Yes, I've seen the Rock Band Wii announcement. I've just been to pissed about it to post anything without saying something not very nice about Harmonix, MTV Games and EA. I'm still unhappy though - I beginning to think there is some serious patent problem somewhere in the rest of the world.
Finally Figured it Out!
I finally figured out the final intermediate plot point for the Fantasy of War. Let the war begin.
The First Game I Beat
While surfing Kotaku yesterday, I came across this interesting article. "What Was The First Game You Beat?" So, that got me thinking, what was the first game I beat? And then it dawned upon me - I had no idea! I kept thinking back and back and back. First, I thought back to my computer gaming days. First, I thought of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, which I quickly dismissed in favour of Warcraft 2. (I never finished Red Alert, but I did finish Warcraft 2.)
And then, I remembered - that there were games I played before that! EA Kids material and Wing Commander 2! I did complete Wing Commander 2, but there was a game a completed before that - Eagle Eye Mysteries! Oh, the wonders of old games.
I thought back even further - to my Micro Genius IQ1000 and Game Boy. I never truly beat any game on either of those consoles - Pokemon Yellow didn't come out until long after my first computer games were beaten. The only game I came close to beating on my Micro Genius was probably an arcade port of TMNT. I now have the XBLA trial version, and it's barely recognisable to me.
But there were games that I played that came on 5.25" diskettes. So, I can safely say that the first game I played and beat was some version of Math Maze. I'm not even sure if that's the name anymore. I know that it involved doing math, and going through a maze. And somehow, if you met a dragon and failed to answer the math question, it would be game over - and it'd play some version of Greensleeves to commemorate your death.
And that's the first game I beat. Math Maze. I think. If you could count that as a game.
The last game I beat? Well you all know that if you read the right sidebar - Mass Effect.
Too Many Aliases
I had to retry logging into to a forum 4 times before I got the right combination of username and password. I guess it's a sign that I have too many aliases. :(
Why The Stress on Player Skill?
As a gamer, I find it rewarding when player skill and decisions make or break a battle. There is a feeling of achievement when it is an improvement in your own skill that leads to victory in a battle, not just the fact that your character is now of a higher level, or that your character is now equipped with more skills. I feel it is more rewarding that your own technique, methods and tactics have improved against a given enemy. However, it is also interesting and fun to be able try different things - using your own control. Turn-based is fun if the tactical element is great, but otherwise it gets boring and dry quickly - especially if your skill repetoire (like at the beginning of your game) is too limited, or if it is too varied, you have too many useless skills.
Having a smaller set of skills repeatable, but that both grow in power and vary in tactical value as time passes as well as more interesting movement styles and enemies. It's always interesting when a skilful player takes less time to grind than that of a new player, but knowing that the new player will catch up eventually in skill as well - and follow suit.
Having a system like this also introduces a new element. Because enemies will have to behave similar to players and behave in predictable patterns (unlike in an RPG), this opens up a new avenue, since enemy AI can have more flexibility and can create more of an interest in the enemy, compared to just knowing it's HP. This also means that I can have annoying enemies that die in one hit, but are difficulty to hit without a gun, for example, or enemies that are easy to hit, but difficult to take down.
Then of course, we have enemies that are unblockable, or attacks that not avoidable (but blockable or possible to resist against) in addition to more traditional buffs and debuffs that affect speed, damage, the ability to cast spells, and so on. All this test player skills considerably, and it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that a new player with a powerful character will be greatly mismatched and depending on how different the loadout is on the character - it is even possible that the new player will be unable to use the character at all!
(Of course, if it actually reached that stage, I'd say the game probably needs reworking on the ease of control.)