Posts tagged Sasquatch Soapbox
Being okay with sucking at Hero Academy
Feb 16th
Hero Academy is one of the "it" games for iOS right now. Doug happens to be really bad at it.
I suck at Hero Academy.
I’ve played a half-dozen games against site contributor Tyler and lost each of them. I’ve started playing another friend, too, and have summarily lost to him as well. As I write this I’m in the process of starting another game, surely to be lost. Hero Academy isn’t a simple game — it’s a turn-based strategy-ish game that uses asynchronous multiplayer and the shuffling of your deck to keep you on your toes. I’m consistently over-aggressive and trying to rein that in is proving difficult. Plus every game is against a human, making things even trickier. The turn-based nature of combat allows you to plot out what to do next — and to contemplate how it all went wrong.
Why do I keep coming back, though? Well, it’s fun. But what does that mean? Many people smarter than me have done studies and a conclusion to draw is that playing games we enjoy taps into pleasure centers in our brains. Do something right in a game, get a little squirt of happiness into your nervous system (or, suggested in the above article, get MORE than on average from other activities). This, writ large, is gaming.
So playing games feeds into a chemical dependency. But what I like and what you like are very different things – taste is, of course, relative – and how we define fun is what drives variety. I’m loving trying to solve the riddle of Hero Academy, especially as unwrapping Tyler’s strategy makes learning almost double the work compared with a single-player game. AI routines aren’t quite good enough yet to change strategies completely or also mess around with your head. I may not be successful right now, but I’m enjoying the process and hopefully will be successful sooner than later. My brain likes what it gets from this game; it clicks. It’s why I like the Kairosoft games on iPhone, it’s why I like Tiny Tower, and it’s why I put endless hours into soccer and racing games on consoles.
Perfect like the 2008 Detroit Lions.
Sometimes, however, my synapses don’t click with games, and that can be frustrating. Even more so, it’s frustrating when they’re games that so many people love. It’s really sad to admit as a hardcore gamer, but I haven’t played all the way through a Zelda game ever; I’ve only finished one JRPG, and only ever started one Final Fantasy game. Ditto with Starcraft, Pokemon, Half-Life, and Call of Duty. It’s not that these are bad games or not games I could like; they just don’t grab me. Other games lock me in a vice and suck the life out of me. There’s a reason why I put hundreds of hours into Konami’s Pro Evo Soccer games.
Does this make me a bad gamer? I’m conflicted. Is it enough to give something a chance? Does it mean I’m inherently broken if I don’t get sucked in by games that are universally praised as great?
It’s an interesting and difficult question to ponder. But in the meantime, I’ll continue playing Hero Academy and (most likely) losing.
What Happens When the Curtains Close? Xbox Live, PSN, and the Next Generation
May 13th
At some point in the not-too-distant future, there will be successors to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii. Okay, so I’m hardly a psychic making a statement like that, but such is the march of progress that new consoles will inevitably replace the old. We know Nintendo will show something off at E3, and the rumors are starting to rumble that Microsoft may have something up its sleeve this year, too.
But one question that has never faced gamers before will be an issue when looking at upgrading from one console to the next this go-around: What is going to happen to all the content I have on my current system?
This is the digital era. I have 85 gb of content stored to my Xbox 360′s hard drive and, while much of that is game installs, the rest is made up of the “arcade” games available on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, downloadable add-on content for games, and digital downloads of full retail games. Some of the downloaded games also have their own DLC, which strikes me as a real through-the-looking-glass sort of moment.
Full copies of games you'd otherwise purchase at retail are available both on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. What happens with the next generation of systems, though?
These are games I’ve bought and, in the case of the digital versions of games also sold at retail, are indistinguishable from hard copies. Yet I’m worried. I’m worried that these games could be completely worthless or, at the least, feature-handicapped in the future should Microsoft (or Sony for PSN) decide to flip a switch and shut off some servers. In the case of the Xbox 360, though the detachable hard drive means it’s possible to take your content on the go, you can only make use of DLC and full versions of games if they’re authenticated by Xbox Live; if I want to take my hard drive to a friend’s and make use of my Rock Band library, their 360 must be plugged in.
The authentication and access to games isn’t just a worry in cases like that, but for more practical reasons as well. The 360 has proven itself to be a bit fragile; my current 360 is my fifth, and I’m hardly an edge case. If you suffer a Red Ring of Death or any other kind of 360-killing malady, you have to migrate your account from the old console to the new one’s serial number. While it’s an annoyance during the 360′s life span, what happens in another five years? If your old NES or Genesis or even PlayStation 2 died, you just buy a new one; the games were kept within a physical medium and plug right in without a problem. But what happens in five or 10 years when my 360 inevitably dies again and I have to track down a replacement? Will Xbox Live still allow me to do what it does now in 2011?
While content on the current console is a question, what about taking content on to the next generation? Though few games had DLC on the original Xbox, you could previously download it on the 360; now, though, since the original Xbox’s Xbox Live servers have gone offline, it’s left you high and dry. While I doubt people will want to buy new content, even for Xbox 360 games in the far-flung future, what about retrieving what you’ve already purchased? Plus, as established, content delivery digitally is a much bigger deal this generation; that will be important to keep in mind, but it’s still Microsoft or Sony’s ball to take and go home with.
I’ll admit it’s all speculation and worry at this point, but admit it: a best-case scenario where everything still works, like in PC gaming, is probably a pipe dream. This is the point where I shake my fists at PC gamers sitting up in the cloud on Steam at this moment. But this is an issue that will be wider than gaming within the next 10 years; seeing the gaming industry’s reaction is going to be fascinating and, potentially, vital to digital rights beyond our favorite little corner of the entertainment world.
Sasquatch Soapbox: Why this is the right time for a new NBA Jam
Oct 14th
NBA Jam is back. Available now for Nintendo Wii and soon for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the standout basketball game franchise is ready for a proper revitalization. As I wrote in a recent Retrospective, NBA Jam’s formula of fast-paced 2-on-2 is still addictive, and the simpler gameplay allows anyone to catch fire and dunk from the free-throw line.
What you may not realize, though, is this is a perfect time for a revitalization of the NBA Jam franchise. From both a gaming and a source material standpoint it’s a suitable time to bring back the franchise. This is a great time to bring back the boomshakalaka.
Sasquatch Soapbox: How GameFlow makes Madden 11 accessible
Sep 27th
Americans love football. ESPN finds new and creative ways to talk about the NFL every single offseason, and EA Sports’ long-running Madden NFL series is routinely one of the best-selling games of the year. EA Tiburon, the long-time developer of Madden, has been able to make the series more and more realistic through the last and current console generations, to the point where understanding the Madden games helps you understand football better.
The problem there, though, is the learning curve involved with football strategy. Unlike basketball, soccer, or hockey, there’s more to a football game than just learning how to control a player. Football is more like a game of chess — to succeed against the AI or a real player, you need to understand how offenses and defenses are run, and what plays to call at what times and how to execute them. As a website like Smart Football proves, there is plenty of depth and strategy to football play-calling.
Rising Sun Rising: The Reinvigoration of Japanese Developers
Sep 21st
The 2010 Tokyo Game Show, which concluded last week, may have showcased the re-awakening of Japanese gaming innovation
If you’re a big fan of video games, there’s a very good likelihood you have played and enjoyed the fruits of Japanese video game developers’ innovation. From Super Mario Bros. to Final Fantasy VII to Street Fighter II and back again, many of the highlights of gaming have come from the land of the rising sun.
However, it wouldn’t be controversial to say that, for the last console generation, the games that have set the standard worldwide have come from Western developers — both American and European. One of Japanese gaming’s most prominent developers, Resident Evil creator Keiji Inafune, even said as much to the New York Times: “I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games; Japan is at least five years behind,” he said. The same article estimated that Japanese developers, publishers and manufacturers owned as much as 50 percent of the gaming market in 2002; this has fallen to just 10 percent. While this lull is due to many reasons — including a dearth of creativity and the shifting Japanese market — what was shown last week at the Tokyo Game Show may be indicative of a real revival.
Games of skill and games of story, and how Starcraft II blends the concepts
Aug 25th
The more I’ve been thinking about gameplay mechanics and how gamers interact with a variety of games, the more I’ve narrowed down video games into two overarching categories: games of skill and games of story. Regardless of genre, games of skill focus more on mastery of a game engine and its trappings, while story-focused games worry more about plot progression and crafting narrative.
Naturally, I would place most first- and third-person shooters, most sports games, racing games, and fighting games into the “skill” category, while RPGs and adventure games dominate the “story” zone. Sure, a game like Mass Effect 2 may have wonderful shooting mechanics, but the game’s focus isn’t on a combat engine that’s balanced for multiplayer, where time investment and development of skill is rewarded. Instead, it focuses on advancing a captivating story with action scenes designed to make the player feel empowered. While it may help engage the player in the conflict, it’s not the same as the combat in a balanced, multiplayer-focused shooter like Halo or Call of Duty. Even the incredibly tight combat engine in a modern Zelda title is focused on a single-player experience, as its traditional “get this new tool and make use of it in the dungeon” gameplay is designed to act as a ramp to climb throughout the duration of Link’s quest.
Conversely, your classic Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, or other fighting game may have a story mode, but it’s secondary fluff on top of the fighting engine, learning characters’ move sets, and how to become a better fighter. Racing games are the same way; simulation games like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo are about the feeling of driving, improving yourself as a driver and mastering the physics engine at the heart of the game, not a narrative. And, of course, shooters like Halo and Call of Duty have engines that lend themselves to a level playing field for truly competitive multiplayer.
Using these different lenses, then, it’s interesting to view the changes Blizzard is making within Starcraft II to play to each of these strengths. While the multiplayer modes (as previewed during the beta period and available now with the retail release of Wings of Liberty) seemed like a graphical and game-engine evolution of the original Starcraft, the company has taken a different tack with single player. Of course multiplayer has been updated in many ways, but single player no longer contains all of the same details as multi. Some units are only available in the campaign, as is the ability to make customization choices through a branching path in the single-player mode.
While these sort of branching changes would inevitably break multiplayer — having to balance all the possibilities could be impossible, even for a company with resources like Blizzard — they help make the single-player experience a more robust and individualized process. I’ve heard on different podcasts a variety of laments for taking one upgrade choice over another: in the same way that the branching paths in the game open up unique experiences, so does having that permanent branching upgrade tree. Blizzard introduced more Terran options into the single player campaign, and once you make a decision, you have to live with it.
It may not be an analogous situation, but the new Medal of Honor game from EA is following a slightly similar tack — at the very least, the single-player and multi-player modes are being handled by two different companies within the EA hivemind; EA’s Danger Close Games in Los Angeles is crafting the single-player mode, while Battlefield series developer DICE is handling the multiplayer. This outsourced style of development may be the future of AAA games: the first Bioshock famously had segments of the game outsourced throughout the 2K studios worldwide.
However, separating the development of single-player components from multiplayer — and the admission that they take different approaches to make work — is a fascinating evolution in the history of creating video games. It’s an admission that there are different goals regarding crafting a single-player experience and a finely tuned multiplayer game that allows for competitive play. Moreover, for super-large AAA-quality games in the future where gamers demand both an engaging single-player campaign and competitive multiplayer, dividing the creation duties could become the standard development strategy.
Sasquatch Soapbox: Games and gamers — the line begins to blur
Jul 19th
What is a game, and what is a gamer?
In the wake of E3 coverage laced with “it’s not for us,” the rise of games on social media sites and iPhones, and Microsoft and Sony showcasing their motion-control interfaces more thoroughly, this question is coming up more often. An unscientific analysis of quote-unquote hardcore gamers would suggest they’re focused more and more on what appears to be a shrinking market. Nintendo’s press conference at E3 this year, in which it showed off new Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Kid Icarus titles, was held up as a breath of relief; the reaction within core gamers was along the lines of, “Finally, Nintendo is making games for us again!”
A truism about business that I’ve learned in graduate school is that expanding markets begin to fragment and form niches. Read the rest of this entry »