Posts by Taylor

I should've took a picture of all the crap (this is an operative word) I brought back from Japan, though I didn't buy anything exciting like an arcade board this time. Did buy some Harry Potter manga that I should scan because it's seriously the most awesome thing ever, and this Bridget figure to geek out my home desk. It would geek out my work desk but the yo-yo and handcuff come off and will get lost.

Quote from Warby

hey nobody said consoles suck or japanese people didnt bring anything to the table in that ken levine article !

Well, no. Not directly.

Quote from Jetsetlemming

I can think of games that predate both Mario and Zelda though, like Pitfall for platforming. Sure, there's a big difference in quality going from Pitfall to Mario, similar to the gap between Robotron and Smash TV, but that doesn't mean Smash TV invented the twin stick shooter.Originally I was gonna use Commander Keen to make this point but discovered on wiki that Command Keen episode 1 actually came out five years after Super Mario Bros

You're right that Super Mario Bros didn't create the platformer genre, but innovation isn't restricted to birthing genres. For some of the games I listed maybe the devil is in the details, but it's certainly there. Pitfall is a rather weird example because it's very primitive compared to Super Mario Bros anyway. Donkey Kong, which predates Pitfall, would perhaps be a better reference but is strictly speaking a Mario game anyway.

Growing when collecting mushrooms for a 2-hit health system, having different abilities based on your size, interacting with blocks by hitting them (strictly speaking this was first in the arcade game nobody has ever seen), being able to run to create different jumps, defeating enemies by jumping on them, and it's level design in general are simple examples off the top of my head. There would be more if this was expanded to Super Mario World where he gained more objects to interact with, suits to wear and the ability to hold stuff (leading to more combinations). Either way,the Mario series contains a lot of ideas.

Quote from Jetsetlemming

I wasn't being serious. Though I haven't played a Japanese game and really gotten into it in a really super long time. Maybe the Trauma Center series. I've got Trauma Team on the Wii and play a few missions every once in a while, although the super lame additional "styles" they introduced with the House style doctor and the crime scene investigator suck. YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF TERRIBLE JAPANESE "INNOVATION"Edit: By the way, neither Mario nor Zelda are innovative.

I think what you said was more than slightly representative of what you felt.

Zelda and Mario both brought a lot of firsts to their respective genres.

I knew you were joking, that’s why I deconstructed the context.

I interpreted the emoticon entirely the opposite way though.

Quote from Thrik

Weird, I always thought of the Japanese as pretty much the origin of most things that make good games today. The influence that even single series like Mario and Zelda have had is immeasurable. Anyway, gaming history is too vast and complicated to attribute specific things to any one region — the UK alone is a massive player thanks to Grand Theft Auto's innovation, for example.

Zelda and Mario are two. But let’s not forget the influence of Super Metroid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Sonic, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Guilty Gear, Metal Gear Solid, Outrun, Fire Emblem, Herzog Zwei, Gun Valkyrie, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Super Mario Kart, and so on. There is no way anyone who knows their history can discredit consoles and/or the Japanese of innovation, and the idea that this is all ‘relatively safe to ignore’ or from ‘a few standouts’ is just insultingly wrong.

The Japanese were just a quick example I thought would just prove a point. There are also plenty of western console games showing innovation, as well as a few decades worth of arcade games that were inspirations, and roots, to so much.

Anyway, the discussion between yourselves (Thirk/Frie) is all I wanted to see voiced.

Perhaps use a sarcastic example that is about innovation rather than aesthetics, as that is the actual topic, and try again. An example might be a recurring gameplay feature you dislike, though this would require you to have some basic knowledge of the source material.

I can see already this is going to end with me being required to actually list extensively examples of what Japanese have innovated and brought to gaming in terms of mechanics, influences, genres, control schemes, hardware, etc. While other posters, united under ignorant, arrogant and/or nationalist hubris, consider nonsensical one-line straw-man arguments to be strong debate and yowl and jeer in the background.

It’s a bit like posting on a board about comic books trying to argue, to a crowd of DC readers, that Marvel has perhaps had some influence on the industry and trends. But encountering resistance by people who have never read a comic book by them before, and who stare back quizzically when you lists apparently-popular superheroes.

You idiot.

It’s great that on a PC you basically have nobody to answer to and can dive straight in. But flying around an anus isn’t innovation, and I’d wager a few PC publishers would not be overly keen to publish a game where you explore a vagina either.

Quote from Ken Levine

The PC will always be the place that drives innovation. The PC is the place where great game developers are born, even—and maybe especially—where great console game developers are born. Halo, Mass Effect, Call of Duty…PC developers first.

The implication is innovation starts on the PC and even the great console games come from ex-PC developers. At the very least this statement ignores the entirety of Japanese contribution to gaming.

The future of PC gaming is "I don't know, but here's some unfounded facts about innovation."

Stay classy.

I’m back from holiday now so I gave it a go. Filled in the survey afterwards but mainly wrote on a notepad as I went. I’ll try and group everything in this post though:

Movement

• [*:19hmfuin]She's very responsive and her moves come out quick, which I like in a character.
  [*:19hmfuin]You slide a lot while moving as most people have pointed out.
  
  
  • [*:19hmfuin]The main problem is you have no transition animations from standing to movement, so it goes straight into her walk loop with a foot going back. Four animations from standing to walking (front, left, right, 180) would fix a lot of this, I think.

[*:19hmfuin]Holding block and jumping looks really weird!

[*:19hmfuin]A butt-stomp move would be useful (cancel all momentum and zoom straight down)

Combat

• [*:19hmfuin]Can’t do anything with my second sword? I guess that’s the holstered version not turning off.
  [*:19hmfuin]Sword appears to be firing projectiles rather than swinging. Is this to increase range?
  [*:19hmfuin]Attacks should move you forwards
  
  
  • [*:19hmfuin]Though also make sure you can't fall off ledges in the animation!

[*:19hmfuin]No cap on turn speed while doing attack chain so, for example, wiggling back and forwards while attacking has weird results.

[*:19hmfuin]Hit pause would be a good addition. On impact both actors involved are frozen for a few frames (say 10 at 60fps average).

[*:19hmfuin]No evasion moves? I guess if you’re an adventure game it doesn’t matter as much, but block + direction currently isn’t doing anything...

[*:19hmfuin]Block feels quite wooden, mainly because there's no recoil animation.

[*:19hmfuin]Enemies don't really do much.

[*:19hmfuin]Attacking in the air is just her ground combo (obviously this isn't finished)

[*:19hmfuin]Cancelling attacks with a jump works but it sounds like the attack still comes out.

[*:19hmfuin]I had an Alien spawn before the Arena closed and he got stuck outside (on the Blackrock Mountain Volcano plateau)

Grapple

• [*:19hmfuin]I think this is something you’ll probably spend ages polishing later so I won’t get hung up on it. It’s really fun to use and vastly more fun than a lot of implementations in other games.
  [*:19hmfuin]Jumping off the rope should give her more velocity though, sometimes I wasn't sure I'd even let go.
  [*:19hmfuin]Being able to Grapple some enemies Scorpion style would be fun though. Pull them towards you, pull yourself towards them, slam them into stuff, etc.

Misc/Story

• [*:19hmfuin]Art is absolutely fantastic and I loved it the whole way through.
  [*:19hmfuin]Sometimes the compass was a few steps ahead, though I guess you don't want it solving puzzles for you.
  [*:19hmfuin]I felt rewarded for exploration, though it was all a drop in the ocean compared to what I got at the end.
  [*:19hmfuin]Robbing people was funny.
  [*:19hmfuin]Switches could do with some kind of highlight, actually took me a while to realise how to open the vault!
  [*:19hmfuin]Introduction story is good, but the pan and zoom on every single shot is overkill. Perhaps go for a more animated comic book style? Only example I can think of is the

(at 5:50). But you've drawn load of stuff now so...
[*:19hmfuin]I didn't follow why I was making light beams show me the volcano stage.
[*:19hmfuin]Checkpoints just kind of respawn you, don't reset encounters. I'm more concerned that this will break things, though.
[*:19hmfuin]Ending slide to the ship made me smile.

It's not been a good week for me

Quote from Minotauro

ME1 had better storyline, better soundtrack, a better ending and a better villain.

I agree with these, but I think ME2 is much further ahead in terms of gameplay. But one thing I did not miss was randomly driving around terrian for hours looking for rocks to click on.

Quote from dux

Agreed, exploring the wasteland is great fun. Although I'm confused by why you say empty, Taylor; Are you referring to all of fallout or just certain sections?

I'm thinking more of Oblivion and Morrowind, where I only went in the open world if I couldn't help it and mainly spent my time there jumping forward to level up skills. I never played Fallout 3 much further than Megaton, maybe it's completely different.

I don't see how anyone would prefer Mass Effect 1 over Mass Effect 2. ME1 was certainly a good game, but ME2's changes were all for the better and most of the "RPG elements" removed where just streamlining (a term kind of abused usually), like walking around an empty height map for hours - a change Bethesda should look at.

Burned

And replace the mainstream with 'art,' dual stick shooters and cave story clones?

I can't work with just one monitor anymore.

Car stereos are usually not a cosmetic change, and different models are usually not handed out free or by lottery depending by different manufacturers. Err, I can't use this metaphor.

But, I was being serious anyway. Totally serious. I like the concept of buying a game and then offered functionally valueless assets for additional money or to circumvent a badly designed and/or rigged random drop systems. The idea of buying a game then paying £17.50 on a crocodile hat fills me with nothing but excitement, and the idea this could be taken to its logical conclusion and extrapolated to every single aspect of the game even more so.

Hopefully in the future they can give me a credit card gun, and I can just go around clicking on every single asset in the game and charge myself sums of money for my own ‘personalised’ ‘experience.’ And if this could be done in an exploitive way that fuels buying on impulse, jealousy and peer pressure then even better! In fact I’d like every game to forgo aesthetic sensibilities, consistency and possibly even its own art direction; in favour of a player brought mish-mash of gimmicky crap.

I'll download the couple of talks I want to listen to afterwards.

More mindless shock films please.

Agreed, every game needs shameless monetisation.