Brokedem: Games Cost Too Much
I remember a time when games were worth $60. At the time, it was a ridiculous request. The going price for a new, big-publisher game was still $50, sometimes $40. In the middle of all this, Blizzard has the audacity to release Warcraft III for the bold price of $60. Despite the depression I felt when I lost the $60 of not-so-hard earned money by the time I got in to playing the game I realized it was more than worth it.
Warcraft 3 was one of those few titles at the time to be priced above the general market and deserved it. It delivered a complete single player and multi-player experience.
Now, I realize that games today have increased their price to reflect the rising costs of development. But what bothers me is that with all these rising costs in development, it begs the question of where the money goes? Larger art staffs? More programmers to build a complete in-house game engine from 3d audio to shader intensive real-time rendering? These are all a large waste of funds.
What we need are more writers, shift the programmers to game logic and A.I., focus more on content than polish. Don't get me wrong, I like shiny things more than the next guy but if you connect it to an empty experience then what's the point? (NOTE: I have to call out Assassin's Creed on this one -- shame on you Ubisoft, make a better game.)
I think Grand Theft Auto 4 was headed in the right direction as far as finding a balance between shiny and depth. It needed more content but it was definitely a start.
I love the premise and attempt behind Too Human. It's a shame I found the initial demo shallow and boring in terms of game play. I think I need to try a replay with some of the "hidden" classes.
A little hypocrisy here: I don't think Soul Calibur 4 will be worth the money with it's lack luster "story" and often tedious single-player modes and unlocking routine but I do believe the new King of Fighters will be worth it. How do I make these judgement calls? Completely subjective.
FFTA2: Zero Would Not Be Amused
So I've gotten a chance to spend some time with the new Final Fantasy Tactics game. Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (FFTA2) is a handful to say and continues in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
If you want a summary of the game -- plenty exist online at other sites. Instead, I'm going to get straight in to my opinions.
It sucks.
Yep, that's pretty much it. The original Final Fantasy Tactics still hasn't been matched. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was a huge let down in the face of its big brother and while FFTA2 makes some serious strides in the right direction, it still falls short.
The Job system has been much left the same. I feel like the jobs are better balanced this time around and definitely more useful. Unlocking jobs however, is a matter of taking on missions in order to get to the job "taught" to you. Interesting way to handle things but ultimately I found myself merely annoyed. If you didn't take on side-quests you simply can't get better jobs. On top of that, you don't always know which quests reward which jobs.
Returning to the job system is race-restricted jobs. With Seeqs and Gria now added to the mix, more jobs are available. Still, some missions almost require certain jobs and it has been a pain to find a Seeq to join my party. That's right, finding new units is completely out of your control. Either you try to figure out what month you can randomly come across a certain race in a certain area OR you answer a series of random questions and hopefully get the race you were looking for.
On the upside, it really doesn't matter. Mix and match teams of completely unsynched units will handle almost every mission the game throws at you. One of the game's optional boss missions was pathetically easy. I defeated a lvl 88 mage with six units that hadn't even hit lvl 35.
The best thing they probably did in FFTA2 was revamp the Judge system. Judges make much more sense this time around and breaking the laws doesn't harbor any serious consequences. What's the point of the laws? Nice end-battle bonuses. This is especially good because half of the time, the laws will suck horribly. I often break the laws on accident when it's something vague or forgettable like "No unit can perform the same action as the last unit." Mind you, they don't count enemy unit actions.
On top of this, enemy and guest units are no longer bound by the laws. This was the one problem with the revamp. Before, if the computer broke the laws, they got jailed just like you would.
All my whining though and I haven't touch on the real problem with this game. The story is once again targeting 12 year olds. Final Fantasy Tactics was somewhat gritty with its tale of family betrayal and noble corruption. That is to say, it actually had a Final Fantasy story that fit with the main series. These days if it's not a Final Fantasy # then it gets a child-friendly make over and shipped out the door.
Don't bother with FFTA2, I know FFT lovers will find this almost irresistable. I know I didn, I'm sorry I wasted so much time on it. Wait for Final Fantasy XIII and finish up Final Fantasy XII if you haven't already. Better yet, Star Ocean 4 and White Knight Story are due out at some point, DS and RPGs officially don't mix.
EDIT: The subtitle for this post comments on the tactical genius of Zero also known as Lelouch from Code Geass. I just realized a lot of people probably have no idea what I'm talking about half the time so I decided to add a little bit of background info.
I Like My Gift Wrap Nice and Shiny
It's a shame that publishers don't value physical game boxes anymore. Overtime boxes have gone from sizable cartons to small trinket boxes barely bigger than the discs themselves.
I for one, was pleased with the transition to smaller boxes. I have a habit of collecting the boxes my games come in and the small profile allows for easier storage. However, I was appalled when I bought my copy of Half-Life 2. 4 CD-ROMs in paper sleeves and nothing else. It was a far cry from the days of Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2 where you would receive a thick covered spiral instruction manual. Neverwinter Nights also delivered such a booklet. I remember when it was common for Japanese game releases to include t-shirts and posters. I always drooled over Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete when I saw it in stores. Dreaming of the quality package that awaited me if I ever found the funds. Needless to say, I never did -- I am without it to this day.
Konami seems to continue this tradition with Limited Edition MGS4 release but it's very uncommon. As Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and other digital distribution systems promote digital delivery of content, it seems physical copies are slowly going out of style.
New commandment of game publishing: If you're going to sell me a box, put something in it. If all your selling me is compiled code and resources then save us both some time and only offer the title digitally. I don't want to ever open up another box to find paper sleeves and empty space.
EDIT: Apparently, the old image was moved/deleted. I officially need to re-up my images. Drop me a line if you notice this happening with some of my old posts. I'm wholeheartedly trying be less lazy about things.
Don’t Sleep: Capcom on SNK
Lately, I'm been doing a lot background technical research for my pending game project. Right now, I've been focusing on art direction. This is a big issue because I can't draw for crap as of right now and I really need to figure out which way I'm going because learning two styles isn't an option consider the time contraints. It of course, led me to think of beautiful 2D games and Street Fighter (with their upcoming Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix).
I was thinking to myself earlier, although a lot of people have spoken on the topic about Street Fighter IV not being 2D but artistically shaded 3D, I'm going to cut Capcom slack -- doing high-definition 2D graphics with 60 FPS is something only a production studio like Disney can think of doing.
Just as I think something so ridiculous: SNK has to prove me wrong.
What the hell SNK? Why did you decide to just spank the mess out of Capcom. This has completely stolen all the thunder I had behind Street Fighter's art direction. If you watch the HD trailer, those visuals are disgustingly sick. And between the original 3D renders and high definition sprites, there should be no problems with collision detection. If they wanted the 2D graphics could just be an overlay for the 3D meshes so that attack range and collision ends up being near-perfect.
This is exactly how I would love to do a fighting game (or any 2D game) today. I thought of modelling and then spitting out 2D renders but I didn't consider re-drawing over-top the 2D renders.
The downside of this technique is that although it cuts down significantly on the man-power necessary to do HD 2D, it's still a lot of work. Artists are only getting through 1.5 frames of animation a day. I don't have that kind of time. I need to kill an entire object of animation within a few days.
I still have a lot of time before I scheduled development to begin so we'll see what turns up.
They Made Something Unreal
So I love hate to id Software and Epic Games because they make tech demos and not actual games. That remains unchanged really. Gears of War was by far a tech demo and so was pretty much every Unreal release. In fact, when they tried their hand at making games with yearly UT releases they failed horribly and decided to go back to making tech demos.
What I can't hate on Epic Games for is that although they only make tech demos, their tech is good. The Unreal 3 engine is pretty. It's very pretty. You may want to reference Crysis here and be like "that's pretty." No, Crysis is true beauty, Unreal 3 is just pretty.
Crysis is also, I want to remind everyone, a piece of trash engine. The game had bugs and no rig to date can break 60 FPS. Maxing out the settings on Crysis renders the game unplayable even with CrossFire 3870 X2s. Now if 4 GPUs can't take care of business, nothing can.
Now I haven't been up to date on the performance of the new GeForce 9-series but I'm pretty confident Crysis is still a behemoth engine that can't be contained. With that said, it's unreasonable to use Crysis for much of anything. Very few people will be able to play a FPS on it, much less an RTS or heaven-forbid a MMO (one of which is currently under development with that engine).
Unreal 3 plays on mobile Radeon X1600s pretty decent (everything on low) and butter smooth on my 8800GTs (G62) with the setting on high. Now of developers would continue to take the Unreal Engine and make awesome titles like Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 I could be pleased with at least a small portion of the modern professional gaming industry.
Man, Ninja Gaiden only had one sequel…
Tecmo is done. Itagaki recently announced his resignation and lawsuit on Tecmo for unpaid wages. I'm not sure if Tecmo realizes that Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive were the only real games paying their light bill. Honestly, Team Ninja was Tecmo. Horny old dunkard, Itagaki was the revenue stream.
I only hope that, since in this day and age there will probably be no reconciliation, EA does not take the opportunity to purchase Tecmo and the Ninja Gaiden franchise.
The gaming industry has taken another blow, a moment of silence...
I wonder who will get the chance to scoop up Itagaki? Please say Capcom: Rockman Zero meets Ninja Gaiden? Too sick. Street Figher Action/RPG? Hah, lemme stop -- we all know he needs to take his ass to Sega and finish up Shenmue because Yu Suzuki is slacking!
source: ArsTechnica
M-Dolla Dolla Bill y’all!
So Microsoft (better known as M-Dolla) has got its act together. I shipped my 360 to them for repair and failed to received any web updates as to the status of the console. Gave them a call -- got the usual run-around and was starting to get pissed off.
Finally having my call escalated to the Service Center, I got my web update, they confirmed the console was under repair and now I check the status online to find that they are already shipping it back to me. Customer Service was friendly and helpful along the way but all this extra leg work was getting tiring.
At the end of the day, It's a very quick turn around and I'm pleased. Now all I have to do is hope the console is not DOA.
All Around The World…
It seems that Microsoft isn't the only one with hardware failure issues:
"Given the situation, it's easy to understand the worry that many 60GB owners may be feeling in the wake of reports of irreplaceable broken 60GB units. My own 60GB died after almost a year of use; the unit stopped reading discs during a long session of Grand Theft Auto IV."
Source: ArsTechnica
It doesn't seem as if PS3 failure is as wide-spread as 360s but there's no doubt that it's there and significant.
The Way of Bushido
I posted earlier on this but the full song was released a bit ago and I just now realized I've been without it too long. It's about Zeebra lived up to this legendary japanese rapper foolishness I've heard about.
Team Fortress 2 Weekend
Last weekend Valve decided to offer Team Fortress 2 for free just for the weekend. Naturally, I got in on the action for a little bit and I have to say: TF2 is awesome. If you can justify Orange Box -- pick it up. Otherwise, just grab TF2 solo at its new low price of $20. It would seem like I'm advertising for Valve and the truth is I am. The game is worth it. Once I get my hands on some money, I expect Orange Box to find its way in to my collection.
I have a couple more screens for my many deaths: http://picasaweb.google.com/tlclayton/TeamFortress2
