I'm running late today, having been set back by errands and other assorted lamenesses. So instead of my usual insightful greatness I will have to settle for a cop out list. Top 5 games ever made, ever. Good to better. Buy them all, perhaps twice over.
1) Samurai Showdown 5 (arcade): As much as I have loved the strategic fighting and near-perfect balance of Street Fighter 4, and more recently the adrenaline fueled ultra stylistic slugfest that is Blazblue, neither of them compare to the raw fighting perfection that is Samurai Showdown 5. The game is perfectly styled so that it looks exactly like a cheesy (but awesome) old school Japanese samurai flick. And how does it play? Like butter, my friend. It is cerebral without slowing the pace down too much. This game is all about outsmarting your opponent, no button mashing allowed.
2) Gears of War (Xbox 360): As the Doom 2 manual might put it: Chainsaw bayonet, 'nuff said. Revolutionary game dynamics fuel the short but sweet single player romp through a fun, if unintelligible, storyline. But the real treat is the multiplayer. It is a true testament to how groundbreaking and great the multiplayer dynamics were in this game when people (myself included) played the hell out of it DESPITE the almost ridiculously bad netcode.
3) The Gladiators: Galactic Circus Games (PC): A super innovative RTS from an unknown French developer that went right underneath just about everybody's radar. But not mine. Gameplay wise it is comparable to more recent titles like World in Conflict, only this game did it about 4 years earlier. The singleplayer is a decent Myth style romp, but the multiplayer is where this game shines. There are more good game design choices here than you can count. Unfortunately, the multiplayer servers are no longer in operation, but do yourself a favor and LAN this sucker. You won't regret it.
4) Counter-Strike (PC, the xbox one (which I had) kind of blew): This one just has to get on the list. In my opinion, CS is the game most responsible for changing multiplayer gaming from a novelty niche to something that everybody can be interested in. This game was a perfect storm for me. I had been gaming online for a couple of years already; but playing Quake, TFC, AvP, and Rainbow Six on a 56k was definitely more about the novelty of playing with people around the world and less about having a lot of gaming fun. It came around just as my parents had upgraded to a cable modem. The rest, as they say, is history. I have easily logged more hours into CS than any other multiplayer game, probably by a factor of three or more. And it was a free mod!
5) Vampire : The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC): I realize that those of you who don't already know the amazing quality of this game are thinking "a game that barely scratches out an 80 on Metacritic is the best game ever made?" The short answer is yes, yes it is. There has never been a roleplaying game with a more immersive, better crafted world and world-lore ever made. Really, the game just does what so many other games have prided themselves in doing, but it does it better. Complex moral decisions (Fable)? It gets done here better. Believable game world filled with realistic characters with multiple agendas (Oblivion)? It gets done here better. A horror sequence that can scare the piss out of you (a dozen lame survival horror games)? Check+, the creepiest game sequence I've ever encountered. The game is perfect... Except for some of the near game breaking bugs. This is how you can account for the less than perfect reviews. Essentially, at launch the game was near unplayable due to bugs. Lucky for you, launch was several years ago. The game continues to get fan patches to this day and I can tell you from personal experience that it is now immensely playable and enjoyable. Pick this thing up on Steam for around $20. You won't regret it.
There you have it. My first Top 5. But why are you still reading? Go pick up Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. NOW!
Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaming. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
My game is longer than yours
There has been much debate lately as to a trend emerging that games are getting shorter and shorter. It is certainly true that some of the biggest recent games have been notably shorter than previous big releases. Games like Gears of War, Bioshock, and Call of Duty 4 (to name a few) were all less than 10 hour affairs.
But is this a good thing?
Many think not, and they may have a point. After all, console games, at $60, cost more than ever before. Add to that the new trend in microtransactions and downloadable content that a lot of people think (and not unfairly) is content that should of been in the game at launch anyway, and you can see why some gamers aren't too fond of shorter games.
Yet it wasn't too long ago that some games were actually advertised for being particularly long. I believe it was one of the Final Fantasy games that claimed to clock in at well over 50 hours. And surely, if you actually play a game for 50 hours you are getting more bang for your buck. But can a game even hold your interest for 50 hours?
Not for me it can't. For my part, once a game hits about the 8 hour mark I begin to grind through the gameplay just so that I can see the ending. Good games can reach 9 hours before this happens. Great games, just 10. The simple fact is that games, by their nature, force you to do similar tasks over and over. By giving you a new weapon or ability the game buys itself a certain amount of freshness and extends its life by an amount of time. In the last few years we have seen developers add in so-called "palate cleanser" levels that act as a short-but-sweet distraction from the main part of the game. Usually it works (HL2:Ep2 antlion turret segment), sometimes it doesn't (GoW2 tank segments, looking at you); but it is clear that the segments are there to extend the life of the game by giving gamers a break from the repetition of the main gameplay bits. Developers are taking note.
I don't think it is a coincidence that the best games coming out have been smaller. What's more, I think it all boils down to simple logic: The longer the game is the harder it is to pack it with fresh content. Long games end up having to use fatty, boring filler segments. In the August '09 issue of Game Informer, John Carmack essentially agrees by criticizing his own Doom 3 for being too long. It is because of games striving for length that we saw the now infamous design tactic of retreading through a level emerge (In what was one of the few universal criticisms for the game, Halo was infamous for this).
Furthermore, by design long games encourage "shelf level events". The term, which I first heard used by Viridian Games (great design blog), means any in-game event that moves you to take the disc out of the drive and stop playing, indefinitely. Typically, it means big game breaking bugs that make you reload to an earlier save, or a frustratingly hard sequence. But after so many hours, when you are getting bored anyway, the threshold for what will turn you off from the game lowers dramatically.
Was that Final Fantasy game 50 hours+? Maybe, but I don't want to bother playing it to find out.
Full disclosure: I hate JRPGS as a rule anyway. Maybe Final Fantasy whatever was great...
No it wasn't.
But is this a good thing?
Many think not, and they may have a point. After all, console games, at $60, cost more than ever before. Add to that the new trend in microtransactions and downloadable content that a lot of people think (and not unfairly) is content that should of been in the game at launch anyway, and you can see why some gamers aren't too fond of shorter games.
Yet it wasn't too long ago that some games were actually advertised for being particularly long. I believe it was one of the Final Fantasy games that claimed to clock in at well over 50 hours. And surely, if you actually play a game for 50 hours you are getting more bang for your buck. But can a game even hold your interest for 50 hours?
Not for me it can't. For my part, once a game hits about the 8 hour mark I begin to grind through the gameplay just so that I can see the ending. Good games can reach 9 hours before this happens. Great games, just 10. The simple fact is that games, by their nature, force you to do similar tasks over and over. By giving you a new weapon or ability the game buys itself a certain amount of freshness and extends its life by an amount of time. In the last few years we have seen developers add in so-called "palate cleanser" levels that act as a short-but-sweet distraction from the main part of the game. Usually it works (HL2:Ep2 antlion turret segment), sometimes it doesn't (GoW2 tank segments, looking at you); but it is clear that the segments are there to extend the life of the game by giving gamers a break from the repetition of the main gameplay bits. Developers are taking note.
I don't think it is a coincidence that the best games coming out have been smaller. What's more, I think it all boils down to simple logic: The longer the game is the harder it is to pack it with fresh content. Long games end up having to use fatty, boring filler segments. In the August '09 issue of Game Informer, John Carmack essentially agrees by criticizing his own Doom 3 for being too long. It is because of games striving for length that we saw the now infamous design tactic of retreading through a level emerge (In what was one of the few universal criticisms for the game, Halo was infamous for this).
Furthermore, by design long games encourage "shelf level events". The term, which I first heard used by Viridian Games (great design blog), means any in-game event that moves you to take the disc out of the drive and stop playing, indefinitely. Typically, it means big game breaking bugs that make you reload to an earlier save, or a frustratingly hard sequence. But after so many hours, when you are getting bored anyway, the threshold for what will turn you off from the game lowers dramatically.
Was that Final Fantasy game 50 hours+? Maybe, but I don't want to bother playing it to find out.
Full disclosure: I hate JRPGS as a rule anyway. Maybe Final Fantasy whatever was great...
No it wasn't.
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