Puzzle Gaming After Tetris

You had a good run Tetris, but let's face it. It's over.

Sure, you'll limp on into eternity, forever chasing former glory. But you'll never be new or exciting again. Your brand relies on delivering the same, familiar thing instead of providing anything new or ingenious. No reason to be upset. Just think of how many different renditions you've hard over the years. The sheer number of corny spin-offs you spawned is probably the highest praise of all.

(Tetris Attack rocks)

To call the puzzle genre of gaming dead might be too generous. Tetris represents the metaphorical Byzantine Empire of the gaming world - a tenuous shadow of past glories. What I want to know is this - where is the puzzle game to inaugurate the genre's new era?

Console puzzle gaming has probably lost the most ground to mobile gaming, which offers a thousand different cheap and accessible options. You can undoubtedly find an unlimited supply of cheap games (sudoku, crossword, etc.) via the app store. Is there a Tetris app? Probably. And really, isn't Angry Birds just a species of puzzle game?

Is there any hope for console puzzle gaming? No. Not until some developer takes full advantage of the consoles available. Seriously, where is the rule that states that all puzzle games must involve multi-colored blocks falling from above? Someone, at some point, decreed that puzzle games have to all seem retro. If Red Dead Redemption can look as good as this...

...then why can't a puzzle game?

Probably the closest thing to what I'm talking about would be the Portal series, which, I admit, I haven't played yet. Yet the popularity of the Portal series seems like fairly solid proof that there's still a market for that sort of game. But Portal isn't totally a puzzle game, not in the same way that, say, Tetris was.

Come to think, you know what I'm missing? Tetrisphere. Tetrisphere was probably my favorite Tetris spinoff, probably because it had almost nothing to do with the original Tetris. Plus the soundtrack for Tetrisphere was incredible. Check it out, if you can.

K

Video Games, Difficulty, and Battered Controller Syndrome

I feel uniquely qualified to soapbox about video game difficulty. I've beaten most of the Call of Duty games on Veteran difficulty (which isn't all that bad), I've beaten every Halo on Legendary difficulty. Way back in the day I even beat all of T.T.'s ghost times in Diddy Kong Racing, which was a real pain in the asshole.

Here's the bottom line: gamers want to be challenged. I don't want to play a game that's so easy I breeze through it in an afternoon. Here's the but. BUT, I don't want to play even one more game that substitutes "difficulty" with "horse shit".


horse shit

noun
1. As it pertains to video game difficulty, horse shit refers to the developer's tendency to opt for cheap ersatz solutions, such as reducing your health bar, increasing the amount of damage done by enemies, removing necessities such as ammunition and health, etc.

In almost every video game, cranking up the difficulty just means making the game stupid. Right now I'm playing through Dead Space, probably one of my favorite survival horror games ever. I'm going for the last achievement, which is to beat the game on Impossible difficulty. First off, Dead Space takes away your equipment on a new run through on Impossible. Second, they give you less ammunition, ratchet up the enemies' health and double their damage. But really, the enemy is behaving exactly the same whether you're playing on the easiest or the most difficult setting. And that's the problem.

Playing through Dead Space on the easiest or the most difficult setting renders almost the exact same experience. There's no extra missions or bosses or weapons. The exact same enemies appear in the exact same place. Only on the hardest difficulty, they're stupidly powered up. Which, in my opinion, amounts to sheer laziness.

Video game AI has come a long way since the early days. But it hasn't come far enough to allow for games like Dead Space or Call of Duty or what have you to really provide an adjustable difficulty. So, instead, game developers subject their fans to frustrating conditions, little better than nonchalant sadism. Problem solved.

While we wait for gaming AI to catch up to the rest of the field, what can we do for a solution? I think there are some positive examples out there. The one game that comes to mind is StarFox 64. The cool thing about StarFox 64 was that depending on what you did in a certain mission, you could unlock new paths to completing the game, some which were more difficult than the original, vanilla way.

I still remember having mild panic attacks on the lava planet level. The point is that Starfox had a fairly unique method of providing a new experience for more skilled players, without making enemies more powerful or making you suck more.

Imagine a game like Dead Space, where playing on a different difficulty made the game entirely different. So, if you play on easy, you play as character A. Normal, character B. Hard, character C. Now imagine that to fully experience the game, you have to play as all three. Their plots could intersect at points, rewarding the player with character and plot insights otherwise unavailable. Nothing I'm suggesting is out of the question either.

Dead Space has 12 levels (or so?). Rather than make you play through the same levels over and over, doing the same shit, why not have 4 levels in sets of three. Meaning that on easy you have 4 levels, then you've beaten the easy game. 4 levels for Normal and 4 levels for Hard. Then game developers would actually reward you for multiple playthroughs, rather than punish you with stupid, lazy difficulty outs.

-K

I miss: Star Wars Galaxies

I flushed at least half my freshman year of college into Star Wars Galaxies.

I didn't come to Star Wars Galaxies on my own. Back in the early 2000s (it came out 2003), my house was still running on AOL dial-up. Needless to say, online gaming lay beyond my grasp. My friend Tom would tell me the funniest and coolest stories about the game. I could only glimpse the burgeoning world of online gaming through the peephole of text-based MUDs like Turning Point.

I graduated high school in 2005, at the age of 17. As a gift, my parents bought me a Dell Inspiron 6t000 (I think, I forget the exact number). Tom and I would be moving into the UNF dorms in the fall, finally with access to high speed internet (I'd be lying if I said higher education was at the top of my priority list).

Star Wars Galaxies goes something like this. You pick your character's race, sex and physical details, you play a brief tutorial, and then the game drops you off in Mos Eisley. You can continue on some basic tutorial-esque quests, or you can strike off on your own and do whatever you want. If I'm not describing the levelling system, it's because I can't keep the different systems straight. You see, they changed the way levelling worked at least 3 times. There was the original game, then there was the combat update, and later the NGE (new game experience). I played the game predominantly during the CU and NGE days, so I'm unfamiliar with the way the game was originally.

I started playing SWG while still on dial-up, at home. It took about 4 days for my laptop to download all of the updates for the game on my connection, which was quite the nightmare. That was only the beginning of my problems, however. As I mentioned earlier, the game drops you off in Mos Eisley, which is a pretty busy place. Unfortunately, my connection simply couldn't handle going to the busier cities. A lot of the cities on Tatooine were just impossible for me to visit. Right before my friend Tom left to go to Japan on vacation, he dropped my newbie Wookiee ass on Rori,  a moon of Naboo (a planet which almost nobody bothered going to). Still, I had problems with connection. I wandered off into the wild with a stick to learn the basics.

The combat system of SWG wasn't exactly inspired. Basic attacks, power attacks, special attacks, items. You've played one MMO, you've mostly played them all, I find. I think pre-NGE I was a rifleman/doctor combo, which was fairly useful. The NGE got a lot of hate from people (mostly from Jedi who were upset that now everyone in the game was allowed to be a Jedi). I didn't mind the NGE because I mostly did stuff alone, occasionally with Tom and/or Mike. Being a Jedi let you fight a lot of people all on your own, which made it so I could do the more difficult stuff without having to get together some massive party of people.

For whatever reason, I was never big on the PVP aspect. I could fight pretty well against monsters, but I just didn't have the patience to figure out how the different classes interacted with one another to really stand a chance against other players.

Where SWG really stood out was in its space combat system. Space had only been added to the game in an expansion pack called Jump to Lightspeed, which come to think was a pretty radical addition to the game. Space wasn't just some afterthought - space combat in SWG was almost a completely new and different game tacked on to the original. You could choose between fighting for the Empire, Rebels, or neutral smuggler-types. Space let you choose what ship you wanted to fly, what kinds of weapons, engines, boosters, shields and missiles it had too. Probably coolest of all, you could bring multiple people on board certain POB (Person on Board) type ships. POBs didn't function so well in combat, but the concept was cool. You could even decorate the inside of your ship, the Star Wars equivalent of "Pimp My Ride", I suppose.

(Cockpit view like a boss)

Space combat in SWG wasn't perfect. Probably the most frustrating thing was having to go back down to the planet just to get your missions, which added hours and hours to the whole schebang. The actual space missions themselves were pretty dull - escort this ship here, protect these ships there. Once you jumped through all the hoops, you graduated to the real space experience. SWG required that to fully graduate into the big boy world of space, you had to take down a Star Destroyer (if you were rebel, if you were Imperial you had to fight a rebel blockade runner).

At this point in the game, you could engage other players in the PVP zone, known as Deep Space. Fighting it out in space was probably the most fun I ever had in Star Wars Galaxies. Some people were impossibly good, with ridiculously overpowered gear that made them impossible to shoot down. Those players were also part of the shipwright class (which I never chose).

So, why hasn't there been any attempt at all to try something like this on the console? Perfectly doable.  Certainly the game doesn't have to be Star Wars. Come to think, are there any space combat games for the 360? I can't think of one. Seems like a big gap, doesn't it? Come to think, remember that short space sequence in Halo Reach? 

Halo tried branching out with Halo Wars. Makes one wonder what might be possible, doesn't it?

K

Miscellany 2

Halo kart racer: doable?

Holy shit. DragonBall Z games multiply like viruses.

There's been a thousand dirt bike games. Is it too much to ask for a monster truck game?

If companies are determined to make movies into games, could they at least base them off good movies?

The only dancing game I'll ever play is one based off Breakin' (1 or 2, no preference).

My favorite Call of Duty is World at War. I think I'm the only one.

Ryu, Ken and Akuma aren't the only characters in Street Fighter.

Red Dead Redemption. A.K.A. Cowboys doing bizarre shit.

Halo Kart sounds decent, now that I think about it.

Now that I think about it. Kart racers used to be everywhere. Now they've almost completely vanished.

Oh please, please god, I want to play Jet Grind Radio on the Xbox 360.

K

Irrefutable Proof of God's Nonexistence

There has yet to be a good Mobile Suit Gundam game.

If you know anything about the Gundam series, you'd know that Gundam would potentially make for the most awesome video game ever. Let's be clear - I'm talking about the original Mobile Suit Gundam series (or the U.C. universe, for those in the know). I don't know anything about the more recent Gundam series, except that they're terrible.

The original Mobile Suit Gundam anime series almost seems like a video game, if you're watching for it. The protagonist has a learning curb for the mobile suit. Scaling difficulty, bosses like Ramba Ral, the Dom brothers and, of course, Char. They actually made a game based just on Mobile Suit Gundam that I thought was passable. I played it like a motherfucker back in the day.

The actual story mode was somewhat dull. My favorite part of the game was actually the bonus missions, where you got to choose whatever mobile suit you wanted. The problem with the game is that you can never tell how much damage you're doing to the enemy. Doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty debilitating, prevents you from having any sort of strategy towards fighting besides shoot, dodge, shoot. Also, the controls were pretty sluggish.

For some reason, there were quite a few Gundam games for the PS2. There was also a Dreamcast game called Gundam: Side Story, which wasn't very good (surprise). Still, starved for a good Gundam game, I played the living shit out of it. Best thing about the game was that it actually offered a cockpit view of the action, which I thought improved the game over some standard 3rd person crap.

I think a cockpit view would've vastly improved another Gundam game called Zeonic Front (for PS2), which was sort of a Gundam Rainbow Six. It takes a while to get used to the complicated HUD, but once you do the game is serviceable. The problem is that it just doesn't feel like Gundam - I don't know what it feels like, to be honest. Some sort of weird strategy/action combo. I know I ended up ignoring my allies and doing all the work on my own. The AI sucks in the game. Bad AI ruins lots of games, come to think.

The best Gundam game I've ever played is Fed vs. Zeon, for the PS2. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to a real Gundam game. The story mode was decent. But really, what a good Gundam game is going to need, is multiplayer. Fed vs. Zeon has multiplayer! I remember playing with my friend Tom (a fellow Gundam fan). There was a lot to like about Fed vs. Zeon, especially the variety of mobile suits you could use. Another good thing about it was that you could fight in SPACE, finally! The space system was actually much better than the crappy combat in Encounters in Space, another Gundam game for the PS2.

Since the halcyon days of the PS2, there haven't been many playable Gundam games. I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam. I was super excited about a Gundam game for the Xbox 360. Forget what it was called, but it was never ported over to the states. Which seems to be the problem with the Gundam series. There doesn't seem to be an attractive enough market in the states for Gundam games.

The problem is that it isn't enough just to release a Gundam game. Someone needs to make, you know, a good Gundam game. Given the source material, it doesn't seem like such a Herculean task.

At this point, though, I'd probably play any Gundam game at this point (excepting the Dynasty Warriors series).

K

Game Movies

So, a little while back I posted about Movie Games and complained about stuff (which is generally the tenor of every post here on Video Game Seppuku). Yesterday in Gamestop I saw the "Komplete" edition of the new-ish Mortal Kombat game.

Besides the usual bevy of characters and new features, this game also comes with the 1995 movie Mortal Kombat in digital format. Which got me thinking about video games which have been made into movies.

I'll say right now that the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie is probably the best game movie there has ever been. 

Despite the miscasting of Christopher Lambert as Raiden and the cheesiness of the ninja character costumes, the movie hits all the right notes. It's got action, violence, fan service moments (Johnny Cage's friendship, anyone?) and, maybe most importantly, some pretty well choreographed fight sequences. The guy who plays Shang Tsung (don't know his name) does a pretty admirable job acting menacing. Robin Shou is a pretty awesome Liu Kang, to boot. Mortal Kombat still might prove as fertile ground for producers, especially given the response the Mortal Kombat legacy video received. If you haven't seen it, prepare yourself.

The honest truth about game movies is that they're almost all complete garbage. You can count the decent ones literally on one hand: Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil 1 and 2 (sort of, if you ignore parts of them), and Silent Hill. The actually watchable game movies are a hybrid of fan service, loyalty to the original game material, and a willingness to contradict the game's lore.

What made Mortal Kombat good? Good fighting, fan service, and the movie's willingness to poke fun at itself. Movies like Final Fantasy and Super Mario Bros. took themselves way too seriously (to be fair, there were lots of other problems with those movies besides that). Super Mario Bros. went more than a little over the top with camp. Plus the setting and tenor of that movie are way off:  someone, at some point thought Mario should visit the apocalyptic urban setting of Blade Runner and that that would make for good film. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is preachy, boring, uninteresting romp through weird faces and bad vocal performances (Alec Baldwin being the worst offender).

I'm not sure why Silent Hill has such a bad rep (it has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I think is wholly unjustified).

 

Sure, the performances aren't great, and the movie more or less collapses into the third act. Still, there are some genuinely creepy moments. The movie never descends into emotional schmaltz either. Seriously, what is with the sub-genre of "Mother loses child" horror films? They're almost uniformly unbearable with the teary embraces and declarations of undying maternal love. I guess they're making a Silent Hill 2 (starring everyone's favorite, Sean Bean). Not sure how to feel about that, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Which, you know, the critics won't.

What does all this tell us about future game movies? It seems increasingly dubious that they'll ever make a Halo movie. Which, I think, is a good thing. Halo might make for a serviceable movie if they set out to make a stand-alone film based on the original game. Because face it, the actual plot of Halo disintegrates after the first game. You know, come to think, ODST or Reach might make for decent movies. Or maybe they should start with Reach and then make Halo. The problem with a Halo movie is that the director will probably be loath to mess with the gobs of canonical lore heaped onto the games (the novels, etc.) So, maybe a Halo movie wouldn't be so bad.

I have hope for the new wave of game movies. Dead Space and Assassin's Creed seem like fertile ground for films (provided that Dead Space takes inspiration from The Thing and from Alien and that Assassin's Creed doesn't delve into the herp derp aliens shit). Just because they're game movies, they have to be twice as good to receive half the credit. Oddly enough, the biggest obstacle for these movies might be the game fans themselves. Fans need to recognize that loyal adherence to the plot of the game does not a good movie make.

K

Miscellany

Remember how cool Assassin's Creed was before herp derp aliens?

The only people still playing games like Mortal Kombat 3 or Street Fighter online are the people you will never, ever beat.

Besides occasionally shooting people, the one thing you do in L.A. Noire is ask people questions. Somehow, I suck at this.

I returned Street Fighter X Tekken because E. Honda wasn't added.

I remember back in the day I wanted to play a Pokemon game for the N64. You know, a real one.

What are the chances Rockstar could make a Firefly game? Think about that a minute.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for the N64 had the best video game enemies ever.

Dead Space should be subtitled "Stupid People in Space".

I play Red Dead Redemption with my friend now and then. I tomahawked his horse and he got mauled by a bear.

EA games is the Circuit City of the gaming world.

Seriously. Ubi Soft shouldn't have hired the guy from Ancient Aliens as a writer.

Still waiting for an Army Men: Sarge's Heroes sequel.

The Dead or Alive franchise has a 10:1 babe to hideous men ratio. The Street Fighter franchise has a 10:1 hideous men to babe ratio.

The top ranking Mortal Kombat player also has 1000 of 1000 gamerscore in Just Dance.

All of the party members in Dragon Age are insipid morons. I want to make them all hate my guts. Can I still have sex with them?