Hard Vs Bullshit

 

Recently I've been playing a game on stream called Wings of Vi.  Wings of Vi is a platform game brought to us by a guy named Solgyrn who is probably the most well known for creating a similar game called I wanna be the Boshy.  I Wanna Be the Boshy was a fan game of the notorious I Wanna Be The Guy, a platform game that was designed to troll just as much as it was to challenge the player.  

Hard games are something I usually quite enjoy.  If you were to come to me and tell me that a game presents an above average challenge I'm probably going to buy it.  When a game has multiple difficulty options I'm the kind of person to jump straight into hard mode and completely ignore the normal or easy settings.  I'm not saying this to flex any kind of gaming cred, of course, I'm merely pointing it out so that when I go on to call Wings of Vi "bullshit" in the next few paragraphs, I'm being genuine rather than just throwing my toys out of the pram because I died a bunch of a couple of bosses.

Difficulty is a hard thing for a lot of developers to get right and generally speaking I find that the best games in this aspect don't even have difficulty settings to speak of.  3D Mario games are one example of this where you can usually beat the game with only 70 of the stars/shines/dragon dildos or whatever but for players looking for extra challenge can find it in post game content or in challenging courses when trying to 100% the game.  Another example would be Celeste, a challenging platformer that presents the player with no difficulty settings in the traditional sense but instead gives a reasonable challenge to all players and then ramps up the difficulty in post game content such as B sides, Golden Berries and Farewell.  Dark Souls would be another good example of this where some basic knowledge of the games systems and adapting to the combat a little will get you through all the games story bosses, but extra bosses and self imposed challenges can help bring up the challenge for people who want a bit of punishment. 

Bad difficulty, I find, usually comes in the form of settings that one must pick at the start of the game.  The one that stands out extremely clear in my mind was Nier on PS3 where the hard mode just increased enemy damage and health to the point where almost all the battles were just long slogfests and death would be brought about by a loss of attention due to boredom rather than the game being actually hard.  The other bad example I can think of is Dante's Inferno, also on PS3 where the higher difficulty levels were designed specifically around New Game Plus and the carrying over of skills and stats.  Sure it's POSSIBLE to beat Dante's Inferno on hard from a new game, but it's not fun because you feel like you're playing with your hands tied behind your back rather than because the game is actually any harder than it was on normal.  From what I understand, Resident Evil 8 does a similar thing but I've still not played that yet so I can't say for sure.

Then there's bullshit games like Wings of Vi.  Funnily enough Wings of Vi actually does present you with difficulty settings that change the number of checkpoints and enemy damage but again, nothing actually interesting out side of "die less and jump better".  But the problems in Wings of Vi are much more than that in both platforming and combat.  Platforming bullshit comes in the form of challenges and obstacles that 1) You can't see before it's too late and 2) Aren't obviously clear how to get around them.  Platforming in Vi is extremely precise and the game is almost more of a puzzle experience in this regard than a straight platformer.  Working out which combination of jumps and wing flutters you have to do is difficulty and can be pretty satisfying to achieve when you get it down.  However there are often points in the game where you will be presented with a jumping challenge, you practice and die and attempt to clear it and eventually you get it, only for the screen to shift and you get given more instant death spikes with no time to react and no time to work out what the hell you were supposed to do.  Back to the checkpoint with you, idiot.   A good example of this is a section that involves dashing through rhythmically moving worms.  The timing on the jumps and dashes to get through but when you get above the section you have to make a diagonal dash to safety through an enemy and onto a platform that you CANT FUCKING SEE.  So yeah, har har you got me with the sudden direction change and enemy placement but the death isn't my fault.  Maybe if you had shown me that before I would have made it through but you just covered my eyes for a stupid "gotcha" moment.

The bosses aren't much better where the first 10-50 attempts will be just adapting to whatever attack pattern the enemy has and then every attempt after that is just doing it until you can that one "in the zone" run where you pull it all off.  One boss however, a giant 3 headed worm in a perpetually moving tunnel with floating platforms can make you lose runs to it just not working.  The bosses chases you left to right in phase 1, top to bottom in pase 2 and the left to right in phase 3.  The shift from phase 2 to phase 3 will ALWAYS bug out, I never saw it work properly once and you will die to platformings not spawning and leaving you trapped to take a big chunk of damage.  Bosses that do work right, like Ancient Constructs, aren't any better though, starting off reasonable and then just becoming jank Touhou by the end.

Sure, Wings of Vi and games like it are extremely satisfying to get through but "bet you didn't see that coming" platforming and "bullet hell with a jumbo jet" aren't fun to experience, it's just bullshit bad design so that idiots like me can say that we bashed our head off the wall long enough to get it done.  There's a reason Celeste, Dark Souls and games like it will be celebrated forever and shit like Wings of Vi will be forgotten and fade into obscurity

The N64 Was A Bit Crap

 I still remember the Christmas I got the N64 from my parents.  I ran downstairs, hooked that shit up and spent my entire morning playing Mario 64 and having a grand old time.  Later I was given copies of Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye and Zelda: Ocarina of Time and I remember playing these games with friends and having quite a bit of fun.  However, despite the fond memories, looking at the N64 now and even thinking back to how it was back then, the system was actually just a bit shit.

First of all the hardware itself was just a bit shit.  The N64 is home to what is probably one of the worst controllers I've ever had to use to play a game with.  Sure, we all got used to it and in the end it was fine but that doesn't change the fact that it's clearly designed for a weird species of Octopus people that live on the ocean floor.  Plus the addons can also suck a fat one the expansion pack can suck an especially large fat one.  I remember my friend coming to my house after school and bringing Majoras Mask with him but he forgot his expansion pack so we were just up shit creek and I had to wait another 2 weeks for him to come over again before I got a chance to play it.  

Which leads nicely into the next issue which was pricing of the damn games.  Literally nobody that I knew growing up who also had an N64 had more than about 3 or 4 games because the carts were quite literally DOUBLE the price of anything else at the time.  You would walk into a game store and all the new games were about 30 Pounds and then there were the N64 games in their stupid ugly rectangular cardboard boxes demanding that you fork out 50 or 60 Pounds.  On a side note, the SNES boxes can also suck a fat one but that system was actually good so I'm not as bitter about it.

But all of that shit is in the past, all that REALLY matters are the games.  Well, it's not much better in this department.  The lifespan of the N64 according to Wikipedia was 6 years and whenever anyone talks about the system the same games always come up; Zelda: OoT, Goldeneye, Banjo, Mario 64, Lylat Wars (sometimes Mario Kart, sometimes Mario Party) and that's fucking IT.  6 years of life and the number of games people actually give a shit about can be counted on one hand.  There are a few more games than that, but not many and even of those most of them feel like utter shit to play now.  Have you tried actually playing Goldeneye 64 today? It's grueling.  Granted it was cool as all hell at the time but playing it now is the gaming equivalent of putting toothpicks under your fingernails.  The Dreamcast, again according to  Wikipedia, had half the lifespan of the N64 and yet there are significantly more games on that system that were good and still feel good to play even today.  

I understand people having fond memories of the thing and I have to admit that despite it's absolutely embarrassing library the games that were good were VERY good (except Goldeneye, fuck off) but lets stop looking back on the system like it was some overall landmark of gaming quality.  It was an overpriced piece of shit that mad a fat man in overalls go "wa-hoo" and that's all it was ever good for 

Silver Ball Planet Osaka

I realize that content has been a bit thin on the ground recently, job stress, large backlog and a packed schedule has made it hard to find time to write stuff for the blog.  One of those things taking time away from me was a trip to Osaka where I checked out a place called Silver Ball Planet, a huge pinball hall somewhere in the middle of what my friend called the "American village"

I know that strictly speaking Pinball isn't video games but its always been one of those things I've enjoyed.  Granted, my experience playing on actual tables like this is extremely limited but I've always enjoyed the odd stint on a pinball video game and when I do get a chance to play on actual tables it's always an absolute blast.

The place itself is this huge sort of warehouse looking place filled with all sorts of Pinball machines.  Some are insanely old while others are surprisingly modern.  The one that struck me the most was a machine based on The Walking Dead.  I didn't snap a pic myself but here's a image of the layout I got off Google

I mean, I've not looked too deeply into its production but my guess is that it must have been made and released at somewhat recently with the rise in popularity of the comic and TV show.  I find it cool that despite pinball being a somewhat niche thing, they are still making new tables in the modern day, that fact makes me kind of happy.

On the flip side there are machines made from the god knows when old times but the fun thing about these machines is that they were 10 yen per play

Most of the machines were priced, as one would expect, at 100 yen per play but if you were running out of coins then there were a few machines like this priced at 10 and 50 yen per go.  There was one machine that was 100 yen for 4 plays for some reason and if, unlike me, you're good at pinball then one coin can last you a long time.

One of the more video game related things that surprised me a little bit was that sitting next to the Tron pinball table was the goddamn Tron arcade game

It felt a little out of place surrounded on all sides by pinball tables and I was a little busy so didn't have a chance to try the thing but it was cool to actually see an arcade cabinet this old in the flesh.  I'm already planning my return trip to Osaka to play more pinball so this will probably be the first thing I try on my return trip before I start playing any actual pinball.

It doesn't matter if you're a pinball wizard or a piece of shit who just smashes the flippers and hopes for the best, Silver Ball Planet is a fun and cheap day out that I think anyone could get at least some degree of enjoyment out of.  Pinball is one of those games that's easy to get into but has qualities that make it hard to master.  There was an advert in the place for a beginners tournament which made me curse the fact I don't live in Osaka because I would have loved to check that out.  Anyway, to round out this post here are two pictures of the Super Mario tables.

The small shitty looking one

The bigger, more impressive table.  Notice the Space Invaders table off to the right too!

No Hopes for Mario Maker

Everyone likes a bit of the old Super Mario Brothers, classic platforming at it's finest.  Even the newer 3D games still manage to be enjoyable experiences and I can't really think of a Mario game that you could flat out call "bad".  Maybe there are a few mediocre ones but generally speaking they are all well made and fun to play.

So then Mario Maker gets announced and at face value this sounds like an awesome idea.  It's a simple set of tools for making your very own Mario games and levels and the idea of a bunch of Mario fans coming together and making levels for each other sounds awesome.  We've seen other games like it that were pretty fun to play such as Little Big Planet and now this is essentially that but with Mario instead of weird sock puppet things.

Except then I started thinking about the concept and my inner pessimist got the better of me and now the idea of Mario Maker make my eyes roll.  You see, custom Mario levels and games is not really a new idea, it's been going on for a hell of a long time except people didn't have a nice easy tool to do it all with.  Oh no, to this day exists a thing known as ROM hacking, which is where truly dedicated fans will take a Mario ROM, change all the bits around and make their own game with it.  The most famous example of this is probably Kaizo Mario World which is essentially a Mario game only for the most hard core of experts

Something may seem a little different to how you remember

The thing is, ROM hacking isn't exactly easy so it meant that the people who took up projects like this probably knew these games pretty well and had a good idea on how to make a decent level or two.  Now every Tom, Dick and Harry can make a Mario level so just how many idiots are we going to have giggling it up at the fact the recreated 1-1 from NES Mario or the hundreds and hundreds of shitty throwaway stages that are going to be uploaded by complete tossers who don't know what they are doing.

Mario is a big name and it attracts a lot of people which is great, it's always good to see more people gaming but most of these people probably know fuck all about designing a good level in ANYTHING let alone Mario, myself included.  It's going to suffer the same problem that Little Big Planet did with it's 100 pre made courses that will be awesome, a few really good user generated levels and then thousands upon thousands of complete trash stages that most people will only play for about 30 seconds.  Hundreds of people just recreating levels from other games in Mario Maker which may be slightly entertaining but the whole point of this shit is to create something original so if you are the kind of person looking forward to that then power to you but I sure as fuck won't be wasting my time with that crap.

There's a reason I'm a blogger and a speed runner rather than a game designer.  I'm trying to design my own fucking shitty RPG Maker game right now and every time I finish a map for a dungeon I can't help but get sad over how fucking crap it probably will be once I implement it.  Most people are probably in my boat and because of that I probably won't be dropping money on Mario Maker.

Please Mario fans, prove me wrong and then laugh in my face, I'd love it if you did that and I'd buy the game full price in a heartbeat.

World Cosplay Summit 2014

The World Cosplay Summit is an event that happens every year right on my doorstep.  A short 10 minute walk from my apartment this weekend led into a huge crowd of people all dressed up as their favorite anime and video game characters for this yearly celebration of nerdyness.

Now I'm not into anime AT ALL with the last thing I watched being Akagi, a show about Mahjong, at university so most of the things that people were dressed as went right over my head but that didn't stop it from being super impressive either way.  However there were plenty of video game characters I was plenty familiar with so I guess there's a little something for everyone.

I would say that even if you aren't into games, anime or cosplay it's still an event worth going to.  Some of the things that people pull off are so outlandish that it's the kind of thing that has to be seen first hand to believe.  It also coincides with the Osu Festival (temple pictured above) so you can wander away from the cosplayers and experience something a bit more traditional and it makes a great weekend.

Unfortunately, I was busy this weekend and didn't get to spend a lot of time there but below I'll share a few snaps I got on my camera with you.  Enjoy!

A really awesome Wander from SotC

Sephiroth

 

A sexy Mario being bombarded by nerds with big cameras

These were all the gaming ones I got, I'll put the anime related ones on twitter or something.

Mario Kart 8 is Pretty Good

I don't own a WiiU but thanks to my friend very kindly bringing his over this weekend I managed to have a good toot on Mario Kart 8 and it's an absolute ton of fun.

If you have ever played a Mario Kart game before which I'm going to assume you have at this point, it's basically more of the same.  They have added some kind of anti gravity thing which means that a lot of the games original courses are pretty crazy and fun to play.  There are a good selection of new items too but the game seems to be a lot stingier with it's toys this time round so I've not had too much of a chance to play around with them.

The multiplayer is also a ton of fun and supports both split screen and online play.  If you have only two players then you have the option of jumping into the online mode and playing against the denizens of the internet together.  The online mode is also very fast and very simple, if you just wanted a quick race or two then it's extremely easy to just jump on and have a few races with some randoms and it has features to allow you to play with your friends but I've not been able to test the functionality of that.

The simplicity of the game is what makes it so damn good though.  You buy most modern games and it has to do DLC checks and then pesters you to buy a map or a character or some such total bullshit.  Mario Kart just lets me pop in the game and fucking play it, which is great and more games need to adopt this approach rather than trying to spend all their time on every menu screen trying to squeeze more money out of me.

Also a lot of people rag on the WiiU for not being as graphically advanced as the PS4 and the Xbox One but Mario Kart 8 is an extremely pretty game.  The courses look great and are quite varied and it runs silky smooth even during split screen multiplayer.

I'm going to have the chance to play the game a bit more over the coming week, so if I find any bullshit I'll be sure to rant about it somewhere but for now, Mario Kart 8 might just be the game that convinces me to go pick up my own WiiU

The Return of Nintendo Hard....Maybe...

It's funny that I should discover this news today, just a few days ago I was talking about how hard old school Mario is and then this pops up.

So, first of all, let me link to to what the fuck I'm talking about

http://gimmegimmegames.com/2013/10/nintendo-focusing-making-games-easier-anymore-getting-lost-really-good/

If you can't be arsed to read the link, the story is that Eiji Aonuma of Nintendo said that he recognises that Nintendo games of recent years have been on a little on the easy side but there are plans to change that.  He basically says that some people at Nintendo thought that making games easier so that people could progress was better but him and Miyamoto think that having some degree of difficulty and "getting lost" in a game is way more important.

This is great news, I've always complained that modern gaming is way to hand holdy and way too easy.  Even the games that are touted about as hard games, such as Dark Souls, aren't actually all that hard once you re-adapt to not having your hand held through a video game.

Old school Nintendo used to produce some really REALLY difficult games back in the day, like the above pictured Japanese Mario 2 and the idea of them going back to that makes me extremely excited.  I want to experience an actual challenge and feel like the act of beating a game actually took some skill and effort on my part. 

Hop to it Nintendo, I want the hardest games you can possibly imagine, let's see what you got!

Where Did The Difficulty Go, Mario?

Look at this old motherfucker right here.  Whenever someone mentions video games, Mario is that one character that absolutely 100% of people will be able to recognise.  It doesn't matter if you're the hardest of core, super turbo nerd game enthusiast or the kind of person who doesn't know which way on a controller is up, you know this fucking  guy.

So yesterday, in a fit of absolute boredom I decided to fire up a bit of Super Mario Bros and play it through without using any of the warp zones, because I always use the damn things and I've forgotten what most of the game looks like.

Now I've not played any old school Mario game for a long long time.  Hell, the last Mario game I played a great deal of was Galaxy 2, but my memory of recent Mario games has been that they are all fun, but not exactly challenging.  Basically everything after Sunshine has had the challenge stripped from it in order to appeal to a wider audience, which is fine for a series like this with broad appeal, but Jesus Christ the old ones especially don't fuck around.

The first few stages are an absolute cakewalk, but once you hit world 3 or 4, the stages actually get pretty tricky with precise jumps, fiendish enemy placement and game overs that mean that you have to start over from 1-1 meaning that beating Mario Bros is no easy feat.

Let's not forget Super Mario Bros 2 as well, and no, not fucking Doki Doki Panic, real Mario 2.  Real Mario 2 was so fucking hard that they didn't even bother to release that shit overseas, they just re skinned an easier game and gave that to the west.  There are parts in Mario 3 and World that would make even veteran players groan at it's difficulty and I'm sure there is plenty of other shit in the older games that would make me lose a few continues even now.

The new Mario games are all good and fun and whatnot, but like I said before, the series hasn't seen a real challenge since Sunshine.  I don't blame Nintendo for wanting to get Mario in the hands of as many people as possible, but they should make a game sometime with that old school level of challenge.  I'm not just talking about bits that might have one tricky jump or something, I mean proper, full on, challenge out the arse Lost Levels type of difficulty.

Make it happen Nintendo, gimme some New Super Mario Bros EX Masters Edition or something, I'll even fund it for you.

What happened to our hobby?

Back when I was a wee lad, when I picked up a Sega Mega Drive controller for the first time at the age of 4, gaming was a simple thing.  I was given and objective and I had to fulfil it and stuff would try to impede my progress along the way.  It was a simple time filled with simple, yet fun games and the only thing people were worried about was if they could get to the next level or not.

But gaming is evolving, and for the better too!  As technology gets more advanced, and developers try to do bigger and better things and maybe one day gaming will be able to stand tall along things such as books and film.

However, we are a long LONG way off anything like that happening, but somewhere along the line gaming lost its purity, and in losing this purity it is behind held back by different groups of people throwing complaints and criticisms at the industry without really knowing whats going on.

A few years ago the big issue was violence in games, and while it's still an issue this controversy has sort of lost steam a bit.  People would point at games like Manhunt and cry foul at how its "corrupting the youth" yet were happy to ignore a staggering amount of other media that had extremely similar content.

Nowadays we have sexism, and all the people who seem to be at the forefront of this "gaming is sexist" thing seem to know very little about what the fuck they are actually talking about.  I can't go a day on the internet without being reminded how sexist gaming is and how sexist gamers are, and the issue is starting to wear a bit thin.

Yes, there are issues in the industry but people are so willing to fling shit that nothing gets sorted and it all amounts of a bunch of idiots in front of keyboards silently yelling at each other and just making any issues worse.  While I'm not sure exactly, I think that this internet shit flinging is having an impact on the developers too!  No developer or writer or anything like that is going to want to push the envelope with this medium if all they get for it is people chucking needless amounts of shit towards them online.

People who enjoy this hobby and people who work within this industry need to sit down, and calmly examine the various issues that we have and maybe take steps to sort them out.  Gaming will only get better only if the people who truly know whats up are allowed to do things without everyone else throwing in their 2 cents.  Too many cooks etc.