I am absolutely furious that a game I have yet to play got a perfect review score from four people at a gaming news and review source I never directly read because they've been giving out too many high scores and video games are obviously not that good. It is clear that their opinions are being paid for because they don't agree with my standards of how good games can be and how many perfect scores they can hand out.
"But the final nail on this argument's coffin is the point that many, many of the hundreds of commenters have already made – it doesn't seem that Ebert has played many, if any video games. And if that's the case, then his opinion on the subject isn't relevant anyways"
This sentence is great. So damn great. I generally like Ebert's opinions on movies but I disagree with his evaluation of video games, especially because his credentials as a professional movie critic are completely separate from his credentials as a game critic. For better or worse (in the case of video games, worse IMO) he is able to voice his opinion to a very broad audience. If I voice my opinion the only people who know it are those who already read Kotaku comments and are willing to read through my tl;dr comments, so the audience I'm reaching out to is quite small in comparison.
I don't critique movies, neither in a professional manner nor in an amateur internet commenter manner. I don't try to do so - movies are a different area and I don't have much experience with them outside of the occasional ticket purchase or movie rental. My area of expertise, as it were, is games; to be frank, in the past few years I've transitioned from a hardcore gamer to someone who's somewhere between casual and hardcore in that I don't play games nearly as much as I used to, and I don't bother to play most of the biggest ones, but I at least keep in touch with gaming culture. I'm still in a position to write my thoughts about games and gaming culture thanks to my ability to keep up with the current gaming culture events, but I don't try to write about movies despite the overlap because that's not my thing and I have no basis for doing so.
Unlike Ebert I can acknowledge that my knowledge and critiquing abilities have limits. I can even acknowledge that I barely retain enough gaming culture knowledge to talk about this subject let alone movies. I've made various argument about games as art in general and specific games being art (primarily in real life, but on a few occasions here on Kotaku). I don't consider myself a critic of art in general, nor of art in specific media such as movies or games. Despite my respect for his movie critiques I think he's just being a damn fool for even thinking he has the ability to properly critique games in general, or specific games for their artistic value. My opinion is somewhat irrelevant, but as far as games are concerned his is completely irrelevant. I can't share my critiques with nearly as many people as he can, which is a shame since even with my limited knowledge of games and gaming culture I have a far greater understanding of this than he does, and myself and the many others who are more prominent and involved in gaming culture are in a much better position to offer informed and well-thought critiques of this topic to the masses.
Different games and game genres have different difficulties, especially depending on the player and their strengths and weaknesses as well as the intentions of the developer, but there's one thing that I think most gamers if not all can agree on - cheap deaths suck. I never get angry at video games except when I am killed or my game is ended by some cheap tactic. I'm not really talking about glitch-exploiting online multiplayer tactics that can get patched or difficult sections of video games that can be overcome with patience and practice - I mean those really shitty situations that were purposely designed to screw you over.
*the rest of this post contains spoilers for Demon's Souls, Bayonetta, and No More Heroes 1 and 2*
The definition of cheap death is debatable. For example, I felt that there were no cheap deaths in Demon's Souls. There were many instant-death scenarios but with patience and memorization you could overcome them, and with time the game became not so hard. By the time you reach New Game + you should only be dying from tough bosses and enemies, not the built-in traps. Also, Bayonetta's end boss with the instant-death black hole attack (among other nasty not-quite-instant-death attacks) wasn't necessarily cheap. It's harsh but after you get sucked in once/twice you know what to expect and can avoid it (I figure that avoiding it using panther form should quickly become the obvious solution). Some may argue that these scenarios are cheap but one scenario that I found was truly cheap was No More Heroes 2's end boss.
Not only would his health get stuck on the first form with no obvious cues to activate the sword struggle move in the center of the room by hitting him as he flew around, his later forms could simply knock you out of the window in case you were too close (which was an instant kill) not to mention the difficult-to-avoid teleporting whirlwind attacks. Even once I figured out how to get past that first form, I felt that I only beat that guy through sheer luck. Difficult to predict moves are tough but bearable by themselves, but three in a row? And frequent teleporting? And the damned instant death windows? That was way too much. Frankly, that was cheap. No feasible amount of practice could tell me where that invisible threshold of instant window death was (the best vague definition I could define was that the threshold was "near them"), and the impossible timing required to successfully avoid the end boss's attacks was just asinine. Compared to the (IMO much better) prequel No More Heroes, the sequel's end boss was much much worse - even in Bitter difficulty Henry was challenging but not cheap, at least (even despite his own instant-death attacks).
I do like Team Meat's thought process in setting the difficulty for their games, even if I don't necessarily agree with all of their specific points. What I like most about their perspective is that, in summary, they want to make games that are difficult but still fun. Difficulty is a very subjective thing, but at least they seem to know where to draw the line so that their games are challenging without being cheap and frustrating.
@NekoCake: I'm no expert, but from my basic knowledge of Standard Mandarin (and my far more advanced knowledge of Japanese), I know that 伏 means to lay something upside down, lay an ambush, or bend over/bow (generally speaking). The combination of that and 天 (sky, heaven, day) doesn't entirely make sense but I remember my Chinese professor telling us about that phrase some time ago. It's not in any of my Japanese dictionaries, so I'm pretty sure it's only in Chinese.
As for the literal translation thing, I'm not so sure about that. It seems likely to me that the characters are something the box art designers pulled out of Google Translate.
My Chinese is fairly limited but I'm pretty sure that 伏天 (fu2tian1) refers to hot summer days. I guess in English we call them Dog Days but it seems like kind of a stretch to me. I suppose it's still far better than those who get terrible kanji/hanzi tattoos yet have no idea what they mean. That never stops being funny.
@Coollead: I wasn't trying to spread FUD, I just messed up my explanation. I had another sentence in there that was redundant so I removed it.
"they will retroactively remove them from the store. [If the user deletes it iTunes won't sync it, so it will be gone from their computer] and from iPhones/Touches who (another mistake here, I should have said "that" or "which") have those apps. Jailbreaking can circumvent that [by allowing people to install whichever apps they please without being dependent upon the iTunes sync], but that's not a perfect solution."
The comment was long enough as it is so once I wrote the whole thing I went back and removed some obvious details, but since I didn't delete the whole sentence it completely changed what I was saying.
For two years you've been posting high quality articles. I don't care about how you got hired or what possible candidates may have deserved the job more than you, because you've done a fantastic job and I'm sure you'll continue to do so. Keep up the great work!
I used to have a NiGHTS into Dreams... Tiger handheld game. That thing was amazing, and now that I remember it I really miss it. I wish I hadn't lost it. I spent countless hours with that simple yet wonderful toy.
Anyways I should stop reminiscing and make my point. I think that Refenes deserved to have his game taken away from the App Store. The previous Kotaku article mentioned that sales were negligible so he increased the price. At $299 14 people bought the game - I would consider that to be still negligible, and frankly the people who bought it might have done so mistakenly. This guy isn't a researcher and has no theory to test (and no scientific foundation for his testing method; how do we know these people purposely bought it as opposed to mistakenly buying it?) - he was just being a jerk by raising the price. He could have made his point without screwing people over and benefiting from it by getting their money. Apple removed his game even though they could have made a hell of a profit from the cut that they take. Subsequently he got offended and compared the iPhone and iTouch's App Store to Tiger handhelds during a GDC speech (which I think is a silly insult because Tiger handheld games were awesome), completely ignoring the various other successful indie developers who have made games for the App Store that have sold very well.
On the other hand, the App Store has already earned its reputation for censorship due to the ridiculous blocking of "adult" apps and apps that supposedly duplicate functionality such as Google Voice. Not only will they block apps, they will retroactively remove them from the store and from iPhones/Touches who have those apps. Jailbreaking can circumvent that, but that's not a perfect solution. That's an argument for another time/place anyways.
In this case, I don't think it's Apple's heavy-handed censorship that's the problem - I think this guy was just acting like an asshole, and in response he continues to passive-aggressively bite the hand that feeds by releasing a game that furthers his previous argument (mockery) that the iPhone/Touch are the Tiger handheld games of this generation.
I think that if he really wanted to make the most of the App Store he would have given Meat Boy a proper port. Instead he chose to continue being a vindictive petty fool by releasing a parody Meat Boy to further a point that he has already made clearly. He has the luxury of squandering opportunities now but his Meat Boy success won't last forever. He needs to put his money where his mouth is and keep producing quality games, otherwise he'll just fade into obscurity.
I've been thinking about buying an iPad recently. When it was announced I found myself scorning this device for its various obvious shortcomings and thinking it was not worth it, but lately I've been comparing it to my little Vaio P netbook and have found a lot of good in this device. I got my Vaio P in February of last year (I got it at a Yodobashi Camera a week or so after its release). I've used it quite heavily since then and I love it, but I bought the cheapest possible option so it's kind of slow (No solid state disk drive, slowest processor, etc). Since I really only use my Vaio P for word processing and net browsing it was perfect for me, but it stutters with certain video-intensive tasks and it takes too long to do some things. Also games aren't really an option with this computer except for emulators of older systems and the occasional PopCap title that doesn't lag too badly.
In comparison, the iPad has a lot of missing features that other tablets and netbooks have, but certain things about it have piqued my interest to the point where I'm considering buying one. I've gotten some hands-on time with one and I'm pleased with how responsive it is - it puts my Vaio P to shame with how quickly it loads programs, not to mention the quick convenience of putting it to sleep and waking it up by pressing a button on the top. It browses the internet, I can takes notes and compose documents on it, the battery life absolutely destroys my old netbook right out of the box, and it has a much wider variety of games and apps available. It does everything that I use my Vaio P for and has better games too. My Vaio P still has an advantage with features such as a front-facing camera, GPS, 1seg Tuner, Flash support, and whatever else Win 7 offers but I don't really need those features since I can either get the same functionality out of other devices I own (like my desktop computer), or I simply don't use them at all. For those who want more ports and fancier features there are other tablet options, but for many people (myself included) a simple portable computer such as this is sufficient. The fact that it runs games quite well and has a very wide selection to choose from is just icing on the cake.
Primarily I'll be spending time with Ryuu Ga Gotoku 4, and I might go back to Demon's Souls for a bit to see what I need for that platinum. I just need to craft a few +5 weapons of various sorts such as Moon, Crescent, etc.
@Witzbold: Have you played Space Invaders Infinity Gene? It's not quite danmaku, but that game's controls were great so I'm feeling optimistic that Cave can make this port work really well.
@1UPForever: @utahnguy: You're right, I meant to say ad nauseum. I was pretty close, at least!
CNN must have been having a slow news day. Once this controversy is forgotten (again) all of the news companies move on to the next "shocking story" to boost ratings, ad infinitum.
@LincolnK: @Teslanaut: I know he has already bypassed the hypervisor. I'm pointing out how he specifically stated that his goal is unsigned code execution capability. Here's something else I pulled from a much more recent entry on his blog:
"Two things, some people seem to think CFW will enable some sort of piracy. It won't. It'll just be a custom version of 3.21 that doesn't lose OtherOS support. Hacking isn't about getting what you didn't pay for, it's about making sure you do get what you did."
He thinks CFW won't lead to piracy but I highly doubt that. Maybe he doesn't condone piracy but others who do might use his exploit as a foundation to further their own goals. Also, his line about hacking - technically people did get what they paid for but now it's being taken away. I wish they'd leave the feature alone, but I don't blame Sony for taking preventative measures against possible methods of piracy.
I wonder, what exactly did Geohot want to do with complete control over the PS3? I skimmed his blog and in the first entry found this:
"My end goal is to enable unsigned code execution, making every unit into a test and opening up a third party development community, either through software or hardware (with a mod chip)."
It can run Linux (for two more days), and a quick Google search tells me that there's already a development community based on that feature. So why was enabling unsigned code execution necessary? I suppose his motivations don't matter now since the damage has been done. It sucks that Sony is removing this feature (even though I've never used it, nor do I have any use for it) but they have to take some sort of preventative measures. It doesn't matter how innocent the intentions of the hackers may be - if they open the door then the pirates will follow.
@SketchyIndividual: I was thinking the same thing about the feel of this game. After the human apocalypse the planet would heal itself, so this sort of portrayal seems more accurate assuming enough time has passed. Plus a post-apocalyptic game that's not mostly red-brown will be a refreshing change of pace.
I personally thought Heavenly Sword was not bad, so if the gameplay is any better in this one it should be great.
@EolirinX: Why would putting online in a game cut off half of their potential users? Mario Kart Wii didn't alienate people with the online play option that was in the game. In my experience it always ran pretty smooth (unlike Super Smash Bros Brawl) and it had support for friend matches, random matches, rankings, etc. It had a fairly good online system and it was still a game that everyone could enjoy.
Nintendo doesn't necessarily need to be a leader in online, graphics, or whatever else but they could at least put forth some effort instead of just making excuses. To pull another quote from the article, Shigeru Miyamoto said "Actually we simply wanted to take sufficient time to make it a proper business, and make it as comfortable an environment as possible for consumers". How are friend codes in any way comfortable? What steps have they taken to make it a so-called proper business? Nintendo always talks about innovation, and to their credit they've done some incredibly innovative things in recent years, but so have Sony, Microsoft, and Apple. I feel that they need to stop making excuses and put their money where their mouth is.
The two goals of entertaining people and "advancing into the network world" are not mutually exclusive, no matter how much anyone involved with the Nintendo company insists that they are. I cannot think of a better example of this than Plunkett's own final line, "Unique be damned, I think most people would just be happy with a true Animal Crossing MMO." Casual gamers aren't stupid and they wouldn't be scared and confused by a decent online infrastructure. If an Animal Crossing MMO was made it wouldn't stop my Wii-owning grandma from enjoying Wii Sports - she wouldn't even be aware of the online system, she'd just continue bowling.
Nintendo had some great ideas with motion control and a dual screen touch-based portable which obviously helped them really succeed in this video game generation, but there are far more aspects of video games to innovate in than control and casual accessibility. They've done well this generation but if they don't keep innovating in all aspects of video games, not just input methods, then their "take our time" policy and hubris might just bite them in the ass in years to come.
In my opinion, the best way to play a video game is the way you enjoy it*. Sometimes I get immersed in the story and play to find out what happens next, sometimes I strive to finish the game goals 100%, and sometimes I jump off of cliffs and blow stuff up for no reason whatsoever. I do what I enjoy, and the kind of pleasure I derive from games will vary depending on my mood and what particular game I'm playing.
*I'm talking specifically about single player games. This argument is far too simple to apply to multiplayer/online games and I've got no time or interest for arguing about behavioral psychology.
I'm all for a FFVII remake, as long as they remake FFV and FFVI for the DS first in the same style as the superb FFIV remake before it. They've already done FFI through FFIV at this point, and I've mostly enjoyed those remakes (I don't care for FFIII at all but the rest were great), so I'd like to see them continue with this trend. If they had some team working on an FFVII remake for high-def consoles while some other team works on FFV/FFVI remakes for portable consoles that would also be great, as long as they do it right.
