Converted To Modern Games

Modern games are better and more fun to play than retro games.  That may not sound like a bold proclamation, but for me it represents a complete attitude change.

It’s been about a year since I bought an Xbox 360 and started this blog.  If you remember, I mainly got the Xbox is order to play old school style games.  A good example is Bionic Commando:Rearmed.  At the time, that was exactly the type of game I was looking for (and still the best remake of an 8-bit game ever, in my opinion).

But, if you look over my blog posts over time, I started to be more enthusiastic about modern games.  It started with Batman:Arkham Asylum.  Then it was Transformers: War For Cybertron.  But the final step of my conversion has been Red Dead Redemption.

Early on, I thought that playing the modern games was just a diversion, and that my main interest would still be old school games.  The games I was looking forward to most were Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Bionic Commando: Rearmed 2, and Hard Corp: Uprising.  Those games are all out now.  They are good games (well, I have problems with Castlevania:HD).  But, I have no plans to buy the full versions.

The reason is, I just find them boring.  The control is too basic.  When I’m used to 3D games with deep, complex controls, I just can’t “switch gears” to enjoy the old school gameplay.  I mentioned this in my assessment of the Limbo demo last year.  At the time I didn’t realize that was I was feeling was not temporary, but a permanent change in my attitude.

Simple mechanics are one of the reasons that many people prefer retro games.  You can pick up and play them without having to learn much or train your hands.  Games with deep controls can have a steep learning curve that can be intimidating.  I can speak to that because that I how I felt a year ago.  But I can now say, the learning curve is worth it.  It seems daunting at first, but you will adapt in time.  And it doesn’t even take that much time.  At a certain point, the controls become second nature and don’t even seem complex.  And when you reach that point, playing the game becomes entertaining and rewarding beyond what’s possible in an old school game.  Here are a couple of examples.



In Batman:Arkham Asylum, you can use Batman’s line launcher to zip-line across a room and knock down a group of henchmen.  Before they get up, you can use a ground takedown move to knock one of them out.  By that time the others will have gotten up and and will most likely be ready to open fire on Batman with machine guns.  At that point you can either retreat by grappling up to gargoyle, stun them using Batman’s cape, use batarangs to knock them down again, or just run at them kicking and punching, hoping to take them out before Batman is critically wounded.  There are so many options – you can let your creativity run wild.  It takes a high level of comfort with the game’s controls to be able to do all that, but the gamer does get to that level, and it happens naturally (in this game, at least).



Another example is from Read Dead Redemption.  You can take something that happens in the game fairly often – a thief steals a horse and a townsperson asks you to get the horse back.  You have a lot of options in RDR, but I like to return the horse and the thief alive.  Here are the steps required for that:

1. Whistle for horse
2. Mount horse
3. Equip lasso
4. Look where thief is on mini-map and chase after him
5. Once caught up to thief, ready lasso
6. Enter dead-eye mode
7. “Paint” thief in dead-eye mode
8. Throw lasso
9. Dismount house
10. Run to to thief and hogtie him
11. Pick up thief
12. Put thief on horse
13. Mount house
14. Chase down stolen horse and lasso it
15. Lead horse back to robbery victim
16. Dismount horse
17. Remove thief from horse
18. Drop thief off ground

That is very complex process, but it’s something that becomes easy to do after a while.  When I started making that list, I included the necessary buttons that need to be pressed for each step, but I couldn’t finish that aspect.  I couldn’t remember some of them, and others I was just unsure about which button.  But when I play the game I can do it easily because of muscle memory.  So, what sounds daunting and complex (and is daunting and complex at first) becomes second nature.

So why is that more satisfying than say, defeating a monster in The Legend of Zelda.  I don’t know.  It’s something that I know experientially.  Maybe I’ll try to think of the specific reasons in a future post.  For now I can only say that I am a convert.

Demo Assessment: Castlevania Harmony of Despair

Castlevania Harmony of Despair sounds like it would be right up my alley.  In an earlier post I said, “Konami and everyone else -- we will gladly pay $15+ for classic games on our modern consoles if you put some effort into optimizing them. Widescreen and high definition are the main things I want. Achievements, enhancements, different modes of play are also nice.”  CHoD has all of those things going for it.  Its price is exactly $15.  But...

The graphics are attractive.  They’re widescreen.  They’re HD.  By today’s standards though, I’m afraid they just don’t cut it.  They’re too pixel-y.  They’re too 16-bit.  I would point to Braid as an example of a sprite-based game on a modern console with excellent graphics:

 

Braid’s sprite’s don’t have jagged edges.  The game looks like a painting in motion.  It’s an independent game, released two years ago.  You’re telling me that a game released by Konami today can’t look nearly as good as that?

Visuals aren’t the only problem for CHoD.  The controls are stiff, and the pace of the game is slow.  This is typical of Castlevania games, but I think Konami could have retained the basics and still have made the controls feel more fluid and responsive.  I keep mentioning Bionic Commando:Rearmed, but it is the standard for games of its type (as far as I’m concerned), and it has great controls that are faithful to the original.  When you consider that just about any random platformer on the XBox 360 – Rocket Knight, for example (another Konami game) – has better controls, it’s hard to make the case for playing Castlevania.

The lack of local multiplayer is disappointing.  Hydro Thunder Hurricane, last week’s XBox Live Arcade release, has to render complex 3D environments and water effects.  That game has a 4-player split screen mode.  All that CHoD has to render is 2D sprites.  Given the zoom out / zoom in feature of the game (which is very cool), you’d think that a multi-player split screen mode would be easy.

Castlevania has a lot of good qualities and I’m pretty sure it’ll be a hit.  The effort that went into it is clearly about 2000% greater than the effort that went into the terrible emulated Contra releases for XBox Live Arcade.  I’m sure I could have a lot of fun playing it online with 5 other players.  But given the other great games to choose from, I can’t justify buying this one.

I still have high hopes for Konami’s upcoming Hard Corps: Uprising (a Contra modernization) and Rush’n Attack Ex-Patriot.

Demo Assessment: Limbo

Limbo has the most distinctive graphics I’ve seen in a game.  It’s a beautiful, amazing game to look at.  As you can see from the screen shot, it’s incredibly minimalistic.  The puzzles (in the demo, at least) are similarly reductionist.  At most of the obstacles in the demo, my first thought was usually, “how in the world am I going to get past this?”  There is seemingly so little to work with, with the only buttons being jump and interact.  The boy that you control can’t jump very high or run very fast, so he he seems vulnerable and relatively helpless.

I enjoyed the demo and figuring out the puzzles in it.  As I mentioned, the game is very impressive and unique visually.  However, I don’t plan on buying it anytime soon.  Puzzle games are not my favorite, and the game’s pace much slower than what I want right now.  My tastes change all of the time, but I’m currently playing Transformers: War for Cybertron, and I can’t pull myself away from the game to place Limbo at this point.  But I can definitely see myself playing through it at some point in the future.

Batman: Arkham Asylum -- How I Came Around

Since I acquired an XBox 360, I've downloaded a lot of demos of games that I have no interest in buying or playing for more than 10 minutes. I wanted to see the graphics and sound that the games today are capable of. But I didn't have that much interest in becoming immersed in a game. Batman: Arkham Asylum was the game that overcame that resistance.

I was initially impressed with the game's graphics. The demo first has Batan fighting a room full of goons. I found that fun, but it was nothing mind-blowing. I thought the best part was how the game zooms in and goes into slow motion when Batman delivers the final blow to the last goon standing. It was cool, but I didn't think I'd want to play an entire game of doing just that.



The demo then has Batman intervene in a hostage situation. This introduces the user to "detective mode", which is a visual filter Batman can use to see useful things in the environment. Using this mode, Batman has to sneak around a room and surprise the hostage-taker from above. I tried to complete this part of the game a few times and just couldn't do it. At that point I gave up on the game. I kept the demo on my XBox just so I could show the graphics to my friends and family members.

One evening a week or two later, I decided to take one more stab at getting past the hostage room in the demo. I was able to get past it that time. I'm very glad I did, because that's when game got really interesting.

The next part and final part the demo introduced me to "invisible predator" mode, where Batman has to neutralize a room full of armed thugs. If they notice him, they open fire and often kill Batman before he can escape. Batman can use a variety of tactics and gadgets to successfully neutralize all of the henchmen. Once I played though this part, I was hooked. Using Batman's different types of takedowns is just awesome and really makes the gamer feel like Batman. The moves are easy to execute, but timing everything correctly and using an optimal strategy is challenging and addictive. "Invisible predator" mode is just executed so beautifully. The game would be worth it for just those "challege rooms" that can be unlocked in the full version of the game.



So as I implied, the quality of the demo persuaded me to buy the full version of the game. I've now played through the game completely and remain impressed and really in awe of how good modern games can be. I'll have more thoughts about this game in an upcoming post comparing 2D and 3D games.

Introduction

This blog will be the reflections on video gaming from a veteran but casual gamer. It will not be comprehensive in any way, and the games and topics I talk about will be based on my constantly fluctuating whims, which will probably seem arbitrary to most readers.

I'm back into video gaming after a 10 year absence. I skipped the XBox / PS2 generation, and only bought a current-generation system (XBox 360) within the last month.

The main reason I bought the 360 was to play games with my son, who is almost 4 years old (and eventually my daughter, but currently she's only 1). (I know there aren't as many kid-friendly games for that system as there are for the Wii, but I had other reasons for choosing the XBox, and there are enough kid-friendly games for it.)

I'll be posting my thoughts on the games I've been playing as well as other observations about video gaming in general, especially how it's changed during my life.

My perspective has been shaped by owning a Colecovision, NES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Sega Dreamcast, spending a lot of time in arcades, and playing my share of PC games -- all over the last 25 years