iPhone Update

Technically, an iPod touch update, but the software is more or less the same.

My DS and PSP are basically defunct - I have little to no interest in Chinatown Wars, mainly because the entire GTA style leaves me cold.  But I’ve been surprised at how entertaining a few random iPhone apps can be at keeping me amused for a few minutes here and there; particular notice should go to Oregon Trail, Galcon, iDracula, and Flight Control (I assume I’ll be paying for Zen Bound soon enough).  The collective cost is under $15 for all of these games combined.  I say this not to try to make some silly argument that handheld gaming is fundamentally changed somehow, but rather to wonder if a lot of creative energy previously focused on AAA Game Boy titles is being focused on the iPhone platform instead right now.  (The microtransaction format also makes it much easier to spend $15 in bits and pieces, which is sort of the point.)

A Good Handheld Month

I played almost no handheld games for most of last year, as it wasn’t a very good time to be a DS or PSP owner.  Fortunately, the schedule this month looks pretty solid: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Legacy of Ys, and Blue Dragon Plus are all coming out, with Loco Roco 2 on PSP.  They may not all be winners, but at least there are still signs of life for the non-Japan based audience.

It’s ironic that the most successful gaming device, the DS, makes tons of money but gets so little recognition.  That said, it may be simply a reflection of the fact that the titles coming out right now - of the Brain Age and cooking varieties - are simply dropping off gamers’ radars due to their subjects.

Geoff’s Games Of The Year 2008

I’m going to be in Steamboat Springs and Australia starting at the end of the week, so I’m getting all of the game of the year nonsense out of the way before I go.  I’ve always found the idea of anointing one game “the best” of its peers to be subjectively absurd at best and downright flamebait at worst.  So why am I doing it?  It’s entertaining and I think it’s worthy of debate, if not resolution.

So herewith, my games of the year, for each console which I own.

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2D Love

2D platformers are hardly the rage any more, but they’re not dead either.  There are a handful of games out there that use the platforming style, especially on the handheld and indie PC side of things where development costs are far cheaper from an art perspective (the Castlevania DS games are perhaps the best example here).  That said, they’re not what they used to be, as PtB notes, they’re a great excuse for a NeoGAF retrospective thread with a bunch of screenshots.  I was really pleased to see Jazz Jackrabbit, since Epic used to be one of my favorite PC developers.

Enjoy.

RPG Statistics And Micromanagement

Next Gen has an interesting article on the future of RPGs, and more specifically the alleged obsolesence of translated pen-and-paper RPGs in favor of MMOs and visceral action-ized versions.  The piece doesn’t mention this, but I suspect that there are probably two key audiences for computer RPGs: first, PnP players who enjoy being able to see their game worlds translated into an interactive environment, and second, players who just like exploring a fantasy world and developing an ever more powerful character.

The use of pen and paper statistics is partly an artifact of the first group, who comprised a significant portion of the second for a great deal of the life of PC/console gaming.  If you really enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, I’d guess that you’ll really enjoy a computer version of it - and you need the stats and micromanagement to connect you to that D&D world.  But that’s not the whole story: another part of the use of micromanagement is that it lets you very effectively compare your progress against a baseline.   

At its core, much of the appeal of an RPG is that it lets you see how your character is evolving, gaining new abilities, and dispatching stronger foes.  A “sword that cuts an enemy in two” is all well and good, but how do you know if that sword is better than the “spear that impales enemies”?  If you can’t easily determine which is superior, you have no idea if you’re actually making progress within the context of the game.  In a similar vein, those menus that Ed Del Castillo reviles so much provide a far simpler means of feedback than attempting to communicate things like inventory space visually.

This isn’t to say that menus should be used exclusively, or that they’re even preferable in many situations.  But technology hasn’t yet reached a point where we can dispense with them.

Did Anyone Actually Finish Myst (without cheating)?

Myst has been announced for the DS, and while I have sort of fond memories of the game when it was the biggest thing to hit the computer since Zork (being one of the first games to really “take advantage” of the CD-ROM format, if I remember correctly), I also remember it being brutally impossible to solve.

It’s certainly been awhile since the last time I gave it a stab (probably close to 15 years now), but I think I only ended up beating it when I found a guide for it online.  I particularly remember some sound puzzle that required you to turn off some “klaxons” and having absolutely not the faintest idea of what I was supposed to do with it.  The guide told me what to do, but not why I was supposed to do it, but I think the clues were nearly subliminal.

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PSPopped

Was just at Best Buy and discovered that all their PSPs (and DS’s) were entirely sold out.  A sign of the handheld times, I suppose.

Linearity Hypocrisy?

GameLife raises an interesting point that occurred to me while I was playing Super Mario Galaxy: the game is far more linear than its Nintendo 64 predecessor.  But people don’t seem to care (especially considering the success of NSMB for the DS).  Is it indicative of hypocrisy when people laud non-linear games for their inventive story-telling and the player’s control over the narrative?

My suspicion is that the answer is “sort of.”  I suspect that people overestimate the importance of narrative in the first place and that what really matters is just whether the game is fun.  Naturally, that’s a subjective assessment that can be helped or hurt by the story-telling choices that the designer makes - but it’s not necessarily a one-fits-all requirement.  I wish people would remember that more.

(By the way, is it just me or is it odd that Chris Kohler is confused by the relative outperformance of NSMB vs. Galaxy?  Sure, the latter has sold only 10% as much as the former.  But the DS has 53M consoles sold, while the Wii is still under 15M, and some of those sales are necessarily to casual gamers.  It’s a question of basic math.)

Double-Facing Kotaku On The PSP

I’m going to both agree and disagree with Kotaku (or more specifically, with Mark Wilson) simultaneously.  Jason Chen of Gizmodo wrote a column entitled “Why the PSP Might Overtake the DS.”  It was, as Wilson points out, an interesting variation of Xeno’s Paradox - well-reasoned, articulate, and deeply flawed.  I’ll provide an overview of the article, then discuss why the entire conversation is off-base.

Chen’s post contains 8 pieces of evidence for the PSP’s ultimate domination.  I’ll let you read them in detail or yourself, but they all fall into one of three categories:

• Sales momentum: The PSP has sold 1M units in Japan in two months, sales for the PSP are up while the DS’s are down, and the PSP has sold as many units as the PS2.
• Product quality: The PSP has more highly-rated games, as well as more add-ons and media interactivity.

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Whither Link?

N’Gai Croal sends word* of a recent conversation he had with Stephen Totilo on the subject of Phantom Hourglass.  Interestingly enough, neither of them were particularly taken with the game, which surprised me considerably considering how much I was enjoying it. 

Their complaints seem to be somewhat distinct.  Croal will no doubt shock many by noting that he’s never actually played a Zelda game before PH, with the exception of some early tests on Twilight Princess.  During his play-through, Croal found himself enjoying the controls a lot, but says that he “admires” PH more than he really enjoys playing it: the difference is attributed to the fact that he prefers linear games, rather than those that require exploration, backtracking, and all the other core elements of a Zelda title.  In other words, God of War is more up his alley than Zelda. 

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