Cloud gaming? Like On-Live? Because im not too happy with the idea of using On-Live but I do wish there were digital downloads of my favorite PS2 games for my PS3.
Controller Evolution
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Okay, could we please have a moratorium on the use of the term "the Cloud?" Please, please, pretty please? "Gaming-on-demand" at least makes sense and conveys meaningful information; "the Cloud" is just a God-damn Wired buzzword for people who think that distributed computing runs on pixie dust and leprechauns.
What? You make it sound like there's something wrong with wanting a skip button, Bob. I have to disagree strongly: a skip button is what makes everyone happy.
If the tutorial is mandatory for everyone each time you start a new game, people who already know what they are doing are going to find it annoying.
If the tutorial doesn't exist, no players are going to get frustrated and turn the game off.
If the tutorial is there, but you can choose to skip it, experienced players can skip the tutorial and just play, while new players can take the extra time to pick up the basics.
With a skip button, everyone is happy. Every game tutorial should be skippable. It's just something that should be in every game these days, like an option for subtitles, and an in-game brightness adjuster so we don't have to change our TV's or monitor's settings if one game decides to be too dark or too bright by default.[/quote]
Quoted for truth, Bob. Let's think of it this way: what if there were a new release of the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros., and it had an unskippable tutorial level telling you how to jump? I can't speak for, say, a new gamer who had never played a platformer, but regular gamers would be annoyed.
If the tutorial is mandatory for everyone each time you start a new game, people who already know what they are doing are going to find it annoying.
If the tutorial doesn't exist, no players are going to get frustrated and turn the game off.
If the tutorial is there, but you can choose to skip it, experienced players can skip the tutorial and just play, while new players can take the extra time to pick up the basics.
With a skip button, everyone is happy. Every game tutorial should be skippable. It's just something that should be in every game these days, like an option for subtitles, and an in-game brightness adjuster so we don't have to change our TV's or monitor's settings if one game decides to be too dark or too bright by default.[/quote]
Quoted for truth, Bob. Let's think of it this way: what if there were a new release of the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros., and it had an unskippable tutorial level telling you how to jump? I can't speak for, say, a new gamer who had never played a platformer, but regular gamers would be annoyed.
With the arcade heritage a distant memory games have only gotten easier to play. As extreme examples compare Mega Man 1(or my favorite Contra) with Kirby's Epic Yarn.
Mega Man 1 was MADE to make you lose. In Epic Yarn you can't even die.
The xbox controller looks like crap. The pinnacle of controller perfection is the PS2/3 dual thumbstick controller.
Mega Man 1 was MADE to make you lose. In Epic Yarn you can't even die.
The xbox controller looks like crap. The pinnacle of controller perfection is the PS2/3 dual thumbstick controller.
I'm glad someone finally mentioned controller design. Though not unexpected, I'm a little disappointed it didn't really get mentioned between the Big 3.Daveman said:
However, I'm going to disagree with you, Daveman. The controller design, particularly for the 360 is not pretty damn awesome, or user friendly -- to someone like me. I've got really small hands, and as much as I enjoy the 360, it's controller is often problematic for me when it comes to games. I can't imagine what it'd be like for me to play on the original XBox, dealing with an even larger controller.
Let's look at Guitar Hero for a second. It was a lot of fun at first, but I got bored after I started mastering songs on medium, but couldn't perform anywhere near as well on hard, let alone expert. No, it has nothing with my ability to play rhythm-based games -- I wouldn't have been able to get into my college's music major program if it were that. I had to pass exercises speaking one rhythm and tapping out another in a completely different meter, Guitar Hero is easy by comparison. However, in Guitar Hero, reaching that dreaded orange button required a physical shift of my entire hand (instead of a couple fingers) in its direction, and that few seconds of disorientation is costly mid-song. In this case, practice mode only gets you so far. There was a dissonant gap between what I could mentally understand the game asking me to do, and what I physically had to perform to do it successfully.
Look at something more recent. (For me and my preferences) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the most fun I've had gaming in a while, but I also have it on the 360. Having not played the previous installments, I'm having to learn everything from scratch -- and the challenge is also part of the fun. But it's another case where I lose time on some of the technical executions. Again, not because I'm incapable of "getting it," but when some of the more complicated button patterns involve moving all over the controller, it involves my entire hand moving all over the controller. My hand stretches to curve around the bumpers instead of resting there naturally, which means there's a lot less maneuverability in-between. (And at the moment, I don't have the money to invest in trying a stick.)
Now, before accusations start flying along the lines of why don't I play on a different console, or something with half-formed logic: I don't believe that my console preferences should be completely limited based on someone's size. That, and consoles are expensive -- If I already invested time and money into one console, I'm not keen on dropping a bunch of money I don't have to reinvest in everything because I enjoy one or two games that might be a little extra harder for someone like me to play. That's silly. I still have fun gaming, though it might be something to keep in mind for if there's ever a next-next-generation.
My question is this: is it far out of the technological realm for controller designs to go the line of baseball bats, bowling balls, and stringed instruments and be sized? Controllers, now in S, M, and L!
Yes it did. Motion controls makes games what they used to be in the arcade: You pick up and you play em. Everyone can play them, and only few can really master them. Simple mechanics make for a great gameplay.Fronzel said:
I don't see you complaining about how clusterfucked the Xbox 360 controller is, and believe me that can be a hell of a learning curve for someone who hasn't touched a controller forever. Case in point (again) my father: He's a pro on flight simulators with the traditional PC joystick of the medium, stick him with HAWX and a 360 controller and he goes apeshit for around 30 minutes before figuring out the rudder and the thrust engine button.
Mario, Asteroids, Pacman, Breakout, Donkey Kong, Angry Birds, Solipskier, Canabalt (simplest game ever), Audiosurf... I could go on forever and fill the page. Wii Sports is a prime example of simple mechanics/great game experience because you don't really need to learn to play. You just need to fucking play. In the words of MovieBob in The Game Overthinker: "Hitting a baseball with the bat shouldn't be the challenge because the bat is wrapped in barb wire; hitting the ball IS the challenge."Fronzel said:
The gameplay mechanics are simplified by making you move something in par with the character in the screen. The translation of your ego (that is you) to your alter-ego (the character in the game) is seamless in the case of Wii Sports/Wii Sports Resort.
Not so much with third party games because they do not play test the games enough and thus make crappy controls for games that are not sport simulations. I played Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings for the Wii... I regret ever doing that.
Kinect doesn't have that. Since you do not have any physical conection with the videogame as you play it, the control schemes are much more complicated. The Kinect in and of itself is a wonder of hardware engineering (just look at the things people have done with the free libraries for Linux) but as a peripheral and the games it comes attached with it sucks big balls. I have seen the Kinect and tested it myself to see the technology wasn't implemented correctly in the Microsoft Kinect games (which is ironic), and it just feels AWKWARD. It feels awkward to move your body around pretending you are holding a racket to play ping pong, when in the Wii you have a physical object (the Wiimote) that actually maked you feel you're holding the racket and thus you don't have to LEARN HOW TO PLAY you just gotta PLAY.
That is the analogy with ye olde arcades. You just pick up and play.
I personally take the view that games seem to be splitting off into two major categories: Gaming sports and gaming experiences. More conventionally, they would be Multiplayer and single player, but arcade games could also come into the sporty category with high scores.
Sporty games, like CoD online play, are all about you gaming skills, so for these it makes sense to add a controller that replicates a real life experience to prove that your better at it. No one really plays the wii alone, it was marketed as a family console because of this aspect here
Gaming experiences do not need or warrant motion control. These are the type of games Yhatzee compared to a good book. In these games, because you need to coach the player through the experience and require much more concentration on the situation not the activity, having a control method with little to no effort is beneficial.
I like both, which is why I am happy to see motion controls continue to grow, but as with have all heard from Zero Punctuation someone like Yhatzee does not like the competitive side of games, does not want the title as the best gamer around. I personally think this is one where yes we press forward with motion control, but it can never take over from conventional methods.
Sporty games, like CoD online play, are all about you gaming skills, so for these it makes sense to add a controller that replicates a real life experience to prove that your better at it. No one really plays the wii alone, it was marketed as a family console because of this aspect here
Gaming experiences do not need or warrant motion control. These are the type of games Yhatzee compared to a good book. In these games, because you need to coach the player through the experience and require much more concentration on the situation not the activity, having a control method with little to no effort is beneficial.
I like both, which is why I am happy to see motion controls continue to grow, but as with have all heard from Zero Punctuation someone like Yhatzee does not like the competitive side of games, does not want the title as the best gamer around. I personally think this is one where yes we press forward with motion control, but it can never take over from conventional methods.
I spent the christmas period temping on the games counter in a large highstreet retailer, we had a kinect demo set up. The amount of times I had to go over and handhold people on what is going on an what is expected of them was insane for something that is meant to be intuative.EscapingReality said:
In fact, the majority of them walked over to the controller to try and use the machine instead, adding further problems. As it is, the implementation isn't spot on... however, I fully expect that to improve as people are increasingly exposed to this tech and it evolves along with them.
We're still gonna miss the predicted timeslot of 2015 when people think of using your hands on something physical as babyish/old hat. <3 BTTF
I totally agree with you on the size thing. I don't have especially large hands and the old Xbox was indeed unbearable to play on because of it. The PS2 controller is more my kind of thing if I'm honest. The thing is we both exist within the bell curve, for those of us with smaller than average hands there are many more who find it perfectly comfortable, so the big gaming companies don't really care about us all that much. My large handed friends express similar problems, though more often with the PS3 controller. But that said, controllers may not be perfect, but they're a damn sight better than the ones that came before them. This entire point is that relatively small physical changes, unnoticable to the average observer, do make a huge difference in the enjoyment of a game. Motion controls are a HUGE step forward in gaming, when ultimately I would have liked them to take notice of the smaller details. One thing about studying engineering is it really opens your eyes to how much work people put into products. If you look at the controller, every single dimension has been carefully chosen. On a big project like the Xbox they no doubt had at least one person assigned to how big the thumbsticks would be and the exact size of the indent inside them. It's the little things that count... like little hands.Notashrimp09 said:
Well, don't buy the game, send a letter to the developer, encourage others to do the same. Yes, I UNDERSTAND that it's a problem for some, but again, having both simple and complex controls is a good thing, and it's a problem WE can fix either way.Raiyan 1.0 said:
I think they meant the co-existence of several different control schemes of varying levels complexity.Raiyan 1.0 said:
Although, I agree with Portnow; We already kind of have that in the form of handheld systems, with the simplified (D-pad only) controls that can give you a bsic rundown on how to effectively navigate in a 3D space.
Also, what game are you talking about, that dumbs down it's control scheme for consoles?
This would officially be the best series ever if Shamus was on it too. As of now it is still really good.
OT: I got my sister to attempt to play a shooter for the first time. She had only played few platformers before. (LPB, Spyro 1,2,3 Crash 1,2,3) She collectively shot all of her own team mates in the back then accidently made her character look at his feet. She then hammered buttons to rectify this which made her character whip grenades at his feet and blow himself up. This all happened in the course of about a minute. So yes, controllers are very unfriendly to newbies.
OT: I got my sister to attempt to play a shooter for the first time. She had only played few platformers before. (LPB, Spyro 1,2,3 Crash 1,2,3) She collectively shot all of her own team mates in the back then accidently made her character look at his feet. She then hammered buttons to rectify this which made her character whip grenades at his feet and blow himself up. This all happened in the course of about a minute. So yes, controllers are very unfriendly to newbies.
Moviebob:Extra Consideration said:
"Believe me, NO ONE has a lower opinion of the "average joe's" ability to to better himself than I do; "
Me: I really, really hate your elitist attitude Bob. It's pretty much the antithesis of Democracy. Democracy is inherently based on faith in the average person- to see the average person as stupid or wortheless is to inherently see Democracy the same way, because Democracy is rule by the average person. The same is only slightly less true of a true Republic, which represents the people. Your attitude comes off as blatantly autocratic.
You, Bob, have some of the worst tendencies of liberals. Liberals and Conservatives both have horrible flaws, in addition to both being correct on various issues. I try to be open minded and listen to both, and I tend to agree with liberals and conservatives on different things- for example, I support gay marriage, and I also support gun ownership. I support greater regulation/enforcement of regulations for big bussiness, and I also support hunting. But you tend to automatically assume conservatives are wrong about everything, you tend to have a very low opinion of the average person, and you even admit you doubt the average person can better themselves at all. That elitist, autocratic, anti-democratic viewpoint is perhaps the worst flaw that liberals have.
The evidence doesn't support the idea that the average person is stupid. In the 70's, James Holdren advocated forced sterilization because he was bigoted against the average person enough to believe that the average person is too stupid to use contraceptives, and that forced sterilization was necessary to prevent overpopulation. In reality, the average person is smart enough to use contraceptives, and the population of pretty much every first world country including the US is static, except for immigration.
More people are getting college degrees than ever before. The human race's I.Q. is increasing slightly every year.
Throughout Obama's campaign, people claimed that he would not get elected because of bigotry. He got elected.
Sarah Brady believes that the average person is too stupid/paranoid to own guns. The vast majority of gun owners never break serious laws, and letting people carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime.
Basically, the belief that the average person is stupid has not been supported by the evidence. There are some things I dissagree with the majority with, but the majority are the majority for a reason. People like you seem to think that evolution works in reverse, and those who are least intelligent tend to thrive. Not only is that discrimination, it is ridiculously illogical.
Yes, I'm new as a poster, but I've been along time lurker on the forums.
Some people have been mentioning about the interactions of first person shooters. As a kid, I loved playing Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. It made me feel powerful, like a whole world had opened up to me, that I could BE the hero against evil. I played with a mouse and keyboard.
In 2003 I played the first Halo game, on the chunky Xbox game pad. It felt comfortable ( and the chunkiness was something I think they should have kept as an optional extra for the 360 controllers) but didn't like the lack of precision with the controls for aiming compared to a mouse, which was still a concern for me when I played through Reach. And yet the Halo series was another stage and influence as I grew up, and I rate the first game as one of the best I've played, even if the pistol was OTT, because of that influence in my childhood.
What I'm trying to get at is that, in the long run, the control scheme for a game does not matter in the slightest. JK and Halo, plot wise, are ALMOST IDENTICAL. Become a super soldier to save the Universe as your whole world is destroyed around you (Kyle Katarn being hunted for the Valley of the Jedi by Jerec, going to the Valley of the Jedi, as a Jedi, to save the Universe / Master Chief seeing Reach fall and then attempting the Covenant from activating the rings to save the Universe as an augmented human), and yet they are still both good games!!
This is why I am going to agree with Bob, and say that the next generation of controllers on ANY device (console, PC or mobile) will be an adaptation of what has come before until Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo/Apple*/Google* buckle.
One of them will eventually become insignificant in the gaming market. this will lead them to cause a shift in the gaming paradigm. Look at the rise of Nintendo in popularity once the Wii was released, Apple when they released the iPod touch, or Google's sudden entrenchement into the mobile/tablet space with it's Android operating system).
This ALSO means that motion controllers (not necessarily gesture based motion) are here to stay for the forseeable future due to the appearent demand from the creation of a very casual market in 2005. That said, who knows what will happen in 5 years with the release of the next and possibly final generation of consoles, as James mentioned.
*Apple and Google are included as they compete directly with Nintendo, Sony and MS in the mobile/tablet application business, which will take off in a big way with games during the course of 2011, look at the Honeycomb and iOS presentations of recent times and look at the publication Angry Birds on both platforms if you don't believe me, but that's getting a little off topic.
Some people have been mentioning about the interactions of first person shooters. As a kid, I loved playing Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. It made me feel powerful, like a whole world had opened up to me, that I could BE the hero against evil. I played with a mouse and keyboard.
In 2003 I played the first Halo game, on the chunky Xbox game pad. It felt comfortable ( and the chunkiness was something I think they should have kept as an optional extra for the 360 controllers) but didn't like the lack of precision with the controls for aiming compared to a mouse, which was still a concern for me when I played through Reach. And yet the Halo series was another stage and influence as I grew up, and I rate the first game as one of the best I've played, even if the pistol was OTT, because of that influence in my childhood.
What I'm trying to get at is that, in the long run, the control scheme for a game does not matter in the slightest. JK and Halo, plot wise, are ALMOST IDENTICAL. Become a super soldier to save the Universe as your whole world is destroyed around you (Kyle Katarn being hunted for the Valley of the Jedi by Jerec, going to the Valley of the Jedi, as a Jedi, to save the Universe / Master Chief seeing Reach fall and then attempting the Covenant from activating the rings to save the Universe as an augmented human), and yet they are still both good games!!
This is why I am going to agree with Bob, and say that the next generation of controllers on ANY device (console, PC or mobile) will be an adaptation of what has come before until Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo/Apple*/Google* buckle.
One of them will eventually become insignificant in the gaming market. this will lead them to cause a shift in the gaming paradigm. Look at the rise of Nintendo in popularity once the Wii was released, Apple when they released the iPod touch, or Google's sudden entrenchement into the mobile/tablet space with it's Android operating system).
This ALSO means that motion controllers (not necessarily gesture based motion) are here to stay for the forseeable future due to the appearent demand from the creation of a very casual market in 2005. That said, who knows what will happen in 5 years with the release of the next and possibly final generation of consoles, as James mentioned.
*Apple and Google are included as they compete directly with Nintendo, Sony and MS in the mobile/tablet application business, which will take off in a big way with games during the course of 2011, look at the Honeycomb and iOS presentations of recent times and look at the publication Angry Birds on both platforms if you don't believe me, but that's getting a little off topic.
One thing regarding motion controllers that you have massively overlooked. OK its in the far future. Basically the major complaint with motion controls from yatzee is lack of physical feedback breaking immersion and that gaming tends to be very escapist.
However is it not possible to integrate actual physical activity with games? It has only been hinted at with the Wii and Kinnect. Take for example your typical lasertag arcade; you put on your vest get into teams and walk into an enclosed area with plywood hills and walls to represent a battlefield. This environment looks eerily similar to your typical block environment in pre-alpha shooters doesn't it? Why not put some receiver nodes on the corners of those blocks and give everyone some sort of motion capture equipment. Then instead of relying on cheesy glow in the dark paint just put on glasses with tiny screens in them and let the game engine render the rest. Physical feedback is there because it is actually there. The game just makes it look prettier. No need to calculate physics either because everyone is already limited by what they actually can do. To represent death just disable their ability to shoot and render them as a ghost, since the gun doesn't need a laser anymore and the game controls how everything looks. Environments could be changed easily by moving your real life blocks around. Also no more need for the multi-directional treadmill.
This idea is also useful for non-combat gaming as well. Imagine going to a museum and actually seeing the events they are depicting through virtual renderings.
Is this around the next corner? I doubt it. The tech is already there, but the costs are very high for it. Also with investment in the tank new ideas are simply being deemed too risky. I think we'll only see it if the economy recovers very fast and after that there's another 20-30 year wait as someone of wealth actually decides to make it happen.
However is it not possible to integrate actual physical activity with games? It has only been hinted at with the Wii and Kinnect. Take for example your typical lasertag arcade; you put on your vest get into teams and walk into an enclosed area with plywood hills and walls to represent a battlefield. This environment looks eerily similar to your typical block environment in pre-alpha shooters doesn't it? Why not put some receiver nodes on the corners of those blocks and give everyone some sort of motion capture equipment. Then instead of relying on cheesy glow in the dark paint just put on glasses with tiny screens in them and let the game engine render the rest. Physical feedback is there because it is actually there. The game just makes it look prettier. No need to calculate physics either because everyone is already limited by what they actually can do. To represent death just disable their ability to shoot and render them as a ghost, since the gun doesn't need a laser anymore and the game controls how everything looks. Environments could be changed easily by moving your real life blocks around. Also no more need for the multi-directional treadmill.
This idea is also useful for non-combat gaming as well. Imagine going to a museum and actually seeing the events they are depicting through virtual renderings.
Is this around the next corner? I doubt it. The tech is already there, but the costs are very high for it. Also with investment in the tank new ideas are simply being deemed too risky. I think we'll only see it if the economy recovers very fast and after that there's another 20-30 year wait as someone of wealth actually decides to make it happen.
That is fair... you aren't going to like a rhythm game unless you like the music in it, and not everyone likes Rock/Country/Rap/Techno/ect. But the sped up Simon Says note highways are exillerating even without the guitar controller. It is like an advanced version of a kids toy, where you press a button and get a sound. Just like when we were 3, it is still as exciting today.daftnoize said: