Used to rent Super Mario Kart for SNES so much that we bought it. Loved that game. One day we played 150cc in dinky mode and owned every nook-n-cranny. Not just in dinky mode, but the light weights. Hit every speedo, every corner - everything. No looking back once the race begaim. Haven't played since that awesome victory.
Then came Mario Kart 64. Owned on this game, too. Evil basterds we were. Used to do ninja from-behind bankshots. Take out almost everybody with a single spiny shell. Knock opponents off edges. If it was evil, we did it.
The Double Dash came along and I have mixed feelings about it.
Love the strategy with two. Do I want Diddy Kong and Baby Bowser to load the course with big power-ups? Or do I want the koopas for maximum shellage? When to switch, when to fire, and when to save - it's all good.
But what I really didn't like about DD is how it weights the power-ups against position. If you are in first place, forget about getting the star for a shortcut through the yard - no mowing the lawn there. Hated having to use the strategy of lagging behind and hoping for the big ones for the final push in the last half of a lap. That's not skill - that's taking a potentially hopeless chance.
I also don't care for the invisible walls in some of the DD courses, but that's a minor quibble.
Now I'm seriously not liking Mario Kart Wii.
The weighting on the power-ups has gotten tons worse. Nothing like being in first place with a half-of-a-track lead only to get juggled with a blue shell, pow, and two reds. In the span of five seconds right in front of the finish line only to take fourth with no real hope or skill coming into play.
I detest the number of mass-affecting power-ups. POW, Blooper, and Lightning Bolt. As if the latter wasn't enough. And Blooper is just plain annoying.
And what is up with the Thunder Cloud power-up? For some reason, it goes off everytime I get it. I'm all by my lonesome and suddeny I'm on a count-down to dinkify myself.
And red shells are just about out the door. I can fire one with a clean shot and sometimes it goes after someone else. Earlier, I fired a red shell, it came to a dead stop right in front me, and I ate it. WTF? But the good news here is that red shell evasion can be done with some consistancy.
I suppose that what it boils down to for me is that a lot of skill has been taken out. Absolutely should not be winning 150cc cups on the first try. Even with uber rob juggling, really not that hard. Its basically just lag behind a tad and stay out of the way.
So far about 2 hours and I've almost beaten it already with no real skill for familiarity with the new courses.
From: The Happy Hunting Grounds... Insane since: Mar 2001
posted 02-08-2009 00:22
A lot of video games are sadly echoing this trend, WJ. Video games used to be hard!
Companies found out, after the Arcade basically got killed by the Console, that hard games did not sell as well as easy games, fast.
This is because we grew up on hard video games - they were the only games in town! No consoles back then! Either you adapted, or...you got beat. And since that was costing quarters, man, you had better get good!
The newer generations never knew these hard games, and were never subjected to a closed market (the Arcade). They have grown up with their Gameboys, Nintendos, Playstations, and the PC. As such, they tend to get a bit dismayed and frustrated by games requiring a high level of skill. Their attention quickly wanders to something else, something easier!
I think it has something to do with the "instant gratification" that the new generation grew up expecting. "I want to be good at this, now! I don't want to have to invest hours and hours practicing, before I am good."
Now, the japanese video game market seems to be different - their games are still hard, and the japanese seem to love hard games - if it is not hard enough, they will find crazy ways to make it even harder (like playing Resident Evil through with only a knife! ) Most japanese games that get imported to the West get "dumbed down" for those markets.
You ever played the version of Mario Super Bros. that was only released in Japan? (It did get released eventually in the West, in a "Best of" collection). Man, I tell you, I thought I used to be good at SB until I played that! Some of those levels are CRAAAAAAAZY!
Anyway, I hear you, man. I personally am a Tekken player, and the evolution of Tekken is testament to the woes you are having. Bleh.
WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
Yeah, instant gratification for younger and younger folks.
I say bring the beat down.
You know, I honestly miss the old arcades. The sounds and smells... yeah, baby! But the last time I was at an arcade it was very disheartening. There was a DDR in the cornder, some handheld gun shoot-em-ups, and head-to-head beat-em-ups. It was basically three games with different graphics.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the Asylumites united to create our own game. I actually did some concepts once for an Asylum RPG game. You wake up in a padded room and the goal is to escape. Cliche, but whatever. It was an interesting but fleeting exercise.
edit:
Another thing that I have mulling over for a few years. Do a mini-series about Bowser, but do it Victor Doom style. The ruler of a kingdom with goals and isn't always the straight forward bad guy that you always think he is.
From: The Happy Hunting Grounds... Insane since: Mar 2001
posted 02-08-2009 13:28
Yeah, being here in Germany, I miss Arcades (Germany doesn't seem to have them - I once went ot Paris, Fance, and France has them, but not Germany *sigh*).
I can remember hours spent playing Wizard of Wor (digitalized voice "Come back for more, with the Wizard of Wor!" )...Donkey Kong, Tutenkamen, Joust (hate that Pteradactyl!)...
Ah, the memories.
Heh, I remember one machine of Wizard of Wor, the knob had broken off, and the owner had used tape on the handle (to protect agaisnt the windings, which were sharp). Man, I wore off the skin on my forefinger on that game! I used to have to wear a band-aid and it would eventually be torn through (the tape did not last long...LOL).
The skin on that finger on that side is still thick with callus, to this day
Remember Zaxxon? Probably the worst joystick controls in any game, evah!
I would love to see a comeback of hard again. Sadly, only the Mod communities of certain games seem to have grasped this concept - I am currently playing a modded version of FinalFantasyTactics (V1.3, do a search) - hooboy! Talk about HARD! I didn't know I knew that many cuss words
I love it!
WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
I note this as well. (Which is why, to a large extent, most of my gaming habits center around games that are older than me. )
There is still some hope, however. I am finding that the DS is a pleasant haven for hardcore old-schoolers like myself, as the games have much lower budgets and can thus target niche gamers like myself. Some that I am recently enthralled with are Etrian Odyssey and The Dark Spire.
Hated Zaxxon. The side-ways parallel 3d thing irks me.
Loved Joust. My buddy and I used to play until there were no more landing pads and a dozen black knights flying around. Or maybe that was Joust II that we played to death?
My big game was Galaga. Back in the day, making it to level 12 was a big deal. I eventually gave it up for other things, like chasing girls. But about ten years later, I saw a Galaga stand-up at a grocery store. So I tossed in a quarter in for old times sake. Next thing I know, I've got free guys lined up along the bottom and I'm on level 20 no sweat. There was some young kid watching me in total awe. When it was time to go, I handed it to him. Spent about ten seconds watching him immediately lose three guys and I walked out almost in pain.
Another one we played the snot out of was Xevious.
Currently, I get my hardcore kicks out of Quake2: Gloom. It's strictly multi-player so no cheating in the code. Not just that, but teamwork is an absolute must. If you get me on a team with an attacker that I know, we own. I know where they are, I know what they are doing, and I know how to fill in the gaps with my special brand of psychological warfare.
This one guy and I once took on three guys with superior attacking skills, but we crushed them in no time at all because our team play was superior. I knew when to bait and he knew when to cover. When it came time to ninja, we ninjed. We tore apart their defenses when they weren't looking, then I led the charge with my cutsie breeder and he cleaned up right behind me.
Multi-player is the new hardcore. At least for me right about now.
But I might give Mario Wii another go.
Or maybe pull out my Mame32 and noob stick. I might be due for a Smash TV marathon - pulled more than a few all-nighters on Smash TV in the arcade and on the SNES.
Man, that Mario video is evil. I never did like that game, but I 'get' it.
Maybe this is just British bias, but I've always been under the impression that a lot of popular games released for the UK and US markets differed greatly in difficulty too. Brit kids apparently prefer harder games, and harder games sell better on this side of the pond. I even read once that some games were sold with exactly the same title on both sides, but with easier gameplay in the US. I'm not stating this as any sort of established fact - I doubt it's the case any longer, anyway.
I was never much of an arcade player. By the time I was old enough to wield the holy weapons of pixellated war, the Atari was all the rage (I had the old wood-effect one). I played most of the above-mentioned arcade classics on that, along with a host of others. I have never given up, either. I get reactions ranging from bemused shock to quiet dismay when I reveal to people that I'm a gamer, even though more than half the gaming market's custom comes from adults.
I had a Commodore 16 once, which introduced me to a whole new way of interacting with (and re-programming, just for the hell of it) a new generation of games, as well as a lot of the old Spectrum favorites. This was eventually usurped by an Atari STFM (the STE was a bit beyond my range), but the gameplay didn't change much, even if the graphics did.
I ultimately grew out of consoles when I got hold of my first PC; a 386 running at a blistering 8MHz (or 16MHz with the turbo button down) with a huge 2MB of RAM. I was there when Heretic and Castle Wolfenstein gave everyone a hint of what wonders the future of multiplayer gaming might hold, and got into a lot of trouble for setting up Wolf tournaments on the school network... then later, Doom... then later still, Quake! This is where I made the irreversible switch to keyboard+mouse controls. I still only use a control pad for vehicular/racing games today, and can't bear more than a few minutes at anything else with a joy stick/pad.
I don't know if anybody shares my passion for the following game, but Unreal was a total breakthrough for me. It was the first game I ever played online (not just local LAN), and it was amazing even with an average 500ms ping on my V.92 56k modem. It wasn't much of a challenge in single-player (though, wow, was it an adventure) but online, it came alive.
I'm a multiplayer online FPS fanatic now. Not a week goes by that I don't get a few hours on the battlefield. I'm no hotshot, and I don't take it all as seriously as some people do; I play for fun and to alleviate life's stresses - yet I still manage to top the scoreboards quite frequently. I much prefer teamplay-based shooters to the traditional deathmatch style of play - Unreal III has sat unplayed since I got it (one or two days was enough to bore me).
Of course, there is a massive element of players who don't find virtual killing easy enough, and the use of 'aimbots' and hacks is ever-increasing. The greatest insult is that these morons consider themselves 'god-like' because they've got an illegal program doing all their aiming for them. They ruin the fun for everyone, and argue that they've the right to cheat.
What's the point in playing against a computer-aided human when the AI is at least designed to be fairly fallible. Grrrr!
I'd like to meet some of them in the real world some day...
_____
BTW:
Have any of you hear-of/tried Quake Live? It's an entirely web/browser based Quake III Arena that you can play from anywhere. While it was never my favorite game, I'm certainly going to have fun testing it...
WH, Have you played Team Fortress 2 ? I think it's one of the best.
The last game that I played was Fallout 3, and despite me being very pessimistic about it in the end I think Bethesda managed to pull it off at an acceptable level. Oh and of course Guitar Hero and Rock Band that we have at work .
I used to play a lot and almost everything on PC except realistic racing and sports For a time I was quite good at FPS but I've also played most of the biggest MMOs, warcraft3 custom maps and I've always been a big fan of RPGs. Loved "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines" and the Fallout series (with the exception of Fallout Tactics).
...but yes, I have two PSPs with a range of emulators on them - I can set up Sega's Street Fighter II Turbo, one player on each handheld for mobile arse-kicking fun! Essentially, I have the first ever handheld (and home) consoles emulated on (arguably) the best handheld console! There are loads of available emulators for the PSP (hacked), such as the Atari, SNES, GameBoy, Sega Megadrive (Genesis), Saturn, NeoGeo, etc.
I've installed a couple of emulators on my iPhone too now, but they're not much cop with sound enabled, and not much fun without. I expect they'll improve.
posted 02-07-2009 18:04
) Most japanese games that get imported to the West get "dumbed down" for those markets.
)
.