were more overwhelming. I don't know if you younger guys remember growing up then but for the N64 it wasn't rare at all to see brand new games hitting shelves for $70, apparently Turok was $80 from what I recently heard. One of the major reasons for this was because of the cost to produce a cartridge as compared to the CD format every other console went with (don't quote me on this but I always heard it was a few dollars for a cartridge and like 5-10 cents for a CD). They also obviously couldn't produce the music CD based systems could, and couldn't do FMV's. etc, in some cases those 32 extra bits for the 64 helped compared to PSX versions of cross platform games, but yeah.

Then the Gamecube comes along with no DVD support and the goofy as hell mini-disc format. I still have no how or why they went with that. 3rd party support was again, fairly limited.

Now there's the Wii. I guess it's a coin toss with it though, you could say it's overflooded with 3rd party support with its infinite amounts of minigames and such, but it's still nothing like the PS3's or 360's. I guess an obvious reason to this is that the system is just simply inferior technically and can't run half the games the PS3/360 get. Nintendo's fault really. But they wanted to do something new I guess, it's somehow working, and I remember them constantly saying "We're not part of the next-gen race" (but yeah right).

Basically generation by generation, the amount of good games on a Nintendo console seems to continue to drop. If you take a look at all your favorites for the N64-Wii, how many of them aren't by Nintendo? I would imagine there's not a whole lot there. And yeah, Sony/MS don't develop as much themselves, but they still have a lot more support from other developers.
天国JOE
Posts: 2486/2999
Originally posted by Ryan
a normally hardcore game can be played casually, like booting up CoD4 on Recruit difficulty, despite the 'hardcore' vibe the game gives, is playing casually
But...CoD4 is a casual game. Everybody and their dog plays that online.
Ryan
Posts: 1662/1748
Well I never liked the idea of some games being casual and some games being hardcore.

In my opinion, a normally hardcore game can be played casually, like booting up CoD4 on Recruit difficulty, despite the 'hardcore' vibe the game gives, is playing casually, while someone can try to beat every part of Cooking Mama, playing it more seriously than any normally hardcore gamer would play their hardcore games.
Cairoi
Posts: 3279/3807
Originally posted by Ryan
Originally posted by Raoh
The Wii's not designed with hardcore gamers in mind. The only game on it I really like is SSBB. Everything else I've played is mediocre at best.


Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Mario Football, No More Heroes, Madworld, House of the Dead Overkill... There's six must have games for the Wii off the top of my head.


No More Heroes is AWESOME.

Originally posted by Ryan
Originally posted by Cairoi
but I can also appreciate casual games, like Left 4 Dead.


I know sooooo many people who would murder you for such a comment. XD


I don't care what anyone says, Left 4 Dead is a casual game. It's amazing, but it's a game casuals have adopted into their collection. All the bros I know play it, as well as hardcore gamers.
Ryan
Posts: 1661/1748
Originally posted by Raoh
The Wii's not designed with hardcore gamers in mind. The only game on it I really like is SSBB. Everything else I've played is mediocre at best.


Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Mario Football, No More Heroes, Madworld, House of the Dead Overkill... There's six must have games for the Wii off the top of my head.
The Accidental Protege
Posts: 2548/2641
The Wii's not designed with hardcore gamers in mind. The only game on it I really like is SSBB. Everything else I've played is mediocre at best.
Ryan
Posts: 1660/1748
Originally posted by Cairoi
but I can also appreciate casual games, like Left 4 Dead.


I know sooooo many people who would murder you for such a comment. XD
Cairoi
Posts: 3278/3807
Originally posted by Ryan
he only group I can see is one in the middle of casual and hardcore, able to appreciate games specifically for certain aspects, such as graphics, gameplay, sound, immersion, story, new ideas etc. while at the same time not claiming their favourite game is like the game developer's bible and all developers should basically remake this game...



I'd say I'm around there. I'd say my favorite games are Chrono Cross and Grim Fandango, but I'll be fine if they don't make another Chrono game. I enjoy the artists of the genre, like Tim Schafer, and the things they do, but I can also appreciate casual games, like Left 4 Dead.

Lately, the two games I've been playing the hell out of are Bioshock (finally lent from a friend, LOVE this), and the original Megaman series. Beat III a few days ago, looking at IV as next.
Ryan
Posts: 1659/1748
Originally posted by Xeu
- Escapist Magazine forums sound terrible from reading over the first post.


The main problem with the Escapist community is it's huge. In comparison to a place like this, where there's only about 15 active members or something, when this site probably has that many UNIQUE visitors every minute or so. Like 4Chan or GaiaOnline, with such large numbers it becomes difficult to keep riffraff out, which means 50% of the users are total idiots when it comes to, well, anything. The amount of people there who can't spell words over six letters long is staggering... A thread about smoking had an instance of the word cigarette spelt as sigaret. So yeah, the community is generally pretty shitty, although some threads and users are a pleasure to talk to and discuss with.

And like any large community it has its divides. Unfortunately it seems that when it comes to sides that didn't originate from the site itself, unlike 4Chan's /b/tards, fa/tg/uys, whatever, that these groups become almost religious in what they believe in. Every day I see several threads downright stating the Wii sucks, one from a Sony fanboy explaining why the PS3 is the best of this gen and another bunch of retaliation threads from Nintendo fanboys explaining why the first group of threads are wrong.

One trend I have seen between the casual and hardcore divide, from this forum anyway, is:

- Hardcore gamers are self rightous, elitest, incoherent dicks who are unable to take that their precious games have moved to a mainstream market.
- Casual gamers know too little about the games they play to have much of an impact.

But the main issue is:

- From what I can tell, neither casual or hardcore want innovation.

The casual gamer is easy to please, it doesn't matter too much what you give them, as long as it's functional. Their lack of care means no developer has to try and please them with new ideas.

However, and before an Escapist hardcore finds his way here and starts agreeing with me, the hardcore community is just as bad, as they seem FRIGHTENED of change. I've seen many-a-thread basically stating these hardcore gamers want all multiplayer FPS games to be Counter Strike (A not too recent thread regarding TF2's apparent shittyness used this arguement) and for all RPGs to be Final Fantasy. Then there should be no other genre of game.

Bringing back to innovation, neither group seems suitable for helping bring out the spark gaming needs to become innovative again. The only group I can see is one in the middle of casual and hardcore, able to appreciate games specifically for certain aspects, such as graphics, gameplay, sound, immersion, story, new ideas etc. while at the same time not claiming their favourite game is like the game developer's bible and all developers should basically remake this game...

Oh that's another thing I notice a lot of, hardcore gamers complaining when a remake comes out, but then half of their arguements basically say to remake another game (The TF2 should be CSS arguement fits here)

Originally posted by Xeu
- Yahtzee sucks.


Highly disagree... Based on his earlier reviews anyway. Haven't been liking him too much recently. Very surprised at his Mad World review, thought it'd be another like No More Heroes, but he seems to have completely switched opinions on the Wii's graphical aspect, the existence of the console being good or not... Kinda pulled off what pissed me off so much about the Irate Gamer...

Oh also, I have played a little FEAR 2 round a friend's... It really isn't worth full price. Maybe when it drops to around expansion price I'd consider it.
天国JOE
Posts: 2481/2999
Just gonna throw it out there just for the sake of being picky, but the Mirror's Edge thing. It's not entirely unique. Anyone hear of Breakdown? Probably not, but maybe. It was a FPS Fighting Adventure Game for the original Xbox. It's great (and has a awesome high difficulty), but didn't take off. It's an obvious predecessor for the Mirror's Edge gameplay. The only difference is climbing isn't the focal point. Still that same "look through the eyes of the protagonist" style, though.

Made by Namco, check it out sometime.
Xeoman
Posts: 7937/11751
I've been meaning to reply in this thread for awhile, been busy though. I'll be really random and blunt at times:

- Escapist Magazine forums sound terrible from reading over the first post.
- Yahtzee sucks.


Zelda, Mario, Metroid, No More Heroes, House of the Dead Overkill and Madworld

Aren't these all old? I haven't seen a good AAA release for the Wii in a long time, which is unusual for Nintendo.


Now onto the games themselves. One big release that came somewhat recently was Mirror's Edge. For years, a lot of gamers have wanted a different kind of FPS, one which doesn't follow the suit of giving you a gun, putting a bunch of obstacles or enemies in your way and sending you on your merry, pseudo-invincible way as you mow down platoons of computer generated baddies. Instead, you are forced to use platforming skills to escape your enemies, occasionally getting pulled into the action side of things. I know Yahtzee has already gone on about its experimental attitude, and I have the exact same opinion. At least it was innovative.

I guess this is a good example as to why I don't read reviews anymore, haven't been interested in that for years. Where did you hear all these things? Yeah I generally heard it got some hit and miss scores but other than that, from what I saw, most enjoyed the game for what it was. But hell, it went under the radar a bit.


However, Call of Duty 4, from what I understand, had much tighter controls, an incredibly unique form of storytelling that can keep even the most dullminded player hooked on it, and some of the greatest FPS gameplay I, and many others, have personally experienced. It was also nice to see a change from World War 2 to a more modern setting.

I almost got to the 10th Prestige, so obviously I loved it but I wouldn't go that far, lol. CoD4 was a pretty down to basic game, it was just good with its execution. The campaign certainly had its moments but doesn't get any special reward from me. As for WaW the game failed in my eyes because it felt like a "technical" step backward. When I played the beta it blew me away at how clunky the guns looked, the character animations were really bad compared to CoD4's, etc, Treyarch definitely did not have the talent that Infinity Ward has. That said, WaW is far from terrible but I honestly never felt compelled to buy it or even rent it, but maybe someday in the future. Also for good measure, Infinity Ward is terrible to their communities, waiting for their random patches (also a fault on MS's side) was a pain in the ass, and the final nail in the coffin was when they flatout cancelled the playlist update we were supposed to get around the time WaW came out. Might've been a move on Activision's part, but it sucked.

Valve is certainly amazing, especially with how much Steam has taken off over the last few years. A good way to bypass the fancy producers and to get money to the real people behind the games, the developers.


But when games like Halo, Gears of War and Resistance are being regurgitated year after year, using old ideas and sometimes repeating bad design choices, gaming cannot develop as either an art form or an entertainment medium, and it deeply saddens me that a lot of the ideas I've had for games may never surface simply because of the fact publishers don't like taking risks and employing the use of new ideas, for obvious business puroses.


Now, to get unto my issue with the gaming community.

Gamers are the downfall of gaming.

I hate to sound like the old guy here and I'm probably part of the issue, but gaming simply isn't what it used to be. Gaming has become so utterly mainstream it's not even funny. The internet is a huge factor here too, the endless amount of fanboy worship or bitching has kind of ruined everything (not just with gaming).

In the 90's, or 80's, you were a nerd if you were really into games. Nowadays that's not really the case. It's pretty rare to find people thesedays that don't play videogames at all, at least within our generation. Businesses know this too and gaming is just way bigger than it ever has been. Some might think that's great, but it really isn't. The niche market is now overcrowded by the casual gamer which is obvious when you look at the Wii, or DS's lineup, or the endless amount of FPS's, etc. It was happening with the last generation of consoles, but now the populatiry contest is even more important for the big companies.

In my opinion the biggest leaps in innovation were with the start of videogames itself (whether you consider that the Atari/Arcade days, or the 8-bit NES days), and then probably the leap to 3D with the 32-64bit systems. With that jump, all developers were forced to come up with completely new ways as to how we played and saw games. The creativity might not seem as incredible if you go and look at the PSX/N64 games nowadays, but if you put yourself back in the mid 90's, that stuff was mindblowing at the time.

Now honestly I'm hardly anti-new-gaming or anything stupid like that, but I have come to really hate the attitude most companies have and those of the mainstream crowd. I still think, just like all forms of entertainment whether they're in a slope of denial or not, there will still always be classic releases here and there, new innovative games that try things new and succeed very well, but they're just increasingly harder to find with gaming exploding so much as it is (oh and it's still easy to say, of course the NES/Genesis/SNES/PSX/etcetc had terrible games too). It could be a cynical outlook for the future but I don't think this will ever change either, gaming has changed, and I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the changes but I'll live with it. Yes, I miss the times of being that geek who loved videogames.

The good thing is is that the past will always be there, nobody can take away those classics on the older consoles. Hence why I've been on a huge PSX binge lately.

Also it's a shame there will always be people who care about the consoles, when it's the GAMES that make them. The 360 as an example, is by far my choice of this gen, but also by far probably one of the shittiest pieces of console hardware I've seen since ... forever. Microsoft sucks. Sony has a terrible holier-than-thou attitude quite often too, as does Nintendo. Who cares about them though, I don't buy a system for them, I buy it for games.


Well, I loved FEAR, but I'm not paying extra for the same game with better graphics and a continued storyline. Still probably worth me checking it out though...

That was probably one of the best FPS sequels I've played in awhile actually.

If you've just "heard" things and haven't actually played it ... well, that goes along with what I said above about reviews and such. Always better to try things out for yourself. Not to condemn the existence of the internet basically, or anything, but yeah.
Ryan
Posts: 1655/1748
That's a major point that I didn't go into much detail, if at all, in my post. GOD DAMN SEQUELS XD

The only sequel in that list that seems somewhat suitable to backing my statements is Fallout 3. True, it's almost a rehash of Oblivion, but compared to the original Fallout, it's full of great ideas, the VATS system works incredibly well, and despite the very samey indoor areas, it's incredibly immersive and the inclusion of guns helped ease me through the problems that I had with Oblivion.

The rest, besides Lost Planet since I've heard very little about that, seem bad... Street Fighter IV with some terribly difficult/cheap AI at times, RE5 taking everything good about RE4 and chucking it in a bin on the darkside of Mars, FEAR 2... Well, I loved FEAR, but I'm not paying extra for the same game with better graphics and a continued storyline. Still probably worth me checking it out though...

EDIT (Thanks to an anti-double post feature being in place now, when did that happen?):

Originally posted by Vulkar
Any form of media, be it books, movies, video games, or even comic books, are only good if the audience enjoys it. Movies can be enjoyable while providing more than just entertainment, assuming that it is thought provoking or meaningful in some way. A good example is the movie Blade Runner, which has very little in the way of entertainment, but has quite a bit of good metaphors and thought provoking ideas. If someone is looking for entertainment, Blade Runner is quite a boring movie, but if someone wants more than entertainment, they'll ENJOY it.

The same goes for books. There are many books, political, philosophical, instructive, fictional, which don't entertain the reader, but are still enjoyed by their audiences. Again, a goodexample is the Communist Manifesto. Far from entertaining, but it does offer several ideas that many people enjoyed hearing about.


Something I managed to miss from the first time I read this post. You are not giving games any form of different audiences. Where you are saying films and books have these audiences for less entertaining books, those audiences are comparitively small in comparison to those who DO read for entertainment.

Gaming has the same split, generally known as the casual/hardcore gamer dispute. Casual gamers claim games are just for fun, while hardcore gamers claim them to need something more. Both are wrong, since neither actually consider the artistic side of gaming besides a small portion of the hardcores, and a whole different audience in itself.

Anyone know the game JFK Reloaded? The game was made to see if it was possible for the events that went down to be recreated in a computerised form. Anyone remember Postal 2? That game, despite being hilarious shooty fun, could be completed entirely without having to even pick up a gun, an idea which shows it's the player who causes a lot of the violence in games, not the game itself. The player is the one to give into temptation, rather than the game forcing the player to kill everything that so much as twitches.

It's because so many gamers play for fun that these subtle points get hidden away deep within graphics and physics that most gamers seem to love and care about games these days.
Astrophel
Posts: 2139/2724


Just something I found amusing. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled long serious (and seriously long) posts.
This is a long thread. Click here to view it.
Xeogaming Forums - Gaming Discussion - Innovation



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