Velocity Eleven

My Top 500 Games

2017-01-05T07:59:00.001-08:00

Dates Of My Top 10 Games

2014-07-16T18:54:00.001-07:00

I was thinking just now about my top 10 games list. not the games themselves as much as their release dates and the dates that I first played them. On average, how often do I play a new game where I feel it deserves a place in my top 10? (and you can think about this for your own top 10). Firstly, remember that my top 10 isnt fully defined at this stage, so I may reference games that linger around the 11-15 mark too.

Dates Released
I think that in general there should be a relatively wide range of dates of when your top 10 games were released. Not that is HAS to be that way, there are many factors that can prevent that. Looking at my own, the dates of mine, they are rather scattered: a chunk from 1992-2000, a chunk from 2000-2010 and even one from 2014.

Dates Played
I think it would make sense that somebody's top 10 would be something they played for the first time not too far in the past. Reason being that when you are young you are less aware of what you are missing out on, and any of the games you don't game may be fantastic but you would have no way of knowing. These days you can get at least a vague idea by looking up Youtube videos and through this you also have a higher chance of stumbling across something you never heard of before (I had no idea what Mega Man, Metroid or Castlevania were before I had internet access, and those are big franchises). Also there is the fact that when you are young there is much less buying potential, you'd have to hope that your parents get you a game or you'd have to just get one randomly and hope it's good. For myself, most of these games I played from 2000 onwards. 2000-2003 was a solid set of years for these games. there were a couple before, one being around 1999 and one possible being around 1995 but the bulk I would say linger in the 2000-2003 era. Now more recently there are games I first played in 2007(ish), 2010 and 2014 that all lie in this top 10. Does this mean that on average, the next game that jumps up into my top 10 should be around 2017 or 2018? Of course we also have to consider that as games enter the top 10, something else has to leave, meaning the gaps can get bigger.

I think the experience of getting a new game and saying "this is going in my top 10" is fantastic and I'd love to get it more often. But also consider that as more games add to the list, the "fantastic" range grows too. How far back on my list would i have to go before saying "this game is fantastic"? it's a good question and not one i'm really sure of. I would take a guess at 30 but that's just wild speculation at this point. Do I think I will ever get that same surge of greatness that I did in 2000-2003? no, it was a big moment of discovery that I don't think could be replicated at this point (though I'd love to be wrong on that). If I can just add games to the list that are high enough to fit in (or even close to) by top 10 that would be fantastic (though I'd like some more non-Final Fantasy games to get there to be honest, just for the sake of reducing the risk of not being taken seriously, but such is the way of things).

I'm interested to know how this is for other people. Is it common to have a sudden burst of games you rate so highly all at once or is it more common to be introduced to them bit by bit over time?

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

2014-02-23T05:17:00.001-08:00

I have been watching a few Lightning Returns reviews, as in IGN, Gamespot, Gametrailers etc. Overall they've been rather negative (which I just expect for a Final Fantasy game now). They all say the story is bad (which I'm not bothered about in the slightest). Some say that the time limit ruins the ability to explore and this is something I've never understood. Surely you need some sort of constraint to make you need to gather as much information as you can, as opposed to just making everything so easily available that you just go everywhere cause you can. It's because of the time limit that the distance between certain points matters a lot more, plus it makes you think of the implications of unusual layouts that most games don't do. I often hear "I like to take my time" but honestly, given new game+ you will learn and "explore" the world in such interesting ways and honestly, who purposefully plays a game slowly? If you want to discover what the world has to offer, surely you'd be trying to gather as much information as possible and consider it's implications on you (the player). Lightning Returns does just that, it's because of the time limit that learning stuff is rewarded. Plus, the new game+ means that you'll be able to explore more and more every time with greater ease. In fact, long-term restraints is the exact opposite of what FF13 did (which everyone complained about).

No EXP from battles is something that I was curious about at the start because I wasn't sure how it would work, but the reviews have been so dismissive. This is something that irritates me, when people complain about the idea of something before considering (or even having a chance to get to know) the context. You don't get EXP but you do get gil, EP recovery and items. Gil is very important because the harder battles require use of many potions if you're not strong enough. Items includes abilities which can be combined to create more powerful versions with the bonus of additional stat growth. EP is great because there are really powerful abilities that consume EP, including chronostasis which freezes game-time temporarily, curaga and arise. Strangely, when you run out of HP, that's when you have access to reviving spells and items. Items are limited to 6 items total (so no more getting 99 potions) and this is great, it means that you need to be more careful with what types of potions you buy (and there's a lot of variety) and increasing the quantity you can hold means less time being used up going to shops.

Whilst a lot of people have been going "No EXP from battles? A time limit? Humbug!" I have been using those mechanics to consider long-term the implications of my actions. All it does is increase the number of variables to make the information you gather usable in different ways. Put it this way, if you have every played and enjoyed any game without traditional EXP, then you have no reason to assume that the lack of that EXP will be a bad thing. I know I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here but I really need to point this out: you simply cannot make an instant judgement on something if in any other circumstance there is something where you don't judge it from the same parameters! Lack of EXP will make the game bad? Did lack of EXP make Super Mario Bros bad? No? Oh that's different because it's a platform game? What about the platform games with EXP? Are those games bad because platform games shouldn't have EXP? Why would a platform game not be made instantly better or worse with EXP but another game would? Oh it's because any game with turn-based mechanics requires EXP? I guess you must hate almost every board game then. Though again, Lightning Returns still functions as an RPG for the reasons I have stated in the first couple paragraphs.

One review actually said that in order to escape from a battle, you need to both exhaust all your reviving items/spells AND run out of HP... this is completely untrue, you can escape a battle at anytime with no hassle at all, only with the cost that a game-hour will be lost. Speaking of which, thats another thing people have been complaining about, the fact that escaping from battle costs a game-hour, but how is this a bad thing? The idea of this game is that you'll play through multiple times getting better each time (carrying stuff over). It's hypocritical to first complain about how battles dont give EXP and then complain that a particular system that is used to reward those who have played a long time with not only higher stats but extra available time (via the lack of need to escape).

Something that the reviews didn't touch on was the how the game handles speed requirements. Similar to 13 and 13-2, you are rewarded for acting fast, but rather than creating a direct link between speed and reward, there is a speed-threshhold that you need to maintain in order to get as much out of the battle as you can. As long as you're faster than the ATB bars then further speed won't help you any further (though sometimes like in 13, the speed requirements can be really fast). The battle system I would say is not as good as 13 but still really good. Where 13 gave you 6 paradigms with options that didnt have a direct use (via the uncertain variables with auto-attack), Lightning Returns has 3 schemata (kinda the same thing) with 4 options that have a more obvious use. What I'm mostly finding less appealing about Lightning Returns is how the stagger works. There is no balance between stagger boosting and preventing stagger recovery. As opposed to a bar that tells you the percentage of stagger there is a vague coloured squiggly line. Stagger itself seems to be rather binary, in that it's only varied between "stagger" and "not stagger" so the act of balancing and the dynamism between each of the characters isn't in this game so much. That being said, the battle system is still great.

Lightning is alone this time around though the different schemata have so much difference that it's like having three characters to switch between. Each schemata has their own abilities, stats, ATBs and HP. Only one of those schemata needs to run out of HP for you to die. So hey, it's kinda like that "one character dies it's game over" thing that everyone loves to complain about, but I guess nobody will complain about it this time because all three schemata are story-wise "the same character". It's amazing how you can prevent complaints by changing the way something is presented without actually changing the mechanic itself. One thing I am loving is how EP and time work together, and it's making me come up with ideas for EP abilities that I may or may not find later in the game. What if there's an EP ability where you can access any shop on the spot without the time needed to travel (like in FF8)? That would be sweet!

I'm really enjoying this game (a lot more than I did with FF13-2), it is strange but Final Fantasy games always change things around. If I had to compare this to any other games, I would have to say Dead Rising, Valkyrie Profile and Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter. The metacritic score for this game is currently 66 for PS3 and 69 for XBox 360 (no idea why they'd be different). I have just come to expect this now, and I won't be surprised if it happens again for FF15. An FF game gets released, everybody slams the games and complains, I love them. Though one thing I do find kind of strange is that when the complainers say that they want old-school traditional RPGs, I agree with them, I just think the Final Fantasy series is still doing great regardless of what they have been doing ("regardless" being retroactive, I withhold judgement of future titles).

PS. I use the word "complainers" because I think the word "critics" is often misused. A critic means somebody who is critical which does not mean they're always negative. To be critical means to be thorough in their assessment.

Adding More To A Game Haphazardly Can Lead To Exploitation

2013-12-26T06:11:00.000-08:00

I sometimes feel that Borderlands 2 has no (or little) notion of how numbers work and how numbers effect players' motivations. It comes across as though they just assumed that badass rank is something that the player will get over time. However you can find a way to just grind one of them and the rewards are so high for a slight increase in "challenges" that it makes the payoff hugely rewarding. For example, getting "second winds" with pistols gives you BR towards the "Hard Boiled" challenge:

2 seconds winds with pistols = 1 badass rank
another 3 SWs with pistols = another 5 BR
another 10 SWs with pistols = another 10 BR
another 15 SWs with pistols = another 50 BR
another 20 SWs with pistols = another 100 BR

see how ludicrous that gets? it goes from 0.5 BR per SW to 5.

I ended up running into Boom Bewm's lair, allowing constantly respawning psychos to kill me so I could then get my second wind on them. I don't think the designers intended for people to find a spot where they could "reliably get killed" over and over for the sake of gaining massive points but that's what ended up happening.

The second wind mechanics is something that always confused me too, so you're rewarded more for dying whilst nearly having killed an enemy more so than if you fully kill it?

But really I just wanted to show that if you add "more stuff" to a game then you need to make sure it isn't so exploitative. At least if you actually want to make something exploitative, make it a challenge to figure it out. What I don't want to see is more stuff being added under the assumption that it adds depth, because it may not actually be the case.

On a side note: In the menu screen, why does the EXP to level up display the total amount of EXP in numbers yet the corresponding bar only show the EXP within the current level?

My Reaction To The Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Guided Tour Video

2013-12-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

So after the first two games (even though I like the first a lot more than the second) I am looking forward to this. Even the "bad" FF games are still fantastic in my book so it's only natural. However watching this raises a slight cause for concern...

How to explain? It's not so much that anything looks "bad" so-to-speak, but it's the way the narrator describes the features. Using phrases like "more direct control that ever before in the Final Fantasy series" which insinuates that the belief that a turn-based system gives you "less control" is true... now from a complete technical standpoint that is false, and a generalisation. Any game can have more or less "control" regardless of the system they use. Although the way they describe these things doesn't actually change what is in the game, it makes me weary that they either believe the generalisations or are just going along with them for the sake of marketing, and when they market based on a common fallacy that people make, this brings their motives into question. What I really don't want is for Square Enix to actually go along with that mentality regardless of weather it is for the sake of what they truly believe or pure marketing. Marketing is understandable, they want the game to sell, but marketing based off a lie makes me sad. Can we please stop this trend of calling mechanics "outdated" when they're just different? Can we please stop making hasty generalisations about a game's system just because it does something a particular way? Also, on the subject of control, can we please stop pretending that having more control is always going to be better than having less?

Now other examples of what I'm talking about here include the colour selection for Lightning's clothes and the gross misuse of the word "exploration" which seems to have become a buzz-word during the seventh gen and really is only ever used to describe exploration of the geographic variety (not saying that Lightning Returns only has exploration of the geographical variety by the way, I'm just talking about the way the word is used). I'm also talking about the photo feature which I can't imagine being any use for other than to show off the outfit colours (by the way, the ability to take screenshots in general would be neat, like what the vita does)

Regardless, I am looking forward to this and I'm interested to see how the "time limit" thing in action. I read somewhere before that the game runs off a time limit and you can reset it with a New Game+. I imagine this fits well with a more open-word style game because it allows you to take advantage of learning different locations, the dash feature seems a bit odd but it also makes sense to have that since better equipment will let you do it for longer and this also meshes together with the time limit. This is the type of thing you get in Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter or Dead Rising, and I am generally a fan of the whole "start again but keep some of the stuff you got last time" idea, it allows you to adapt and (for lack of a better word) "immerse" yourself in how the world works (I hate that word).

See what I'm doing there? I'm thinking about how the mechanics work in conjunction with each other and how they facilitate each other. That's what I want to see more of instead of hasty generalisations.

Large Punishments For Failure Is A Design Choice

2013-12-01T03:25:00.001-08:00

I was browsing Facebook and found that somebody said that in the new Kingdom Hearts HD edition there is a smaller punishment for death. He then went on to say that having large punishments for death is inherently a bad thing and "archaic"

I completely disagree, the size of the punishment for failure is not inherently a bad thing but rather a design choice that may be good or bad. It is not the equivalent of having a long load screen or glitchy graphics.

Now KH as an example I'm not sure, I couldn't say that KH is better off or worse off either way because I'd have to think about it. But the "lack of punishment for death" is absolutely an example of hand-holding (not necessarily easiness, but hand-holding). It does of course depend on the game and what you're doing in the game. If the individual events of the game are really hard then a large punishment for death only adds to that difficulty.

But let's talk about the large punishments in general: If you are sent back a long way for death then this results in the game rewarding certain types of skills that I (as a big RPG fan) find admirable. For example: planning ahead, knowing your limits, being careful. The first point I want to make is that by making checkpoints more sparse, you must therefore as a result approach the game in a completely different way that certain people (including myself) find very engaging.

Planning ahead and knowing your own limits is a big factor in this. It's about conceptualizing the situation and preparing yourself. If you see a bonus 3-hour dungeon with no save points or boss that takes 2 hours to kill, you better be damn well sure that you can do it. The game puts the whole process in your mind and makes you appreciate what your own skills and abilities are. When you finally say to yourself that you are ready, you feel really attached to who you are and what you're able to accomplish. You also get that "on-edge" feeling. I know those are extreme examples, but examples none-the-less

Large punishments by their nature also result in large rewards. If you conquered that 3-hour saveless dungeon, how badass do you feel? how epic was that victory? How proud are you? You managed to climb that mountain.

Small punishments also diminish the effects of decision making with uncertain results. For example, you find a chest, you know it will either contain a potion or it will be a poison trap. Ideally you want it to result in giving you a potion but given the possibility that it may be a poison trap, there is a reason to decide to not open it. Now if you had just passed a checkpoint, you could just open it and then reload back to the checkpoint if it turned out to be a poison. However if your checkpoint was a while back, you have to carefully consider whether or not opening the chest is worth doing given the parameters of its effects. In this scenario, the decision making process has value. It makes you appreciate the consequences of your decision and the decision making process that the game sends you through because the act of making that decision has more quantifiable results.

This doesn't just apply to decisions though, it also applies to skill. If you have far away checkpoints then the risk-reward loop is expanded. What I mean by this is that you need to consider your skill on parts larger parts of the game before you can dismiss it. For example, if you have a platform game that is an hour long with no saving, you need to consider the game as an entire over-arching system as opposed to a series of case-by-case scenarios. Without saving, you may be able to complete level 7 fine, but you can still improve yourself and benefit from improving if you manage to do it without losing lives (for example). But if the game saved between levels, you could complete level 7 once and then erase it from your mind. By removing these save-points, you need to consider and appreciate the game as a whole system. It means that even though you can complete level 5 without issue, it still matters to you because you might slip-up one time and that adds dynamism and value to your consistent abilities (more on dynamism later).

But with larger punishments, you end up having to repeat more gameplay you've already done right? wrong! What actually results in more repeating gameplay is difficulty. If a game has closer checkpoints together then it is fundamentally easier, and that easiness needs to be balanced by making the individual events more challenging. A more challenging game results in more deaths and being sent back more frequently. What has more repetition: a game where you have to play a 30-minute segment twice, or one where you have to play a 3-minute segment 20 times? I'd probably say the playing a 3-minute section 20 times depending on the dynamism. This is one reason I got so bored with Uncharted

About dynamism, just because you are repeating a segment of the game does not mean the game will be *exactly* the same. Different things you encounter can change the tide of how that segment will go. A shorter time-frame means there is less viability for dynamism to happen. If you think of a flow chart: the bigger the flow chart, the more possibility there is for the process to go into alternate routes. When you play Super Meat Boy, a jump over a pit is always exactly the same jump every time with next to no dynamism. Also, given the pure difficulty of Super Meat Boy, you could end up making that same jump 40 or 50 times. I'm not bashing Super Meat Boy by the way, I do like that game, it just works as an example how constant checkpoints don't facilitate for as much dynamism.

The message that I really want to push is that large punishments for failure is not a bad thing by it's very nature. I am sure Super Meat Boy wouldn't be as good if you had just 3 lives and no saving. Super Meat Boy was built for the sake of testing the player to overcome a challenge in an enclosed environment and infinite lives suits that particular game. I am also sure that even big games with big-punishment segments don't need them all the time, and I know that large punishments can hinder a game if the game isn't suited or built towards it. I am not saying all games need to have big punishments for failure, I'm just saying that to erase it as a design choice stifles the ranges of fun players can have and creativity from designers is limited. As I am seeing this "anti-punishment" attitude crop up more and more often from both players and designers, it makes me sad that creativity and the range of fun is being limited like this.

Is Ryse: Son Of Rome Even Legal?

2013-11-24T04:41:00.000-08:00

So let me get this straight... in Ryse: Son Of Rome, the QTEs will still be successful, even if you fail to hit the button... what!? so now "press X to not die" has become "press X to not be frozen for a second"... and this game has microtransactions too! now you know how much I hate microtransactions in general, but given that all the attacks are a few simple reactionary button presses (which are essentially QTEs) mixed with actual QTEs which you can't fail, what are they even for? All the skills are passive skills so there's no new attacks to learn. This means that either the game hits a paywall where you need the bonuses to progress or the game is so easy that you don't need them. When you make the mechanics so mind-numbing that there is so little input from them player, microtransactions are nothing but a paywall in disguise

The XBox One has just come out! $500 for the console and $60 for a shitty game isn't enough? You want people to then pay even more money to allow them to get through the game faster? THEY WANT YOU TO PAY MORE MONEY FOR LESS OF A GAME!!! And they describe the microtransactions as a "convenience" and the QTEs with not buttons but with flashy lights. That's what it's all about, deception. They think we're idiots. Microsoft! Crytek! Stop! FUCKING STOP! This is insulting at best! I literally feel queezy thinking about this.

It seems as though they want to bore us. We are approaching 2014 afterall, and we have many many examples of what makes a good game. Maybe that's the whole point. People being tricked into thinking there is a value to completing the game (through their "I've already bought it" bias and achievements) and then being threatened with more time playing the boring game if they don't pay up. Threatening to remove time from our life and turning it into unfulfilled dead-time, and doing this on such a wide-scale that its effectively distributed-murder. (By the way, I understand that the quality of a game comes down to opinion, but opinion only gets you so far)

You know what we call this kind of practice? The kind of practice where you threaten to harm somebody (with boredom in this case) if they don't pay up under the guise of "protection" (or in this case as they call it: "convenience")? EXTORTION! Last time I checked, extortion isn't legal in the US, so why are they getting away with it? Oh that's right, because they're disguising it under "gameplay" and "convenience" just as they tried to disguise their QTEs with flashing lights. I cannot believe for one second that this game was made with the intent of making money from it's quality (as all games should!). I cannot believe that at the end of 2013, they failed to understand what actually makes a game valuable to the player, they must know! they have to know! they've been in the business for so long and they have seen successful games in the past work and sell. I do not believe for a second that they made Ryse with the intention of it's gameplay being worth the purchase

This is why I don't buy into the whole "companies exist to make money" argument. Sure, they do, but that's no excuse for a company to use practices that only benefits themselves whilst also draining away from the overall global value. For example: is it ok for a company to take money from starving families so the CEO can buy his fifth car? no? exactly.

You may think I'm over-reacting but I honestly don't think I am. I hope the gameplay is just a symptom of there being a new console where they want to show off the graphics... but the microtransactions are inexcusable. I cannot see how this game is adding any value, I can only see how it is damaging. I really hope I'm wrong... at least the game's getting bad reviews.

Genre Is Not The Goal

2013-10-23T03:55:00.002-07:00

so after a lengthy "debate" with somebody on a facebook group, I'll just state this here:

Genre is not the goal that games must strive for, rather it is a brief and simplified way of giving single line descriptions. Every game has different levels of focus on different mechanics and therefore the level of focus on a mechanic determines the weight of how important it is for that mechanic to be good.

For example, having a glitch that makes the jump button not work is a problem, no doubt about that. But to say that it breaks Super Mario Bros. the same way it would break Tekken 2 is demonstrably wrong. In Tekken 2, you can still play the game rather easily and rather enjoyably without jumping. Super Mario Bros. on the other-hand is massively crippled by this and game becomes completely unplayable. Super Mario Bros focuses a lot more on jumping than Tekken 2 does, and therefore when judging Super Mario Bros, we need to examine the jumping much more than we do for Tekken 2. This should be really simple but some people just don't seem to get it.

If you are like the person I was *ahem* "debating" with last night, and think that a game must tick off a list of pre-set check-boxes based on the arbitrary genre we assign to it, you know who else uses this method? salesmen! At this point it's not about making a game as a form of expression or as a means to engage the player in it's mechanics, rather just you're just going through the motions. You know what we call games designed purely to sell? shovelware! "has it been a year since the last release? check! do we have the celebrity to target the teenage african-american males? check!"

If we are gamers, then judge a game on the quality of what the game IS. DO NOT use the genre labels as the be-all and end-all. To do so facilitates shovelware, to not do so facilitates creativity.

On a side note, going out of your way to try to make a game that doesn't fit neatly into a single box is the same problem. You would still be using genre as a benchmark to determine your goal. Rather just ignore the boxes entirely, just make the games that you think will be good, and if they just so happen to fit neatly into a box, then so be it.

My Crash Bandicoot Soundtrack Ritual

2013-09-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

Since the early days of 2013 I've found myself listening to the Crash Bandicoot soundtrack a lot, and I mean a lot. Looking at my last.fm page (http://last.fm/user/velocity_eleven) it is my most listened to album of the past 12 months. It's not that this is my favourite album, not by any means so why have I listened to it so much?

Well to start with I suppose we could ask the question of why we listen to game soundtracks in the first place. Is it purely on the quality of the music? Well I would say not purely, they allow us to "reconnect with the game world" pardon my artsy-speak. Crash Bandicoot was the first PSX game I got and I have strong memories of it. One memory in particular (which you may not consider a nice one) was one night when I had a watch with an alarm on it, it had the snooze option enabled and it would keep going off throughout the night. I couldn't turn it off because the buttons were very hard to press and they hurt given how small they were. I was kept awake all night to the point where I eventually stopped trying and just kept myself awake. I spent the whole night playing Crash Bandicoot and I specifically remember playing on Toxic Waste (perhaps my least favourite level). I was young and I hadn't stayed up so late before so being awake when the sun was rising was a completely new experience for me. This was in my old bedroom that faced east, so the sun actually appeared through my window as it rose. Given this, it was probably around summer when it happened. Despite not having sleep and having my annoying watch bleep every so often, it was quite relaxing. I was in bed playing Crash Bandicoot and the sun was rising. It was like a kind of meditation, in a way.

Now Crash Bandicoot's soundtrack itself is rather tribal and minimalistic, which itself fits into this memory. I guess I associate it with relaxation along with the game world itself. The music is catchy but never over-bearing and to be honest, I can't think of any other game soundtrack that meets all these characteristics. Crash 2 and 3 surely have good soundtracks but they are much more lively and far less tribal. I listen to the album when I'm relaxing. Relaxing "in the background" so to speak, as I'm often doing other things, such as writing this right now I'm listening to The High Road. I listen to it when I'm working on something or generally lazing around on Facebook. There are other albums that are good for this sure but Crash is always the one I come back to probably due to the memories associated with the game. I have also done the same with other game soundtracks such as Rayman and Streets Of Rage. I do love game soundtracks in general for the musical quality and the memories of the games associated with them. Game soundtracks are like a way to bring back the "feeling" of the game without the time needed to be used actually playing it. I do love other game soundtracks too, just yesterday I was listening through Final Fantasy VIII and I have had a phase where I listened to Final Fantasy Origins a lot as well as Super Hang-On, but Crash Bandicoot is always the one I come back to.

I suppose Crash Bandicoot is the only album that truly fills this need I have. The need for a tribal, natural, minimalistic album whilst also holding the benefits of being a game soundtrack. It has become some sort of ritual now, I listen to it before going to bed and I use it to time how long I am going to spend before doing something else (it's 69 minutes). Even the tracks that don't fit this description like Heavy Machinery or Cortex Power, I still do enjoy them in the same way. As for my favourite tracks, I'm not sure, they're all great pretty much. Some that stand out to me though are The Great Gate, Sunset Vista, Temple Ruins, The High Road and Koala Kong. My only real down points of the album is this game's version of Cortex's theme and how the first few tracks are all essentially the same tune along with the intro sequence.

Overall I do love the album though and I imagine I will listen to it every day for a long time. It has so much ambiance in it along with nice tunes, and you don't really get soundtracks like this. Most game soundtracks have a lot going on in them, not many focus on simply creating an atmosphere. Well some do, to an extent, but still Crash Bandicoot's soundtrack is what I'm loving right now.

What I Want To See In The Next Generation Of Games (But Don't Expect)

2013-08-19T11:15:00.004-07:00

I'm going to make a list of things I would like to see in the next generation of games. Note that these are not things that I expect to see (far from it), just things I'd like to see:

1. Work on a lower budget, if you need to make millions of sales in the first day to make a penny of profit then there's a problem, aim to make money but don't overload yourself.

2. Fewer celebrity endorsements. I don't care if David Beckham likes Fifa or if Tony Hawk likes skateboarding games for the same reason that I don't care if Queen Elizabeth likes King's Quest.

3. lower prices for games with so many iterations. Now if a series has significant differences every time then it's not so bad, but 45 pounds for a new Dynasty Warriors game? fuck off.

4. None of this "if you pay us, we will help you win" bullshit, of course its bound to happen though.

5. Make DLC worth it. I don't mind paying some more money for more content but the price has to be reasonable, 4 pounds may sound cheap but if you get 30 minutes of playtime for it then it most likely isn't.

6. Different business models. I'm fine with a range of business models as long as they're not exploitative. I am honestly interested to see what different ideas there are. Something like episodic games or even the "season pass" idea where new content is released over time. It's a way to keep people interested and even hyped over a longer period of time. Of course this doesn't work for everything and in some cases it would be horrible, and as mentioned in number 5, it would have to be worth the cost.

7. Games with RISK! Like you know, not healing by standing behind a wall or going back 1 minute if you get killed. Also, to note, there is a difference between difficulty and risk. I want more games where I can't save everywhere. Games where I need to consider stuff outside of the 10-seconds that I'm currently playing in.

8. Fewer FPSs, speaks for itself.

9. Less masculinity. Now I'm not asking for Barbie or dress-up games (that would be even worse). Rather I'm looking for a reduction in the amount of burly men with guns in grey/brown areas and "fuck" or "shit" being used more commonly than the word "the". Some manliness is fine, love myself some Motorstorm, but c'mon! enough's enough.

10. Less concentrated focus on single games. What I mean is that is that I want to see more focus on a wider variety of games, rather than having 7 minutes of E3 dedicated to showing the first level of the next God Of War game, use that time to show a bit of a few separate more diverse games.

11. During E3, here are a couple words I want to hear spoken a lot less: "immersive" and "experience". Not every game have to be "immersive" in the sense of "feeling you are there". I want to play a game, not act out a play. Also, "experience" isn't a fancy way of saying "game".

12. Less realism. Don't be afraid to display a health bar, damage numbers, visual checkpoints and such. I love that stuff.

13. More balanced trophies and achievements. Now this is tricky cause you couldn't really balance across all developers, but getting 100% on Hannah Montana should not hold the same value as getting 100% on Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

14. More focus on indies. Sure they may work with fewer resources but creativity can strive, not that it means they're amazing of course.

15. Less open-world games, because i's better to have places that you want to go to than it is to have a ton of places to go to.

16. On the other-hand, less linear games. Remember when platform games became less linear in the PS1 days? before then you simply completed the levels as you got the them, and then you had games like Spyro and Mario 64 where you collected items to open up new areas. What happened to that?

17. More "small" games. I don't mean "short" because that's not what we need. But games that are cheap and quick to make but still enjoyable. Maybe something between the scale of an indie game and a AAA game.

18. More turn-based random-battled japanese RPGs. Just because I love them, and how many are there these days? exactly.

19. Less gimped trophies/achievements for retro games. I enjoy Sonic on PSN sure, but 12 trophies that can all be gotten so easily? Also, what with these games allowing you to save state? the game never used to let you do that. Instead why not take out the save stating and offer more trophies/achievements for things like "collect 200 rings in a level" or "complete Green Hill act 1 without collecting a ring"? That would add such much more life and interest to these games. Plus savestating is lame as hell.

20. More focus on gameplay at E3, I want to know how the game is played and not how pretty it looks.

21. Probably one of the biggest ones so I'm leaving this till last, but I want to see games with a longer life-span and I don't mean a long game particularly. Not saying all games need to last forever but I do not want a game to be "outdated" because it relies so heavily on online multiplayer or simply an "update sequel" that is designed just to be "the same but better". A good game can in most cases still be enjoyable several years after it's release. People can still play and enjoy many games from the early 90s or even the 80s (the Atari is my limit). So rather than having "the next Call Of Duty game which nobody will care about in a couple years", why can't we have instead a game that we will still cherish even after it's sequels? The fact is that the nature of games like Call Of Duty and such is that they depend on people coming back to buy the newer one and abandoning the older one every time. I don't like how in many cases, what is most popular is popular because it's "trendy" and "it's what the cool kids are playing". Not meaning to sound artsy-fartsy but I really hate how a lot of people just consume games rather than appreciate them for what they are. But business and profit is formed from the consumers and not the quality of the games themselves. What's worse I think is that there are companies that try so hard to feed off the "consumers" and regardless of actual profit, they still prefer to do it that way. (by the way, I use the word "consumer" for the type of people who play a game until it's done with and then they erase it from their mind because it's not "relevant anymore") That is one thing I would love to change, but of course it won't.

Good And Bad Difficulty Settings

2013-07-18T02:14:00.001-07:00

I don't like difficulty settings, they feel too fake to me. I'd rather have a game with one difficulty setting whereby the mechanics allow me to choose between "hard but rewarding" options and "easy but unrewarding" options. That way also you can constantly choose the difficulty and have the game adjust accordingly.

Odin Sphere I think does difficulty badly, you can choose a setting and switch it at any time and you aren't rewarded for playing on hard in the long run. So there's really no incentive to use the harder settings, because there is no defined state of "completed on hard mode".

Although I don't like difficulty selection, Ys Origin does it right, the game is all about doing multiple playthroughs. On most difficulties you get SP from enemies in order to learn abilities, and the further through the game you get the more SP they give you. On nightmare mode, enemies give only a couple SP no matter where you are in the game, so getting enough SP to get the mid-to-higher skills is insane. However if you complete the game once on any setting with all 3 characters, for every character you complete if with on each setting you complete it with, you start off with a bonus 10,000 SP. The idea is to build up on those easier difficulties so that when you start nightmare mode you have a chunk of SP that you can spend. This also changes how you play the game, because usually you'd choose what order to get the abilities to get as you play through the game, but with the bonus SP feature on nightmare mode, what you are choosing is not the order of abilities over time, but rather a defined set of abilities that you will keep throughout the entire playthrough. Ys Origin takes difficulty selections and integrates that into the game.

I also quite like how Kingdom Hearts does the EXP growth thing, where you can choose between either leveling up fast early and then super slow, or leveling up slightly above average the whole way through (or in between). That way it's as if the game is making you choose between that which is better for simple game completion or that which is better for post-game content (though I wish the game was more clear in this). When I get the PS3 version, I'm going to choose the "level fast early" option for my speedrun playthrough (since there's a trophy for it).

Analysing The Final Fantasy XV Battle Footage From E3 2013

2013-06-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

So Final Fantasy XV has been announced at E3 and I am psyched. There has been the original announcement trailer and a battle gameplay first look video:

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xKbPooKAo
Battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBilT83Uq4A

ok, so going to try analyse this....

first of all its extremely cinematic, hopefully there's not too much scripting in when and where battles will take place. Since there's a scene where the characters are falling does that mean it would be on a time limit? I know they did it with Baren Falls on FF6 but that was just via background animation. The scene where 2 of the characters grab the Iron Giant's sword just makes me think of the trigger commands from FF10.

It looks like there's a lot of physical attacks going on, and the menu in the bottom left corner is very small and only has 3 options, none of which are "Magic" or "Abilities". They are "Warp", "Attack" and "Link-Form"... strangely, "Attack" isn't at the top of the list as it always has been (other than FF13 where it was "Auto-____"). There is no cursor but things do flash up, so I'm guessing they're maybe assigned to buttons? There isnt any sub-menus opening up so is it seriously just those 3 options? Also, what could "Warp" and "Linkform" actually mean? To the right of the menu there's a bunch of icons of weapons. Maybe it means that the game focuses a lot on changing weapons during battle to switch between different fighting styles like Dress-spheres (FF10-2) or Paradigms (FF13). Since there is a lot going on with what appear to be little choice or actions taken during batle, it could possibly mean that this game focuses a lot more on the importance of customising (like FF7, 8, 12) more than in the moment quick-thinking on-the-spot (like FF4, 13). If the action itself truely is simple, then I hope it is more customisation based. However the weapon icons hint that the fast-paced stuff could also be interesting enough

Let's talk about number of characters, this clip shows 3 characters in a party, even though this doesn't necessarily mean it's the party-limit, a limit of 3 has been standard since FF7 (exception being FF9) so it's most likely 3. The trailer at E3 showed 12 character portraits at the end. If there are 12 playable characters then that is a lot for a modern day FF game. considering:

(biggest party size/all playable characters)
FF1: 4/4
FF2: 4/10
FF3: 4/4
FF4: 5/12
FF5: 4/4 or 5 (depending on how you look at it)
FF6: 4/14
FF7: 3/9
FF8: 3/6
FF9: 4/8
FF10: 3/7
FF12: 3/6
FF13: 3/6
FF15: 3/12?

FF15 having 3/12 would be the biggest "amount of patry-sized groups" (which would be 4) than FF6 (which has 3.5). Despite not having more total unique combinations since 12c3 < 14c4 (maths stuff), this still leads to a lot of potential for an interesting party formation system like how FF6 does. This is where the customisation options come heavily from forming the teams rather than the individuals. Also this could lead to some pretty interesting customised party-splitting. Of course it's too early to call, there might be little option in that regards but the potential is there.

Last thing I want to comment on for now is the stats in the lower-right corner. You have your 4-digit numbers, which will be the health, pretty standard. The white lines most likely represent health too in percentage form, since there is no "/xxxx" written next to the health it makes sense that it would be. The main character has another bar even though the other 2 dont. This could be because the other characters dont use that stat, but most likely its a feature used for the "Leader" of the battle. Its blue so it could be MP, but why would only one character have MP? Of course this really is just speculation, FF6 started out with only a few characters having MP. I do suspect however it is there because it is the "Leader", the character you control and since the game looks pretty fast, I'm guessing that like FF13, you have more control over one character compared to the other 2. This is interesting, in that in adds another layer of depth in a sense by, having you assign a leader that would indicate more party set-ups. What's also interesting though is how the bar uses dots. Could this mean that whatever this bit of data is, is more discrete and less continuous?

Overall my biggest concern really is just how cinematic it all looks. I know games are more cinematic these days but back when your characters would stand in a line taking turns with menus, it really made you feel that YOU were in control. I'm perfectly fine with having less control if the system does follow the "think quick!" style. I'd really need to see the menu screen to have more of an idea. But anyway, these are just some thoughts I had from this little info we have so far. Regardless, I am psyched.

Targeting Our Nostalgia

2013-03-07T08:24:00.002-08:00

I think Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a good example of a bad way to try to target people's nostalgia. Since with nostalgia the aim is to try to get you to feel that "when you were younger" feeling, but if you do that by trying to copy exactly what you had before, it doesn't work. Using the sonic example, first of all, Sonic is everywhere, the early Sonic games have been re-released everywhere. As much as Sonic 1 plays a significant part in my childhood, I've played it so much since then that its not as easy to associate the game with that time frame.

Something like Gex 3D, that's more specific to the time that I did play it because I haven't played it loads since then. Also with Sonic, a lot of the excitement I got as a kid was wondering what the next Robotnik battle was going to be like. In S4E1 they pretty much just copied across the ones that I already knew about. This means that I in fact did not relive the "what is the next boss?" experience that I cherished.

The point is that if the purpose of something is to make us feel nostalgic, it should do so by emulating the emotions we had at the time, and not copy/pasting the content. Besides, nostalgia is a very personal thing anyway and hard to capture. I doubt Capcom would ever try to capture my own personal nostalgia of "eating white chocolate whilst listening to Mega Man 10 midis whilst working on my university project".

A Character's Departure Is Neither Unfair Nor Disruptive

2013-02-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

So I was shown an article on Kotaku about an article that Masahiro Sakurai make in Famitsu (http://kotaku.com/5984189/kirbys-creator-shares-his-thoughts-on-game-writing). There is one part of that article specifically I wish to address:

"Take when a character you have spent time building up dies or leaves your party: for someone playing the game, it feels unfair." Sakurai explains. "The departure of a companion. In a standard story, this is a very basic plot point. But in games, it leads to a disruption."

So having characters leave your party is "unfair" and "leads to disruption"?

First of all I would like to point out that it is by definition impossible for a single-player game to be "unfair". Sure games can be dissatisfying at some points, but "fairness" is about how all the participants are given an equal opportunity. Since single-player games consist of one player, then it must follow that all the players get equal opportunity, it's not like a computer can be prejudice towards certain players. But by "unfair" it seems he doesn't mean that, rather he means that the players suffer a great loss from something outside of their own control. So from now on, I'll use the word "unfair" to mean that.

The "disruption" he mentions is really nothing more than an alteration presented by the game. I find it strange how RPGs can be blamed for being too repetitive and yet here they are being blamed for being "disruptive" (and we can see he is talking about RPGs here since he mentioned "spending time building up characters").

So let's think about these two complaints.

When characters leave or enter the party its to set the game up as to present the player with a new scenario. Sure there's great games where you pretty much stick to one party the whole way through (like Final Fantasy V and Dragon Quest VIII) but we don't need to have that in every game.

Indeed, if the game gives us new party set-ups, it is up to us and our strategy to figure out how to effectively use that party. Equally the case, if the game gives us the choice of what characters to use then it is up to us to make strategic decisions on what party we should form.

Even if we do get to the case where you need a certain character that you have not leveled up. That does not mean you should fret from not having that character a certain level. As much as it means you do have to train that character you still have to figure out the best way of doing that. And besides, this also means you get some extra EXP that will help you later on.

There are all sorts of different examples of how you can mix up the party set up

and still have it a fun game. Let's think of some possible examples:

1. Games where you have set characters that never change:
if your characters never change then that means you will always have your own custom set-up with you

2. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is advantageous to focus on a few:
here the strategy is trying to figure out which team is the best team in the long run whilst also taking into account what characters are worth taking in a certain situation. Is it worth holding back your final team back temporarily in order to make this section of the game easier? that's something you need to be strategic over.

3. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is advantageous to focus on a many:
In this case the strategy lies in not how unevenly to distribute the EXP, but rather when and where to distribute it with each character.

4. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is not strictly advantageous to focus on a many or focus on a few:
Well in this case what you have to consider is how you want to distribute the EXP, as well as who works well at what points in the game. It may not be clear as to what the best thing to do is, but this means that the player has to figure it out.

5. Games where you can't change any characters at any time and the game keeps switching between them:
In this case the strategy lies in how you approach the individual parts of the game. How can you deal with what you are presented with.

These are just a few examples, and there are a lot more that can be explored (such as if the EXP is distributed in certain ways, if you have points where you create multiple parties, if certain characters grow at different rates, etc.). The point here is that all of these require the player to be strategic in some shape or form. These examples do not inherently result in the player having "wasted time" and the results do depend on the player using skill. Even if we try to think of extreme examples, they end up not being all that extreme. One reason is that we can't judge the loss of the purely on the loss of the characters. Let's use the most common example that everybody knows about: Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. Yes, she dies, and yes, you lose all the levels you built up for her. However:

1. In FF7, EXP is distributed 100% to all the alive party members and 50% to all the inactive ones. If what we are saying is that Aerith's death makes her EXP worthless, then lets consider how much EXP you get total depending on wheteher or not she is in your party. There are 9 characters overall, if an enemy gives 1000 EXP, thats 1000EXP to all alive party members and 500EXP to all out of party. That would be a total of 6000EXP (assuming all party members are alive). Running off the assumption that all Aerith's EXP is "worthless" and can be ruled out, then having her in your party nets you 5000EXP total and 5500EXP total if she is out. That difference is not so extreme. And yes I know you would also have to take into account all the stuff you would have to do for her such as buying weapons and building up limit breaks but I'm addressing just the leveling here for the sake of simplicity.

2. Secondly, it still would not be fair to claim all the EXP she does gain as "worthless". This is because you have to use her in the Temple Of The Ancients where the EXP she has accumulated helps you to get through. So even though it will be lost it does help.

So that is an example of where a character's death (or departure) does not result in a great loss for the player. The reason for this is because we are given context and the game is set up to fit the context. The second disc onwards was designed and released with the full knowlegde that Aerith would not be playable anymore. It is not reasonable to believe that the loss will make the game a lot harder because of this. A huge difficulty spike may be disruptive,
. A game that completely changes the gameplay at one point in time may be disruptive. Aerith's death is neither disruptive or unfair (regardless of what definition of "unfair" you want to use).

I suppose it is possible for the departure of a character or the introduction of new characters to be "unfair" or "disruptive". But they would be rarer and more specific cases and not simply "the departure of a character".

"Worse" Does Not Mean "Bad"

2013-02-07T11:46:00.003-08:00

I don't really understand the idea that if you make something new, the whole purpose is for it to be better than the last. That makes sense in terms of functionality (a TV in 2013 should be better than a TV in 1995), but when it comes to creative pieces I'm not so sure. Sure you should always make something as good as you can, but should the creation of something new be dependent on it's quality compared to the previous?

Last September I released my album "The Eclectic Duck" and I believe it was an improvement over my previous album "Another Acidic Album". I have started (though not done much) of my next album (which I'm not revealing the title of yet :P ). To me, this album (so far) isn't as good as TED, and I don't suspect it will be (just being honest). Sure, I will try to make it as good as I can, but I really feel TED was a high-point for me. Even if I do complete the new album and still feel that TED is better than it, does that mean the new album is not good enough for release? I don't think so.

Even if the new album is (to me) worse than TED, somebody else who hates TED might like the new album. Likewise, it's possible for somebody to love AAA but to hate TED. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't put effort into making things as good as you can, I'm not saying that at all. Even if (hypothetically) I release this new album and nobody prefers it to TED, that's still fine. You don't have to spend your life enjoying just your favourites. How many people (in all seriousness) would be happy enough listening to just their favourite album or playing just their favourite game? Sure I'd love to play Azure Dreams whilst listening to Rancid 2000, but to be limited to that?

All in all, I think its fine to indulge in that which is "above average" or "quite good". We should look forward to improvements but not demand it. We should try to improve our works but not be limited by them. When a series "isn't as good as it used to be", my question to you is: "well is it bad?". Should they end the series just because it's getting worse? Well, what good would it do if they did stop? Has the series become so bad that its continuation is a hindrance? If not, I don't see what the problem is.

"The Eclectic Duck" Is Now Available

2012-09-08T11:50:00.001-07:00

My album "The Eclectic Duck" is now available to download on bandcamp

The Eclectic Duck by Velocity Eleven

Final Fantasy VII Re-Released On The Square Enix Website

2012-08-16T05:02:00.002-07:00

So Final Fantasy VII got re-released on the Square Enix website (as I'm sure you can tell by the title) and I will refer to it as the "new PC version". Admittedly I've never played the "original PC version" so I'm going to compare it to the PSX (Playstation) version.

Price
Like Super Meat Boy on XBox Live, the game is released "on offer" making it better to get it early (which is effective it seems).

Graphics
No this isn't a HD remake, it's the same game, but the new PC version looks so much smoother than the PSX version. Also I notice the characters have visual mouths on the new PC version, which can look really odd on characters like Wedge and Jessie where they always have their mouth open.

Speed
It may just be me, but the new PC version seems to run so much faster. That may be because I'm so used to playing a PAL copy of the PSX version.

Controls
The controls on the new PC version are a bit hard to get used to, but you can change them anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Music
The music does sound different somewhat, I think worse on the new PC version, but that may be down to nostalgia.

Saving
Unless you have piles of PSX memory cards (or a PS3). The new PC version supplies loads more save slots. Whilst a PS1 memory card can hold 15 files, the new PC version has 10 separate lists of save files. Also the new PC version (and I know the old PC version didn't have this) is cloud saving (ay? ay!? get it!? "Cloud" saving!?"). This means that when you save your game it gets uploaded to the cloud, meaning you can access them online.

Achievements
Achievements are a really neat idea for a classic game, but they really could have been more creative. An achievement each for using the character's first limit break? Since the game is not on Steam or XBox Live. The achievements themselves don't accumulate to anything outside of the game itself, you have a separate profile online just for that game, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Also the achievements page on somebody's profile says "Aerith" when the game still translates it to "Aeris". There's an achievement to "get" her final limit break, so does that mean she has to learn it or can I just get the item? Some of the achievements are missable such as "master all materias" (I thought the plural of "materia" was "materia", then again it could be confused with mastering the "All" materia). So you need to be really careful if you want 100%. But that achievement could be rather ambiguous, does it mean master one of each type? do you need to have them all at the same time before "fusing" them? or do you need the "Master _____ Materia" too?

Character Booster
So on your online profile you can choose a save file and activate the "character booster" and it's irreversible (you can back up anyway so it doesnt matter really). Doing so takes your HP, MP and gil to "max". It doesn't cost anything, and it just happens. I find it really hard to accept that they would implement a "get super strong" button without any consequences. I have a feeling that achievements will be disabled, or you will be limited in other regards. There is an achivement for getting 99,999,999 gil, and the booster gets your gil to the "max" of 49,999,999 gil so maybe it just lowers the gil limit? There MUST be SOMETHING!

"Another Acidic Album" Is Now On Bandcamp

2012-06-26T12:25:00.001-07:00

My album "Another Acidic Album" has (finally) been posted onto bandcamp, and is available to download for free

<p>&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://velocityeleven.bandcamp.com/album/another-acidic-album"&amp;amp;gt;Another Acidic Album by Velocity Eleven&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;</p>

Is Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Just A Super Smash Bros. Clone?

2012-04-27T11:43:00.001-07:00

The footage for the new "Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale" (not sure about that name) does resemble Super Smash Bros. but is it fair to call it a "copy"? I really don't think so. I am sure Sony are well aware of how many people are going to make the comparison but I think the comparisons exists for two main reasons:

1. Lack of similar games
How many platforming-based fighting/party games are there? Not many. This is why PSASBR is commonly compared to Smash Bros. If there were more games of this style, people would just say "oh, Sony is releasing a game of X genre". These games are about as similar to each other as Street Fighter is to Tekken, Ridge Racer is to Sega Rally and Mario is to Rayman. Of course this is all based on the information we have at the moment.

2. Minor artificial similarities
Little things such as having the health bars at the bottom of the screen and the different coloured player arrows above the characters' heads. These things make the games "look" more similar without actually demonstrating similarity. When it comes to the user interface, it could very much just be that the designs are user-friendly in that specific way.

Another thing to add, is that I am noticing people are showing disliking for this game which confuses me. How would anybody know at this point whether this game is any better or worse than a Smash Bros. game? And even if it does turn out to be worse, it could still be good! If Smash Bros. is considered to be a good game, then a game that is similar may also be good.

The Benefits Of Palette Swaps

2012-04-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

A palette swap is where an image is used multiple times but with the colours altered in order to distinguish them from each other. For example, you encounter a "wolf" which is a brown, then you encounter a "night wolf" which uses the same image, but is grey. Palette swaps can cover many things other than enemies, such as weapons or environments, but I shall use enemies as a prime example here. People love to hate on palette swaps, but why? They say "because it's lazy" or "because it lacks variety" but are palette swaps really all that bad? Not at all! and here's why...

To start off I think people look at palette swaps the wrong way round, they see a final goal and think of palette swaps as a means to fill in the blanks. This is how they perceive it:

Designer: Hey artist, we have 100 enemies planned for this game, can you make 100 models for us?
Artist: Yeah sure.
*Artist starts working on models*
Artist: Wow, making 100 models sure does take a lot of work, hm... I know! I'll just take the 70 that I've got and make a bunch of recolours!
*Artist shows the designer the models*
Designer: Artist! Y U NO MAKE 100 UNIQUE MODELS!?

Is that really how we should think of the design process? I think it is an inaccurate representation, so here are six alternatives that I propose:

(Disclaimer: ok, I have to say that all these examples I give are very simplified, they are not meant to represent any particular game company, or any specific business practises. Rather they are a small way of representing different ways to approach the situation.)

1. More non-art work can be done
Designer: Hey artist, Our observations tell us that you are skilled enough to make 70 models by the deadline, could you do that and make another 30 palette swaps? we need 100 enemies by the deadline.
Artist: Well, it's a challenge, but I can get the job done.

2. Easier to reach the goals
Designer: Hey artist, how many unique enemy models can you make by the deadline?
Artist: Well 70 if I put all my efforts into it.
Designer: 70? Great, we are hoping for 100 enemies, with 70 unique models we'll only need 30 palette swaps.

3. More flexibility
Artist: Hey designer, I can do 70 unique enemy models within this deadline.
Designer: Oh, with 70 models be could probably make up to 300 different enemies! We have 100 planned, but with that many unique models we now have the possibility of going much higher than that!

4. Not a wasted effort
Programmer: Hey artist, unfortunately I didn't hit my target of programming all 100 enemies, instead I only managed to do 80, so we are going to have to drop out 20 enemies from what we had planned, sorry you have to lose 20 of the models you worked on.
Artist: Oh, that's a shame, but 30 of the enemies were just palette swaps, so the ones you remove there are not a wasted effort.

5. Consistency and recognition
Designer: Hey artist, we have a forest area designed for the beginning of the game where we're going to have lots of wolves, but we also plan to have the player go back there later on. We don't want the player to think they're fighting the weak wolves again, nor do we want them to be confused as to why the wolves they're fighting are suddenly stronger. How can we fix this?
Artist: Hm, we could use a palette swap, that way it's clearly the same theme, but with a new challenge.

6. To accommodate for new or late ideas
Tester: Well I was testing out that cave area, and I found that after a few battles against those spiders, their attack patterns became too obvious. They were hard to start with but since I learned their attack pattern, the rest of the cave just became boring. Maybe if there were some variations on those spiders, the entire cave would be fun and not just the start.
Designer: Hm, I see...

All these scenarios lead to one main idea... that palette swaps may require less work, but it's work that would not be necessary anyway. The alternative to having palette swaps isn't "more work will be put into making the models", the alternative is "the same amount of work will be done, but with less content"

Good Grind Vs. Bad Grind

2012-03-30T17:10:00.001-07:00

Any RPG fan should know about grind, but what is grind? Well, to put into simple terms, it's where the player repeats an action over and over in order to gain an overall advantage. An example of this would be killing wolves outside the first town of the game, to level up enough times, so that the boss that follows becomes easier. A game is never advertised as "x many hours of grind!" because in general, people don't like it. Is grinding a bad thing though? Can it be good? What ways could it be implemented in order to engage the player rather than repel them?

I think it's important to note that even though many players claim to dislike grinding, it's interesting how RPGs (by their very nature) still leave it there as an option. Just what exactly are the positives to grinding?:

1. A crutch
Truth be told, some players grind not because the game inherently requires it, but because certain people require it. Just because the first boss can in theory be defeated at level 3, some players may need to be level 5, or maybe even level 7. This is (in a way) great because the skilled players can rest assured that their skill has paid off (in not needing to grind at all). On the other hand, the unskilled player is just adapting to their own requirements, and succeeding in doing so.

2. Useful time waster
Sounds like an oxymoron, but what I mean by this is that players want to feel that their time is spent usefully when playing games. It may be that the player is in that certain mood, where they want to just relax. Grinding against easier enemies can really serve this purpose, because all the "lazy time" is chosen on that specific game, because it will eventually contribute to help with the "active time". There is always that feeling of moving forward.

3. Moulding the game to the player's mood
This is a branch off the previous point, but it basically means that the player will constantly (or at least often) have the choice to be playing the game actively or passively. If a player is forced to be active at a certain time, they may not play that game if they're not in an active mood. Being given the choice, they can switch their play style (to grind or not to grind) depending on their current mood.

4. Breaking the linearity
A need to level up does not particularly result in linearity. Grinding can be very engaging if there are alternatives. If for example the first mission in a game is to cross over a bridge, but the bridge is full of hard enemies that there needs to be some grinding done. Well, if the content is varied enough, the grinding can be very open and lead the player to many options. It could be (for example) that the player needs to be about level 7 to stand a chance against the enemies on the bridge. Well, if the area before the bridge has items scattered around for the player to find, encouraging the player to explore (whilst they are grinding the levels). If the player is earning money as they grind, maybe they could go to a shop and decide what items, weapons etc. are worth buying. Maybe they see a strong sword for 1000 gold, so they set out to get 1000 gold. But maybe in order to help them get the 1000 gold, they need to buy 5 potions for 50 gold each that will help them reach treasure chests that hold even more money. These are just some examples of how being required to grind can really open up the game and make it more interesting. If the bridge could be completed at level 1, the player may not have any motivation to do any of these "things on the side"

5. Effective grinding is a skill
Sometimes, being able to grind effectively is itself a skill. Mixing the right abilities with the correct enemies using the correct characters etc., to maximise the level up speed can be very satisfying. The moment that you realise that by tweaking some strategies, you can rack up the EXP at a faster rate. That can be just as satisfying (or even more satisfying) as beating a hard boss or solving a taxing puzzle. In essence, maximising your EXP growth rate is a puzzle to be solved. It can be even more satisfying with the knowledge that you didn't "need" to do it, but it was through your own discovery that you found something to help you through the game.

6. Not too linear, not too strict
If the level requirements are so strict, and there is no openness at all in the grind process, this is where grind becomes boring. Imagine a part of the game where the player "must" be level 10, there is a boss that causes instant death to anything less than level 10, so reaching level 10 is an absolute "must". Couple that with a completely linear grinding system, and that is where the boredom comes in. This 6th point is actually "don't ignore points 1-5". In this scenario, you are just doing something over and over again because the game says "you must do it" with no regards to how the player feels or what the player is capable of.

7. To keep playing once everything else is done
This is not so common, but even if the player has completed everything in the game, every secret boss, every hidden treasure etc., maybe they just want to keep levelling for the sake of levelling. Even though its uses have "expired", there are players who enjoy watching their character(s) become as powerful as can be. Disgaea games are prime examples of this.

Nobody Likes Water Levels

2012-03-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

For some reason, people simply do not like water levels in games. Why is this? I have a few ideas:

1. "Flying"
I say "flying" in quotation marks because it's not strictly flying... but the idea of having vertical movement in ways other than jumping. It changes how the game is played and it distorts people's perception of how things "should work".

2. Scenery
The scenery in under-water segments are usually rather fixed and without much variation. This isn't always the case, but how often are under-water segments filled with just rocks? I guess it boils down to what actually exists underwater in reality, and putting that into the games

3. Mazes
Due to the "flying" and also due to how under-water scenery is so consistent, the segments can end up being quite maze-like. Especially true in 3D games, it can be very hard to know where you are, where you've been and where you're going.

4. Slowness
Underwater everything goes slower, Sonic games for example suffer from this, even though they do not suffer from the previous points, they are definitely slower. If you're able to play a game at a certain speed without any issues, slowing it down doesn't increase the fun levels, it just takes longer.

5. Time limits
Usually there's some sort of "breathing" that needs to be done, so the time spend under water is time that you're rushing for air. it's not so much that people dislike time limits in general, it's that time limits are less fun when they are mixed with forced slowness (as mentioned in the previous point).

6. Water is scary
Water is scary in general. We live above sea levels, the world as we know it is on land, we are aware of the creatures that roam the lands. But the ocean is where all the mystery lies, it's big, it's dark, and there's a lot of crazy stuff down there we don't know about. We can't breathe there either.

I would say a lot of the general disliking of water levels comes from the disliking of common features of the water levels, not the actual water itself. If we look at games that do not incorporate any of these features, we are not bothered by them (Pokemon for example).

What I Would've Changed In Rayman Origins

2012-03-23T12:07:00.002-07:00

Rayman Origins is a great game, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think a few minor tweaks would go a long way. Well here is a list of nine minor tweaks that I would've made:

1. Display total medallions and speed trophies
Why are the total medallions and speed trophies not displayed on the level select screen next to the electoon and teeth count? It would be nice to be able to see how much you've got without having to manually count. This is especially helpful when trying to check how close you are to reaching certain achievements/trophies.

2. Display medallions and speed trophies on world select screen
The world select screen does good in showing which electoons have been acquired and which are still left to get. This also works with the teeth too. But in terms of medallions and speed trophies, you have to enter the world and check all the levels individually. This would not be needed if they were shown on the world select screen.

3. Display lum requirements for electoons and medallion
In order to get the medallion (and 2 electoons), you must complete a level with a set amount of lums. The problem is that you don't know what the requirement is until after you complete the level. So you could end up either completing the level thinking you have enough only to have to restart the whole level, or, trying really hard to get every lum possible when a good portion of them end up doing nothing.

4. A self-destruct button
A button to instantly self-destruct would be ideal. For some unknown reason, restarting a level means the level has to reload, but not when you die and end up restarting anyway. When doing a level in attempt to get lums, sometimes you end up missing a chunk and want to reset to the previous checkpoint, so the only solution is to actively find something that you can use to kill yourself with. This is also the case of losing a heart, and then wanting to make sure you reset back to the last checkpoint so that the next checkpoint can register your heart and reset it there. A button to self-destruct would make that much easier, an obscure button such as select/back so it doesn't get pressed accidentally.

5. More consistent and visible checkpoints
Checkpoints are usually set between the different "rooms" (the doors with the eye), which is fine. But this also includes rooms with electoons in them. This can sometimes really make the mechanics abusive when attempting to collect lums. For example, you could go back to an electoon room after a while to activate a checkpoint that would fix certain lums to be collected, even passed the checkpoint-point. This is fine, but it's so obscurely hidden that it seems like a mistake and I'm not sure if I'm intended to be able to do it.

6. One-hit cage breaking
This is something I didn't understand in the original Rayman and I still don't understand it here. When you find a cage with electoons trapped inside, it takes multiple small hits or a charged attack to smash open the cage. Why? I can imagine if there were enemies around and there was difficulty in charging an attack or manoeuvring then it could pose somewhat of a challenge. But such is not the case. In order to have access to the cage, all the enemies guarding must be killed off first anyway. When there are no external threats, why can't a simple attack be enough?

7. A bit more manoeuvrability during suction
During the moskito levels, it can be so hard to suck in the enemies. What I mean by this is that doing so stops you from being able to move, but that doesn't take into account the automatic scrolling of the levels. It would be more effective if either you could move (but slowly, for example) or you came to an actual halt.

8. No co-op bonuses
This may just be me, but I hate the idea of using co-op for a net-gain. Why should people be able to leech off other people's skill? I'm not against co-op overall, I just hate the idea of needing to rely on other people's skill.

9. No touch screen bonuses (PSVita version)
On the PSVita version, you can touch the screen to burst bubbles and such... who thought it would be a good idea to have the player switching between 2D platforming to screen tapping spontaneously?

Review: Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (By Earth)

2011-04-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (AKA Earth 2) by Earth falls within the "Doom Drone" genre of music and is known as a pioneer of the genre, but what can we expect to hear from this album? The cover does a good job of portraying the feeling that is given by this album, vast emptiness and intense heat. "Vast emptiness" is actually a very good way of describing this album because even though there is clearly a large bombardment of heavy sound, not much actually happens... but that's the appeal (I guess). The album is divided into three tracks than spans over the course of 73 minutes. Each track is very heavy, very slow and very deep. This constant wave of sound that is produced in each of the tracks would make newcomers believe that the tracks may all sound exactly the same. Whilst it is true that each track does share a very similar sound, each track does have it's own features.

01. Seven Angels (15:35)
The shortest track (even though it is over 15 minutes) and the most musical. This track actually has a tune that you theoretically could get into your head and the tune isn't bad. The question is "Are you willing to listen through the wall of noise to hear it?" This is my favourite track, as it manages to supply at least some tune whilst also managing to leave enough space to incorporate the album's theme of "emptiness".

02. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine (27:05)
This is my least favourite track of the three. The main feature of this track is that even though there are sounds playing throughout, they don't seem to be memorable or prevalent in any way. Rather they seem to be there just to add to the atmosphere. This would usually be good, but I just don't feel they're doing as such a good job as the other tracks. They do start to have more of an effect later on in the track where they vibrate a bit more but that's not much

03. Like Gold And Faceted (30:21)
The final and least eventful of the three tracks, probably the most ambient of the three tracks as well. The sound of a single note being held for 30 minutes, with occasional drum sounds. The cymbals do add to that "heat" feeling. This is also the only track that fades out at the end but that's understandable as the other tracks blend into the one that follows.

So what can I say about this album overall? Well if I am totally honest the album is really boring, but it doesn't have to be if you enter it with the correct mindset. If you're going into the album with the intent of "enjoying music" then you'll find that you'll be killed by the album's overwhelming presence or just die of boredom. If you enter the album with the mindset of "hearing sound" then you're in for a long tough ride.

First Impressions: The Dissent Of Man (By Bad Religion)

2010-09-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

So, the album I have been anticipating for a good while now has finally come out... though to be fair it wasnt too long ago that I discovered it, and Bad Religion already have so many albums at this point that any new releases are just icing on the cake.

So before I go into discussing the tracks of this album on an individual basis, I will talk about the other details first. As my brother suggested, you should be given some 3D glasses with this so you can see the album art in "Threeeeeeeeeeeeee-Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" though it really wouldn't matter either way. It's interesting that they differenciated from the red, black and white colour-scheme they used for their past couple albums. I always thought that colour-scheme was a reference to their old albums as a "just in case this is our last album we need to reference to their early works" kinda thing. This seems pretty obvious, when Los Angeles Is Burning has the title of their album How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and this especially true on their previous album New Maps Of Hell as not only is "Hell" in the title but the artwork has a very similar dark/sinister theme as How Could Hell Be Any Worse? did. Also consider that the disc itself had nothing but the band's logo on it. Maybe they changed it up for The Dissent Of Man because they no longer believe it could be their last album, or more likely they just think the fans wouldn't appreciate another red, balck and white album. Anyway, The Dissent Of Man's artwork looks a lot like an old science text-book, or more specifially a old biology text-book.

Bad Religion have had a particular structure with their recent albums: fast songs first, slow songs later. The Dissent Of Man only very partially follows this structure, this time there is only one track under the two-minute mark, which is the first track. So that leads me onto the tracks

01. The Day The Earth Stalled
This surely is a fast song to start out with, as they usually use fast songs to start out with. However this song for somereason sounds a bit strange to me. It starts and parts of the song just seem a bit "off", for example when you hear the word "stalled" being sung, it goes all over the place.

02. Only Rain
Decent second song, I would expect a song like this to go somewhere in the middle or towards the end. This song gets a lot of praise though it doesn't work so much for me. Don't get me wrong I do like the song but it doesn't reach that level of "awesomeness" for me.

03. The Resist Stance
Favourite song on the album, really full of energy (which I feel is generally missing from this album). The only song I recall using any distortion on the guitars. Great song!

04. Won't Somebody
Average, seriously, not bad, not great, quite catchy, but not catchy enough.

05. The Devil In Stiches
Now this is a song that proves how time can make songs sound better. This was the first song from the album I heard before the album came out, and I hated it. I even went as far to compare it to Prodigal Son (Gah, I hate Prodigal Son). But after a while I started humming it to myself and I started to like it (I still don't like Prodigal Son by the way, even since 2007 I still think that song's one of their worst).

06. Pride And The Pallor
This song irritates me, not because it's "bad" but because the tune sounds like it's going somewhere other than where it does (after 14 seconds). It sounds like another song before that point but I can't put my finger on it, hold on, I know what it sounds like! it sounds like Victory for the first 14 seconds (I literally just figured it out as I was typing this) and then it just goes away and the rest of the song is "ok" but not catchy at all.

07. Wrong Way Kids
This song has a catchy chorus, with all the "whoa"s they have going . Reminds me of The Bravest Kids by Rancid (maybe the title is the reason there). But yeah, the chorus is catchy and so are some of the verses.

08. Meeting Of Minds
What can I say? It sounds a lot like Germs Of Perfection, and Germs Of Perfection is agreat song, and so is this one, fast, catchy, powerful. It has that Bad Religion feeling to it.

09. Someone To Believe
This song is also catchy, It's one of those songs where the title is a strong element to the lyrics and the melody. I get the feeling that this song will fall under the category of songs that are fun to listen to but will get too critisised just because it's not "deep" and "meaningful". Raise Your Voice! and The Hippy Killers also fell victim to this.

10. Avalon
A strange one, it's not too memorable for me, but I still enjoy it. It's reasonably paced and the melody is decent.

11. Cyanide
Not fond of this one, I can hear the tune to it, but it just doesn't work for me. This song is the longest on the album aswell, why do short songs always seem to sound better than the longer ones?

12. Turn Your Back On Me
Worst song on the album, I just think the chorus sounds rather bland and stale, especially when you consider how strong their music usually is

13. Ad Hominem
Now this is good example of a good slow Bad Religion song. Reminds me of Submission Complete, it has a very powerful beat, the pre-chorus is both catchy and powerful, the chorus itself is still just as powerful. "Powerful" is a good word to describe this song

14. Where The Fun Is
Does anybody else think 21st Century Digital Boy when they hear this song? This song keeps making me want to sing along to 21st Century Digital Boy whenever I hear it. I think this song is pretty decent overall. 21st Century Digital Boy I always found to be a song for people who are new to Bad Religion, so maybe this song will od the same

15. I Won't Say Anything
Oh dear, I can hear the fanboys screaming right now. This song is very poppy for Bad Religion, my personal opinion of this song is that it's "ok", not great but not bad. I do get thrown off by how poppy it is. That being said people critisised Lose As Directed of doing the same thing but I thought that song was pretty good.

16. Finite
Well when I bought the album, I listened to this song and thought.... oh... that's right... I didn't get this song. Yeah, this is a "bonus track" that just doesn't happen to be on the version of the album that I got. I have heard this track from somebody else who hosted it on YouTube but I don't think I should review a track that wasn't on the actual album that I bought. Since I'm reviewing an album that I bought, why should I review content that I didn't get? A message to all the bands out there, stop doing this, it's annoying. Bonus tracks that only certain countries get, they are just pointless and annoying. If a song belongs on an album it belongs on every copy of that album, if it doesn't belong there then don't put it on any of them.

Overall, it's a pretty good album, I would say about "average" for the band (which overall still very good since this is my favourite band), even though there are a selection of very strong tracks. One complaint I do have is that the gaps between the tracks are too long, sometimes they're ten seconds long! That's ok if you're using it for artistic effect or is the song itself is pretty long but these aren't. I would say a couple seconds is long enough. Even better; no gap at all. The first two tracks do this and it works.