It finally hit the shelves! Super Street fighter 4 was released for all of us fighting fans. New challengers stepping up, old faces returning and new goodies grace the list of features on the back of the game’s box. I got my copy the very same day the latest expansion of the legendary fighting series landed at my local game store. This would be a very anodyne story if there wouldn’t be a twist somewhere. Wouldn’t you agree my dear friend? A surprise. A jack-in-the-box. Oh yes, life is full of surprises. So says mister Guert as he pokes his right shoulder with his right hand.
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Posts Tagged ‘Culture’
The feasting snake
Sunday, May 30th, 2010When slots were queens
Sunday, May 30th, 2010Sometimes I feel like a greyed-hair old man when I say aloud that I miss the arcade era. I don’t consider myself a nostalgic. I like what is new and I’m always looking forward to discover brand new things. However there’s this part of me that isn’t really thrilled to see what I like change. It kinda gets to me when something I enjoy slowly vanishes into oblivion. These last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about the time of the arcade machines; the era when the coin-ops, the slots, were the queens of gaming.
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Where does time go?
Saturday, March 6th, 2010For the last past months, time has not been my ally. Projects have stacked, my daytime workload has grown but days haven’t extended at all. Where does time go? While sitting in front of the glowing box, crafting virtual worlds and experiences, it feels as if everytime I pull my head out from my work, hours have passed and I haven’t noticed at all. Too bad the world is not a videogame.
The “I can’t win” malaise
Friday, November 27th, 2009Recently I was talking with a friend about the New Super Mario Bros Wii title. It seems that this new opus of the legendary plumber caused quite a stir in my little world. My last blog post was about that particular game andpeople aroundme have diverging opinions about it. Some like it, some hate it, but all seem to agree that it’s not the best Mario created. One little detail to precise here: all those people are over 25 years old. Of course, I wanted to know more about the development process behind NSMBWand found this interview on Nintendo’s Wii official website. It seems that the great game designer Shigeru Miyamoto went into enormous lengths to make sure everyone could play and finish the game. He wanted to have a high difficulty level but didn’t want players to feel frustrated enough to quit. It reminded me of a BBC show I watched a few months ago. Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe (links can be found at the bottom of this post) was a nice, entertaining overview of the world of modern video games. During the show, the host as well as a guest player, mentions that video games are the only entertainment form where you must work to have the full content of what you bought. The entirety of the product you just acquired is locked by your own skills: if you can’t get past a level, you can never see what’s next. Also, as a game designer, it’s been clear to me for years that the industry is doing all it can to look friendly and sweet to bring in new blood in order to broaden the market. The phenomenon of “hand-holding”, a design direction that consists of giving tons of hints to the player as well as a multitude of tutorials for all actions available in the game, can be found in the majority of triple A titles, even those who are targeted at the seasoned players. Heck! The entire Wii console screams gentleness and passiveness to make sure all the members of the family can enjoy a good, clean, aseptic game environment. The numbers don’t lie: the Wii is the best selling console on the market. Still, something bothers me with this direction. Something doesn’t feel quite right.
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I’m not 12 anymore
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009A few weeks ago, Nintendo released its latest Mario game. Straight-forwardly titled New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the new game is what the name says. It’s a new Mario game, on the Wii. And yes, as you may have deduced, if they say it’s for the Wii, it means that they added “wiigling” motion-based moves into the plumber’s arsenal. Although it’s a brand new game with remixed mechanics and controls, to me, the game feels like a big “déja vu”. It felt to me as if they took all the previous major Mario games and shoved them in a blender. The best way to describe my feelings is by comparing the game’s experience to a nice tall glass of homemade fruit juice. It looks good. You just know that it’s going to be good since only good stuff have been used when making it. But as you drink it down, you feel lumps going down your throat. Your head tells you it’s okay because it’s all good stuff but at the same time, you’re not sure if you like that feeling. It leaves you wondering if you didn’t like it better before everything got blended. Well, that’s how I felt when playing the game.
All the games in the world
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009Yesterday, I wrote about how I felt when I went to the game store. I scratched the surface of a topic that irritates me a lot these days. I mentioned that, when I go to a store, I end up feeling as if I’m not doing my job as a designer if I don’t play all the games I see. Am I doing my job even if I’m not playing the entire PS3/XboX360/Wii/DS/PSP/PC game catalogue? Just gazing at the amount of games available makes me wonder if it is even humanly possible to do so. So what am I suppose to do?
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