I first have to start off with the legal stuff. Please keep the law in mind when emulating games. You are not supposed to run an emulation of a game if you don't own the original legally. I do not condone piracy or stealing of licensed software / hardware. With that out of the way, lets get into it.
Emulating classic games is something that's been around since the turn of this latest century. Yes, it existed before that, but it was in it's infancy, and what you would have been emulating (and badly) weren't even that old yet.
The first levels of emulation were pretty basic. You could only really emulate things like the NES and Gameboy, and a little later, SNES and same era consoles like the Genesis. In the early days of emulation, the biggest con would have to be controls. Most emulators only would register input controls from the keyboards. And for those that would input joysticks, USB joypads were both young, expensive and crap. But we emulated our games none the less. Using keyboards awkwardly, and stuck to our PC's as there were no portable devices capable of emulation yet, apart from top tier laptops of the day.
But there were 2 things that kept us coming back. The first was stability and reliability. Many of the early consoles were unreliable, prone to glitch, and saves would oft times erase when the game cart wasn't played for a certain amount of time. The second, which leads from the first, is save states. Save states have existed since the beginning and are an amazing tool for emulation. It made it so you can put down any game, for any amount of time, and pick it up and start playing from exactly where you left off. Alternatively, it also opened the door for cheating your way through games that you might not have been able to beat previously; allowing you to save and load your way through hard sections of a game that you would normally game over on.
It was really in the mid 2000's that emulation started to pick up speed. Around this time, emulators for the N64, and PSX came out, allowing us to play these on the PC. At the same time, peripheral support was much stronger, allowing you to pick up a decent USB game pad for under $20. This not only opened the world up for better emulation and controls, but very real multiplayer games. Before this, you might have had to share a keyboard, which is hardly practical, but having a couple of USB controllers worked perfectly. In these early days, emulating the later consoles, especially the PlayStation was weak at best, but it worked well enough to keep us trying. Support kept on, and computers got better and better, making emulation work better and better.
As hardware evolved in computers, so did the emulators. Better hardware and better code writing made it possible to play more advance games reliably and without fault. But the direction that emulators took surprised everyone. Emulation on mobile devices like tablets and phones allowed for us to play our classic games on the move. This was a huge step and is still going strong today.
When mobile devices like android phones started with emulation, it was rough. They were only capable of playing with touch screen controls, which were difficult, lacked a level of feel, and were commonly unresponsive. I started with this pretty early in Androids life, around build 2.5. I will admit it did get better, and fast. First was allowing support for bluetooth controllers. Unfortunately, this started with only androids that were rooted. Eventually a pretty smart individual came up with a code to link the android with a Wii remote, and was the first real link to actual game controls on a phone. Around this time, there were a few developers coming up with add-ons, buttons and joysticks that you stuck to your screen, Think Geek even came up with a mini arcade console for iPhones. None of these were really viable solutions however.
Around this time, there were some gaming tablets that were starting to be release. Mostly from China, many of these had problems. Most had issues with reliability, buttons and joysticks breaking, and versions of android that were glitchy and had a LOT of problems. I've owned a number of these devices, and in short, there were definitely BIG problems. But it was a step in the right direction. And gladly, many developers have continued to pursue this. Not only have gaming tablets become quite good, they're still relatively cheap in comparison to most devices you can buy in the states. But this still requires purchasing a second device, and more often than not, not up to our devices top specifications.
The real advancement came in 2013, with the Nvidia Sheild Portable. They had a Bluetooth controller that held in place a proprietary tablet. This was (and still is) extremely expensive in comparison to other devices, and was all proprietary. But this was the match that sparked the flame. It's now common place to find Bluetooth controllers with clips, spring holders, whatever is needed to hold phones or tablets in place. And with companies like iPega producing well built and reliable joypads, you can now play emulated games on whatever device you own, easily, practically and affordably. Some of these controllers are getting pretty advance as well. A good example is the iPega 9028. A Bluetooth controler that is designed for smartphones, and has a built in touch sensor. They also have the iPega 9023, a device that can expand
What keeps emulation going is our desire to play games from our childhood. Be it from wanting to relive our past, or in my case, the belief that old games are just better, emulation is going strong and shows no signs of slowing down. It's so popular in fact, Nintendo is re-releasing a version of the original NES, and is constantly having classic games pop up on their Wii and 3DS virtual console titles. Sony, Microsoft and Steam and joined the fray with classic titles on their respective stores as well.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Console's VS. Computers - The all time gaming battle
In the world of home gaming, we've always had 2 distinct classes of gamers. The console gamers VS. computer gamers. Setting aside all the individual console prejudices that are held toward one another, PC and console gamers have almost always been at odds with each other. There's no denying, that both platforms have swapped places for supremacy over one another. This is just a short article explaining the strengths and weaknesses between the two over the past years.
In the early days, computers weren't really capable of playing games. The earliest computer games were text base adventure games, where at the time these were out, consoles like the Atari were on top of the world in home gaming.
In the 1980's computers were starting to catch up a bit, but were still a bit down in comparison to systems like the NES. Computers in the 1980's were at least able to branch into some of the game markets, even with some direct arcade ports to the system. But it wasn't until the 90's that computers were capable of high quality gaming. The real issue was the game media. In the mid to early 80's, we were stuck with the microscopic 5-1/2" floppy disks with a grand total of 1.2mb of disk space and a horrifically long read time. Later, the 3-1/2" floppy came out with a bit more space (1.44mb) but with the real advantage being the read speed. The problem was still the size. I remember installing games using 10 or more disks. Then there was a small push for a media called 'Zip' disks. These were massive in comparison with 100mb of storage. But again they were not a viable media as they were very slow and extremely prone to viruses. It wasn't until the 90's when CDROM's became common place that computers could keep up.
The CDROM era in the early 90's was when computers really hit their stride. Not only were the 700mb disk size much more capable of holding and playing larger more complex games. But the technology allowed for full movie cinematics and voice acting, something that wasn't really capable in consoles until the release of CD based consoles much later. Even the early CD consoles like the Sega Saturn didn't do this particularly well. The Nintendo 64 and original Sony Playstation were the first to really compete with this. But computers still have a few disadvantages. First and probably the largest was price. To get a computer in the early 90's, complete with monitor, keyboard, mouse and possibly any peripherals, could cost you close to $1000, and this was 30 years ago. Consoles were able to hook up into any TV, and rarely cost more than $300, most selling for around the $200 mark and less. The other, oddly was portability. Often times, as kids, we would bring consoles to friends and family members houses. They were relatively small, and surprisingly durable. Early computers were extremely large, heavy and incredibly fragile. They were stationary unless you absolutely had to move them.
Even with the price, computers dominated the early to mid 90's of gaming. It was the first place you could play full 3D games, and even had full ports of arcade games, where the consoles had to have them completely dumbed down. It wasn't until the mid 90's with the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 that things started to swing back in the consoles favor. During this period, computers still had plenty of capabilities that consoles didn't. Especially with the rise of the internet in the mid 90's. But consoles were still cheaper, more portable, and more reliable. At this time, there were still video rental stores, and you could rent both consoles and console games, but you could never rent computers and/or computer games, giving them an additional edge.
In the late 90's into the early 2000's, there was another shift toward computers. As computers progressively became more powerful, and more affordable, along with the increase of high speed internet, online gaming became a main staple in the gaming world. Even in the early days of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft, online gaming became (and still is to this day) one of gaming's most lucrative formats. This period was a bit of a difficult point for consoles. There were some solid systems like the Playstation 2, Game Cube, XBox and even the Sega Dreamcast. All solid systems, with solid games. But with the ability to only have 2 players (4 in the Game Cubes case) and no online ability, they didn't have the appeal of a lot of computer games. Sega actually had an expansion for online gaming, and later on the Playstation 2 as well; But neither were fully realized and worked poorly. This isn't to say there weren't some fantastic console games released at this point. On the contrary, some of the best of all time were released. But in the terms of appeal, PC's still had the market largely cornered during this period.
The next generation (starting around 2007) is when computers and consoles started fighting on even ground. With the release of the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360, online gaming became normal for consoles. Nintendo, even to this day, still doesn't quite have online gaming down (largely with their fear of offending anyone). But everyone else has pushed so far into online gaming, that even full singleplayer games have online elements. Be it random Co-Op missions, or even just expansions to games, it placed consoles on an even playing ground with PC's. The PS3 was the first real step in this direction. The monolith device that was supposed to be able to cure cancer (literally). It was sturdy, reliable, but also massive and extremely expensive, with the launch versions costing upwards of $700. The Xbox 360 was a bit cheaper at $400 and the Wii at the cheapest at $250 for the base model. At this time capable computers were actually less expensive than the Playstation, and were on par in cost with the Xbox and Wii. But, as the consoles soul purpose is to play games, they were actually better than PC's in most respects when it came to gameplay.
In the last 10 years, gaming has taken sort of an odd turn. The latest generation of consoles, and even many new PC games, you don't really own the software. You can't use it on different machines, and in some cases, are paying monthly for games. Consoles are now watching you when you're in your house, and they're releasing games in fragments, forcing you to pay for each tiny portion release of the game. The problem is, in the last 15 years, video games have surpassed Hollywood in net gains. Companies are seeing this and cashing in. In the process, they have become so paranoid about making every last cent they can, they are robbing the gamers blind. I can understand fighting against piracy. But they are so set on making every dollar, they don't even want you sharing a game with your friends and family. They have to buy their own. What this does, is if someone was on the fence about picking up a game, instead of asking a friend or something if you can borrow it, and you know, see if you like it, they'll just say screw it and not ever play it. This mind set is stopping people (including myself) from picking up modern consoles.
Because of this, I would have to give the current generation of gaming to computers. Especially with even low end laptops being able to play really fantastic games, and you can take them anywhere.
To add to this dilemma, modern gaming is starting to take a downward turn in several areas, just in regards to the games as well. The powerful systems are nice, but the game producers are more interested in vamping up their games graphics, rather than providing us with any real gameplay. I would estimate about half or more of top level games spend half the time in a pretty movie with quicktime events (one of the reasons why there are so many people nostalgic over the games of our youth). It won't be until we can get past this that gaming can really take a new direction.
There's also a new direction that PC's are making that consoles have yet to step into. The world of VR gaming. VR gaming is still really in the steps of infancy, with only a few real games that have taken this direction. But it is a direction worth exploring. Many gamers are looking for a more immersive experience, and VR is the most immersive you can get. It's also the quickest way to get motion sickness, but I'll side step that for now. I've played around with VR, and it has some serious potential, and this is potential that consoles will have to catch up with, or they will fall behind again.
I do want to note, that I'm not one who ever took sides in this spat of gamers. Yes, I have always preferred most console games to computer games. But over the years, I've had both, with favorites in both directions. And now, about the only company with any real exclusives is Nintendo, so even the exclusive argument isn't overly valid anymore either. These days, as time goes on, Consoles and Computers are growing closer and closer in similarities as well. The only company that's keeping it in a different direction is, again, Nintendo. The next 10 or so years will be an interesting study on where gaming goes.
In the early days, computers weren't really capable of playing games. The earliest computer games were text base adventure games, where at the time these were out, consoles like the Atari were on top of the world in home gaming.
In the 1980's computers were starting to catch up a bit, but were still a bit down in comparison to systems like the NES. Computers in the 1980's were at least able to branch into some of the game markets, even with some direct arcade ports to the system. But it wasn't until the 90's that computers were capable of high quality gaming. The real issue was the game media. In the mid to early 80's, we were stuck with the microscopic 5-1/2" floppy disks with a grand total of 1.2mb of disk space and a horrifically long read time. Later, the 3-1/2" floppy came out with a bit more space (1.44mb) but with the real advantage being the read speed. The problem was still the size. I remember installing games using 10 or more disks. Then there was a small push for a media called 'Zip' disks. These were massive in comparison with 100mb of storage. But again they were not a viable media as they were very slow and extremely prone to viruses. It wasn't until the 90's when CDROM's became common place that computers could keep up.
The CDROM era in the early 90's was when computers really hit their stride. Not only were the 700mb disk size much more capable of holding and playing larger more complex games. But the technology allowed for full movie cinematics and voice acting, something that wasn't really capable in consoles until the release of CD based consoles much later. Even the early CD consoles like the Sega Saturn didn't do this particularly well. The Nintendo 64 and original Sony Playstation were the first to really compete with this. But computers still have a few disadvantages. First and probably the largest was price. To get a computer in the early 90's, complete with monitor, keyboard, mouse and possibly any peripherals, could cost you close to $1000, and this was 30 years ago. Consoles were able to hook up into any TV, and rarely cost more than $300, most selling for around the $200 mark and less. The other, oddly was portability. Often times, as kids, we would bring consoles to friends and family members houses. They were relatively small, and surprisingly durable. Early computers were extremely large, heavy and incredibly fragile. They were stationary unless you absolutely had to move them.
Even with the price, computers dominated the early to mid 90's of gaming. It was the first place you could play full 3D games, and even had full ports of arcade games, where the consoles had to have them completely dumbed down. It wasn't until the mid 90's with the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 that things started to swing back in the consoles favor. During this period, computers still had plenty of capabilities that consoles didn't. Especially with the rise of the internet in the mid 90's. But consoles were still cheaper, more portable, and more reliable. At this time, there were still video rental stores, and you could rent both consoles and console games, but you could never rent computers and/or computer games, giving them an additional edge.
In the late 90's into the early 2000's, there was another shift toward computers. As computers progressively became more powerful, and more affordable, along with the increase of high speed internet, online gaming became a main staple in the gaming world. Even in the early days of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft, online gaming became (and still is to this day) one of gaming's most lucrative formats. This period was a bit of a difficult point for consoles. There were some solid systems like the Playstation 2, Game Cube, XBox and even the Sega Dreamcast. All solid systems, with solid games. But with the ability to only have 2 players (4 in the Game Cubes case) and no online ability, they didn't have the appeal of a lot of computer games. Sega actually had an expansion for online gaming, and later on the Playstation 2 as well; But neither were fully realized and worked poorly. This isn't to say there weren't some fantastic console games released at this point. On the contrary, some of the best of all time were released. But in the terms of appeal, PC's still had the market largely cornered during this period.
The next generation (starting around 2007) is when computers and consoles started fighting on even ground. With the release of the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360, online gaming became normal for consoles. Nintendo, even to this day, still doesn't quite have online gaming down (largely with their fear of offending anyone). But everyone else has pushed so far into online gaming, that even full singleplayer games have online elements. Be it random Co-Op missions, or even just expansions to games, it placed consoles on an even playing ground with PC's. The PS3 was the first real step in this direction. The monolith device that was supposed to be able to cure cancer (literally). It was sturdy, reliable, but also massive and extremely expensive, with the launch versions costing upwards of $700. The Xbox 360 was a bit cheaper at $400 and the Wii at the cheapest at $250 for the base model. At this time capable computers were actually less expensive than the Playstation, and were on par in cost with the Xbox and Wii. But, as the consoles soul purpose is to play games, they were actually better than PC's in most respects when it came to gameplay.
In the last 10 years, gaming has taken sort of an odd turn. The latest generation of consoles, and even many new PC games, you don't really own the software. You can't use it on different machines, and in some cases, are paying monthly for games. Consoles are now watching you when you're in your house, and they're releasing games in fragments, forcing you to pay for each tiny portion release of the game. The problem is, in the last 15 years, video games have surpassed Hollywood in net gains. Companies are seeing this and cashing in. In the process, they have become so paranoid about making every last cent they can, they are robbing the gamers blind. I can understand fighting against piracy. But they are so set on making every dollar, they don't even want you sharing a game with your friends and family. They have to buy their own. What this does, is if someone was on the fence about picking up a game, instead of asking a friend or something if you can borrow it, and you know, see if you like it, they'll just say screw it and not ever play it. This mind set is stopping people (including myself) from picking up modern consoles.
Because of this, I would have to give the current generation of gaming to computers. Especially with even low end laptops being able to play really fantastic games, and you can take them anywhere.
To add to this dilemma, modern gaming is starting to take a downward turn in several areas, just in regards to the games as well. The powerful systems are nice, but the game producers are more interested in vamping up their games graphics, rather than providing us with any real gameplay. I would estimate about half or more of top level games spend half the time in a pretty movie with quicktime events (one of the reasons why there are so many people nostalgic over the games of our youth). It won't be until we can get past this that gaming can really take a new direction.
There's also a new direction that PC's are making that consoles have yet to step into. The world of VR gaming. VR gaming is still really in the steps of infancy, with only a few real games that have taken this direction. But it is a direction worth exploring. Many gamers are looking for a more immersive experience, and VR is the most immersive you can get. It's also the quickest way to get motion sickness, but I'll side step that for now. I've played around with VR, and it has some serious potential, and this is potential that consoles will have to catch up with, or they will fall behind again.
I do want to note, that I'm not one who ever took sides in this spat of gamers. Yes, I have always preferred most console games to computer games. But over the years, I've had both, with favorites in both directions. And now, about the only company with any real exclusives is Nintendo, so even the exclusive argument isn't overly valid anymore either. These days, as time goes on, Consoles and Computers are growing closer and closer in similarities as well. The only company that's keeping it in a different direction is, again, Nintendo. The next 10 or so years will be an interesting study on where gaming goes.
A Rant About Classic vs. Modern Gaming
As I am, what is now classified, a classic gamer, I do often times get asked, ridiculed even, about how old games can be better than new. I can usually silence them with a basic answer, old games were more fun. Now this is an extremely simplified and somewhat objective answer. I will go over what makes most classic games better than the modern games that are coming out now.
I will start with the easiest to compare, gameplay.
Modern games are largely about pretty graphics and sometimes trying to tell a compelling story. The problem is that's all they do. I have a few really big titles that display this really massively. Heavy Rain, almost all the Call of Duty games, and most JRPG's released since the mid 2000's. I understand what they are trying to do, but most of these games are forgetting an extremely important thing. IT'S A GAME! When I turn on the ol' console, I'm looking to actually be a part of something, not feel like I'm watching a 12 hour movie that I have to fiddle with the controller. The worst offender that I know of is Xenosaga, a PS2 game. Xenosaga has a minimum of a 4 hour unskippable intro without gameplay. I say minimum as I gave up. 4 hours of my life I will never get back. I know this isn't exactly a new game, but it was around when this was becoming norm. And so many games have followed suit, as if this was a good idea (I'm talking to you Kojima).
Older games mainly focused on the gameplay. And there's a good reason for this. They didn't have anything else. Look at Super Mario Bros. A game release back in 1985, and had the entire disk space of around 35kb. That's .035mb. This small of a space wouldn't even render a single particle effect in a modern game. And yet, with something so basic, they produced a game that fans and newcomers are playing and enjoying, over 30 years later. Not all early games were good. E.T. being the fly in the proverbial ointment. But even in the old Atari days, 4 directions with 1 button, they had to make a game fun to play. If not, no one bought it, or they would even return it. Bless Nintendo for restarting the gaming industry in 1985.
As gaming progressed into the 90's we did see some graphical jumps into the 16 bit era. But gaming was relatively unchanged. Larger file sizes were able to be used, consoles were becoming more reliable and games did become prettier. And more buttons were added, allowing for us to do more. But the basic experience, aside from slight changes and improvements didn't alter much. Oddly, gaming was still very mascot oriented. This wasn't a bad thing back then as many of the mascots were still fairly young, but is did set certain companies in a future direction that would hurt them.
Gaming's next big step cam with the introduction of 3D in 1994-1996. I'm not talking about those pseudo 3D games like Wolfenstien and Dark Forces, but real 3D rendered games. The Playstation coming out, and shortly followed by the N64, this was the new direction. This allowed for some great innovation, and for some serious problems to develop. Although with problems, 3D was a hit. Games like Spyro and Super Mario 64 were well implemented and allowed for new developments in games. It also advanced the FPS into a better direction as well, allowing for real 3D environments.
But with the good and the glitter, started a rise of something that, while at the time seemed cool, was the start of what gaming has become today. The use of pre-rendered graphics to tell a story. The first big company to starry really doing this was Squaresoft (now SquareEnix). Games like the Final Fantasies and Vagrant story, while still excellent games, chose the direction of pre-rendered cinematics to pretty up the game and progress the story. Points in the game where you aren't playing, you're watching. As it was the early days, it wasn't to the point of being abused. But it was a start into a bad direction. There were a number of big name games that fell into this trap permanently.
The company that resisted (granted they didn't have much of a choice with their hardware) is Nintendo. Oh, Nintendo fell into it's own sins. The N64 did not have the hardware capable of pre-rendered cinematics, so they defaulted to what they were doing in the NES and SNES days, walls of text. Again, story telling through non-gameplay methods. And, realistically, since the SNES, Nintendo started the hand holding that exists largely in gaming today. Be it by extremely easy challenges, an inability to fail due to an excess of free lives, or just over explaining something that could have easily been a puzzle.
There were some superb games to come out of these era's. Unfortunately though, this era holds the sin of the birth of bad ideas. Bad ideas that still plaque gaming today.
Gaming has been a shockingly smooth progression from the early eras of 3D to now. Little things have been implemented, better controls, online, etc. But there was one franchise that really altered an aspect of gaming, and that would be Halo. Halo is the franchise that really made PvP a main staple for a game. Now Halo isn't guilty in having a tiny story and focused only on the online play. But they did lay the brickwork for it. The online was so popular, franchises like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and the Battlefield games popped up. Sure they have a single player campaign.... Kinda. But you can tell it's slapdash, and the 100% main purpose of the games is the online matches. And from that, games that have no single player aspects have popped up. Games like Star Wars Battfront, Overwatch and Battlefield 1 for example. And I can't stand they are charging extremely high prices for these games that have zero playability if you don't have an open network (Or don't care about online). Fighting games can be sort of blamed for this, but console released fighting games always have some reasonably decent single player to it as well. To add, games that focus on multiplayer, with zero local multiplayer ruined a lot of what use to make multi-player games any fun.
There are modern games that do get it right. Games like Darksouls, Shantae and the Pirates Curse and Hollow Knight to name a few. And why are these games so good? They are harking back to something older. Be it just classic gaming styles and 2D platformers that are just fun, or games that might clearly be a modern game, but don't have the modern issue of hand holding just so it can tell the story it wants to. So few games are show don't tell, which is a shame as those are the games with the best story telling elements. What's interesting, most of the games coming out that do hit all the right buttons are being made on the indi market. I guess the indi market is where people exist to make what they WANT to make and not what is being dictated to them.
In the very early days of gaming, I can understand either a very simplified story, or no story at all. The disk space was so minute, that one text box could have cost the space needed for something like a boss battle. But as games progressed, they started to be able to weave quite powerful stories. But in these early days, they didn't skimp on the gameplay to do so. Now, everything is so set on making a game pretty, and rendering the neck hairs of the protagonist, it leaves them with a shortage of both time and disk space to do little else. And story focused games seem to be so set on telling you the story they want to tell, they give little to no way to deviate from their path. In some cases just taking controls away from you because heaven forbid you don't have the exact experience they have planned out.
There is one genre of game that has come out of the 3D era that really has been a strong movement, however. Sandbox games. Starting with Shenmue on the Dreamcast and progressing to the majority of AAA titles today, sandbox games to provide an experience that could never be truly replicated in older games. This direction has led to some of the most interesting games to be launched in the last 15 years. This has also led some games into a corner they shouldn't have gone into. Sandbox games that work, do so because it's a world that you can take just about any direction you like. And most of the time, will allow you to be a psychotic little nut bag. The games that fall down in this manner would be better served in a linear progression, as that's obviously the direction the games push. There are a few games that really fall into this pattern, No More Heroes and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the first Assassins Creed are 3 good examples. For something that really is a good idea for some games, is just a terrible idea for those that really shouldn't use it.
I don't want to say that the progression of all gaming has been bad. That just wouldn't be true. But certain ideas, many of them bad ideas, have become common in nearly every game.
Just for arguments sake, there is one genre of game, that has only proceeded to get better with technology improvements. That is simulation games. Flight sims, driving sims, hell even farming and truck driving simulators have all benefited from this. Reason being, they only need to focus on one thing. Making gameplay as intuitive, and as realistic as possible. In the early simulation games, it was bad, real bad. Now it's near like doing the real thing. I have a wheel, and can use it to teach people how to drive using Gran Turismo or something similar as the driving program. But this does bring me back to my original point, basing a game around gameplay is what makes a game fun.
I think what game producers need to do, is make a fun game idea, and then come up with a story and world to build around it. This way, even if the story struggles at points, if you make the game fun, you can still play and enjoy the gaming experience.
I will start with the easiest to compare, gameplay.
Modern games are largely about pretty graphics and sometimes trying to tell a compelling story. The problem is that's all they do. I have a few really big titles that display this really massively. Heavy Rain, almost all the Call of Duty games, and most JRPG's released since the mid 2000's. I understand what they are trying to do, but most of these games are forgetting an extremely important thing. IT'S A GAME! When I turn on the ol' console, I'm looking to actually be a part of something, not feel like I'm watching a 12 hour movie that I have to fiddle with the controller. The worst offender that I know of is Xenosaga, a PS2 game. Xenosaga has a minimum of a 4 hour unskippable intro without gameplay. I say minimum as I gave up. 4 hours of my life I will never get back. I know this isn't exactly a new game, but it was around when this was becoming norm. And so many games have followed suit, as if this was a good idea (I'm talking to you Kojima).
Older games mainly focused on the gameplay. And there's a good reason for this. They didn't have anything else. Look at Super Mario Bros. A game release back in 1985, and had the entire disk space of around 35kb. That's .035mb. This small of a space wouldn't even render a single particle effect in a modern game. And yet, with something so basic, they produced a game that fans and newcomers are playing and enjoying, over 30 years later. Not all early games were good. E.T. being the fly in the proverbial ointment. But even in the old Atari days, 4 directions with 1 button, they had to make a game fun to play. If not, no one bought it, or they would even return it. Bless Nintendo for restarting the gaming industry in 1985.
As gaming progressed into the 90's we did see some graphical jumps into the 16 bit era. But gaming was relatively unchanged. Larger file sizes were able to be used, consoles were becoming more reliable and games did become prettier. And more buttons were added, allowing for us to do more. But the basic experience, aside from slight changes and improvements didn't alter much. Oddly, gaming was still very mascot oriented. This wasn't a bad thing back then as many of the mascots were still fairly young, but is did set certain companies in a future direction that would hurt them.
Gaming's next big step cam with the introduction of 3D in 1994-1996. I'm not talking about those pseudo 3D games like Wolfenstien and Dark Forces, but real 3D rendered games. The Playstation coming out, and shortly followed by the N64, this was the new direction. This allowed for some great innovation, and for some serious problems to develop. Although with problems, 3D was a hit. Games like Spyro and Super Mario 64 were well implemented and allowed for new developments in games. It also advanced the FPS into a better direction as well, allowing for real 3D environments.
But with the good and the glitter, started a rise of something that, while at the time seemed cool, was the start of what gaming has become today. The use of pre-rendered graphics to tell a story. The first big company to starry really doing this was Squaresoft (now SquareEnix). Games like the Final Fantasies and Vagrant story, while still excellent games, chose the direction of pre-rendered cinematics to pretty up the game and progress the story. Points in the game where you aren't playing, you're watching. As it was the early days, it wasn't to the point of being abused. But it was a start into a bad direction. There were a number of big name games that fell into this trap permanently.
The company that resisted (granted they didn't have much of a choice with their hardware) is Nintendo. Oh, Nintendo fell into it's own sins. The N64 did not have the hardware capable of pre-rendered cinematics, so they defaulted to what they were doing in the NES and SNES days, walls of text. Again, story telling through non-gameplay methods. And, realistically, since the SNES, Nintendo started the hand holding that exists largely in gaming today. Be it by extremely easy challenges, an inability to fail due to an excess of free lives, or just over explaining something that could have easily been a puzzle.
There were some superb games to come out of these era's. Unfortunately though, this era holds the sin of the birth of bad ideas. Bad ideas that still plaque gaming today.
Gaming has been a shockingly smooth progression from the early eras of 3D to now. Little things have been implemented, better controls, online, etc. But there was one franchise that really altered an aspect of gaming, and that would be Halo. Halo is the franchise that really made PvP a main staple for a game. Now Halo isn't guilty in having a tiny story and focused only on the online play. But they did lay the brickwork for it. The online was so popular, franchises like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare and the Battlefield games popped up. Sure they have a single player campaign.... Kinda. But you can tell it's slapdash, and the 100% main purpose of the games is the online matches. And from that, games that have no single player aspects have popped up. Games like Star Wars Battfront, Overwatch and Battlefield 1 for example. And I can't stand they are charging extremely high prices for these games that have zero playability if you don't have an open network (Or don't care about online). Fighting games can be sort of blamed for this, but console released fighting games always have some reasonably decent single player to it as well. To add, games that focus on multiplayer, with zero local multiplayer ruined a lot of what use to make multi-player games any fun.
There are modern games that do get it right. Games like Darksouls, Shantae and the Pirates Curse and Hollow Knight to name a few. And why are these games so good? They are harking back to something older. Be it just classic gaming styles and 2D platformers that are just fun, or games that might clearly be a modern game, but don't have the modern issue of hand holding just so it can tell the story it wants to. So few games are show don't tell, which is a shame as those are the games with the best story telling elements. What's interesting, most of the games coming out that do hit all the right buttons are being made on the indi market. I guess the indi market is where people exist to make what they WANT to make and not what is being dictated to them.
In the very early days of gaming, I can understand either a very simplified story, or no story at all. The disk space was so minute, that one text box could have cost the space needed for something like a boss battle. But as games progressed, they started to be able to weave quite powerful stories. But in these early days, they didn't skimp on the gameplay to do so. Now, everything is so set on making a game pretty, and rendering the neck hairs of the protagonist, it leaves them with a shortage of both time and disk space to do little else. And story focused games seem to be so set on telling you the story they want to tell, they give little to no way to deviate from their path. In some cases just taking controls away from you because heaven forbid you don't have the exact experience they have planned out.
There is one genre of game that has come out of the 3D era that really has been a strong movement, however. Sandbox games. Starting with Shenmue on the Dreamcast and progressing to the majority of AAA titles today, sandbox games to provide an experience that could never be truly replicated in older games. This direction has led to some of the most interesting games to be launched in the last 15 years. This has also led some games into a corner they shouldn't have gone into. Sandbox games that work, do so because it's a world that you can take just about any direction you like. And most of the time, will allow you to be a psychotic little nut bag. The games that fall down in this manner would be better served in a linear progression, as that's obviously the direction the games push. There are a few games that really fall into this pattern, No More Heroes and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the first Assassins Creed are 3 good examples. For something that really is a good idea for some games, is just a terrible idea for those that really shouldn't use it.
I don't want to say that the progression of all gaming has been bad. That just wouldn't be true. But certain ideas, many of them bad ideas, have become common in nearly every game.
Just for arguments sake, there is one genre of game, that has only proceeded to get better with technology improvements. That is simulation games. Flight sims, driving sims, hell even farming and truck driving simulators have all benefited from this. Reason being, they only need to focus on one thing. Making gameplay as intuitive, and as realistic as possible. In the early simulation games, it was bad, real bad. Now it's near like doing the real thing. I have a wheel, and can use it to teach people how to drive using Gran Turismo or something similar as the driving program. But this does bring me back to my original point, basing a game around gameplay is what makes a game fun.
I think what game producers need to do, is make a fun game idea, and then come up with a story and world to build around it. This way, even if the story struggles at points, if you make the game fun, you can still play and enjoy the gaming experience.
Pandora Arcade Units - Are they worth it?
So I recently picked up a Pandora 5S. Partially out of curiosity, but mostly because arcade games were amongst my favorite games I played as a kid. I grew up near Reno where gambling is a thing, and if you aren't 18, you aren't even allowed in the area with the slot machines. So as a kid, I spent a lot of time in the arcades while the adults were dropping coins into slot machines. This has, admittedly created a bit of a nostalgia direction for me. Arcades were far superior to their console counterparts back then. And there were tons of arcade exclusive like X-Men that are still loved to this day. And as someone who loves classic 2D fighting games, the arcade was one of the best places to play.
We'll start off explaining what the Pandora's Box is. It's a portable game console, with arcade sticks and buttons built in. It's got an HDMI out port so you can hook it straight into a TV, power it on and play. Pretty much anywhere. It also has a VGA out with an audio jack and a built in speaker. I get the VGA jack, as a lot of people try and keep with CRT, getting that old school feel. But the built in speaker is kind of a surprise. It's not a horrible speaker, but nothing that will set the world a light. It also has a couple of USB ports in the back. One is so you can play games from a thumb drive (expandable storage is always a plus), and the other is so you can use the stick as a USB Controller (I'll get into that later). On the top you have 2 sticks, and 2 sets of buttons, a classic 6 button layout for each player. There is also the standard player one and player two buttons, along with a coin button and a pause button.
I will start off with what everyone usually wants to know first, the games, and how do they play. The version I picked up has 999 games built in. Through my research on the device, there seem to be a TON of variants. There are ones that have a back hinge, ones that have screws through the top (like mine), and a massive variety on the quantity of games included. I won't go through the entire games list as that is not only too much, especially for a text review. But I will take you through some of the major titles, and hit on the good and the bad of what this machine has to offer.
When you boot the device, you are greeted with a a nice opening sequence with some pretty intense music. This intro seems to vary from version to version, but it is a nice touch. Then it boots to the game load screen. You have a list of the games, for my versions case, in alphabetical order, and to the right, a screen with a demo of the game. There are different settings to the games, but I'll get into that later. But I do want to touch on the 2 modes. There is a free play mode, and a coin mode. In free play, you can just select your game, and it'll dive right in, into the actual free play variant of the game. The coin mode, you have to load a coin before you even select a game, and once you do, you have a counter ticking down on you for some reason.
The first game I chose to play was a favorite classic Beat'em up. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I chose the original, but Turtles in Time is on here. The game plays great, no slow downs that I ran into, and no real problems with image quality. You do get a periodic artifact, but remember, this is technically emulating these games. I continued to select from my favorites list as a kid, Street Fighter (it has all the variants through 3), King of Fighters (again all the variants through 2004), Samurai Showdown, Last Blade, X-Men, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Raideen. They all played beautifully. Then I started to find the worm in the apple. There are games that don't play well at all. Mortal Kombat for one. The game plays, but slowly, and the sound emulation is choppy at best. And this is one I don't fully understand, nearly every Sega game plays horribly as well. Even older titles that should have zero problems. The issue I gather is the version. Supposedly, if I load an MK rom onto a USB drive, it will actually play just fine. I've yet to try this, but I plan to soon.
Now the game list, while extensive does run into a few issues. First, they often use the Asian, or European variants of the names. So it might take some time to find your favorite titles if it had a different name elsewhere. Also, in a way, there are a ton of repeated titles. The qualifier comes from the fact it's technically a different variant that did exist. But when there's 14 versions of Street Fighter 3, it can be a little out of control. Over-all, however, I like that it has all the versions of the games it does have.
There are a few noteworthy items that need to be brought up with the games. One of the biggest is there is no saving high scores. As far as I can tell, there are no versions of these games that have this option. This is a bit of an issue with certain games. Games like Martial Masters have secret characters that unlock when the game has been booted and running for a certain amount of time. So in these situations, the character will remain locked. There are a few games that have features like this. So you can expect to play the first boot of a game every time, nothing saved or unlocked. You can set the coin amount (pointless if you ask me) as well as set the difficulty (and depending on the game, the lives) of each game as well. Most of this is moot, as you have endless coins using the button if you so desire.
Aside from a few games, I'm quite happy with the game selection and the systems performance.
Now onto the Hardware. As described before, the game has classic arcade sticks with a 6 button layout. For the 2-4 button games, you just use the buttons A-D. And this doesn't take too long to get use to. The quality of the sticks is decent, but not amazing. There is no lag or anything like that. But they lack the feel you get from the higher end sticks like Sanwa. The buttons are similar. They are very functional, and well built. But they aren't exactly clicky. Now what's nice is the buttons and the stick use standard wiring and plugs into the console, so they are upgradeable if you so desire to do so. That being said, if you aren't a hardcore arcade player, the ones that are provided work really well, and aren't cheap little weak pieces of plastic. The cabinet also has built in lights. These lights are on when plugged in, no matter what. Kinda bugged me, so I disconnected those, thankfully they provided an actual plug to do so.
The actual board is a high quality lexan with a decent print of Ryu from Street Fighter IV on it. There are other versions, variants and qualities, so keep that in mind if you are picking one up. Once you open it up, you get to see it's really a large housing for not a lot of gear. The actual game board isn't very large, so it's mostly open space. The one item I am extremely happy with is they have the wires well pathed, and they are long enough to remove the top and not tug on them. There are versions with a fan, which mine does not. I will note, the fan is 100% not necessary. I've had long gaming sessions, and no issues from heat at all. There is also the Mono speaker side mounted as well. I guess some units have it facing downward, and that just seems like a bad idea to me.
The actual hook-ups work perfect too. I've had the HDMI in 3 TV's ranging from an older 32" to a brand new 60" smart TV with no problems. The audio jack works great. I've had it hooked up to my 2000 watt stereo system and it sounded really good. Then the USB ports. The reader works reasonably well. I've only done a little with it, so I can't say too much. But the USB controller is where this gets interesting. You don't power the machine on, you just USB to USB whatever you are controlling and that's it. The only downfall of this is when hooked up to consoles, I.E. my PS3 are hooked up, you only get 6 buttons. Making it REALLY hard to do much on them. On the PC, much better, as it's much looser with it's peripherals.
That covers really all there is to the console itself. All in all, it's a nice piece of kit. I've clocked some extensive hours on it, and I'm not feeling any build quality issues, and the majority of the games play fantastic. There are even a few gems I've never heard of, that I absolutely loved. If you are on the fence on getting one, just do your homework on the different versions, and look at the descriptions and photos. But you should be getting a solid product.
We'll start off explaining what the Pandora's Box is. It's a portable game console, with arcade sticks and buttons built in. It's got an HDMI out port so you can hook it straight into a TV, power it on and play. Pretty much anywhere. It also has a VGA out with an audio jack and a built in speaker. I get the VGA jack, as a lot of people try and keep with CRT, getting that old school feel. But the built in speaker is kind of a surprise. It's not a horrible speaker, but nothing that will set the world a light. It also has a couple of USB ports in the back. One is so you can play games from a thumb drive (expandable storage is always a plus), and the other is so you can use the stick as a USB Controller (I'll get into that later). On the top you have 2 sticks, and 2 sets of buttons, a classic 6 button layout for each player. There is also the standard player one and player two buttons, along with a coin button and a pause button.
I will start off with what everyone usually wants to know first, the games, and how do they play. The version I picked up has 999 games built in. Through my research on the device, there seem to be a TON of variants. There are ones that have a back hinge, ones that have screws through the top (like mine), and a massive variety on the quantity of games included. I won't go through the entire games list as that is not only too much, especially for a text review. But I will take you through some of the major titles, and hit on the good and the bad of what this machine has to offer.
When you boot the device, you are greeted with a a nice opening sequence with some pretty intense music. This intro seems to vary from version to version, but it is a nice touch. Then it boots to the game load screen. You have a list of the games, for my versions case, in alphabetical order, and to the right, a screen with a demo of the game. There are different settings to the games, but I'll get into that later. But I do want to touch on the 2 modes. There is a free play mode, and a coin mode. In free play, you can just select your game, and it'll dive right in, into the actual free play variant of the game. The coin mode, you have to load a coin before you even select a game, and once you do, you have a counter ticking down on you for some reason.
The first game I chose to play was a favorite classic Beat'em up. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I chose the original, but Turtles in Time is on here. The game plays great, no slow downs that I ran into, and no real problems with image quality. You do get a periodic artifact, but remember, this is technically emulating these games. I continued to select from my favorites list as a kid, Street Fighter (it has all the variants through 3), King of Fighters (again all the variants through 2004), Samurai Showdown, Last Blade, X-Men, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Raideen. They all played beautifully. Then I started to find the worm in the apple. There are games that don't play well at all. Mortal Kombat for one. The game plays, but slowly, and the sound emulation is choppy at best. And this is one I don't fully understand, nearly every Sega game plays horribly as well. Even older titles that should have zero problems. The issue I gather is the version. Supposedly, if I load an MK rom onto a USB drive, it will actually play just fine. I've yet to try this, but I plan to soon.
Now the game list, while extensive does run into a few issues. First, they often use the Asian, or European variants of the names. So it might take some time to find your favorite titles if it had a different name elsewhere. Also, in a way, there are a ton of repeated titles. The qualifier comes from the fact it's technically a different variant that did exist. But when there's 14 versions of Street Fighter 3, it can be a little out of control. Over-all, however, I like that it has all the versions of the games it does have.
There are a few noteworthy items that need to be brought up with the games. One of the biggest is there is no saving high scores. As far as I can tell, there are no versions of these games that have this option. This is a bit of an issue with certain games. Games like Martial Masters have secret characters that unlock when the game has been booted and running for a certain amount of time. So in these situations, the character will remain locked. There are a few games that have features like this. So you can expect to play the first boot of a game every time, nothing saved or unlocked. You can set the coin amount (pointless if you ask me) as well as set the difficulty (and depending on the game, the lives) of each game as well. Most of this is moot, as you have endless coins using the button if you so desire.
Aside from a few games, I'm quite happy with the game selection and the systems performance.
Now onto the Hardware. As described before, the game has classic arcade sticks with a 6 button layout. For the 2-4 button games, you just use the buttons A-D. And this doesn't take too long to get use to. The quality of the sticks is decent, but not amazing. There is no lag or anything like that. But they lack the feel you get from the higher end sticks like Sanwa. The buttons are similar. They are very functional, and well built. But they aren't exactly clicky. Now what's nice is the buttons and the stick use standard wiring and plugs into the console, so they are upgradeable if you so desire to do so. That being said, if you aren't a hardcore arcade player, the ones that are provided work really well, and aren't cheap little weak pieces of plastic. The cabinet also has built in lights. These lights are on when plugged in, no matter what. Kinda bugged me, so I disconnected those, thankfully they provided an actual plug to do so.
The actual board is a high quality lexan with a decent print of Ryu from Street Fighter IV on it. There are other versions, variants and qualities, so keep that in mind if you are picking one up. Once you open it up, you get to see it's really a large housing for not a lot of gear. The actual game board isn't very large, so it's mostly open space. The one item I am extremely happy with is they have the wires well pathed, and they are long enough to remove the top and not tug on them. There are versions with a fan, which mine does not. I will note, the fan is 100% not necessary. I've had long gaming sessions, and no issues from heat at all. There is also the Mono speaker side mounted as well. I guess some units have it facing downward, and that just seems like a bad idea to me.
The actual hook-ups work perfect too. I've had the HDMI in 3 TV's ranging from an older 32" to a brand new 60" smart TV with no problems. The audio jack works great. I've had it hooked up to my 2000 watt stereo system and it sounded really good. Then the USB ports. The reader works reasonably well. I've only done a little with it, so I can't say too much. But the USB controller is where this gets interesting. You don't power the machine on, you just USB to USB whatever you are controlling and that's it. The only downfall of this is when hooked up to consoles, I.E. my PS3 are hooked up, you only get 6 buttons. Making it REALLY hard to do much on them. On the PC, much better, as it's much looser with it's peripherals.
That covers really all there is to the console itself. All in all, it's a nice piece of kit. I've clocked some extensive hours on it, and I'm not feeling any build quality issues, and the majority of the games play fantastic. There are even a few gems I've never heard of, that I absolutely loved. If you are on the fence on getting one, just do your homework on the different versions, and look at the descriptions and photos. But you should be getting a solid product.
Friday, February 12, 2016
The Mario RPG Series
The Mario RPG series started back with the SNES with 'Super Mario RPG - Legend of the Seven Stars'. The series has expanded across multiple platforms, and is largely responsible for the Paper Mario series and the Mario and Luigi handheld series. What sets these games apart from both the Mario franchise games as well as RPG's of other franchises is it's gameplay elements. Where the Super Mario series of games is simply an action platformer with some puzzles thrown in; and most RPG's are a wander around, beat up enemies for experience while telling a pretty story; the Mario RPG franchise seems to be some odd mashup of the two. They have all the standard RPG elements pretty well down with the story telling, standard battle system etc., but they add these unique timing systems to the battle, as well as the ability to approach and attach enemies to get the drop before battle. This system keeps the game from becoming some tedius grind, and actually requires a fair amount of skill to battle effectively.
The World:
The Mario RPG games generally take place in The Mushroom Kingdom, usually with some cosmic or magic creating spell that wreaks havoc on the kingdom, usually heavily punishing the toads more than anyone. What's interesting about the Mario RPG worlds, is the standard enemies (goombas, koopa troopas, etc.) are commonly allies here. Not only allies, but in many of the games, they will even join your parties, causing a bit of a goomba vs. goomba mashup. To make it even more complicated, sometimes even big villians (I.E. Bowser in Thousand Year Door) will join up with you for a spell of the game. Only about half of the games start out as 'rescue the princess' as well.
The Paper Mario world is quite similar to the Mario RPG world with a few notable differences. First and formost, everything is made from paper, EVERYTHING. They have bits of the world showing cardboard edges, with everyone being flat as a sheet of paper. As the characters walk around in the 3D paper world, they have to flip back and forth. This also allows for some really unique mechanics, like Paper Mario turning himself into an origami boot or airplane.
In all of these games, everything is extremely vibrant and beautiful. The original Mario RPG holds up today. I also wanted to note, where Final Fantasy VII usually gets the props for being the first full 3D RPG, I truely believe that title belongs to Mario RPG.
The Characters:
The Mario RPG and Paper Mario worlds have a vast array of characters. Massively larger than the standard Super Mario world. You have your standards, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser etc. But with each game comes a boatfull of unique characters to help you along in the game, as well as some pretty imaginative enemies to attempt to thwart your progress. I'm not going to go in depth in the characters or I'd be here for hours.
What really seperates these games from the pack, is they are likeable and funny. Not only are do all the characters have fun and likeable personalities, but with a quirky sence of humor and are willing to poke fun at themselves. You can tell the writers had a blast coming up with the stories and scenarios for these games. Something that I love in any game, is when you know it doesn't take itself too seriously, and these games have that in spades.
The Gameplay:
I'm going to break up the gameplay into a few parts to simplify it a bit. These games have quite a few variances and have multiple modes from the over-world, battles and in most of the games, include some special mode (which I will really only breafly go over).
The overworld mode is what dominate just about any RPG. What differentiates the Mario franchise from the others, is there's actually stuff to do here. Not only are the games in the RPG genre, but there's a pretty heavy platforming and puzzle solving element as well. The puzzles are usually on the simple side, like 'how do I cross this gap' or 'how do I open this door'. Usually most of the puzzles are on the simple side at the start of the game and grow in complexity as the game moves on (as you learn moves and techniques that add to the gameplay).
The battles are really where the strength of these games lie. To start, you can actually attack the enemies before entering the battle to get a jump on them. When while in battle, you acually have to play the game and have good timing for your attacks to have any affect. Most RPG's, you select attack, and the character does the attack with your standard random dice roll attacks. In most of the games, you also have the ability to react and/or dodge the enemies attacks. If you're good enough, you almost never have to heal in battle. With each character and villian having their own unique attack skills and attack modes, this allows for a massive variety within the games mechanics. Out of the lot, my favorite would probably have to be the latest in the long line of Mario RPG games, Paper Jam. This incorperates features from both the 'Mario and Luigi' games and the 'Paper Mario' games kinda giving this game a 'best of both worlds' play style.
Each game (apart from the very first) have unique game modes to enhance the gameplay as well. The most noteable are the 3D mode in 'Super Paper Mario' and the Dream Mode in 'Mario and Luigi Dream Team'. As there's been quite a few games in the franchise, I don't really want to go into detail, as again, it would make this retrospective far too long.
Final Thoughts:
These are some of the most beloved RPG's in Nintendo's line up. Genuinely funny, likeable and fun to play, these quirky games are some of best RPG's around. I know this has been a bit of a fluff peice, and not everygame is fantastic (I'm talking to you 'Sticker Star'). But they are well worth any praise coming to them. If you've never played any of these games, they come highly recommended from me, and most of the RPG gamer community.
The World:
The Mario RPG games generally take place in The Mushroom Kingdom, usually with some cosmic or magic creating spell that wreaks havoc on the kingdom, usually heavily punishing the toads more than anyone. What's interesting about the Mario RPG worlds, is the standard enemies (goombas, koopa troopas, etc.) are commonly allies here. Not only allies, but in many of the games, they will even join your parties, causing a bit of a goomba vs. goomba mashup. To make it even more complicated, sometimes even big villians (I.E. Bowser in Thousand Year Door) will join up with you for a spell of the game. Only about half of the games start out as 'rescue the princess' as well.
The Paper Mario world is quite similar to the Mario RPG world with a few notable differences. First and formost, everything is made from paper, EVERYTHING. They have bits of the world showing cardboard edges, with everyone being flat as a sheet of paper. As the characters walk around in the 3D paper world, they have to flip back and forth. This also allows for some really unique mechanics, like Paper Mario turning himself into an origami boot or airplane.
In all of these games, everything is extremely vibrant and beautiful. The original Mario RPG holds up today. I also wanted to note, where Final Fantasy VII usually gets the props for being the first full 3D RPG, I truely believe that title belongs to Mario RPG.
The Characters:
The Mario RPG and Paper Mario worlds have a vast array of characters. Massively larger than the standard Super Mario world. You have your standards, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser etc. But with each game comes a boatfull of unique characters to help you along in the game, as well as some pretty imaginative enemies to attempt to thwart your progress. I'm not going to go in depth in the characters or I'd be here for hours.
What really seperates these games from the pack, is they are likeable and funny. Not only are do all the characters have fun and likeable personalities, but with a quirky sence of humor and are willing to poke fun at themselves. You can tell the writers had a blast coming up with the stories and scenarios for these games. Something that I love in any game, is when you know it doesn't take itself too seriously, and these games have that in spades.
The Gameplay:
I'm going to break up the gameplay into a few parts to simplify it a bit. These games have quite a few variances and have multiple modes from the over-world, battles and in most of the games, include some special mode (which I will really only breafly go over).
The overworld mode is what dominate just about any RPG. What differentiates the Mario franchise from the others, is there's actually stuff to do here. Not only are the games in the RPG genre, but there's a pretty heavy platforming and puzzle solving element as well. The puzzles are usually on the simple side, like 'how do I cross this gap' or 'how do I open this door'. Usually most of the puzzles are on the simple side at the start of the game and grow in complexity as the game moves on (as you learn moves and techniques that add to the gameplay).
The battles are really where the strength of these games lie. To start, you can actually attack the enemies before entering the battle to get a jump on them. When while in battle, you acually have to play the game and have good timing for your attacks to have any affect. Most RPG's, you select attack, and the character does the attack with your standard random dice roll attacks. In most of the games, you also have the ability to react and/or dodge the enemies attacks. If you're good enough, you almost never have to heal in battle. With each character and villian having their own unique attack skills and attack modes, this allows for a massive variety within the games mechanics. Out of the lot, my favorite would probably have to be the latest in the long line of Mario RPG games, Paper Jam. This incorperates features from both the 'Mario and Luigi' games and the 'Paper Mario' games kinda giving this game a 'best of both worlds' play style.
Each game (apart from the very first) have unique game modes to enhance the gameplay as well. The most noteable are the 3D mode in 'Super Paper Mario' and the Dream Mode in 'Mario and Luigi Dream Team'. As there's been quite a few games in the franchise, I don't really want to go into detail, as again, it would make this retrospective far too long.
Final Thoughts:
These are some of the most beloved RPG's in Nintendo's line up. Genuinely funny, likeable and fun to play, these quirky games are some of best RPG's around. I know this has been a bit of a fluff peice, and not everygame is fantastic (I'm talking to you 'Sticker Star'). But they are well worth any praise coming to them. If you've never played any of these games, they come highly recommended from me, and most of the RPG gamer community.
Monday, January 11, 2016
New 3DS
Console Review - New Nintendo 3DS
Is it worth buying?
I'm going to break regulation and write about something new today, the New Nintendo 3DS. The original 3DS and 3DSXL are one of the top selling handheld consoles of all time. Not only is it backwards compatible with all of the DS and DSi titles released on the previous handheld, but with it's graphical upgrades and surprising useable 3D features, it's a pretty solid handheld. The New 3DS is classic Nintendo, release a game that requires an upgrade of some sort (Xenoblade Chronicles in this case). This time, however, you don't buy a peripheral, or a new memory unit a la Nintendo 64, but you have to purchase a whole new system. Many, including myself, balked at this as we already owned some iteration of the 3DS already. I've since upgraded, and will be letting all of you know how I feel about the new system.
First, I want to recap on the original 3DS, it's strengths and weaknesses.
The 3DS was Nintendo's first steps into console quality gaming on a handheld. As beloved as the original NDS was, it had some pretty serious graphic limitations, along with some dev's creating games that were just too much for the little system (FFXII and Assassins Creed come to mind). The 3DS allowed for direct downloading of full game titles (the DSI had a little of this functionality), proper online game play, and of course the 3D screen on all models but the 2DS. The 3DS also had a fully analog joy pad which, in my opinion, is a massive improvement on Sony's for both the original PSP and the Vita. All of these are what allowed Nintendo to corner the market on the current handheld generation. Well, that and Super Smash Bros.
The 3DS isn't without it's faults however. First and foremost is the 3D screen. I very much like the 3D as it enhances the graphics considerably. But it's a giant pain to use most of the time. if you can't guarantee that you're sitting in just the right position, the screen goes all wonky and double vision, making game play impossible. The next issue is classic Nintendo, peripherals. Many games released (MGS3, MH3 & MH4, Resident Evil etc.) all are enhanced by a peripheral call the 'Circle Pad Pro'. A fancy little device that you attach to the 3DS to allow for a 'C' stick and 2 more shoulder buttons. This is both costly, and more importantly, not available for the American markets. Some might say that these games are playable without the circle pad pro, but..... and this is a big but, the game play without it is kinda crap. In all honesty, the Monster Hunter games are nearly unplayable without it, requiring you to use the touch screen for the camera, options, equipment and missions. Lastly is a personal pet peeve of mine, of which I seem one of the few that have it is the speakers. I don't know if the 2DS or the original 3DS have this issue, but the 3DS XL's speakers are woefully inadequate. Some games in particular (like a favorite of mine, Blazblue) almost need headphones in a quiet room. I honestly don't understand how a pair of Stereo speakers produce half the sound of most cellphone's itty bitty Mono speakers.
Enough on the old system, and onto the new. If you compare the New 3DS with the old, at first glance you barely notice any changes. They added 2 new shoulder buttons, and there's this little rubber nub sticking out next to the A,B,Y,X buttons. They also moved a bunch of the existing buttons around, most obviously the start/select buttons and the power button.
Let's go over these changes real quick. The extra shoulder buttons and the nub is Nintendo basically building in the circle pad pro into the new system. That little nub is a 'C' stick. The extra shoulder buttons are a little hard to reach for the small of hands, like myself, but still usable. So few games take advantage of these anyway, you'll rarely be too worried about them. The nubby little 'C' stick is a more intriguing upgrade however. The original Circle Pad Pro had a proper joypad, the same as the directional joy pad. The 'C' stick is a pressure sensitive nub that doesn't really have much feel to it. It most certainly doesn't have any give, or movement. It is surprisingly intuitive though. Once you get use to it, you just adjust the speed of the camera movement by applying more or less pressure.
Moving the volume was also a good choice. Where the volume was located before, on the side of the hand held, was easy to bump, accidentally turning the volume up or down while gaming. Now located on the screen, that's not a possibility any more. The speaker output has been increased to something more acceptable as well. They've also added Amibo support, which in all honesty won't matter to 90% of us, but for those who like it, one more plus.
Moving all the other buttons..... I'm not so sure about. They moved the start/select to a more traditional location under the A,B,X,Y buttons, where they use to surround the home button. I think their reasoning was to prevent the accidental hitting of the home button while pressing start, which sort of makes sense, but it's easier to bump the start/select buttons by complete accident now. The worst move was the power button. They moved this to the bottom of the device, where it use to be a flush button on the face of it. The button is hard to find, harder to push, and just in a stupid location. I know most of us don't turn the 3DS off too often, but this was a stupid decision from Nintendo.
They also moved the headphone jack and charging location a little, but those are insignificant in all regards.
They did more than that though. They upped the power on the hand held by a significant amount. You won't notice this in most cases, but where it is noticeable is with load times, and on rare occasions when games framerate would drop, this system doesn't seem to anymore. Another upgrade with the wireless modem. The original 3DS systems wireless was painfully slow. The New 3DS's has has a pretty major upgrade, allowing for about twice the original speed.
The biggest and best upgrade was to the 3D system. They've added an infrared head tracker to keep the 3D working, even if you move about. And as it's infrared, it works in the dark too. I will point out, it works quite well. You can sometimes see the system working, the screen will go double for just a moment, and then correct itself, or a periodic flicker, but it's seldom and not that noticeable. I've even tried screwing with it, turning my head, even fiddling with the screen, and it seems to be able to keep itself straight most of the time.
At this time, there are only a few New 3DS exclusive titles released (excluding the SNES virtual Console Games), most notably Xenoblade Chronicles. There are announcements of more to come. I actually see most of the exclusives probably coming from the indi game market, as this new system gives them more to play with. Now with only 2 games currently available, is the upgrade worth it? This is where is gets incredibly objective. Xenoblade Chronicles is a good game, and on it's own merits, I can understand purchasing the console for that game alone, and if you're new to the system, easy choice, just buy the new one. It's not that much more and worth it.... but, for those who aren't interested in JRPG's I can see the upgrade being a tentative one at the very least.
The cons are very simple, full price for a system (that doesn't even come with a charging adapter I might add). There are only 2 exclusive games. And most of the added controls aren't even usable on most games.
The pluses are good ones though. The upgraded processing power makes almost all 3DS games run more smoothly. Yes, many games don't use the added buttons, but those that do greatly benefit from them. And the head tracking makes the 3D actually usable.
Anyone on the fence for purchasing the New 3DS will have to weigh out their options. As someone who actually uses the 3D, I'm quite happy with it. And I do want to add, Xenoblade Chronicles is a solid game in it's own right (which was actually my main reason for picking up the system in the first place).
Friday, September 11, 2015
The Nintendo Entertainment System: Birth of an Empire
A retrospective look at one of the greatest Consoles of all time.
Not including Nintendo's 'Color TV Game', the NES was Nintendo's first real stab at the home video game market. And what a stab it was. Comparatively to the previous well known 8-bit systems of the day (the Atari for those too young to remember), The NES featured superior graphics, betters sound and a controller that consisted of more than a joystick and one button, and even launched with the famed 'Light Gun'. And with one of the most robust line-ups of launch titles to date (still impressive by today's standards), the NES grew to be one of the most successful video game consoles of all time.
The Nintendo Entertainment System didn't have the smoothest of launches in the US however. The NES launched in America in 1985, shortly after the time Atari was on it's way out (largely due to the ET scandal). It was so tough for Nintendo to get a leg into the market, largely as many stores refused to even stock game systems any more, they had to get clever. And that's why they decided to market themselves as a 'Home Entertainment System', even through in a few gimmicks like R.O.B. the robot. Even with the rough beginnings, the Nintendo was a quick success, turning themselves into the 'must have' Christmas present for the next 5 years.
Nintendo's first game line-ups could be considered baby steps for them if you think of how the console evolved. Even with the somewhat rough beginnings, Nintendo's early days (including the bundled games at launch) included Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, which are games that are still loved today. The games on the NES quickly evolved as well. Shortly into the system's life, Nintendo released a game so massive, it required something no console system had ever seen, saves. This game would be the famed 'Legend of Zelda'. And they only continued from there. The NES allowed Nintendo to produce games of such quality (and fun), it launched numerous franchises and characters that are still relevant today.
Let's take a brief look at the evolution of Nintendo's games. If you look at the start, it's very blocky. The graphical limitations are easily seen. You can make out what the characters are supposed to be, but blocky. The sounds were also pretty basic. All the sounds in the early days (and this includes any music track in the game) are all single note sounds. Even with these limitations, the designers at Nintendo, and the composer Koji Kondo were able to produce memorable characters and music. Shortly into the NES's life, the developers were learning how to design around the system, finding what it was capable of. This allowed for some fantastic innovation. They were developing games with top down perspective, driving games with a 1st person perspective. If you think about it, games that utilized the Light Gun were the first console based First Person Shooters. Yes they were limited to the technology of the time, and are more accurately known as 'Rail Shooters', but these were the first steps in that direction. On top of that, Nintendo started greatly enhancing the sounds the NES was able to make. This not only allowed for much more robust soundtracks, even some games were capable of voice... Sorta (example: Bayou Billy).
One of Nintendo's great innovations were it's controllers. The controllers were some of the first to have more than 1 action button, and oddly one of the first to allow you to pause the game with the start button (Start to stop, must be where Windows got it from). It was one of the first, purely hand held controllers, without making us use some facsimile of a Joy stick. Most of the early joystick controllers required some sort of table to sit at to really be usable, with some feeble attempt of using suction cups on the bottom, and would come loose at the most inopportune moment. What the NES controller allowed us to do was move, steer, whatever with the left hand and do whatever action is required with the right hand . This was an evolution that can be likened to the evolution of man growing thumbs. This was such a good controller setup, it's still the base of almost all hand-held controller layouts to this day.
I don't want this to just be a parade with out great the NES was. As with everything, it was not without faults, and the NES had some biggun's. First was the setup. To this day, I've yet to see a setup that was more un-reliable and fiddly, and I have a Wii. They didn't come with any standard component cables, but an adapter to work with your Cable port (The RF adapter). I understand this was to allow the NES to work, even if you didn't have a VCR. But this allowed for the worst possible picture quality, and the component cables weren't even a stock option.
And once you did figure out how to hook the thing up, you had to deal with one of the most un-reliable consoles to ever be released (maybe aside from the X-Box :p). All of us had our tricks, having the cartridge in just the right, un-plug and plug it back in, hold power and reset at the same time, jump up and down, sacrifice a chicken, and none of it helped. Sadly, I think we all knew it too. What was truly at fault was 2 things, dust and corrosion. Even though the NES had a closing lid to protect it's delicate interiors, dust would still manage to find it's way in there. Probably as most of us didn't use dust covers on the games them-selves. This would lead to us blowing the systems out with our mouths, which seemed to work great.... at first. When we would blow out both the cartradges and the console, what we were also doing is leaving little saliva deposits, which would cause rust and corrosion, making our NES's more and more un-reliable to the point of almost being un-useable. This is such a well known problem, that 3rd party companies were (and are) making replacement parts for the pin reader system.
On top of the corrosion issues, there was also a design flaw in just using the games, even if you took every opertunity to protect the system. Because of Nintendo's use of light weight metals (I.E. Nickel) on their contact pins, repeated use, pressing the game down in the system would cause the pins to start to bend, and eventually loose connectivity. This is one flaw that could not be circumvented. Again, there are (and were) companies that make replacement parts for this. Thankfully this was an issue Nintendo recognized and corrected in the Super NES with their top loading system. Funnily, you can almost call this an un-planned obsolescence. As all our NES' were dying, Nintendo had launched the SNES. The 'Here's your fix... A new system!'.
But I digress. Even with these faults, the NES laid the foundation for Nintendo, and the home video game consoles as a whole. It was an important step. Many of us today still hold the NES in reverence. It was many gamers first system, and was a leap forward compared to what had been release previously. The NES was the first system to step out of our world and be a hero, go and save the princess, or be a Formula 1 driver. Nintendo hit the nail on the head with this one, and with luck, the NES will forever live on.
Not including Nintendo's 'Color TV Game', the NES was Nintendo's first real stab at the home video game market. And what a stab it was. Comparatively to the previous well known 8-bit systems of the day (the Atari for those too young to remember), The NES featured superior graphics, betters sound and a controller that consisted of more than a joystick and one button, and even launched with the famed 'Light Gun'. And with one of the most robust line-ups of launch titles to date (still impressive by today's standards), the NES grew to be one of the most successful video game consoles of all time.
The Nintendo Entertainment System didn't have the smoothest of launches in the US however. The NES launched in America in 1985, shortly after the time Atari was on it's way out (largely due to the ET scandal). It was so tough for Nintendo to get a leg into the market, largely as many stores refused to even stock game systems any more, they had to get clever. And that's why they decided to market themselves as a 'Home Entertainment System', even through in a few gimmicks like R.O.B. the robot. Even with the rough beginnings, the Nintendo was a quick success, turning themselves into the 'must have' Christmas present for the next 5 years.
Nintendo's first game line-ups could be considered baby steps for them if you think of how the console evolved. Even with the somewhat rough beginnings, Nintendo's early days (including the bundled games at launch) included Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, which are games that are still loved today. The games on the NES quickly evolved as well. Shortly into the system's life, Nintendo released a game so massive, it required something no console system had ever seen, saves. This game would be the famed 'Legend of Zelda'. And they only continued from there. The NES allowed Nintendo to produce games of such quality (and fun), it launched numerous franchises and characters that are still relevant today.
Let's take a brief look at the evolution of Nintendo's games. If you look at the start, it's very blocky. The graphical limitations are easily seen. You can make out what the characters are supposed to be, but blocky. The sounds were also pretty basic. All the sounds in the early days (and this includes any music track in the game) are all single note sounds. Even with these limitations, the designers at Nintendo, and the composer Koji Kondo were able to produce memorable characters and music. Shortly into the NES's life, the developers were learning how to design around the system, finding what it was capable of. This allowed for some fantastic innovation. They were developing games with top down perspective, driving games with a 1st person perspective. If you think about it, games that utilized the Light Gun were the first console based First Person Shooters. Yes they were limited to the technology of the time, and are more accurately known as 'Rail Shooters', but these were the first steps in that direction. On top of that, Nintendo started greatly enhancing the sounds the NES was able to make. This not only allowed for much more robust soundtracks, even some games were capable of voice... Sorta (example: Bayou Billy).
One of Nintendo's great innovations were it's controllers. The controllers were some of the first to have more than 1 action button, and oddly one of the first to allow you to pause the game with the start button (Start to stop, must be where Windows got it from). It was one of the first, purely hand held controllers, without making us use some facsimile of a Joy stick. Most of the early joystick controllers required some sort of table to sit at to really be usable, with some feeble attempt of using suction cups on the bottom, and would come loose at the most inopportune moment. What the NES controller allowed us to do was move, steer, whatever with the left hand and do whatever action is required with the right hand . This was an evolution that can be likened to the evolution of man growing thumbs. This was such a good controller setup, it's still the base of almost all hand-held controller layouts to this day.
I don't want this to just be a parade with out great the NES was. As with everything, it was not without faults, and the NES had some biggun's. First was the setup. To this day, I've yet to see a setup that was more un-reliable and fiddly, and I have a Wii. They didn't come with any standard component cables, but an adapter to work with your Cable port (The RF adapter). I understand this was to allow the NES to work, even if you didn't have a VCR. But this allowed for the worst possible picture quality, and the component cables weren't even a stock option.
And once you did figure out how to hook the thing up, you had to deal with one of the most un-reliable consoles to ever be released (maybe aside from the X-Box :p). All of us had our tricks, having the cartridge in just the right, un-plug and plug it back in, hold power and reset at the same time, jump up and down, sacrifice a chicken, and none of it helped. Sadly, I think we all knew it too. What was truly at fault was 2 things, dust and corrosion. Even though the NES had a closing lid to protect it's delicate interiors, dust would still manage to find it's way in there. Probably as most of us didn't use dust covers on the games them-selves. This would lead to us blowing the systems out with our mouths, which seemed to work great.... at first. When we would blow out both the cartradges and the console, what we were also doing is leaving little saliva deposits, which would cause rust and corrosion, making our NES's more and more un-reliable to the point of almost being un-useable. This is such a well known problem, that 3rd party companies were (and are) making replacement parts for the pin reader system.
On top of the corrosion issues, there was also a design flaw in just using the games, even if you took every opertunity to protect the system. Because of Nintendo's use of light weight metals (I.E. Nickel) on their contact pins, repeated use, pressing the game down in the system would cause the pins to start to bend, and eventually loose connectivity. This is one flaw that could not be circumvented. Again, there are (and were) companies that make replacement parts for this. Thankfully this was an issue Nintendo recognized and corrected in the Super NES with their top loading system. Funnily, you can almost call this an un-planned obsolescence. As all our NES' were dying, Nintendo had launched the SNES. The 'Here's your fix... A new system!'.
But I digress. Even with these faults, the NES laid the foundation for Nintendo, and the home video game consoles as a whole. It was an important step. Many of us today still hold the NES in reverence. It was many gamers first system, and was a leap forward compared to what had been release previously. The NES was the first system to step out of our world and be a hero, go and save the princess, or be a Formula 1 driver. Nintendo hit the nail on the head with this one, and with luck, the NES will forever live on.
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