Random Ideas

If all goes well, I should have my copy of GTA4 today - and should be posting a first impressions pretty soon as a short rant, I guess.

I realised that I love talking about games, yet I haven’t said much about what I have been playing lately, except in Short Rants, so I thought I’d summarise what I thought here about a few games I’ve played recently.

Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath:
The gameplay is the same C&C3 formula. This time round there’s only a NOD campaign which fills in some of the storyline gaps in the story. The problem? These gaps are for the most part insignificant - except for the one concerning the merger of the LEGION and the Tacitus. For the most part, no new significant details are revealed, except that Kane did plan to leave Redmond Boyle in command of GDI, the betrayal of Kilian Qatar was orchestrated by another party and that the GDI (still) has little idea on how to use the Tacitus. There are less ‘infiltration’ style missions this time around, and the campaign has some variation depending on which faction you happen to have available - although the frequent nonavailability of aircraft can get annoying. The game is still good - but I’m not sure it’s worth the cash.

No More Heroes:
The game manages to use the Wii Remote in a non-gimmicky way, which I am very fond of. In a sense, it’s how Folklore used the PS3 SIXAXIS, which didn’t seem so gimmicky since most of your fighting is controlled by pressing a button. The graphics leave much to be desired (they seem pre-PS2 sometimes), but the gameplay is solid - and I have little to complain about. It’s a good game. (I haven’t finished it yet, though.)

Super Smash Bros. Brawl:
Another instalment of Super Smash Bros. brings about the same complaints I had about its predecessor. I still have no idea what’s going on, the camera zooms out way too far - and even on my 22 inch it can get difficult to tell what’s happening. Everything is locked randomly, which is still very annoying for a party game. I couldn’t be bothered to play the Single Player, and can’t be bothered to finish unlocking everything. Considering I got a Freeloader just to play this thing, I’m greatly disappointed that it hasn’t improved at all since Melee.

Mario Kart Wii:
I’ve been playing a little bit of Mario Kart, and I don’t really have much to comment. Mario Kart Wii fills a hole up in the casual racing segment that has seen very little real competition and very few entries in the past few years. I was looking forward to it - since I’ve played both the GameCube and DS iterations to death, and now I have the Wii version to play loads again. Nothing much has changed (for me) sadly, so I can’t really say Nintendo has done anything to improve it. (Not like they have anything to worry about. Most other ‘copycats’ tend to suck. If you’ve liked it before, you’ll still like it. The game still rocks - as long as you as clever about where to stay in the race.

Crysis:
I got access to a nice computer recently (Q6600 + 8800GT) so I thought I should give Crysis a retry. Apparently, my verdict still holds. The graphics of forests are actually the worst part of the game, so no wonder I kept complaining about them. The storyline sucks. The gameplay sucks. The way enemies that don’t wear nanosuits absorb ammo sucks. The amount of ammo you can hold sucks. The graphics are nice, but the level design is utter crap. (Example - alien ship, really cool looking - but also really easy to get lost. Ditto for human ship. :P) I’m sorry, but not even the graphics redeems the game for me.

Need for Speed Prostreet:
I didn’t see it before, but Prostreet is still a very NFS-ish game. The handling feels funny - because it is funny - but once you get used to it, the game is pretty fun, although I must say, I miss the old feel of Most Wanted. (I know I said the same thing about Carbon. :P) I haven’t played much, but I probably will play a lot when exam time comes along. Unless GTA4 and Rock Band eat up all that time. Then, I’ll probably have to say: sorry PC, you lose your gaming priority.

Singstar:
This probably comes as a surprise to some, and not to others. But - Singstar?! I know I’m an awful singer, so needless to say I suck at this game (although some of my friends should know me as a notorious hummer, hehehe). I’ve bought 2 songs for it just to try out the Singstore (and add some songs I actually know to the playlist). I’ve played Rock Band before, and I think I prefer Rock Band’s method of showing you where your pitch is, Singstar tends to draw it a little late sometimes, and that makes it difficult to read for me sometimes. It is a very fun game at parties, especially when someone decides their high-pitched voice is needed for beating you. No, I’m not kidding - someone did it when we played it. It’s a great party game - can’t really see myself playing it alone though.

This post continues from Cost: Console Gaming vs PC Gaming.

I won’t be assuming too much this time around since if you really want to, you can just go read the older post. The most notable is that I’ve made accessories into an annual cost. There are a lot of accessories for the Nintendo Wii - the Wii Fit, the Wii Wheel, the Wii Zapper, Rock Band controllers, Dance Mat and so on. A Nintendo Wii owner is more likely to buy these things than any other gamer since they are casual gamers after all. They still buy the same number of games - because I think they’re idiots. (And since I own a Wii, yes I’m an idiot.)

Nintendo Wii cost: USD250

Annual cost:
Accessories (random pieces of plastic, Rock Band): about USD100 a year
Games: USD420

I’m gonna assume it lasts six years, even though analysts say that’s unlikely (we all know how good analysts at predicting things, for an example, see predictions of Australian dollar rise about 1.6 months ago). At a discount rate of 7% p.a., Wii gaming costs: US$2624.04.

It looks like the result is similar to the XBox 360. Here’s the set of numbers again to refresh your memory:

XBox 360: $2635.94
PS3: $2447.61
PC: $2313.58
PC (with MMO): $2885.57
Wii: US$2624.04

It just shows what I’ve already shown earlier - any addition to the annual cost is a big hit to the cost of gaming on the console. And there it is - a comparable Wii number.

Remember to take all of these numbers with a grain of salt. In essence, they assume you spend money on the same amount of games. In real life, we know that’s probably not true. For example, I play significantly less Wii and PC games than I do on my XBox 360 and PS3. I’ve also ignored the second hand market. If you play your cards right, you might spend only about $200 a year on games.

However, just to conclude - yes, PC gaming is relatively cheaper compared to consoles. But to be honest, you are gonna buy a nicer PC case. A nicer power supply unit. A new burner. A wireless networking card. And maybe even better RAM than what I’ve put there. When that all adds up, you find that gaming on any platform - will cost about the same.

So, stop ranting about which form of gaming costs less, which console is cheaper - and just start playing more games.

I’ve finished Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath. I like the game - but I’m disappointed that they didn’t address most of the question marks left behind by C&C3 Tiberium Wars. All we get is that tidbit at the end where GDI has apparently wiped NOD off the face of the Earth. No news about the Scrin or Kane’s journey through the threshold.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend that you buy Kane’s Wrath, since while it does fill some back story, it doesn’t further the story at all, and is more of the same C&C3 gameplay.

I’m recategorising loads of stuff - and finally removing my archaic rule of having only one category per post if at all possible.

I’ve been talking a lot about the sense of achievement in gaming lately. Why? Because to me, the feeling of achievement tends to come along with fun. Not to say I’ll play a game that isn’t fun just for the sense of achievement.

Music games tend to easily build this in. Konami has plenty of experience with this. Build several fixed tiers of difficulty, and cater for everyone. Newcomers or casual players can easily pick up the easier songs, and those looking for a challenge will keep moving up the difficulty scale - and once they’ve passed everything, they look to beating their own personal high scores - and maybe to some degree, the world’s high scores.

If you look at games of the current age, you realise that nearly every game has difficulty levels to cater for the different groups. I can’t say that they’re particularly successful, but it does give people a choice - play the game for fun or play the game for a challenge. There are games with difficulty levels reminiscent of ancient times (Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden) but even then - to make sure the games reach the most number of customers (meaning the maximum number of people that can play them), there are significantly easier difficulty levels.

Heck, even RPGs are getting difficulty levels - what the hell? It’s become quite apparent that games are becoming easier as time passes. I think this is a sign that people are beginning to realise that there are a lot of different gamers who are willing to spend different amounts of time with a game. If you are one of those gamers who always went for the easy mode for a game and then left it alone - perhaps it’s a good time to revisit those games and play them on a harder difficulty.

Some game developers work hard to make harder difficulties different - and often, good games behave very differently at higher difficulties. For some games, it’s as simple as enemies being more difficult to kill and dealing more damage. For others, it’s not as simple. Enemies gain new moves, shorter response times, behave differently - and often some of these changes are massive to gameplay. That rock you once thought to be in the middle of nowhere - is now a life-saving piece of terrain cover.

That enemy you once thought to be easy to take down, can now kill you in one hit - and your tactics for taking it down have to change considerably, since shooting it down is ridiculously ammo-consuming. That weapon you thought to be the antiexistence of any enemy you had - now only works on one of those enemies effectively. Your cover tactics may change from tactical stand behind cover - to run head on into the enemy and dodge every damn thing. The addition of one grunt may have seemed trivial before - but you now realise why that one grunt made things different. Luck becomes significantly more important to you than ever before - and so does skill.

And so, remember that game developers now have to create 3 different games instead of one - so don’t complain when there’s a delay.