Moderator: JC Denton
by icycalm » 18 Jan 2009 05:52
by JoshF » 18 Jan 2009 09:47
Hardcore Gaming 101 and the Culture of Mediocrity
by icycalm » 18 Jan 2009 10:03
A lot of people tend to gloss over a lot of older adventure games, calling them too dated, but you know what? As long as you have a FAQ in hand, they're a much more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon than frame skipping through the grinding segments of an old JRPG, and despite some of their obtuse puzzles, can still be pretty damn funny.
by Magnum Apex » 18 Jan 2009 10:25
icycalm wrote:A question of genre
by icycalm » 18 Jan 2009 13:31
Magnum Apex wrote:I've read the On Role-Playing Games and The RPG Conundrum articles, and found them quite informative, as I didn't grow up playing pen-and-paper role-playing games, which appear to be where the genre started.
Magnum Apex wrote:Now I wish I could turn back the clock and ask Dave Arneson how he felt about today's so-called RPGs when I took his Rules of the Game class a few years ago.
Magnum Apex wrote:Shortly after reading those articles, I wondered what your thoughts were on other genres, and if you were going to elaborate on them the same way you did on RPGs (and to an extent, strategy games).icycalm wrote:A question of genre
I'm expecting your commentary on the rest of the genres will be located there.
Magnum Apex wrote:Personally, I'd be interested to read your input on the "action-adventure" genre, which is a label usually given to a broad group of games. For example, if one wanted to play every "action-adventure" videogame out there, which criteria should one follow in order to pick the games that represent the genre accurately, regardless of quality?
by Volteccer_Jack » 18 Jan 2009 19:25
Basically, what it comes down to in the end, is that there exist four major categories of videogames: Action, Strategy, Puzzle, and RPG.
by icycalm » 18 Jan 2009 21:40
Volteccer_Jack wrote:I use the word "platforming" to mean challenges presented by the environment, rather than the enemies, with enemies thrown in to make the platforming harder.
Volteccer_Jack wrote:Am I to take it that you would categorize platforming as being Action and/or Puzzle? I'm thinking Action-heavy stuff would be like Mario or Sonic, and Puzzle-heavy stuff would be like Prince of Persia or Shadow of the Colossus.
by Recap » 19 Jan 2009 17:54
icycalm wrote:*sup Recap!
by EightEyes » 20 Jan 2009 00:40
Recap wrote:
Picking nits, I don't like this title: "Why old-timers hate handhelds". I wrote about that in my latest editorial -- it's not a matter of being an "old-timer" at all, just one of undumbness.
by icycalm » 20 Jan 2009 01:02
Recap wrote:Yeah, I want to write about this at some point, but it's such a complex subject if you want to make it understandable for everybody that I can't find the moment to begin.
Recap wrote:I miss the HD article in your list, by the way. It's a bit specific for what you seem to want here, but, even if as a sample, it exposes perfectly the digital picture issue, which is quite an intrinsic and universal one.
Recap wrote:Picking nits, I don't like this title: "Why old-timers hate handhelds". I wrote about that in my latest editorial -- it's not a matter of being an "old-timer" at all, just one of undumbness.
Recap wrote:As for Tetris, that never was a puzzle game/puzzle-heavy action game, if you ask me. It's purely an action game. There's no strategy involved in its mechanics unlike say, Puyo Puyo.
by icycalm » 20 Jan 2009 01:08
Worm wrote:"On Game Guides" will probably cover this, but what about cheating with codes, programmable pads, Game Genie, etc.?
Worm wrote:Your position was made clear in the "1CCing: The intended way" thread, but I wonder where it will fall in the articles.
by Recap » 20 Jan 2009 03:47
Where's this editorial, Recap? I'd be interested in reading it.
I suspect that your take on this will be different from mine. In fact, I have no idea what your opinion will be on this matter. I know you are "pro-emulation", but I do not know the specifics of your arguments. In any case, there is not too much complexity in my arguments on this subject...
So I guess I could change the title to "Why intelligent people hate handhelds", but it would be less true than the other one, because I know lots of intelligent people who don't hate handhelds -- either because they do not play games at all, or because they have played so few of them and play them so rarely, that they have not had enough experience to allow themselves to reach the conclusion that handhelds are, to a great extent, a bad idea.
Strategy does not come into my definition of puzzle -- pattern-recognition, which Tetris has plenty of, does.
And it makes more sense to me to include Tetris on the same table with Puyo Puyo than on the same table with Contra or Shinobi.
by icycalm » 21 Jan 2009 00:07
Recap wrote:I can see no approach to this very subject other than the technical one. And technicalities are always complex to a point. In this case, they could get really nasty, indeed.
One of the reasons I am always happy to try out new puzzle games is that they keep providing me with fresh experiences, in a way that games belonging to other genres rarely do. The latest shiny FPS, for instance, is in the end just another FPS -- regardless of whatever new tricks or advances it boasts over previous such games. The same thing can be said about most of the titles lining the shelves of your local game store; whether they are racing or fighting games, shooters or RPGs.
But each puzzle game -- and I am referring to the originals here and not the endless Tetris clones or similar object-matching games -- is a world unto itself. Lemmings, Mr. Driller and Polarium all ostensibly belong to the same genre, but each one controls and plays as differently from the others as Altered Beast from Command & Conquer. In effect, each new puzzle game brings into being a brand-new genre -- or sub-genre, if you prefer -- a fact which to an extent justifies the numerous sequels most of them eventually spawn.
by Recap » 21 Jan 2009 02:11
icycalm wrote:Yes well, I don't have the necessary technical knowledge in this case, nor is it possible for me to acquire it anytime soon. All I have are a couple of thought experiments which will demonstrate the points I want to make. It's like using a mathematics theorem. I am not going to prove it for people -- I am just going to take it as a given, and simply draw all the conclusions that follow from it. So I am not out to PROVE to people that emulation can be perfect: I am going to explain to them why the very concept of perfection is a false one, and why emulation can therefore be better than perfect, if done properly.
Re: the subject of puzzle games. Perhaps the word "puzzle" is not the most appropriate to describe the group of games that I have in mind, and if I come up with a better one I'll be sure to replace it, but I still see no way to group games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo, Chu Chu Rocket and even Kuru Kuru Kururin other than together.
by icycalm » 21 Jan 2009 03:12
Recap wrote:"Experiments"? Like in "side-to-side tests"? Problem with that is that, if you don't support it with technical explanations, it will have zero value for most people. Measuring hardware-based lag, for instance -- I don't think it'll be enough with just an "I played this particular game and didn't notice the difference".
Recap wrote:In that case, "puzzle" is a total misnomer and I'd just put them in the "action" bag -- Street Fighter II does demand to develop a strategy too after all.
by Recap » 21 Jan 2009 18:08
icycalm wrote:Puyo Puyo and SFII do not belong in the same category. Because if they did, and if I tried to compile a list of the top 10 fighting games ever, it would end up looking something like this:
by icycalm » 21 Jan 2009 19:23
by icycalm » 24 Jan 2009 19:40
CTN wrote:So you don't like handheld gaming at all?
Recap wrote:Is there any reason to do it?
The handheld falacy, Japan vs the West, the incapabilities of 3D graphics, the scanlines/true-low-res thing, the RGB signal, arcade sticks vs joypads, the truth behind emulation... If I had published a book on these subjects like ten years ago maybe I'd be richer now.
Whatever.
by icycalm » 03 Apr 2009 13:46
Recap wrote:Indeed. Put it up on the front page just in case and I'll have one more editorial gone from my to-do list.
by FallingUp » 30 Apr 2009 10:19
icycalm wrote:Basically, what it comes down to in the end, is that there exist four major categories of videogames: Action, Strategy, Puzzle, and RPG. Those are the four fundamental categories of videogames possible, and they will never change.
by icycalm » 29 Jun 2011 20:43
S65 wrote:Also looking forward to some of his upcoming articles, though with a lot of them you can pretty much predict what he's going to say before he says it:
* "On Difficulty, Fun, and the Impossibility of Playing to Lose" - Challenge is intrinsically linked to fun and everyone is playing to win, also all play is competitive (I don't care if that makes the word "competitive" so broad that it's completely useless, shut up fagot).
* "On Narrative Delusions" - Because the future of videogames is full virtual reality, predefined narratives are bad and ruin immersion. If you want plot just read a book or watch a movie man.
* "Why Old-timers Hate Handhelds" - Handhelds are bad because all my favorite console/arcade franchises keep being relegated to 5 inch screens.
* "Dungeon Crawling" - Fuck JRPGs.
* "The Third Stupidest Word in Videogames" - Replayability is a dumb word because we're inclined to replay all great games.
* "Videogames & Simulation" - Videogames are simulation, we're heading towards the Matrix maaan!
* "How Hard is your Core? (or, The New Casuals)" - Fuck Tim Rogers.
* "On Real-time vs. Turn-based Strategy" - Turn based strategy games allow for more complexity! Example: let's compare Civilization V vs. StarCraft 2.
* "On Journalism's Irrelevance" - Now I will repeat what I said in the News Racket articles. Just in case you didn't get this the first time.
* "The Myth of Accessibility" - Accessibility is a buzzword, you meant to say "dumbed down."
* "The Myth of Innovation" - Innovation is a buzzword, you meant to say "refinement."
* "Responsibility my Ass" - Developers don't need to have social responsibility because videogames are virtual reality and their purpose is to free us from responsibility.
* "On Genre and the Tree of Gaming" - There are two main genres, Action and Strategy, each on the end of a spectrum, and all genres can be placed somewhere on this spectrum, and there is also a tree because genres have subgenres. This is why Spelunky is not a roguelike.
* "On Grinding" - Allowing the player to grind essentially makes skill irrelevant. Look at JRPGs man! Also grinding and filler are essentially one and the same: long periods of a game without any increase in complexity or difficulty.
* "The Console and the End of Videogame Hardware" - The console will eventually die, the PC is the superior platform, and cloud computing is great.
Well now that I've laid my Bingo card out let's see how right it turns out!
by Some guy » 30 Jun 2011 14:33
by icycalm » 15 Apr 2012 15:40
Halzebier wrote:The book has finally arrived and, as expected, it’s outstanding. The long-awaited scoring essay is a real eye-opener and worth the price of admission alone. Also, it’s great to have all these great essays in printed form. I immediately ordered the genealogy to which I look forward even more. In the meantime, I’ll read and reread this book.