Archive for April, 2009
Why Nintendo is so Successful
Posted by Darrin in Uncategorized on April 3rd, 2009
The two popular theories I hear on this are completely wrong: price and gameplay innovation.
Price is a factor, but people ultimately decide on what they want first and figure out how to afford it second. By now, even the most ardent enthusiast fans of the Wii will admit that it is dead last in game quality. The motion controller that was supposed to be a revolution has thus far been underwhelming.
EARTH TO GAME INDUSTRY: Society does not like you.
Parents are afraid that if they buy their kids a game console that they will turn into some kind of horrible, pale, overweight basement vampire. Socially conscious adults take pride in their career achievements and exercise regimens, but shamefully hide their passive butt-numbing leisure activities.
Video games aren’t a stimulating hobby to spend more time on, they are a lazy vice enjoyed in moderation. People listen to what the couch potato connoseuirs are excited about and disassociate themselves by heading in the opposite direction.
Nintendo sells the pleasure without the shame.
MAG Comments
Posted by Darrin in MAG - Massive Action Game on April 3rd, 2009
SCEA John Koller had a few comments regarding MAG:
“It’s basically like an iteration of SOCOM, where you’re maybe commanding the SEALs, and someone else has the Rangers, and the Green Berets, and so on,”
Wow, that sounds like the most boring game concept of this generation. Different teams, military theme, guns… How innovative.
I am hoping for more of an iteration of the PC game PlanetSide than an iteration of SOCOM. I’ve never played the PS2 glory SOCOMs, but from what I gather, it was basically a console version of Counterstrike: tactical military action, no respawns, and highly addictive. But that era has passed. The world has enough plain military shooters already.
I still imagine that Zipper is aiming for a bigger design concept. Maybe a more persistent world angle or MMO functionality or just a grander version of Battlefield? No way are they going to put out another generic and forgettable shooter.
“If you look at that competitively, it’s something that’s only possible on PS3.”
There is nothing magical about the computer hardware inside the PS3 and everyone knows it. What sets the PS3 apart from the rest is the amazing software lineup, the simplicity compared to a PC, and the flexibility and lack of vendor lock-in compared to a 360. Why do some Sony reps still talk like that? It comes across as out of touch and annoying.
We will see more on Zipper’s big PS3 debut title this E3 and I’m expecting much more than a mere SOCOM iteration.
Comet Crash Impressions
Posted by Darrin in Comet Crash on April 3rd, 2009
Tower Defense/Offense Game
This is more of an RTS (real time strategy) game since there is offense as well as defense. This game plays like an overhead version of Rescue Raiders or remakes like Armor Alley or Glory Days.
In addition to building towers, you accumulate attack forces at your base. When you launch them, they automatically march towards the enemy base without your control, so there is no unit management like in most full-blown RTS titles. The enemy also builds the same towers and launches the same enemeis that you do.
Bullet Points
- Local/Offline Co-Op Play and Competitive Play. Co-op makes these games so much more fun.
- This game is unfriendly to SDTV sets. It’s still completely playable, but there is lots of text that is impossibly blurry to read. Most PS3 games don’t have this problem. (I’m getting ready to buy a super-fancy new set. After waiting this long, getting a massive upgrade across my entire game library should be orgasmic).
- Game complexity is definitely between most tower defense games and most full blown RTS titles and the learning curve is in that same range.
- Computer AI is designed to be beaten by long slow careful strategic build ups. Some players love this style of play and others prefer more fast-paced rush attacks.
- If you like building tower-mazes, this game definitely has that.
- Game seems very well balanced.
Compared to Other Tower Defense Titles
- Free Flash Games: There are dozens of good free flash Tower Defense games. Most good pay titles, such as this one, have better graphics (nothing great, but they aren’t amateur), more polish, and a bigger feature set.
- PixelJunk Monsters: Great game. Personally, I prefer Eden, but I’m definitely in the minority on that.
- Savage Moon: Plenty of good stuff here, but this game has balance problems, and just isn’t as addicting as something like this (Comet Crash) or PixelJunk Monsters. Also, this lacks co-op support.
Wish List
Someone make a spiritual successor to Rescue Raiders with tons of gameplay enhancmements and both co-op and competitive Internet play. That seems like an ideal target. It’s fairly easy to make like tower defense games, but it’s different enough to stand out from the crowd.
Mockers Week #5 Redux
Posted by Blackstaffer in Clan: The Mockers, Game Night on April 2nd, 2009
UPDATE: See below under Wednesday and Thursday. Plus, would you guys like me to use the forums for this kind of thing, or continue using ps3blog.net?
About Tuesday: Well that didn’t work, did it?
I bowed to the pressure and made it a non-bots game so that everyone could get more stats. But it ended up being a three versus three game like any other. I forgot (again) to make sure my headset was charged. Doh!
Did anyone notice any lag?
I can’t say that I was pleased with the spawn camping either. It’s not fun to exit your spawn area to find a turret and two enemies lying in wait. Thanks guys.
Tonight I think I’ll go with my original instinct and we should play some humans versus bots.
About Wednesday: Thanks everyone for showing up! I think it was a mild success. We were all in squads together and sometimes we even backed each other up. I think the main problem was that the bots were too easy to kill. Maybe some Elite bots next time. Next time I hope we can all try to stick together with our squads a little more too.
After most people left, Hentaku, xBerserker (for a while), and I played another game against seven bots. We upped the difficulty to veteran (AFAIK, I didn’t set up the game). We still won.
I was just talking to TCCCCnME, and he said that he didn’t realize that we had left the game to create a new one with tougher bots. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. We were discussing it in the lobby, but I guess not all of you heard that. Even if you don’t have a headset, you should be able to hear conversations if you have your accessory settings set up correctly. The lesson is that if you see people leave a game, wait around for a bit and see if they’ve set up a different one.
About Thursday: I mention what’ll happen tonight in this post.
Firmware 2.70
Posted by Blackstaffer in Firmware Updates on April 1st, 2009
From the official PlayStation blog:
Hi everyone, we’re adding some great new features with the next PS3 firmware update (v2.70) that will continue to enhance your connected experience on the PS3. The 2.70 update brings a new Text Chat feature that enables you to communicate online with your PlayStation Network friends. Now, you’ll be able to chat with up to 15 online friends using the Wireless Keypad, on-screen keyboard, or other compatible keyboard peripherals. Not only can you chat with your friends instantly, but you can also access Text Chat while playing PS3 games and even participate in up to three chat rooms at once.
In addition to Text Chat, we’ve added a few more enhancements:
Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)
* Sort your friends via their online status
* Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)
Video delivery service on PlayStation Store
* Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
* Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback
For a quick preview of Text Chat and some of the other 2.70 features, check out this video:
Tales of Vesperia Coming to PS3
Posted by Darrin in Tales of Vesperia on April 1st, 2009
UPDATE: Removed rumor tag. This has been confirmed.
I have to say, this was already expected. Namco did 360 timed exclusives with Ridge Racer and Eternal Sonata that were later ported to PS3 and Namco’s Katamari series had a 360 exclusive window that has expired and the game is now coming to the PS3. I forget (and don’t really care) about the state of Namco’s Ace Combat.
This site has several scans including this:
Some people have postulated that this these timed exclusive releases are due to programming issues, but that doesn’t make sense. If so, then the developers would eagerly talk about the upcoming cross platform release, and would have mentioned the technical roadblacks in interviews. Instead, we’ve seen the developers in these situations carefully avoid any mention of a cross platform release and dodge questions on the subject. This points to business agreements with media gag clauses.
The Mockers Forum
Posted by Blackstaffer in Clan: The Mockers on April 1st, 2009
UPDATE: Sorry everyone, but I installed the forum software incorrectly. (I had installed it in such a way as to make customizing it impossible.) So I reinstalled it, but now it’s “forums” instead of “forum”. (Another mistake on my part.) So now the official forum is forums.themockersclan.com. You’ll have to register and post again. Sorry about that. Now I have to figure out how to delete the old forum. For some reason, I can’t.
Hello all.
There have been some requests for a forum for The Mockers, so I’ve created one. Please go to forums.themockersclan.com to see for yourself.
Please register and post!
As well, you’ll notice that it’s a subdomain of themockersclan.com. But I don’t have anything there yet. I don’t really know what to do with it – right now it’s just there for the forums.
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