Satoru Iwata, the head honcho over at Nintendo, is an undeniably greedy bastard. Either that, or a master businessman. Maybe both? Who knows. Either way, I'm left scratching my head at the DS-i.
Does anyone really want a camera or an mp3 player on their DS? I mean, really? When virtually every portable electronic device these days can play music, browse the web, do your laundry and walk the dog, it seems somewhat irrelevant to slap some superfluous features on a current-gen unit and call it a new product. Not for Nintendo, though; Their ability to turn even the most pointless upgrades into money-printing licenses is absolutely absurd, and the DS-i is by far the most devious product they've come up with in very a long time.
The GBA SP presented itself as a viable alternative to the standard GBA because it looked sleeker and had its own backlight. The Lite took over the mantle of the original DS because - you guessed it - it looks sleeker and has a better backlight. In both cases, nobody was alienated; Owners of the standard GBA/DS were not to miss out on anything, because despite the different shapes and features, the capabilities of each console were identical.
The DS-i does many of the same things, such as backwards/forwards compatibility, with the newer model justifying its own existence with a few new features. Most standard and Lite owners won't feel alienated, because DS-i exclusive games don't appear to be Nintendo's main focus. But at the same time, that exclusive DSWare Channel and future games potentially only working on a DS-i are certainly things that will have many current DS owners pondering yet another purchase.
And that's the key difference between the i and the Lite, or the SP and Micro before that. The Lite and SP provided a more refined version of the product, but were still the same product. You'd upgrade if you could, but it wasn't mandatory. The DS-i is, for all intents and purposes, the same console (which prevents the alienation of people who aren't going to upgrade), but at the same time offers things gamers will actually want that can't be done on the older version of the hardware. Nintendo have essentially split this generation in two - the "old" DS and the "new" DS - and expect you to pay for the same system twice. Should you choose not to, you'll be in the same boat you'd be in if you didn't upgrade from a PS2 to a PS3, or from a Gamecube to a Wii.
The mp3 and camera functionality are simply included to placate gamers, to give them some way to justify the purchase of their new DS-i console. "But, it also has a camera, and plays music! I'm not just buying it because it has it's own Shop that is theoretically not impossible to implement via firmware upgrades to the console I already own!"
The DS-i is easily my least-anticipated event of next year. No doubt it will sell like hot cakes, but does it deserve it? Does Nintendo deserve it? I really don't think so.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
What's wrong with Sonic the Hedgehog?
A short introduction:
As a long-time video game enthusiast, it never seemed likely that I would eventually "grow out" of the hobby that I love. This blog's sole purpose is to provide an outlet for my musings about this world in which I am so firmly entrenched, this form of entertainment that supercedes all others (when you're not playing something shit, anyway). Most importantly, this blog is a place for me to write about something I care about, and while you're here, you'll damn well care about it too.
To start things off with a bang, I'll be taking an in-depth look at my most cherished childhood mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, and why the little mite is having such a rough time of it lately.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first video game I ever played, at the tender age of three. At my cousin's house one Christmas, I was introduced to the latest and greatest addition to the family - a Sega Genesis - and the wonders that little box could produce. My cousin and I decided that together, we could have the game beaten before the end of the night.
Of course, I was horrifically bad at it. Being punished for running straight into enemies was a gameplay nuance I had trouble understanding, and so the phrase "Here, let me show you how to do it" was uttered with frequency by my teammate. Unfortunately for me, his idea of "showing me how to play" involved him playing the entire level while I watched, giving me the controller at the start of the next and letting this sorry process repeat itself ad infinitum. At the end of the night, as the final credits rolled, he was left with the feeling of satisfaction that comes with a game overcome; I was left with a hunger for that feeling myself.
Jump forward ten years and you'll find me in my living room, playing my freshly-bought Sonic Heroes. My competency (and general motor skills) had drastically increased, and I now looked forward to facing and - eventually - overcoming this challenge on my own. Yet, in a cruel twist of fate, I once again found myself watching the game being played by someone else, someone far more capable and clinical than I could ever hope to be. But who? The controller was in my hands, and there was no one else in the room. What could possibly be stopping me from playing this game by my own power?
In short: The game itself.
Sonic games degenerated into mere spectacles somewhere around Sonic Adventure 2, but the process had started as early as the first installment of the Adventure series. Gameplay elements had been dubiously tossed aside in favor of scripted set-pieces, non-interactive sequences and dynamic camera angles. By the time Sonic Heroes came about, looking cool and fast was the only thing the series was about, and the dramatic downward spiral Sonic finds himself in today is a direct result of this misguided attitude.
The source of the problem comes from an almost universal misunderstanding of what makes a Sonic game. Ask almost anyone what the original Genesis titles were all about, and the answer you'll most likely get is "Speed". Sega's much-touted "blast-processing" and the general hype of the originals certainly allude to this answer, but the shocking truth is that it is almost completely incorrect. Sonic games were never "about" speed, although they certainly had it in spades. The speed was just a by-product of the core gameplay dynamic that made the original Sonic games among the best of their era: Momentum.
It was the momentum-based physics of the original games that made them so unique. The entire world was made to take advantage of Sonic's momentum, with speed being the visual reward for gathering and mainting that commodity. You can't "see" momentum like you can see speed, and so it was the obvious focus of the many marketing campaigns, but anyone who feels that speed was the focus - as modern-day Sonic Team do - is wholeheartedly missing the point.
To compare and contrast the two schools of thought - "Momentum-based" and "Speed-based" - we need look no farther than the iconic loop-de-loops that litter Sonic's world. In the Genesis games, the loops presented the player with an obstacle. If you apprached a loop with too little momentum, you would not be able to propel yourself all the way through. You would need to retreat, gather momentum elsewhere, and then approach the loop again. A failed attempt at passing through a loop would result in the penalty of losing any gathered momentum, while successfully overcoming a loop would reward you with both a visual treat and even more momentum than you had before.
In 3D Sonic games, loops are set-pieces that look cool. Their purpose is to give the player something pretty to look at, not to challenge them. At the base of almost every loop you will find dash-pads, which provide you with "free" momentum did you not already have enough to get through. The camera will switch to a perspective that shows the entire loop in all its glory, as opposed to one that is practical for playing the game. In many cases, Sonic's position on the loop will be locked to dead-center, so he cannot deviate from the specificed route, crash into a wall half-way up, and thereby ruin the spectacle.
Loops are just an isolated case and not the root of the problem - scripted loops would not ruin an otherwise solid game - but the attitude that makes modern-day loops what they are permeates through every aspect of the modern franchise and corrupts it completely. Compare the Metal Sonic race in Sonic CD to the whale-chase in Sonic Adventure, or Sonic 2's Wing Fortress Zone with the rail-infested Ark levels of Sonic Adventure 2. In virtually every aspect of the game, the shift in attitude from "let's make it fun to play" to "let's make it fun to watch" is obvious, and the series is suffering as a result.
Look at the good old Spin Dash as opposed to the new-fangled "Rush Meter" introduced in Sonic Rush. Both serve roughly the same purpose - to provide you with free momentum - but function in such radically different ways that it seems they have no business being in the same game together. The Spin Dash was a trade-off, a calculated risk. In order to execute it, you'd first need to forfeit any gathered momentum by coming to a complete stop. You'd then need to hold one button and tap another until you had revved up to the desired extent. Once moving, you would experience an initial burst of speed much greater than Sonic's standard movement, but would quickly become subject to the will of the environment around you. With Sonic curled into a ball and his strong little legs tucked neatly away, you were at the mercy of your surrounds. An upward slope would eat up your momentum quickly, while a downward one would provide you with so much speed that Sonic would disappear off-screen. Without coming to a complete stop (and giving up momentum), Sonic couldn't leave his curled up state and start running again, leaving you with little choice but to ride it out, come whatever may. You gave up control for some free momentum, and it was almost never better than gaining the required momentum naturally.
The boost in Sonic Rush is another story entirely. You tap a button - whether you're standing still or moving - and gain an instant and immense increase in speed. You remain in an upright position, so Sonic is still completely in control, and if you ever want to quickly stop, you can simply boost in the other direction. You sacrifice nothing and gain a lot, thereby making every environmental obstacle completely pointless. The Rush games actually containing loops is a complete joke; They're not much of a spectacle in 2D any more, and as terrain objects, they serve no purpose. The boost means you will literally never have to stop.
Speed is now what weighs the series down as opposed to what elevates it above the rest. Sonic's stunts look better at high speeds - they always have - and so everything that actively lowered your speed has been brushed to the wayside. The whole idea of momentum has been scrapped entirely; Sonic goes from a slow jog to breaking the sound barrier within an instant, terrain no longer impedes you, and should you ever find yourself travelling at a comfrotable pace you can bet the developers didn't intend you to. Speed is now receiving so much focus that the very thing that is supposed to generate it - momentum - no longer even exists.
Look at any trailer for the upcoming Sonic Unleashed and you'll see this issue out in full force. Does Sonic ever stop? Maybe. But if he does, it obviously isn't worth showing, right? The werehog sections might slow Sonic down, but making him go slower is not the solution to the problem. If the werehog sections don't utilize momentum - as it appears they don't - then they may as well be scrapped, because if Sonic is going slow because the game forces him to (à la Sonic Labyrinth) and not because the player isn't playing well enough, then the concept is stupid.
Imagine one of the traditional Mario games for the SNES, but with Sonic's name and face on the cover instead of Mario's. Imagine running through the Mushroom Kingdom, but faster. Does this sound particularly fun to you? More to the point: Does this sound like any one of the classic Sonic games to you? It seems that Sonic has been so heavily typecast as "a faster Mario" that everyone has forgotten what made him so great in the first place. A strange phenomenon indeed, when you consider that even a brief comparison of how the two games played will show that they were always worlds apart.
There are, of course, other problems that currently burden this series that have nothing to do with a fixation on speed. The Adventure series, Heroes, Shadow and Sonic '06 all suffer from serious design flaws that go well beyond simply having the wrong attitude. Glitches, bugs, poor level design; You name it, these games have it. Which is why, to some extent, Sonic Unleashed looks like a very tentative step in the right direction. At the very least, everything seems well-designed, the controls appear solid, the level design intuitive and the ideas implemented properly. If Sonic Unleashed manages to fix all these things, then we'll be getting a fun game. A fun game that comes nowhere close to recapturing the essence of what Sonic is all about, but a fun game nonetheless. In reality, these design problems need fixing before a change in attitude will make any difference at all - good intentions don't make a good game - but if Unleashed pulls this off, then the platform is laid for Sonic's return to form.
The sad truth? That platform will be ignored. The Rush games fixed a lot of the problems with the Advance series and garnered modest success because of it, yet the series is simply sticking with what it knows rather than heading down the road of improvement. Rush 2 was just as much about holding Right and the boost button as the original was, and I fear that any success with Unleashed will see Sonic Team stick with it until forever. This is the very definition of a double-edged sword: They may very well fix the series to the point of playability, but should they do so, they'll have no reason to take the risk of changing the series' direction.
Sonic is not about speed. At least, he shouldn't be. And until the folks at Sonic team realize that we want a fun platformer and not a glorified series of quicktime events, don't ever expect the series to rebound. All the talk of "back to his roots" and "recapturing the glory days" that invariably accompanies each new Sonic game is complete rubbish; We're a long way off from 1991, and the immediate future is anything but bright.
As a long-time video game enthusiast, it never seemed likely that I would eventually "grow out" of the hobby that I love. This blog's sole purpose is to provide an outlet for my musings about this world in which I am so firmly entrenched, this form of entertainment that supercedes all others (when you're not playing something shit, anyway). Most importantly, this blog is a place for me to write about something I care about, and while you're here, you'll damn well care about it too.
To start things off with a bang, I'll be taking an in-depth look at my most cherished childhood mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, and why the little mite is having such a rough time of it lately.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first video game I ever played, at the tender age of three. At my cousin's house one Christmas, I was introduced to the latest and greatest addition to the family - a Sega Genesis - and the wonders that little box could produce. My cousin and I decided that together, we could have the game beaten before the end of the night.
Of course, I was horrifically bad at it. Being punished for running straight into enemies was a gameplay nuance I had trouble understanding, and so the phrase "Here, let me show you how to do it" was uttered with frequency by my teammate. Unfortunately for me, his idea of "showing me how to play" involved him playing the entire level while I watched, giving me the controller at the start of the next and letting this sorry process repeat itself ad infinitum. At the end of the night, as the final credits rolled, he was left with the feeling of satisfaction that comes with a game overcome; I was left with a hunger for that feeling myself.
Jump forward ten years and you'll find me in my living room, playing my freshly-bought Sonic Heroes. My competency (and general motor skills) had drastically increased, and I now looked forward to facing and - eventually - overcoming this challenge on my own. Yet, in a cruel twist of fate, I once again found myself watching the game being played by someone else, someone far more capable and clinical than I could ever hope to be. But who? The controller was in my hands, and there was no one else in the room. What could possibly be stopping me from playing this game by my own power?
In short: The game itself.
Sonic games degenerated into mere spectacles somewhere around Sonic Adventure 2, but the process had started as early as the first installment of the Adventure series. Gameplay elements had been dubiously tossed aside in favor of scripted set-pieces, non-interactive sequences and dynamic camera angles. By the time Sonic Heroes came about, looking cool and fast was the only thing the series was about, and the dramatic downward spiral Sonic finds himself in today is a direct result of this misguided attitude.
The source of the problem comes from an almost universal misunderstanding of what makes a Sonic game. Ask almost anyone what the original Genesis titles were all about, and the answer you'll most likely get is "Speed". Sega's much-touted "blast-processing" and the general hype of the originals certainly allude to this answer, but the shocking truth is that it is almost completely incorrect. Sonic games were never "about" speed, although they certainly had it in spades. The speed was just a by-product of the core gameplay dynamic that made the original Sonic games among the best of their era: Momentum.
It was the momentum-based physics of the original games that made them so unique. The entire world was made to take advantage of Sonic's momentum, with speed being the visual reward for gathering and mainting that commodity. You can't "see" momentum like you can see speed, and so it was the obvious focus of the many marketing campaigns, but anyone who feels that speed was the focus - as modern-day Sonic Team do - is wholeheartedly missing the point.
To compare and contrast the two schools of thought - "Momentum-based" and "Speed-based" - we need look no farther than the iconic loop-de-loops that litter Sonic's world. In the Genesis games, the loops presented the player with an obstacle. If you apprached a loop with too little momentum, you would not be able to propel yourself all the way through. You would need to retreat, gather momentum elsewhere, and then approach the loop again. A failed attempt at passing through a loop would result in the penalty of losing any gathered momentum, while successfully overcoming a loop would reward you with both a visual treat and even more momentum than you had before.
In 3D Sonic games, loops are set-pieces that look cool. Their purpose is to give the player something pretty to look at, not to challenge them. At the base of almost every loop you will find dash-pads, which provide you with "free" momentum did you not already have enough to get through. The camera will switch to a perspective that shows the entire loop in all its glory, as opposed to one that is practical for playing the game. In many cases, Sonic's position on the loop will be locked to dead-center, so he cannot deviate from the specificed route, crash into a wall half-way up, and thereby ruin the spectacle.
Loops are just an isolated case and not the root of the problem - scripted loops would not ruin an otherwise solid game - but the attitude that makes modern-day loops what they are permeates through every aspect of the modern franchise and corrupts it completely. Compare the Metal Sonic race in Sonic CD to the whale-chase in Sonic Adventure, or Sonic 2's Wing Fortress Zone with the rail-infested Ark levels of Sonic Adventure 2. In virtually every aspect of the game, the shift in attitude from "let's make it fun to play" to "let's make it fun to watch" is obvious, and the series is suffering as a result.
Look at the good old Spin Dash as opposed to the new-fangled "Rush Meter" introduced in Sonic Rush. Both serve roughly the same purpose - to provide you with free momentum - but function in such radically different ways that it seems they have no business being in the same game together. The Spin Dash was a trade-off, a calculated risk. In order to execute it, you'd first need to forfeit any gathered momentum by coming to a complete stop. You'd then need to hold one button and tap another until you had revved up to the desired extent. Once moving, you would experience an initial burst of speed much greater than Sonic's standard movement, but would quickly become subject to the will of the environment around you. With Sonic curled into a ball and his strong little legs tucked neatly away, you were at the mercy of your surrounds. An upward slope would eat up your momentum quickly, while a downward one would provide you with so much speed that Sonic would disappear off-screen. Without coming to a complete stop (and giving up momentum), Sonic couldn't leave his curled up state and start running again, leaving you with little choice but to ride it out, come whatever may. You gave up control for some free momentum, and it was almost never better than gaining the required momentum naturally.
The boost in Sonic Rush is another story entirely. You tap a button - whether you're standing still or moving - and gain an instant and immense increase in speed. You remain in an upright position, so Sonic is still completely in control, and if you ever want to quickly stop, you can simply boost in the other direction. You sacrifice nothing and gain a lot, thereby making every environmental obstacle completely pointless. The Rush games actually containing loops is a complete joke; They're not much of a spectacle in 2D any more, and as terrain objects, they serve no purpose. The boost means you will literally never have to stop.
Speed is now what weighs the series down as opposed to what elevates it above the rest. Sonic's stunts look better at high speeds - they always have - and so everything that actively lowered your speed has been brushed to the wayside. The whole idea of momentum has been scrapped entirely; Sonic goes from a slow jog to breaking the sound barrier within an instant, terrain no longer impedes you, and should you ever find yourself travelling at a comfrotable pace you can bet the developers didn't intend you to. Speed is now receiving so much focus that the very thing that is supposed to generate it - momentum - no longer even exists.
Look at any trailer for the upcoming Sonic Unleashed and you'll see this issue out in full force. Does Sonic ever stop? Maybe. But if he does, it obviously isn't worth showing, right? The werehog sections might slow Sonic down, but making him go slower is not the solution to the problem. If the werehog sections don't utilize momentum - as it appears they don't - then they may as well be scrapped, because if Sonic is going slow because the game forces him to (à la Sonic Labyrinth) and not because the player isn't playing well enough, then the concept is stupid.
Imagine one of the traditional Mario games for the SNES, but with Sonic's name and face on the cover instead of Mario's. Imagine running through the Mushroom Kingdom, but faster. Does this sound particularly fun to you? More to the point: Does this sound like any one of the classic Sonic games to you? It seems that Sonic has been so heavily typecast as "a faster Mario" that everyone has forgotten what made him so great in the first place. A strange phenomenon indeed, when you consider that even a brief comparison of how the two games played will show that they were always worlds apart.
There are, of course, other problems that currently burden this series that have nothing to do with a fixation on speed. The Adventure series, Heroes, Shadow and Sonic '06 all suffer from serious design flaws that go well beyond simply having the wrong attitude. Glitches, bugs, poor level design; You name it, these games have it. Which is why, to some extent, Sonic Unleashed looks like a very tentative step in the right direction. At the very least, everything seems well-designed, the controls appear solid, the level design intuitive and the ideas implemented properly. If Sonic Unleashed manages to fix all these things, then we'll be getting a fun game. A fun game that comes nowhere close to recapturing the essence of what Sonic is all about, but a fun game nonetheless. In reality, these design problems need fixing before a change in attitude will make any difference at all - good intentions don't make a good game - but if Unleashed pulls this off, then the platform is laid for Sonic's return to form.
The sad truth? That platform will be ignored. The Rush games fixed a lot of the problems with the Advance series and garnered modest success because of it, yet the series is simply sticking with what it knows rather than heading down the road of improvement. Rush 2 was just as much about holding Right and the boost button as the original was, and I fear that any success with Unleashed will see Sonic Team stick with it until forever. This is the very definition of a double-edged sword: They may very well fix the series to the point of playability, but should they do so, they'll have no reason to take the risk of changing the series' direction.
Sonic is not about speed. At least, he shouldn't be. And until the folks at Sonic team realize that we want a fun platformer and not a glorified series of quicktime events, don't ever expect the series to rebound. All the talk of "back to his roots" and "recapturing the glory days" that invariably accompanies each new Sonic game is complete rubbish; We're a long way off from 1991, and the immediate future is anything but bright.
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