Unfettered Blather

Rejoice comrades! Chairman Nintendo is here to bring true equality to gamers in the glorious players paradise!

My brother-in-law Nathan is an avid player of Tetris Party on the Nintendo Wii, every chance he gets he positions himself on the couch, tosses a pillow under his feet on the ottoman and fires the game up for a bit of online world play. He is a strong player with an average score of between 6000 and 7000 points. I say “average” because this is the realm in which his score fluctuates.

Accusations that Nintendo likes arbitrary equalization of the scoring system and slanted game mechanics is nothing new. Penny Arcade has broached the subject and I have experienced some of the same issues present in Mario Party.

Tetris Party’s online component randomly pits you against players in a head-to-head challenge where clearing blocks or combinations will reward the opponent with a corresponding number of blocks under their workable blocks.

The major issue is the sliding scale by which Nintendo rewards and more importantly, punishes players for a loss.

The scale functions as such: As a new player you receive points for each victory, if you lose then a certain number are subtracted from your overall score. New players (those with lower scores) will receive larger amounts of points for each victory and a small portion subtracted. As you progress up the ladder the scale tips from rewarding victory to punishing failure. The amount of points earned per victory diminishes and the points subtracted increase exponentially.

I watched as my brother-in-law approached the 7000 point mark, a single win granted him 15 points towards his score, but the corresponding loss that followed saw 65 points taken away. If you lose to a player of lower ranking, their victory is given a much higher value than yours while your loss hits your points to a much greater extent. The scales problem is the tipping point, if you are a few hundred points higher than the shift point, your punishment becomes exponentially greater automatically.

Nathan waged a series of battles with the same player. They were pretty much on an equal footing, both winning and loosing an equal number of matches. By the end of their run they both had lost nearly 1000 points. They were essentially, BOTH loosing even though they were engaging in an equal exchange of blows. Eventually they both quit out of the matches because neither wanted to be punished.

What game translates four losses as twenty-fourth place?

The games does not provide players with the same pieces but generates random shapes, it is entirely possible to lose by a string of pieces that leave you with limited options. This “random” element throws a wrench in to the game’s overall mechanics. I’ve seen players lose simple because they were given pieces with no good corresponding place to drop them while your opponent blitzes you with combos.

One might say” thats up the skill of the player to determine, its a puzzle”, if this is your view then I’m sorry to say you either aren’t a player or you haven’t examined the dynamic well enough.

A simple crunch of the numbers outlines the flaw. A single loss must be countermanded by four or even five victories as you reach a higher level. That single loss punishes the player while those below your level are given more points and less punishment to bring them up to a higher level faster. While it is true that you need to win a proportionally larger number of games to attain a score, the balance favors lesser players and assaults ranking ones. The ratios are be designed to keep everyone within a specific score range.

In later stages, four losses need to be offset with as many as twenty-six victories, and this will only bring you back to your previous score. Whats worse, how you attain victory does not seem to be a factor, are you given extra points for beating players in a shorter period of time? Perhaps for stringing combinations or performing certain moves in succession? Not at all.

Good players need to be proportionally rewarded, not exponentially punished for their success. Being forced to win constantly to maintain your basic standing is not amusing or frankly, fair. This is little better than some strange form of socialism where you are unable to adequately gauge the rank and quality of a player unless they ace the game and maintain a near perfect record of victories. how is this different than games like Gran Turismo where you need to hit the perfect button combination every time within a fraction of a second to achieve a basic goal? Here the dynamic is skewed further because of the introduction of the random elements.

There are always players who can do this, but the disparity means that equal rank players will not be readily apparent because one has to ask, how many victories does this player have? The system dictates those with more victories are equalized and totaled in with players that have more losses than they do.

This reduces the overall quality of the title experience. If you don’t care about anything but dropping blocks, thats fine, go play Bejewled or Bubble Breaker. Once you introduce a scoring system your game mechanic has to function within that set of parameters in order to make sense of it all. If you don’t then frankly you are proving to me that you don’t really care all that much about your product or engaging the minds of people who play with some form of strategy and goals. This can be the difference between a great game and one that feels mediocre and sloppy.

Japanese games are notorious for punishing players instead of rewarding them, but Nintendo seems to have more than a few games designed where everyone is intentionally kept equal and unless they overcome the game itself, are not allowed to shine or stand-out. This is the worst kind of “everyone is special” crap that ruins games for those with anything more than a casual interest in them. Nobody likes to be kicked in the beanbag, but Nintendo’s only justification for this seems to be that you deserve it because you dared to display you are more talented than the other players.

Good game design does not force artificial punishment on players by exerting a “fairness doctrine”. Games are meant to be unfair but it has to prove this inequality by allowing people to succeed by allowing their talents to challenge each other without standing in their way.

In a way this post is where I give up. Jason has decided he wants to get away from punditry for Unfettered Blather and while I know he would never ask me to stop posting my rants here, I honestly don’t see the point to it anymore.

Someone once made a comment:

“Politics determines how we live our lives on earth, religion determines how we live our lives afterwards - I think people need to talk about it.”

There are a lot of pundit sites out there, at this point I think the fact that everyone can isolate themselves to their own blogs is a great way to make sure you never have to hear anyone but yourself, maybe you can garner a tribe of loyal followers. I have seen some where intelligent debate thrives but those are rare. I suppose forums are somewhat to blame for this, the struggle for dominance.

I like saying inflammatory things, mainly because the definition for what is inappropriate and incendiary is cast in an ever expanding net. It used to be “its not what you say, its how you say it”, this has eventually become “you can’t say that”.

Politics is the language of maturity because it involves change that effect everyone. Interest in the fundamentals of the political process seems to drop every day. I hear from an ever increasing number of people that they no longer watch the news because it is “depressing”. I can’t argue with this but I was raised with the idea that you search, read, filter and find the information to keep you informed. The news never depressed me because I was never given the expectation that life was merry sunshine. Life is tough and there are more bad people than good, but knowing that you take pride in perseverance and being informed on the truth, not opinion.

I suppose thats the final nail in this coffin, the fact that opinion and truth have become interchangeable to most people. It doesn’t matter if it is the truth, the truth is something individual, subject. Is it really the truth if it isn’t my truth?

Phillip K. Dick said “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

To be blunt, I’m tired of talking to people who spend their time trying to find new ways to make it go away.

Am I saying I know the truth? No, I have ideas and if I test them and they don’t withstand the test, I am wrong and I will never fail to admit it. Adhering blindly to anything in my view is dangerous but if you do believe it you need to be educated on the subject and able to explain it. Thats too much effort for most.

Nobody really wants to have a dialogue, politics has effectively become a split-level debate. People want to sound off on soapboxes, podiums where they can gush soundbites and unsupportable statistics. The other option is to button up and say nothing when the issue comes up for fear of an argument related to option one. This has given way to a form of extremely passive aggressive behavior where we toast our glasses, smile at how wrong the person is and ignore the debate.

I’m not trying to be smug, I’ve tried to be open and to carry on point, counterpoint conversations. The simple fact is I don’t like talking to people and having them pretend I’m not there.

Finally most people simply button-up when you try to broach the subject or make a comment. People are fearful of the very events and beliefs that will shape their lives. I’d rather make an enemy than a false friend. Do I judge people on politics? Certainly not in most cases, but I much rather feel I can be respected and share my beliefs and ideas with people instead of finding friendship and acquaintances that will remain as such as long as I don’t breach a list of taboos.

That being said I don’t feel I can contribute anything to the debate anymore. I won’t talk on forums, I’ve been that route for a firm decade. I’ve owned, ran and managed several more.

My new focus when the mood strikes me will be gaming articles and mainstream entertainment. My hobby certainly doesn’t fall in that category but recently I’ve approached a good friend about contributing to a national publication and they seemed very enthusiastic about my desire to write. Expect more news on this front!

Finally, now that I have made my triumphant return to gaming (with little or no fanfare - perhaps you haven’t heard!) I intend to focus heavily on game reviews and comparative efforts with Jason

Looking forward to 2009!!

I am now officially among the next generation console users (granted we bought a Wii months ago but I hardly consider it’s underutilized and over hyped frame to be next generation - yeah, I said it!).

Naturally I went out and bought several games for the machine and squandered hours of personal and more than a few moments of professional time on them.

Perhaps my approach isn’t quite equal but I am going to compare my reaction to Quake 4 and Call of Duty 3, titles that were released in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

I am not going to compare them as separate titles, rather my impressions and comments on the approach both games use to achieve their goals.

Quake 4 could be roughly described as “Doom on steroids”. Much of the fundamentals pioneered by Id Software in their original title is retained almost unaltered from it’s basic inception. If you played the original Quake (in 1996! - I had the Sega Saturn version I’ll have you know) , then Quake 4 is best viewed as a smoother, graphic update.

Call of Duty 3 follows along in many ways Quake 4 does, it is a sibling of a series which feels very similar in control and features with nearly all of the fundamentals being nearly identicle to it’s predecessors.

Given that both games share a common development theme ,why does Quake 4 in all of it’s basic features feel like an old friend where as CoD3 feels like an overplayed collection of themes and cliches?

I think presentation has a great deal to do with this reaction. I considered I may be biased in favor of Quake, I’ve always had an affinity for Id Software. Return to Castle Wolfenstein still rates as one of the finest console FPS experience I’ve had in terms of control and options quality (And at this point Jason can rightfully chastise me for beating this dead horse).

Even when I got past the Id “feel” of Quake 4 I still noticed I felt compelled to achieve more in it than CoD3.

I choose CoD 3 as an example because I have played some of the next gen Model of Honor titles and those I trust tell me that the newest CoD title (other than CoD4) is essentially the same title with a new setting. Given my affinity for all things gun based, Quake 4 represents an older style of FPS and the game tips the scales 3 years old give or take a month.

Quake 4 has it’s flaws but what strikes e about the game is that it holds ideas that are contrary to the current FPS generation of titles.

Quake is very much a game where you are the “bad ass” instead of some poor grunt that gets tossed on point for patrols. Games are an escapist fantasy for me and while there is something to be said for the lone grunt in an army of grunts feel, the theme has fast fallen on hard times. I can hardly chastise games for using the macho muscled hero that chomps a cigar when most seems to be equally obsessed with making you some grunt schmuck with nothing but a rifle and a prayer.

On a side note, has any of these developers actually met a special operations officer or Sgt.? My guess is a big fat “no”. While the truth usually falls somewhere in the middle, lean more towards cigar chomping baddass if you want to get your story straight.

CoD in it’s later incarnations seems to confuse this. The original Call of Duty punished rambo tactics in certain situations, CoD3 however seems to demand it in the bulk of cases to quell the endless supply of Germans or to force the rest of your unit to take action. In some instances the deadlock can only be broken by rushing in to the enemy, guns blazing at point blank ranges. I’ve found this tactic to be beneficial to relieve the sheer frustration some levels cause. I’m not sure what the line of reasoning was, you’re just another grunt who happens to be the only guy that can force and break the deadlock?

Quake 4 doesn’t have an endless sea of spawning bad guys, you can deplete an assault by Strogg troopers or grunts but these enemies adopt a “Come to Daddy” strategy. CoD usually forces the player to slowly advance against an entrenched enemy, in Quake you are on the defensive against an assault.

Quake also adheres to the life bar line of thinking which at times comes off as an artificial means to force the player in to resource management. Still this seems more logical than simply staying out of enemy fire for a few seconds to heal from the 20 rounds of MG42 you just absorbed. This comes down to personal preference in some cases as medpacks and engineers willing to heal your armor in quake aren’t hard to come by.

I often wondered what happened to being able to carry your own personal med kit to patch yourself up in the original CoD.

Damage seems to be another skewed concept in many FPS titles. There used to be a set of rules the player could estimate based on game experience and weapon type. CoD and Medal of Honor have tossed most of this in to the toilet and even the much hallowed “head shot” has lost it’s once vicious bite.

Ammo management is easy in Quake 4, a Grunt can take four concentrated shotgun blasts to drop it, 6 to 8 shots from the nail gun to pierce it’s hide. I can mentally catalog this and manage my ammunition, I have control over my ammo supply to a greater degree in the older Quake title than the CoD series.

How many shots does it take to kill someone in CoD3? I really have no idea, I know I have to pour a generous amount of it in to a particular enemy to put them down. Resource management is out the window in CoD and Brothers in Arms. Resupply of ammunition is dodgy, have a favorite weapon? Too bad, you’re going to get saddled with the MP40 in the bulk of the missions, like it or not. Lets not even talk about weapon accuracy at range in most new FPS titles.

Quake lets you carry more than one weapon, a concept that gets frowned upon by the realism crowd, but one I recently realized I missed. I like collecting guns, I like having them in the next level and I like being able to decide how the enemy pays with his life.

Quake suffers from it’s linear approach to most targets, flanking isn’t really an option and this makes the game feel restricted. Either you advance or fall back. The colored key concept and searching corridors is also outdated ideas but to Quake’s credit, the science fiction nature of the title makes this well within reason. That being said, many of the newer FPS titles fail to reward the player for using or trying different avenues of approach. Whats the difference between being forced to walk a corridor or choosing one of three options where only one is vaible? I could approach the German trench network from the left flank, but the machine gun fire makes the experience a futile. I don’t cut breaks for imaginary options.

When you are saddled with AI partners in Quake 4 their abilities are often on par or superior to most current titles. I never have to fear if an AI partner is capable of self-defense. They can die, but their death is within reason. AI’s in Quake have a purprose, the AI in CoD seems to be mostly cinematic or as sad bullet magnets to draw fire while you draw a bead before feeding a clip of Gewher 43 shots in to “Johan the uber kraut’s” face to coax him to his dirt nap.

Many of the old school style FPS get hammered for using out-of-date concepts, but most of those that have replaced them aren’t any better or in a few cases, worse than the alternative. I don’t think Quake 4 is the pinnacle of FPS titles, its an older game in terms of design and it shows. While some of it’s features will not be missed as games evolve, some are because they worked and worked very well.

Quake 4 has predictable aspect, but it’s that predictability in terms of resource management that makes the game entertaining because I am in greater control than in CoD3

Quake 4 is playable with a subtle arcade feel to it that motivates me to keep going. The difference at the end of my gaming day is, I often have to tell myself I have work the next morning with Quake 4, whereas with CoD3, I determined when I want to stop because of the frustration I’ve suffered.

I keep waiting for FPS games to blend the old and new ideas in to a working title and I am going to keep searching, but so far fad and trend seems to rule the day in the industry and people turn up their noses at older game styles when they should be tweaking instead of reinventing the wheel.

It’s the holiday season (no I am not going to sing the Andy Williams song so whoop-tee-do and dickory-dock!) and as to be expected people begin projecting their personal issues everywhere like Christmas lights.

Let me ask a question, one nobody really feels comfortable asking (my favorite kind)

I am never going to understand why people feel the need to attach their racial bias to something as generally accepted and universally understood as Santa Clause and even Jesus and the Disciples Both of these men either in historical or fanciful interpretations are either a white guy of European descent or of Jewish origins. There isn’t a legitimate debate here, Santa Claus is and always was a European concept.

Most people would say “Its no big deal”, but isn’t it?

What does Santa Clause represent afterall? He is a jolly fat man that rewards all good children with gifts. He has evolved over time to represent goodness, kindness and giving to all the children of the world, a spirit of generosity, one that is universally recognized.

Santa Clause as an image, when twisted reveals more about the people doing it than they may be comfortable with. Do you really need to pay homage to your visions of race with something as well-meaning and accepted as Santa Claus? Is the idea that you cannot abide a figure unless they are forged in an image you feel comfortable with. If you cannot accept Santa Claus because he is white or Jesus because he is Jewish, then why bother. The Jesus issue is especially pointed. If you believe in Him then he willingly offered up his life in exchange for the burden of your mortal sins, does this ultimate act of self-sacrifice only work for you if he is presented as being a member of your race?

This boils down to simple racism, Santa Claus and Jesus are images that evoke unity and love. If Santa and Jesus have to be Black, Hispanic or Asian, then you are a racist and you are perverting something wonderful to pander to a selfish vision. You are using them as cheap banners to tout your bias and looking like a first rate nutjob in the process.

I really can’t think of a better way to qualify your true feelings than to do this. If you really care about what the message is, then you will leave the images alone and respect them for the meaning.

Since Jason is too busy strutting about his personal management fiefdom, cruelly ordering his personal lackeys to whip the wage donkeys slaving away at their desktops, I decided to post today’s article.

Besides, after the last few days of mind-crushing stress I have gone completely loopy and an determined to screw off as much as possible today consequences be damned. Enough rationalizations already, lets get cracking baby!

I am not sure how the casual reader of this blog will take this post, mainly because Jason seems to have turned this place in to some unholy shine to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but I think breaking convention on occasion is a good thing..

I was watching The Escapist’s review of “Sonic Unleashed” and I couldn’t agree more with the fundamental point being made.

To generalize the question, lets broaden it’s scope a tad with: Why do so many 3D platform games just plain suck? I’ve played many of the titles mentioned in the review and once games like Mario and Sonic made the transition to the third-dimension the joy present in them quickly diminished. It’s not impossible to create a good 3D game with these character. Mario64 when it wasn’t trying to wow us with the mere fact it was 3D (something at times they seemed to relish to the point of narcissism) could create levels that retained much of the original’s charm. Granted these levels were few and far between (literally!) and much of the game was spent walking to these occasional gems with not so much as a koopa to bar your way.

3D games suffer from the fact that there just isn’t much to do but walk around the damned place. This gets thin and breaks flow, something the 2D brethren games were all about, you were flowing in one direction and most of the time the game could be described as a series of fast paced puzzles.

Sandbox is a theme that is a blessing and a curse. Being able to roam the environment in agame like Saints Row or Grand Theft Auto is fun because it adds a sense of depth outside of the missions, on games like Sonic and Mario this comes across as ancillary bullshit that gets in the way of the game. 2D games were all about the final goal, you were always heading towards that goal in one direction consistently, you never had to question the final result or wonder if you were progressing or just taking part in some fruitless mini-game exercise. This forward moving pathway was what made the games so addictive. I am sure we remember the feeling of playing “just one more level” in Sonic on the Genesis or Mario on the SNES. It brought you just one step closer.

3D games suffer from the same level, characters and environments over and over again. It just gets old going down the same streets to deliver some mcguffin to some random jerkoff to gain a minor advancement. Sandbox games are fine, but it’s fast becoming a tired concept where the complexity of the freedom is weighing down the gameplay. Few games do this well or understand it, Mercenaries on the PS2 ranks as one of the few titles I feel actually made good use of it.

3D games aren’t bad concepts they are just too cheap and too closely related to sandbox games for their own good. I firmly believe there is a lot of potential for them as a market but there needs to be a few changes

For starters, dump the overburdened sandbox aspect. No more going back through levels repeatedly or finding keys to open obscure doors in some house three stages back where you had to spend hours trying each door to find the right one. If you do this, fine, but do it in good taste and common sense. Limit your sandbox environment. There is nothing wrong with this if you pace the game and each reduced option leads to a better experience. Sandbox abuse is jsut as irritating as a lack of options but many developers err on the side of caution instead, giving us too much to do.

Secondly, get off your ass and design new levels, not variations of the same levels in the same city, new unrelated levels with new bad guys with different attacks. This isn’t easy (who said anything worth doing is easy? remember that saying guys?) but that was the charm of the past games. Remember “The Flying Battery Zone” in Sonic? The music? The electrified traps and adversaries? If you think ten baddies is great for an entire game, you’re not connecting, think big numbers. Challenge us, wow us with design and art.

Want to see a great 2D game that still holds it’s own? Play “Skull Monkeys” on the PS1, it is still a clever, creative title that took 2D games someplace new.

All of these big hardware specs mean nothing if you are going to create cheap titles that rehash the same monsters, levels and themes a few times over ad nauseum. I know we can do better than this. I know we can create charming games that entertain for more than 6 hours with most of that time being walking from location A to location B, there is just too damn much walking around in games period! I don’t feel like plunking down $60 to walk around. I have a sidewalk outside my apartment door for that.

Finally, if you want to capture the charm of a 2D game, just make a damn 2D game! There is nothing wrong with this style, especially considering how poorly many of their 3D compatriots are being viewed. Some of the most popular and well-received games are revived styles that were considered by many to be out of date. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Guilty Gear are prime examples of older game styles updated and loved by next generation players. I would gladly play a new 2D Sonic game with next generation graphics and level designs. Yet Team Sonic and Nintendo insist on trying to make a 3D game work come hell or high water. Why are people so dedicated to making bad ideas work when they obviously don’t understand the reasons behind success and failure?

Mario has had some success in this, Sonic is a dismal failure.

I don’t think 2D games are dead, they have been pushed out of the market by people who have failed to understand and capitalize on what made these games so popular and entertaining. 2D games aren’t out-of-date, they have been kicked to the curb because they wre no longer fashionable. This pretentious idea mixed with confused design has only lead to games best left unmentioned. Someone needs to really look long and hard at saving 2D and 3D action games from the confusion the average player feels when playing them. Direction is something these games sorely lack and I think the best way to do that is to tidy them up, drop the pointless wandering around with innumerable side quests and get back to the actual experience.