Console War!

[The NZA]

 

so here's a thread for me to lament one of my favorite hobbies becoming retarded on the internet. Honestly, competition's healthy, people can have their favorites, but the cheerleading has gotten bad enough w here formerly alright sites - joystiq, gamefaqs, hell even my precious kotaku - have become embarassing enough at times that the comments are comparable to that of a youtube video (read: not good).

 

I dig that not everyone can afford all 3 systems, and again, there's brands i prefer, too. But with the PS3 vs 360 thing, we're at a point where most every game you didnt pay for part of the production/2nd party effort that's not locked down, its gonna be multi-plat. and these days, there's not as many Orange Boxes, thankfully - you really have to stare at gametrailers comparisons to pick out differences. MGS4 might've been the last big exclusive, for all i can see.

 

So, the new battle seems to be DLC: PS3 gets levels in Bioshock, Mirror's Edge, the Joker in Batman: Arkham, while MS went after GTA IV: Lost & The Damned, and the Fallout 3 campaigns, for one. Ive been hearing more that Sony's got some deal where, if they're getting a port (past a timed 30 exclusive) it has to add new content, a la Tales of Vesperia, Bioshock, Eternal Sonata etc. I respect having extra gameplay, but i dont know that ive yet seen DLC that made or broke a game for me, especially since its usually not free. Still, it logically makes sense: it costs too much to make a game and only reach about half the population, so you gotta have other incentives.

 

Anyway, more a general look at the state of the industry, feel free to talk or add details that dont fit in the other threads. Meanwhile, here's a fun vid Losifer pointed me to.

 

[Keth]

i hate excluse games. its an unfair practice that needs to end. it seems like the people that make the games would want as many people as possible to enjoy their game (c'mon valve. left 4 dead for ps3 isnt too much to ask). i can understand a sony or microsoft published game staying to one system, but when the third parties pick sides is when people start losing. i say give 360 owners a chance to experience the awesomeness of God of War and let us ps3 owners see the hype behind Halo. or at least let us break our vault dweller's level cap. That DLC shit is just wrong!

[Jables]

Nah. DLC & exclusives are great. How the fuck are folks gonna buy & experience other platforms if not for it? Fanboyism aside, what are Sony selling apart from a name & MGS/God of War/LBP? A system that costs nigh-on double or more what the competition is offering, with an escalating fail rate comparable to the 360. Hell, I'd never be arsed getting a PS3 if it weren't for exclusive titles, and christ knows you Sony Fanboys might never try out the 360 for the same reason.

[Keth]

i forgot to mention money. i cant afford to buy an extra system just cause i cant play crackdown. i can try another console at a buddy's house but in the end im playing the game, not the 360. btw the only console deserving of exclusive titles is the Wii for A: the wacky controls and B: i just think it would not be right to have mario and kratos on the same team. the next smash bros would a gorefest.......... or is that a good thing??? lol

[gunsmithx]

you could always save money and buy the one you don't have I know moneys a problem but thats what I've always done.

 

 

Honestly you'll never get firsy parties to release on another system cause that would be retarded, frankly if every game were on every systems I think you'd end up with a one system market and thats not a place I think we should be, at the point there would be less incentive to really come up with cool upgrades from life cycle to life cycle, plus you'd end up with the company controling how things are realeased like nintendo did in the 80's and early 90's(ask the third parties how fun that was).

 

btw I say we use this thread to set up a newtype vs bishopcruz death match!.

[The NZA]

that gunsmith...always thinkin'

 

yeah, exclusives get hated on but youse guys're right, theyre what keep shit moving. if MS didnt rush to market and learn from the whoopin they got last gen, making sure to get their hands into every major franchise this gen, sony looks like they wouldntve even tried. Bish once made the point that MS knew they were going against namebrand recognition and market domination just a few years back, so they knew they needed to stay at a cheaper pricepoint while getting RPGs and a lotta other genres they didnt get too much into last time around, and theyve done just that.

 

Which is why, when sony thought it cool to release at an insane pricepoint with little to no support/games ready, they rightfully got shat on for like a year, during which i mustve got a dozen firmware updates and such. they're not like nintendo, going kicking & screaming into the online venue, but they clearly werent ready for it, and XBL (who's like the spiritual successor to Sega Net) really showed this.

 

I was just talking to Los yesterday about how next gen (whenever that is, cause i don think any of the 3 are ready to go there for years now), i can only garuntee 1) the nextbox will be built like a fuckin' tank, 2) sony's entry will be $400 or less with an integrated online system, and 3) nintendo will make lots of money. But without exclusives and competition, like gun was on about, could you really say sony wouldve busted its ass to drop $200 (prolly more this year) off its pricetag, and work in trophies & such? Would MS have dropped as much as it has, and spent billions replacing RROD's? if these things wouldve happened without this race, i imagine it wouldve taken much longer, at least.

[The NZA]

so, so great to see fanboys living exactly as i imagine them.

 

 

the iwata picture kills me.

[gunsmithx]

what nick doesn't say is he wished he lived there!

[The NZA]

i had that pillow (and that crate) when i was younger. it does look comfy.

[The NZA]

a blast from the past

 

hardcore vs casual: THE BATTLE RAGES ON

 

I was going over the differences between East and West video game styles with Eugene Jarvis, the 27-year-old designer of such "hardcore" games as Robotron, Stargate, and Defender, the other day when he brought up the notion that the Japanese, with the "easier" games "were giving a boost to the novice player, but ripping off the expert." If this continued, Jarvis maintained, it could wipe out the cult of the "pinball wizard" and the "video freak." I thought about this and decided it was absolutely true. Top Japanese games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man are far more accessible to the "novice" and appeal to a wider group of people. They are colorful, cartoony, friendly, inviting. The "plots" are basically benign. Mario's love for the girl in Donkey Kong, and his persistence in pursuing her, is sort of sweet. Pac-Man's dot-eating proclivities are nothing if not cute. My mother in law, a Pac-Man fan who doesn't care for many of the American games, says "eating things is much nicer than blowing them up." In fact, Pac-Man is often described as a woman's game, with all the implications of the term "woman's drink."

 

This is exactly what Jarvis was talking about. Formerly, a typical video game player might be a warty teenager, a National Lampoon reader, blasting AC-DC in his room, who went to the arcade to kick a machine's butt. "From shit to God for a quarter," Jarvis commented. The games this type of player favors are almost invariably the American ones: Tough to play, intimidating to the novice, shooting-driving-destroying paranoid filled games. "Sperm games," Jarvis calls them. But now, he went on, these elitist video cowboys might be as extinct as their doggiepunching pinball forerunners. Says Jarvis: "How can you feel cool if your mother is playing in the same arcade? It's like she put your Led Zep record and liked them better than you.

 

also, fanboying it up in 1989:

 

On the subject of choosing a video game.....my five cents....

 

Personally, I think the Nintendo is a piece of right wing garbage akin to the

IBM PC. Slow, out of date, but heavily marketed so that mindless dweenies will

think it's the hottest thing since Zelda had her first period. I have yet TO

SEE A SINGLE GAME ON THE THING SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER THAN STUFF I PLAYED ON MY

OLD ATARI 800 SEVEN YEARS AGO.....Yes, there are some nice games, but they do

not do anything extraordinary and in fact clearly show the glaring limitations

of the thing's inferior pre-VLSI hardware.

 

On the subject of the Sega Genesis and the Turbografix 16. At least these guys

are using hardware invented after the Apple II, give 'em credit! The graphics

in these games are NICE! I really can't give a decent opinion as to which is

better, they're both fantastic!

 

But now I get to stand on my soapbox and have some fun. Correct me if I am

wrong, but isn't the Atari 7800 superior hardware wise to the NES? I heard

thing could manipulate 64 BIG sprites at once. It was developed right when

the slump hit the videogame industry, and two fantastic and innovative games

Rescue at fractalus and Ballblazer NEVER got the recognition they deserved.

I have yet to see ANYTHING on the NES half as good as these wondrous

creations from Lucasfilm. All I ever see are variations on the horizontal/

vertical scrolling find the magic trinket and or blow it up while a host of

randomly drawn stick figures get in your way theme. I'd rather pay 25 cents

in an arcade and at least get decent graphics and sound.

 

This gets us to another topic. Anyone who believes the Gamebody superior to

the Lynx is a complete loony. However, I think there is a good chance the

Lynx will fail simply because the Gameboy is saturing the market. I hope this

does not happen because I do not see anyone else creating truly innovative

software for home video games. Even the Sega and NEC systems are only offering

souped up versions of the aforementioned theme...

 

The only really nifty games are being written for Amigas and ST's with sorry

adaptions made for befuddled PC users who gladly shuck out the bucks when they

see screenshots from the ST and Amiga versions (usually the Amiga version ),

and get the Nintendosized version of a formerly fantastic game. One could

probably write neat stuff for the Mac II, but who wants to pay $7000 for a

video game ? The saddest part about this tale is that the PC version by far

outshines the combined profits of Amiga and ST versions so now some programmers

are dropping the Amiga and ST and limiting their horizons simply for the bucks.

 

I'm writing what I hope is a truly innovative video game myself right now, I

am writing it on an Atari ST with plans for both Amiga and PC adaptations, but

the key word here IS adaptations. The Amiga version will certainly be a little

better with the nifty sound and blitter chip, but I will need to write the PC

adaptation to make the thing truly profitable and that will be by far the

hardest part. Anyone out there looking for games for the NEC or Genesis? This

game would be PERFECT! I already know the thing would crash and burn on an NES

 

In closing, this post rambled ALOT, but I have wanted to broadcast my views

on the NES monopoly and the general creative decline it has triggered for a

very long time...

 

...wow. and that said, i totally slept on the Amiga.

[The NZA]

i love it. this is better than looking at the shit i wrote back in '01.

 

I was so young, i never even knew there were some hardcore kids hatin' on the NES...

 

Why is Nintendo so bad? (1989)

The Nintendo bashers (1992)

Atari vs. Nintendo conspiracy????? (1992)

 

 

"All this has happened before..."

[Thelogan]

 

Sony and MS aren't doin' it right.

[The NZA]

nice! forgot about that one.

funny thing is, idve gone with Buster Douglas boxing (as i did in the day) and then kicked myself for not holding out for Evander Holyfeild's Real Deal Boxing, which was like 1,000 times better.

honestly, i guess idve been better off with Columns, but i got bored of that on Game Gear. my brother always got sports games, i wonder which sucked less between original montana and pat riley's b-ball.

[bishopcruz]

So that's why the Genesis succeeded, Pat Riley was behind them. It's all falling into place.

[Mr. Sexy Hat]

Two words,

 

BLAST FUCKING PROCESSING!

 

 

 

Sega got Nintendo with thier kick arse advertising. They made thier product look better and cooler (which it totally was anyway ) with fast, colourful and in your face TV and magazine ads. Who can honestly look at thoes ads when they were 12 and not want a Mega Drive/Genesis. I begged for one at Christmas time as I recall.

 

 

I bet you want a Mega CD/Sega CD now too.

[Thelogan]

Yessir Mr. angry black man, I'm mighty impressed with Night Trap and would love to buy your product, just please stop yelling at me!

[Mr. Sexy Hat]

Night Trap was the defining moment of all FMV games. I will hear no bad words about it.

 

No wait sorry my mistake.

 

Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was the defining moment in FMV gaming.

 

Read Moar! -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumbers_Don't_Wear_Ties