In this post, the Penny Arcade guys make the point that beyond instrument capability, what we really need is song compatibility between the two. Beyond the licensing nightmare that would probably represent for both games publishers, this resonated really well for me. Here’s why and why it makes perfectly good business sense below the apparent “yeah, right, you wish” appearances.
I really, really like a good puzzle game. So when I saw Braid announced and read the raving critics, I was quite sure this was a game for me. I really wanted to like it. Then I downloaded the trial version... and pretty much hated it.
Ever since it came out, it seems like Wii Play has been somewhere on top of sales charts and even managed to be the #2 top-seller of 2007 in the US. Let's be clear about this: even if it looks like a good deal, being only $10 above the price of a standalone Wiimote, it really isn't. It would be a good deal *if* Wii Play itself was worth $10, which it isn't by a very large margin (i.e. at least $10). As a matter of facts, if you gave me $10 to play this thing (which I refuse to call a game), I would decline. And I want the fifteen minutes I spent trying to play it back.
What a great time to be a gamer. It seems like there is no end in sight to that steady stream of excellent games. We already got Bioshock, Halo 3, the Orange Box, Guitar Hero III, and we're waiting for Rock Band, Mass Effect, all before Christmas. What we lack is time to play them all.
The guitar Harmonix chose for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II is not exactly my favorite guitar. The Gibson X-plorer just reminds me too much of german hard-rockers from the eighties... and mullets. Harmonix' plastic rendition of the guitar doesn't look any better than the original of course, and white doesn't help. I've seen things at Toys'R'Us that look less toy-like. I can't do much about the shape but seeing that I had already done a red paint job on my faceplate a while ago, I thought that at least the color had to change.
There are a few very obvious game design flaws that for some reason still commonly get perpetuated today. They're especially infuriating when found in otherwise good games. The only explanation I could find was artificial lifetime enhancement, which is a bad idea because it can in reality dramatically shorten the lifetime of the game since many gamers just won't want to finish it. Which also means that they won't buy the sequel either.
... for anything else than aiming and frantically moving up and down. In other words, slow movements aimed at the screen work well, as do fast, imprecise movements, but anything else is impractical.
I've finally been able to play the Nintendo Wii, and sure, I want one. I had decided not to buy yet another version of Mario Kart and that the new controller would not yield itself to most games, that it would only work for some very specific ones. After I've tried it, I still think that couldn't be my main gaming machine, but I want one anyway.
Heard on France Inter the other day about scientific research funding (didn't catch the names of the authors of these quotes though):
"Ignorance will always be more expensive than research."
"Electricity wasn't discovered by trying to improve the candle."