Tag: thoughts
Little Wii frustrations
When few months ago I was writing my thoughts on Metroid: Other M, I mentioned that my friend gave me his Wii to play with (pause for dirty jokes) and that I was planning to play the rest of Metroid titles on it. I tried. But what I learned is that – playing on Wii has been one of the worst console experiences I’ve had.
The beauty of layers (and correct ingredients)
Last year I was finishing up reading A song of Ice and Fire series (the published books, I mean) and went on to read The Witcher books. And something about that experience felt… off. Something that made me think about how I “consume” art/entertainment, what I look for in it. And it struck me then – The Witcher book series didn’t have simple stories, or simple characters, but something about how different layers of stories and events connected was too… simple. I started looking at other books I like, movies, games, music, food even and it often led down to this simple word – layers. And how well they connect, of course.
Modern face of survival horror
Late 90s and early 00s were the golden age of a very niche genre we called survival horror. This name, invented by the game that cemented the rules of the genre (or, technically, a subgenre of action adventure) – Resident Evil, got me excited every time I saw it pop up in a description of a game. But the more games tried do it, the more difference in “what survival horror is” appeared, until the genre as we knew it died. Today, every horror game seems to stick “survival horror” in it’s description, ignoring the fact that being a horror game and being a survival horror game is not the same thing. And yet, survival horror as we knew it still lives on, but not in the way you’d expect it to.
“Not my kind of game” or something about critical acclaim
I started noticing something about two or three years ago, when “clearly not for everyone” games started to get noticed along with many other independent games. Every time a game like Dear Esther, or some Tale of Tales’ project, or Gone Home, or any other game, which people also like to describe as “not a game” or even some silliness like “walking simulator” (that applies to QWOP much more than to Dear Esther), got released and had a lot of praise, thousands of voices everywhere shouted that the game is actually bad and shouldn’t exist in the first place. Now, games I’ve listed are a pretty easy target, which is exactly why I used them for the example, but what I wanted to discuss is a deeper problem. The fact, that lots of people seem to be drawn to playing any critically acclaimed game, expecting to love it.
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Nintendon’t land
I was born in the Ukrainian SSR in 1985. My first contact with video games was in about 87 or 88 with some weird light gun and joystick thing, which we would connect to the old soviet CRT TV and shoot white squares on the black background. I guess, it was some Atari clone, but i never knew the name. Then we had those fun games called “Electronika“. Those were simple, but fun and I was really glad that a few years later we would have portable Tetris games as well. I wondered if all the world knew about this game made by a soviet game designer. Then I’d have a PC, one of the soviet-made ones, called Poisk 1. Worked on tapes at first, but then we’d buy a floppy drive and copy the floppies, because you can’t really buy soft and games, right? I knew you couldn’t, so i never questioned it. But then we had a revolution called Dendy. An “add on” (for TV), as we called it, or “приставка” (pristavka) in Russian. That thing was so cool, it had yellow cartridges and a ton of awesome games. One of the best was, of course, Super Mario Bros. made by some company called Nintendo. Shame it never got a proper sequel, only weird ones, which were clearly unofficial. And then we had Mega Drive, then Playstation, then Playstation 2 – no need to choose, just a straight road of definite upgrades. There were some weird “consoles”, as I learned they should be called much much later, i heard about or played, like 3DO. Doctor Hauzer was awesome, Way of the Warrior was fun and then there were those silly funny “on-rails” shooter games… Mario for me, and many people of my generation living in many post-soviet countries, was a thing from the childhood, quite quickly changed for more awesome things, mostly due to the lack of any sequels or follow ups. Well, except for that weird movie i kinda liked, but which had nothing to do with the game.
Two simple hints about Greenlight from a concerned gamer
I’m one of those people, who check all the games on Steam Greenlight when they can. There’s always a chance to stumble upon some really cool game you might like or a project which you might not like and would probably not buy, but still support by saying “yes” just because it looks cool. And while the service itself is far from perfect, a fact acknowledged by Valve themselves, it makes it easier for a lot of independent developers to get on Steam, the service which tends to help the game sales immeasurably. So let’s leave the imperfections of the service itself to Valve to fix, while I want to name two big things developers themselves should consider, while trying to Greenlight a game, from the viewpoint of a person who’s making the votes.
Read more“Two simple hints about Greenlight from a concerned gamer”
How Gearbox knows Jack (and forgets Duke)
This may sound strange at first, but Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem from his latest Forever game have much more in common, than it first seems. However, Jack has something, that Duke lacks – charisma. And i find it very strange, since Duke is supposed to be the hero.
Once again enter the world of survival horror
Survival horror is dead. As a Capcom invented moniker, as a Capcom influenced control scheme and game structure. Probably, even as a major mainstream game genre (well, action-adventure subgenre, actually). Some argue, that it’s concepts, it’s mechanics are outdated. That you can’t get more of it. Capcom says similar things. And you know what? To hell with Capcom. And i mean it in a very broad sense.
Richard Cobbett wrote a very nice editorial about “saving adventure games” last year. And i think a lot of points said about adventure games in that editorial hold true for survival horror games. Once a subgenre that pushed boundaries, influenced developers and players alike, that tried new things and experimented in storytelling and gameplay, it became nothing more than a self-parody. Always trying to be survival horror in tired mechanics, controls and story devices and not in the concept of survival horror. And it can only blame itself for that.