Archive for November, 2006
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Here’s what’s wrong with Yoshi’s Island DS, in decending order of importance.
1. The area between the two screens is treated as actual real-estate by the game. This means that you are always looking at a view with a horizontal “hole” in it. The plus side to this is that, aparently, it’s “easier to aim the egg projectiles”. Except that Yoshi’s Touch And Go, a game all about lobbbing eggs, does the opposite – pretends there is no space between the screens – and works absolutely fine. Not being able to see the middle of your view is really, really ludicrous.
2. The whole “multiple-babies” thing. Each baby has different skills and you can only swap them at certain points. This is just irritating: all puzzles using this mechanic could just as well be done with switch/key mechanics instead. It’s a bit difficult to explain why this is such a lazy mechanic, but it is.
3. The “turn around and fire quickly” controls don’t work. You won’t understand how important this move is unless you are a YI player, so take my word for it that breaking this functionality is a fairly big problem
4. The Artoon-developer Art is fairly bad. The art assets taken from Yoshi’s Island are great, but the ones drawn by Artoon themselves are mediocre at best. This really just makes me annoyed Nintendo didn’t do YIDS in-house. Oh yeah, and they couldn’t work out how to do the beautiful rainbow-magic graphical effect from YI so they just replaced it with some stars.
Despite these things, YIDS is actually ok, and after the first world gets considerably better. It’s a 7/10 game*. However, all that’s between 7 and 9 are the things listed above – all, apart from the art, that would be very easy to fix. Given the absolutely ridiculous way they approached using the tilt-sensor in Yoshi’s Topsy Turvy I have a feeling that Artoon are just not very good at game design. (In YTT rotating the GBA merely switched between three discreet states – 45 degrees left, flat, and 45 degrees right. Ie, a mechanic that could have been done far better with the L and R buttons. I can’t imagine a game designer who gets given a peripheral as damn cool as the GBA tilt-sensor and does that with it).
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*I’m not reviewing this game. The Mode 7 Games blog does not review games. Saying a game is an x/10 game is just another adjective, like calling it ugly, buggy, fast, etc.
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Thursday, November 16th, 2006
I have an article in PC Format this month, talking about innovation in indie games. I’m pleased with how it turned out, pick up a copy if you can.
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Monday, November 13th, 2006
A belated thanks to everyone at Gamecity – particularly Iain and David – for making my time there enjoyable.
Apparently, the event was a big success so hopefully we’ll see more of it in coming years. Having a low-key, fun, gaming culture-centric event is exactly what “the industry” needs at the moment to counteract a growing focus on technology and business: both viable topics but everyone’s a bit tired of them.
I particularly enjoyed the talk given by Mark Healey of Media Molecule and Rag Doll Kung Fu fame, and Rob Yescombe’s slightly manic excursion into the odd world of the game script writer.
My own effort more than made up in controversy what it lacked in technical supremacy. Just to clarify some points about that…
What I mean by “sensation” in a game, is something of a combination of atmosphere and the more arcane pleasure which is derrived from “beating”, “outwitting” or strategising in the way that the game wants: so a synthesis of aesthetic and gameplay.
For example, the sensation in Thief (a very sensation-driven title) is one of being powerful, sneaky and intelligent; exploring a threatening world with a variety of options and decisions at your beck and call which never leave you without some sense of control. Now that’s completely abstract, and it could apply to a lot of games, but Thief achieves it brilliantly and holds onto it as tightly as possible, expressing it aptly through both the gameplay and the aesthetic. I believe that trying to keep that at the heart of your design will help keep your game fun.
I didn’t mean “sensation” in the sense of controversy: no Canis Canem Edit here. I also didn’t mean, “Games now is all about the GRAPHICKS! WOT IS HAPPEN TO G@M3PLAY?” as some people seem to believe. I was basically just making a point about how it’s easy to lose sight of (or, indeed, to forget to HAVE) a worthy high-concept when you’re designing a game.
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Monday, November 13th, 2006
Things have been quiet from me recently for a variety of reasons, but I should be posting more in the near future.
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Sunday, November 12th, 2006
A turn-based racing-combat game is the kind of idea that will get me really damn excited. That is precisely what indies should be doing with their time.
Darkwind has been in production for a while now, and I’ve chatted a bit with the designer. This looks like it may get done, and counts as my favorite indie game in production. Take a look at the vid here.
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Sunday, November 12th, 2006
Today I am server shopping. We’ve got a server in the UK which handles all our services, such as web, IRC< master and authentication, but it’s not necesserily up for serving games in… Latvia. I’m looking at ServerBeack for our US server, and I’ve found something which I think will work. Europe is next…
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Thursday, November 9th, 2006
This is not a link blog. But this is the greatest video game trailer I’ve ever seen.
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Thursday, November 9th, 2006
Worms “2D” is coming to Live Arcade. If “2D” means Worms 1 that would be fantastic, as Worms 1 is a pure, perfect, territory-based strategy game. Every sequel removed more skill and added more theatre to what is – with a few house rules – one of the greatest tactical video games of all time.
It probably won’t be Worms 1 because Worms 18 Regional-Warfare edition is prettier. Only disc-space and IP-ownership concerns can save us now.
Ian
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Wednesday, November 8th, 2006
Eurogamer has some rather bizarre coverage of Stalker up. It appears that, despite the title’s huge delays, THQ are still taking journalists into the Chernobyl “zone” rather than actually letting them play the game. Message to THQ: I am B.O.R.E.D. of listening to journalists talk about how “moving” it is. I want to hear about your game now.
The article does have some actual play-time in it, and those sections are worth reading. Stalker could still be a great game, but it all rests on the gunplay. If the shooting is Far Cry or even HL1 good then I think Stalker could be a Gotee candidate. If not it’ll be another infuriating failure of Boiling Point standards.
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Wednesday, November 8th, 2006
In the last six weeks I’ve driven a rental car from San Jose up to Eugene, back down again and down further to San Diego, and back up to San Jose. That’s about two thousand miles in all, and it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as enjoyable without my TomTom GPS thing. That’s not to say there aren’t a couple of issues with it, which I thought I’d share.
First I want to make something clear about English and American roads.
English Motorways are extremely well thought-out, clearly and consistantly sign-posted, and very easy to navigate.
English city and country roads are a complete mess, utterly random, terribly thought-out, and impossible to use without getting lost often.
whereas
American city and country roads are extremely well thought-out, clearly and consistantly sign-posted, and very easy to navigate.
American Motorways are a complete mess, utterly random, terribly thought-out, and impossible to use without getting lost often.
In England, I give TomTom 9.5 out of 10. It’s directions on motorways are very easy to understand partially because british motorways are easy, and the little map makes it very clear what to do on our stupid little windy roads.
In America though, TomTom gives some problems on freeways. The issue is that freeway junctions are a mess (especially for foreigners), and you have to make decisions fast, and you don’t have time to read the 3D map because it gets really complicated.
Anyway… there you go. A Mode 7 Games Blog post about driving.
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