Just finished Other M.
And I only have one question, one that I asked myself the whole time during the ending:
WHAT?
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The Legend of Zelda are not RPGs
They are not RPGs.
Do you know what really grinds my gears to no avail? When people mention TLoZ when talking about RPGs. At most, you can say that it has some RPG elements, but at it's core, TLoZ is an adventure game. The one who approaches RPG territory the most is TLoZ 2 for NES, but most of it's "innovations" and changes to the TLoZ formula were abandoned, never to be seen again.
For starters, Link doesn't level up. He never does, never will. This was a staple of Japanese Console RPGs by the time TLoZ: A Link to the Past was released, and Zelda never used this trope. Another staples that were never used by Zelda: Random encounters and turn-based combat. True, those do not make an RPG(Specially today(2013)), but at the time, most where doing it, and Zelda was not(Except TLoZ 2...). Also, combat in The Legend of Zelda is basically superfluos. Unless you get locked in a room, or are short of supplies(And in this case, it's more of a gamble, since drops are random), combat is unnecesary, you gain nothing from it. Except Bosses, which act more as puzzles than fights.
Choice. Or rather lack of choice. Link is a mute hero, "See? Mute hero! RPG Staple!"... wrong. Mario is a mute character, that doesn't make Super Mario an RPG, right? "But Link has to make choices!" Wrong. TLoZ gives you the illusion of choice. Most of the important decisions follow the "But thou must" trope, you say "Nay" and they, basically, tell you that "thou must" until you say "yes". The rest of the choices don't affect anything at all, so they are there just for window dressing.
"But Link can go wherever he wants when he wants!" Nope, no he can't. Some Areas are unreachable until Link obtains a certain item that allows him to bypass certain obstackles, so, once again, the illusion of choice. You need to obtain certain items, which means at least going once to certain places to fetch them, so there is some semblance structure to the quest. Do you know what this reminds me of? Mario 64. You need to collect a certain amount of stars, instead of items, to access certain areas. Same deal. "Lava Dungeon"? Mario has a Lava world. "Snow Dungeon!" Mario has a Snow Level. You could say that Zelda's Dungeons are Mario's Worlds.
"Ha! but Link's Dungeons are part of a cohesive world held together by Hyrulean land!"... so? Mario 64 has an overworld too, Peach's castle. Peach's castle serves as the overworld, and the many worlds are like Dungeons. If The Legend of Zelda are RPGs, the Mario 64 is an RPG. Is Mario 64 an RPG? Mute hero? His choices don't matter? Needs to collect items to be able to enter certain places? Mario needs to clear certain conditions(Puzzle-like in nature sometimes) to get items? Hmmm....
But unlike Mario 64, Zelda is a bit more story driven... Thing is, before Twilight Princess, Zelda has no character growth whatsoever. RPGs tend to have character growth and developement, when an RPG has a mute hero, the cast around him get more developement. Zelda Ocarina of Time cheated a bit with the Time Mechanic, do character personalities and status change? Sure, they do, but we don't get to experience the change. Majora's Mask toyed with the idea a bit, but the 3 day rebooting kinda ruins it. Twilight Princess finally introduced side characters who mature as the story goes on.
Finally, we have currency. RPG games have shops in which you can buy equipment and consumables... Except that most games have some sort of currency and shops. Devil May Cry has red orbs, which are used to buy new moves or healing items. Does that make DMC, God of War or any other modern action game an RPG?
The Legend of Zelda are fun games, but the RPG elements they have are used very lightly, which makes The Legend of Zelda fall into the Adventure category, with a little action and puzzle elements to make it more interesting.
For starters, Link doesn't level up. He never does, never will. This was a staple of Japanese Console RPGs by the time TLoZ: A Link to the Past was released, and Zelda never used this trope. Another staples that were never used by Zelda: Random encounters and turn-based combat. True, those do not make an RPG(Specially today(2013)), but at the time, most where doing it, and Zelda was not(Except TLoZ 2...). Also, combat in The Legend of Zelda is basically superfluos. Unless you get locked in a room, or are short of supplies(And in this case, it's more of a gamble, since drops are random), combat is unnecesary, you gain nothing from it. Except Bosses, which act more as puzzles than fights.
Choice. Or rather lack of choice. Link is a mute hero, "See? Mute hero! RPG Staple!"... wrong. Mario is a mute character, that doesn't make Super Mario an RPG, right? "But Link has to make choices!" Wrong. TLoZ gives you the illusion of choice. Most of the important decisions follow the "But thou must" trope, you say "Nay" and they, basically, tell you that "thou must" until you say "yes". The rest of the choices don't affect anything at all, so they are there just for window dressing.
"But Link can go wherever he wants when he wants!" Nope, no he can't. Some Areas are unreachable until Link obtains a certain item that allows him to bypass certain obstackles, so, once again, the illusion of choice. You need to obtain certain items, which means at least going once to certain places to fetch them, so there is some semblance structure to the quest. Do you know what this reminds me of? Mario 64. You need to collect a certain amount of stars, instead of items, to access certain areas. Same deal. "Lava Dungeon"? Mario has a Lava world. "Snow Dungeon!" Mario has a Snow Level. You could say that Zelda's Dungeons are Mario's Worlds.
But unlike Mario 64, Zelda is a bit more story driven... Thing is, before Twilight Princess, Zelda has no character growth whatsoever. RPGs tend to have character growth and developement, when an RPG has a mute hero, the cast around him get more developement. Zelda Ocarina of Time cheated a bit with the Time Mechanic, do character personalities and status change? Sure, they do, but we don't get to experience the change. Majora's Mask toyed with the idea a bit, but the 3 day rebooting kinda ruins it. Twilight Princess finally introduced side characters who mature as the story goes on.
Finally, we have currency. RPG games have shops in which you can buy equipment and consumables... Except that most games have some sort of currency and shops. Devil May Cry has red orbs, which are used to buy new moves or healing items. Does that make DMC, God of War or any other modern action game an RPG?
The Legend of Zelda are fun games, but the RPG elements they have are used very lightly, which makes The Legend of Zelda fall into the Adventure category, with a little action and puzzle elements to make it more interesting.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Metroid: (please play) Other M(etroids)
This game.... man... this game...
So, the controls ruined the game, it couldn't get any worse than that, right? It does.
One of my biggest gripes, is how the game often ends a cut-scene with Samus in first-person view, and the game makes you look(Not just aim at it, you have to hold a button while pointing at a specific place in the screen) at points of interest. Not only is it jarring on such an arcade-like game, but it's a chore. Most of the time, you have to realize that you are trying to find a logo, but the game doesn't offer you any pointers. Some of my... favorite moments were:
-Sector 1, one of your allies is dead, so someone states "Who could've done this?".... so I'm guessing I have to look at the body? Nope. Maybe there's a monster nearby? Nope. Perhaps I have to analyze the other soldiers and they'd talk to me? Nope. After wasting at least 5 minutes going in circles trying to find whatever I was looking for, I spot blood on the floor. Dark green blood on a light green floor. And I'm supposed to notice that it's not just more folliage? Goddamn.
-Sector 3, there's a cutscene where they show someone looking at Samus, so I guess I have to look at her(Even though the only reason I know she is there is 'cause I saw it on a cut-scene). I look. No reaction. After searching, I tried again and... it worked.. Seems I had to point at a very specific place. THESE MOMENTS ARE SO MUCH FUN(Bold and Caps? Sh!t just got real).
This is more of a nitpick, but still worth mentioning: There are places you have to climb. Some of these(At least 3 and counting) have perfectly functional stairs. But no, Samus is too cool for stairs, so you have to find some roundabout way of getting on top of it, usually involving the use of the Morph Ball.
Oh, and speaking of things that make no sense, Samus finds a Scientist, and she thinks to herself "I have to protect her", so how does she do it? After telling her to "Run", on a facility where monsters are acting more agressive than usual, on a facility where a traitor(more on him soon) may be lurking around, not only does she not mention the scientist to her superior, but she leaves the scientist to her own devices while she does some stuff in another zone. "I have to protect her" but you leave her by herself on a very, very dangerous place? Logic.
Ah, the traitor. Where to begin? Hm, the fight with Samus, I guess. So Mr. Traitor gets on some vehicle and tries to kill Samus and the scientist, Samus beats him, and when Samus goes to check the cockpit, he is gone(Classic). Thing is, there was no possible way that he could've gotten away without Samus seeing him. There was no big explosion, and the area was very empty, barring some boxes, so Samus would've seen him get away. And the fact that there was no way to go other than the entrance from where Samus came from(Which was now inaccesible) or the door that leads to Sector 2. Samus should have seen him get away. And then the naming. Samus doesn't know who he is, so she calls him "The Deleter". Why? Why not just call him The Traitor, as she has been calling him so far? "But she doesn't know who he is or what his name is!". Exactly. The Traitor and The Deleter serve the same function. It's dumb, specially since Samus doesn't tell or plans on telling anyone about him, it's quite unnecesary.
This game, man.... this game...
One of my biggest gripes, is how the game often ends a cut-scene with Samus in first-person view, and the game makes you look(Not just aim at it, you have to hold a button while pointing at a specific place in the screen) at points of interest. Not only is it jarring on such an arcade-like game, but it's a chore. Most of the time, you have to realize that you are trying to find a logo, but the game doesn't offer you any pointers. Some of my... favorite moments were:
-Sector 1, one of your allies is dead, so someone states "Who could've done this?".... so I'm guessing I have to look at the body? Nope. Maybe there's a monster nearby? Nope. Perhaps I have to analyze the other soldiers and they'd talk to me? Nope. After wasting at least 5 minutes going in circles trying to find whatever I was looking for, I spot blood on the floor. Dark green blood on a light green floor. And I'm supposed to notice that it's not just more folliage? Goddamn.
-Sector 3, there's a cutscene where they show someone looking at Samus, so I guess I have to look at her(Even though the only reason I know she is there is 'cause I saw it on a cut-scene). I look. No reaction. After searching, I tried again and... it worked.. Seems I had to point at a very specific place. THESE MOMENTS ARE SO MUCH FUN(Bold and Caps? Sh!t just got real).
This is more of a nitpick, but still worth mentioning: There are places you have to climb. Some of these(At least 3 and counting) have perfectly functional stairs. But no, Samus is too cool for stairs, so you have to find some roundabout way of getting on top of it, usually involving the use of the Morph Ball.
Oh, and speaking of things that make no sense, Samus finds a Scientist, and she thinks to herself "I have to protect her", so how does she do it? After telling her to "Run", on a facility where monsters are acting more agressive than usual, on a facility where a traitor(more on him soon) may be lurking around, not only does she not mention the scientist to her superior, but she leaves the scientist to her own devices while she does some stuff in another zone. "I have to protect her" but you leave her by herself on a very, very dangerous place? Logic.
Ah, the traitor. Where to begin? Hm, the fight with Samus, I guess. So Mr. Traitor gets on some vehicle and tries to kill Samus and the scientist, Samus beats him, and when Samus goes to check the cockpit, he is gone(Classic). Thing is, there was no possible way that he could've gotten away without Samus seeing him. There was no big explosion, and the area was very empty, barring some boxes, so Samus would've seen him get away. And the fact that there was no way to go other than the entrance from where Samus came from(Which was now inaccesible) or the door that leads to Sector 2. Samus should have seen him get away. And then the naming. Samus doesn't know who he is, so she calls him "The Deleter". Why? Why not just call him The Traitor, as she has been calling him so far? "But she doesn't know who he is or what his name is!". Exactly. The Traitor and The Deleter serve the same function. It's dumb, specially since Samus doesn't tell or plans on telling anyone about him, it's quite unnecesary.
This game, man.... this game...
First Archimpressions: Metroid Other M
I wanted to like it....
While I didn't like Samus' voice at first, eventually it sank in, that cold, monotonous voice actually fits a battle hardened Bounty Hunter really, really well. This is how I expect a Bounty Hunter to sound like. I do think there's a bit too much exposition though, Samus tends to overanalyze everything, ""Outsider" the word he so carefully chose", "Called like that because bla bla bla", and I'm not sure if I like it or not. One thing I've always loved about comic books, is when the hero narrates, so you read what he thinks, so I kinda like having Samus' thoughts at all times, but sometimes I just want to shoot stuff sooner!.
Speaking of shooting, my first try at the game felt awesome, really Arcadey(Read: Fast and simple), just the way I like games... at least until I reached the first boss, and I started to notice how awkward shooting missiles is. You have to stay put in place in order to shoot. You can't move at all. "Alright, I'll just shoot after it attacks", yeah, it's still complicated, because: A) You have to point at the screen with the Wiimote, and Samus won't be looking at where you point, oh no, she'll be looking in whatever direction she was before you moved the Wiimote. This wouldn't be so bad, but the game is played with the Digital pad, so having to position yourself after dodging is not entirely comfortable and B) You have to Hold B at where you want to shoot the missiles before pressing A to shoot them. It makes shooting missiles a tad more time consuming than it should. I said the game was Arcade-like, so it's fast, having to stop moving, and aim at something takes time and is cumbersome, but the enemies still move fast, leaving you vulnerable to attacks. Just wait until you reach zones filled with tiny enemies and you have to aim missiles at certain particular spots(Sometimes other moving enemies), targeting the right enemy is no easy matter, specially with the rest of the enemies attacking you. The game is not hard, even though enemies take huge chunks out of your HP, but the odd control scheme makes it hard. Way harder than it'd be otherwise.
The game does away with enemy drops, so how do you recharge Missiles and health? For missiles, stay put in place, hold the wii-mote up and the A button, and after some seconds they will fully recharge. As for HP, you can only heal when your HP falls below a certain threshold, and then you have to follow the same procedure for recharging missiles. It breaks the flow of the game, and mid-boss battle is not easy to pull off.
The story is very awkward, how'd Samus get so attached to the baby metroid? Why is Adam such an a$$, yet Samus holds him in such a high regard? Not to mention, I've heard about the "Paralyzed with fear due to Ridley". Dude, you killed Ridley once, you shouldn't be scared... sigh... Funny thing, even knowing how bad the story got, after playing the game, I wanted to like it. Older Arcade and NES games didn't need a story, and after playing the tutorial of the game, and seeing how good it felt, I thought that maybe it could go beyond a bad story, maybe the game was better than the sum of it's parts. But nope, bad controls ruin any game. How can you enjoy what you can't play?
I'm in the Forest Zone(Area 1) right now, so I think it's safe to mark down my initial impressions:
First thing that must be noted, the game is gorgeous. These are probably the best graphics I've seen on a Wii game. And the CG is very pretty too. And hopefully you like watching, 'cause it's a very cinematic game, there's a lot of looking and not playing, at least for now.
While I didn't like Samus' voice at first, eventually it sank in, that cold, monotonous voice actually fits a battle hardened Bounty Hunter really, really well. This is how I expect a Bounty Hunter to sound like. I do think there's a bit too much exposition though, Samus tends to overanalyze everything, ""Outsider" the word he so carefully chose", "Called like that because bla bla bla", and I'm not sure if I like it or not. One thing I've always loved about comic books, is when the hero narrates, so you read what he thinks, so I kinda like having Samus' thoughts at all times, but sometimes I just want to shoot stuff sooner!.
Speaking of shooting, my first try at the game felt awesome, really Arcadey(Read: Fast and simple), just the way I like games... at least until I reached the first boss, and I started to notice how awkward shooting missiles is. You have to stay put in place in order to shoot. You can't move at all. "Alright, I'll just shoot after it attacks", yeah, it's still complicated, because: A) You have to point at the screen with the Wiimote, and Samus won't be looking at where you point, oh no, she'll be looking in whatever direction she was before you moved the Wiimote. This wouldn't be so bad, but the game is played with the Digital pad, so having to position yourself after dodging is not entirely comfortable and B) You have to Hold B at where you want to shoot the missiles before pressing A to shoot them. It makes shooting missiles a tad more time consuming than it should. I said the game was Arcade-like, so it's fast, having to stop moving, and aim at something takes time and is cumbersome, but the enemies still move fast, leaving you vulnerable to attacks. Just wait until you reach zones filled with tiny enemies and you have to aim missiles at certain particular spots(Sometimes other moving enemies), targeting the right enemy is no easy matter, specially with the rest of the enemies attacking you. The game is not hard, even though enemies take huge chunks out of your HP, but the odd control scheme makes it hard. Way harder than it'd be otherwise.
The game does away with enemy drops, so how do you recharge Missiles and health? For missiles, stay put in place, hold the wii-mote up and the A button, and after some seconds they will fully recharge. As for HP, you can only heal when your HP falls below a certain threshold, and then you have to follow the same procedure for recharging missiles. It breaks the flow of the game, and mid-boss battle is not easy to pull off.
The story is very awkward, how'd Samus get so attached to the baby metroid? Why is Adam such an a$$, yet Samus holds him in such a high regard? Not to mention, I've heard about the "Paralyzed with fear due to Ridley". Dude, you killed Ridley once, you shouldn't be scared... sigh... Funny thing, even knowing how bad the story got, after playing the game, I wanted to like it. Older Arcade and NES games didn't need a story, and after playing the tutorial of the game, and seeing how good it felt, I thought that maybe it could go beyond a bad story, maybe the game was better than the sum of it's parts. But nope, bad controls ruin any game. How can you enjoy what you can't play?
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Final Fantasy VII is still one of the Greatest games ever made.
Dat Sword.
Let's jump back to 1999, I'm this wee kid who's latest games he had played were Tomb Raider 2 and 3. I had previously owned a NES and a NES knock-off, and now had a N64. The closest thing I had played to an RPG was Quest 64, and I loved it(And still do, to this day, one of my biggest guilty pleasures). So I'm at a computer-stuff shop, and I see this odd box, with a rhombo-ish shape, a white box, with a dude holding this big-a$$ sword.
-"Daddy! Daddy! I wantz dat!"
-"Too expensive"
-"Then let's save up!"(This meant that I did jack and he'd save up the $, but I still felt as if I was doing something, lol).
And then.... it came. I proceed to install it, while reading the instructions booklet and drooling over the box. I'm hyped, I don't know what I'm getting into, but I'm so friggin' hyped. Game's installed, I start it up, the intro CG plays and "HOLY EFFING SH!T THESE GRAPHICS", suddenly this funky purple blob of polygons jumps out of the train "Well, this looks... different"(I never cared about graphics).... and then a battle starts "OMFG HE GREW! THIS IS AWESOME WHAT IS THIS, MENUS? OMFG THIS IS AWESOMEEEEEEEE!!!!!!1111111111ONEONEELEVEN", and the rest, my friends, is history. I should note that one of the... "Features" I liked the most, was that it had "3 kinds" of graphics: Exploring, Battling and CG. I loved that, for some reason, and I still find it endearing.
Characters. What I enjoy the most about JRPGs is watching the characters grow and develop. In Final Fantasy VII there's plenty of character growth, and each character gets their own sort of chapter. Even the extra side characters like Vincent and Yuffie have their own personal adventures, that show you their motivation, their resolve and how they plan to deal with their problems. Cloud is not "just an emo girly boy", Cloud was the emo guy with "amnesia", he was, dare I say? the first one like that, and just because many came after him, trying to copy or deal their own spins on the angsty hero, Cloud came first, Cloud aced the part and Cloud was there before it was a cliche. Cloud made angst the new cool. Then, there's the fact that most characters are completely different from each other. You could argue that Vincent and Cloud both fill the angsty persona, but Vincent is a much less talkative(Though him and Yuffie have less lines than the core members...) character, and he'd never have cross-dressed like Cloud. Cid and Barret are both rash, angry characters, but their reasons are completely different.... Speaking of different, how about the fact that there are no whites and blacks? Even Barret, who's trying to "Save the world" gets called out by fellow ally Caith-Sith, he may be trying to save the world, but he is killing bystanders in the process.
Music. This is a much more subjective topic, what my ears like might not be the cup of tea of another, but MIDI music has never sounded so good, and the themes from FFVII are still fresh in my mind. It may be from Nostalgia, but I love the music, and it always fills me with memories from my childhood <3. I love this music, but it may be my personal taste, moving on...
Gameplay. Final Fantasy VII had a very unique Materia-junction system, which was deceptively deep. According to the Weapon and Armor you equipped your character with, he'd get different slots for Materia. Each Materia affected your other stats(HP,MP, Strenght, Speed, Defence), so you wouldn't want to handicap your character too much. There was also materia that wouldn't do anything by itself, so you had to place it in a "Joined slot"(If your equipment allowed it) next to another Materia. Even setting up the materia was fun. Battles took a faster spin than most other RPGS, using the Active Time Battle(ATB) that Square had implemented on their latter 16-bit RPGs, and the 3D graphics made battles look really good.
Graphics. Most PS1 games have aged really badly on the graphics department. Not Final Fantasy VII. Everything looks how it's supposed to look, and the characters, even at their simplest(When "out of battle") have a very expressive range of animations, so you can tell how they are feeling. From Cloud's shrug, Cid's foot-tapping or Barret's shooting. When outside the overworld, Final Fantasy VII used pre-rendered backgrounds, and they still look very good, and are very distinctive. From Midgar's Steampunk look to Cosmo Canyon's more tribal enviroment. Characters may not have fingers on their hands, but they still pack quite a punch(It's a joke, since they have stubs for hands. It's funny, trust me).
Lastly, the story. Other game that came later may have dealt with it better, but Final Fantasy VII did it first. Frankly, FFVII took story devices from their past games, the love triangle? Final Fantasy VI, Terra-Locke-Celes, but while it was dealt with undertones in VI, it's made much more obvious in VII with Aeris-Cloud-Tifa. Permanent death of a Party member? Fintal Fantasy IV killed a lot of their characters, but with VII they gave you much more time and reasons to care about Aeris. She was not just "another party member", she was there almost from the start, and she was part of the love triangle, you could take her on a date(Instead of Tifa, Yuffie or *gasp* Barret), there was no way to think that she'd be expendable, so her death was incredibly well done and unexpected(Though going as far as "Crying"(in real life) is a bit too much...). One-Winged Angel last boss? Kefka did it first and... actually, Sephiroth is not necesarily better than Kefka, so... yeah, nothing else to say. Kefka Wins. Move along now.
My point is, Final Fantasy VII was never a bad game. And it'll never be. The foundations of the game are great, they were great, and you can't take it away from it. If you compare it to other games that came later, sure, it may not be as "good" as them, they may have better stories(And better translations!), they may have better battle systems, but when Final Fantasy VII came out, it was new. It was fresh. And it was awesome.
Final Fantasy VII is awesome.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The State of Gaming 2013
What... what has happened? How did we get here?
Do you remember gaming in the older days? When you bought a game and that was it. You knew, you knew you were getting the whole product. Sometimes, said products would come with cheats, maybe alternate costumes and/or secret characters!. How fun was it to finish a game, and EGAD! a new character! what a great reward!. What do we get now? Achievements. Trophies. Bragging Rights. Air. Nada.
So, what's it like gaming in 2013? I'm gonna have to break this up, into the worst offenders:
The unholy Evil, DAY 1 DLC.
Publishers want me to believe that there was "no time to put it into the game before it went into production"? That's bullsh!t. Once or twice, that excuse might've worked, but not today. It's true that sometimes Publishers rush the game developement cycle, but if it was meant to be in the game, why charge us extra? True, sometimes it is free. Sometimes, but it doesn't make it any less tacky. Do you know what day 1 DLC means? It means that if you run out of space on your hardrive, and need to uninstall the game, said extra content is lost forever, until you download it again. Once PSN/XLive is no more, and the retrogamers of the future want to play the game, they'll get a subpar experience. Fun.
This Evil sometimes comes without an excuse, which makes it even worse. They announce this Day 1 DLC before the game is even finished. Sometimes it's even used as a pre-order incentive. Do y'know that pre-order incentive used to be? An artbook. Maybe a CD with the music of the game, or some keychain or little physical extra. Do y'know what a pre-order incentive is now? Content that was in the game, locked out, on purpose, to ensure pre-orders(Buying new at full price) and that later buyers, posibly when the game is cheaper, need to spend a little more to get the missing content(Which is a 100kb file that simply unlocks the content).
Then we have another pest, that usually goes hand in hand with Day 1 DLC...
. ..the dreaded DISC LOCKED CONTENT.
The biggest culprit of them all: Capcom. This is content that it's in the disc that you just bought, but you need to shell out more dead presidents(Money, for those weird foreigners that don't have presidents on their cash) in order to gain access to. Publishers may try to bullsh!t the consumer with excuses, but the truth is: they want your money. Since I mentioned Capcom before, I will use them as an example with Street Fighter X Tekken:
"The characters aren't finished" -> Data miners found the complete. Even their endings. Their alternate costumes(Which are gonna set you back 1 extra dollar per costume).
"It's to allow players that didn't buy the DLC to play with those that didn't" -> Right, that's why we need the endings too?
"It had a separate budget from the main game"-> So, you planned DLC even, even if the game didn't sell well? That's risky, specially for a money-hungry publisher.
Then we have the defenders:
"Get a job and the cost becomes a non-issue"-> Having the money, doesn't mean you have to get ripped off.
"Companies exist to make money"-> Companies exist to make money, yes, but if you think about it, everything is about getting money. Being a doctor makes you earn money, so you are gonna screw with your clients by cutting back on your equipment? Give them a subpar treatment for more cash? Like... giving them a subpar product for more cash? Companies exist to make monet, but they don't need to rip out ther costumers.
And if there was any doubt left that Capcom wanted your money, later patches altered the Character Select Screen, so even if you didn't buy the DLC, you can see ALL the characters, with the DLC ones being grayed out, as if to taunt the consumer and tempt them into giving them their money. GG Capcom, GG.
Speaking of "Grayed out" brings us to the next topic, one that is a bit more debatable.... LACK OF CONTENT AND MISCELANEOUS DLC.
As I mentioned at the start of this piece, previous videogame generations included all sorts of bonus stuff. Alternate Costumes, Secret Characters, etc, all included in your initial purchase. Now games seem to shun unlockables in favor of selling you extra stuff. The rewards you get from finishing a game range from a mere new difficulty level to Trophies or Achievements(Which are just bragging rights). Fun. The worst part is that games haven't gotten any more content to make up for it. It's the same kind of games you bought before, with the same base of content, maybe less, but lacking all the extra unlockables. Remember Cheats? They were quite prevalent in the 32 and 64 bit generations. They were fun little extras to mess around. Now they sell you cheats(...Capcom...) or don't include them at all. Cheats were never "needed", but it seems games now are trying to act more... mature? so to speak, "This is not meant to make you have fun! It's to make you think 'cause we so deep, brah" eh, I digress, but I will talk more about that soon. The point is games have gotten more expensive to produce, games now recieve bigger budget, and they get higher quality assets, better textures, more polygons, more work, more DLC.
GAMES IN GENERAL TODAY
Games today seem to be... trying too hard. They are trying so hard to look realistic. It sounds cliche, but it is true, games today are fond of Browns, Greys and Blacks, shunning away from the more pleasing, less realistic, colors. There are still colorful games, like most indie and anime-games, but they are the lesser kind. Colors do not make a game, but after playing 4-5 current gen games, monotony sets in, Fiction is not evil, Videogames are a form of fiction, yet it seems they are trying to ape movies. Games trying to be what they are not: Movies. Taking elements from said medium is not an inherently bad thing, but it can go too far. Examples of this are Heavy Rain, for it's unusual gameplay and Uncharted, for it's abundance of scripted scenes. I'm not saying they are bad games, but they are games pretending to be other things.
It's not all bad though! Thank's to the internet, if you lack gamer friends, you can play online! But due to it's more... impersonal nature, it tends to bring out the worst in people, so pray you have a thick skin. But the best thing, probably, to come out of this generation, is Steam(It's older, but still), Playstation Network, Xbox Live and the such. Thanks to this services, games that had no chance of being published, maybe due to it's smaller scale, in content, now can be sold for a more reasonable price. Indie gaming has flourished thanks to this, and this is a VERY good thing.
NOT ALL OF THEM ARE EVIL?!
Yup, there are great games being made this gen, games that have huge amounts of content and don't try to rip you off with DLC(Most of the time).... Games like:
Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City(The DLC is not a requisite, and even without it, the game offers a boatload of content).
Lollipop Chainsaw
Borderlands(The DLC really does feel like the expansions of yore, it's a good amount of content at a reasonable price. And the main game is very beefy)
Infamous 1 and 2
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
These few games are examples of respecting the consumer. They offer more content than your average game, they reward the player for PLAYING and not for PAYING. And what DLC they may have doesn't feel like "A small addition for money" but extra content.
Do you remember gaming in the older days? When you bought a game and that was it. You knew, you knew you were getting the whole product. Sometimes, said products would come with cheats, maybe alternate costumes and/or secret characters!. How fun was it to finish a game, and EGAD! a new character! what a great reward!. What do we get now? Achievements. Trophies. Bragging Rights. Air. Nada.
So, what's it like gaming in 2013? I'm gonna have to break this up, into the worst offenders:
The unholy Evil, DAY 1 DLC.
Publishers want me to believe that there was "no time to put it into the game before it went into production"? That's bullsh!t. Once or twice, that excuse might've worked, but not today. It's true that sometimes Publishers rush the game developement cycle, but if it was meant to be in the game, why charge us extra? True, sometimes it is free. Sometimes, but it doesn't make it any less tacky. Do you know what day 1 DLC means? It means that if you run out of space on your hardrive, and need to uninstall the game, said extra content is lost forever, until you download it again. Once PSN/XLive is no more, and the retrogamers of the future want to play the game, they'll get a subpar experience. Fun.
This Evil sometimes comes without an excuse, which makes it even worse. They announce this Day 1 DLC before the game is even finished. Sometimes it's even used as a pre-order incentive. Do y'know that pre-order incentive used to be? An artbook. Maybe a CD with the music of the game, or some keychain or little physical extra. Do y'know what a pre-order incentive is now? Content that was in the game, locked out, on purpose, to ensure pre-orders(Buying new at full price) and that later buyers, posibly when the game is cheaper, need to spend a little more to get the missing content(Which is a 100kb file that simply unlocks the content).
Then we have another pest, that usually goes hand in hand with Day 1 DLC...
. ..the dreaded DISC LOCKED CONTENT.
The biggest culprit of them all: Capcom. This is content that it's in the disc that you just bought, but you need to shell out more dead presidents(Money, for those weird foreigners that don't have presidents on their cash) in order to gain access to. Publishers may try to bullsh!t the consumer with excuses, but the truth is: they want your money. Since I mentioned Capcom before, I will use them as an example with Street Fighter X Tekken:
"The characters aren't finished" -> Data miners found the complete. Even their endings. Their alternate costumes(Which are gonna set you back 1 extra dollar per costume).
"It's to allow players that didn't buy the DLC to play with those that didn't" -> Right, that's why we need the endings too?
"It had a separate budget from the main game"-> So, you planned DLC even, even if the game didn't sell well? That's risky, specially for a money-hungry publisher.
Then we have the defenders:
"Get a job and the cost becomes a non-issue"-> Having the money, doesn't mean you have to get ripped off.
"Companies exist to make money"-> Companies exist to make money, yes, but if you think about it, everything is about getting money. Being a doctor makes you earn money, so you are gonna screw with your clients by cutting back on your equipment? Give them a subpar treatment for more cash? Like... giving them a subpar product for more cash? Companies exist to make monet, but they don't need to rip out ther costumers.
And if there was any doubt left that Capcom wanted your money, later patches altered the Character Select Screen, so even if you didn't buy the DLC, you can see ALL the characters, with the DLC ones being grayed out, as if to taunt the consumer and tempt them into giving them their money. GG Capcom, GG.
Speaking of "Grayed out" brings us to the next topic, one that is a bit more debatable.... LACK OF CONTENT AND MISCELANEOUS DLC.
As I mentioned at the start of this piece, previous videogame generations included all sorts of bonus stuff. Alternate Costumes, Secret Characters, etc, all included in your initial purchase. Now games seem to shun unlockables in favor of selling you extra stuff. The rewards you get from finishing a game range from a mere new difficulty level to Trophies or Achievements(Which are just bragging rights). Fun. The worst part is that games haven't gotten any more content to make up for it. It's the same kind of games you bought before, with the same base of content, maybe less, but lacking all the extra unlockables. Remember Cheats? They were quite prevalent in the 32 and 64 bit generations. They were fun little extras to mess around. Now they sell you cheats(...Capcom...) or don't include them at all. Cheats were never "needed", but it seems games now are trying to act more... mature? so to speak, "This is not meant to make you have fun! It's to make you think 'cause we so deep, brah" eh, I digress, but I will talk more about that soon. The point is games have gotten more expensive to produce, games now recieve bigger budget, and they get higher quality assets, better textures, more polygons, more work, more DLC.
GAMES IN GENERAL TODAY
Games today seem to be... trying too hard. They are trying so hard to look realistic. It sounds cliche, but it is true, games today are fond of Browns, Greys and Blacks, shunning away from the more pleasing, less realistic, colors. There are still colorful games, like most indie and anime-games, but they are the lesser kind. Colors do not make a game, but after playing 4-5 current gen games, monotony sets in, Fiction is not evil, Videogames are a form of fiction, yet it seems they are trying to ape movies. Games trying to be what they are not: Movies. Taking elements from said medium is not an inherently bad thing, but it can go too far. Examples of this are Heavy Rain, for it's unusual gameplay and Uncharted, for it's abundance of scripted scenes. I'm not saying they are bad games, but they are games pretending to be other things.
It's not all bad though! Thank's to the internet, if you lack gamer friends, you can play online! But due to it's more... impersonal nature, it tends to bring out the worst in people, so pray you have a thick skin. But the best thing, probably, to come out of this generation, is Steam(It's older, but still), Playstation Network, Xbox Live and the such. Thanks to this services, games that had no chance of being published, maybe due to it's smaller scale, in content, now can be sold for a more reasonable price. Indie gaming has flourished thanks to this, and this is a VERY good thing.
NOT ALL OF THEM ARE EVIL?!
Yup, there are great games being made this gen, games that have huge amounts of content and don't try to rip you off with DLC(Most of the time).... Games like:
Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City(The DLC is not a requisite, and even without it, the game offers a boatload of content).
Lollipop Chainsaw
Borderlands(The DLC really does feel like the expansions of yore, it's a good amount of content at a reasonable price. And the main game is very beefy)
Infamous 1 and 2
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
These few games are examples of respecting the consumer. They offer more content than your average game, they reward the player for PLAYING and not for PAYING. And what DLC they may have doesn't feel like "A small addition for money" but extra content.
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