Richard's Online Journal
Future Gaming Blues
Some actors paid to pretend they're having more fun on the Wii than I ever got out of it, yesterday. (Yes, Zelda and Mario were great.)
I want to be excited about all the big gaming technologies being announced at the moment. Really, I do. Back when virtual reality was being mooted, it was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t wait to try it, and while it turned out to suck, I still say the headache was worth it. The jump from 8-bit to 16-bit? Revolutionary! Worthy but failed ideas like games controlled with speech? Sure, bring it on! More recently, when I first saw the Wii, I got excited about that, even if I haven’t plugged it in for over a year now and don’t even know where most of the cables are any more. I like progress. Honest!
But the recent batch of new technologies? They leave me so cold. I’ve tried most of the 3D stuff out there, from the passive glasses you get in cinemas to Nvidia’s fancy-pants electronic ones, and frankly, you can keep them all. I don’t mind 3D for a few minutes, as part of a theme-park ride, but that’s all it is. Any longer and I get hideous headaches, and I can’t see how spending extended periods of time tricking your eyes and messing around with their focus can be remotely safe in the long-run. Yes, the effect can be okay. When they can do it with some kind of holographic box instead of flickering glasses and other nonsense, sign me up. Until then, I’ll stick with 2D screens, thanks.
Motion based gaming? Can’t get excited about that either. It’s the Uncanny Valley of interaction. Like 3D, it’s fine for a few minutes. The first times you try it are pretty cool. After that, it’s just problems glued together with hype. The character refuses to follow your commands. Your arms get exhausted from waving at things. Most importantly, and this is the game-breaker for me, there’s no proper haptic feedback. I don’t care how much your controller buzzes in my hand, it’s not going to persuade me that my character’s sword has actually made contact with a blade. Inevitably I find these games end up as thrashing simulations, in much the same way that a Hitman game’s carefully scripted AI goes beserk when you accidentally knock over a wine-glass and everyone in the area decides that YOU MUST DIE. It’s every bit as abstracted as pressing a key to swing a sword, with the difference that you won’t walk away with tennis elbow. Unless you’re playing Bayonetta on Easy mode in which case ha ha masturbation joke. (Actually, Bayonetta is really fun).
In fairness, I haven’t tried either Natal or Playstation Move, so maybe they’re the exception. Reading Eurogamer’s write-up of the games, meh. I realise that these are necessary intermediate stages between sitting in front of consoles and the Star Trek Holodeck, but I want more than nicer looking versions of stuff the Wii already lost my interest with over the last couple of years. My suspicion is that Natal will do the most interesting things, not as a full controller replacement, but as an extra input device that can read physical interactions while playing games the old fashioned way. I’m hoping for a Final Fantasy game where you can speed up boring conversations with a dismissive wave of the hand, or to see Fable 3 featuring a slappable Peter Molyneux.
The third big technology I can’t stand? Mobile gaming, specifically the iPhone. The Nintendo DS is a great little console. I don’t play on mine much because I get travel sick, and generally have a more powerful system either on my desk or in my bag for playing games, but I do like it. I’m almost considering buying an XL for the bigger screens, even though in my heart I know it would be a waste of money. It’s a console I want to play on more often, even though I know that in practice, I won’t get round to it.
The iPhone though, bah with a side order of humbug. I love my iPhone in general, but I’ve yet to find any games that have lived up to the excitement. The controls are so terrible. On-screen buttons? Hell no. Even without playing them, the existence of Ghosts and Goblins and Street Fighter IV on iPhone is nothing short of a cruel joke. Motion sensitive controls? Aside from most games I’ve tried forgetting the importance of being able to see the screen, I find it usually goes wrong at exactly the worst moments. Tap to select? So fiddly, so imprecise, and I really hate my fingers getting in the way all the time. Even in games I like and already know, like Beneath A Steel Sky, it drives me nuts.
Please realise: I’m not writing off any of these things. I’m willing to be impressed by any or all of them. Hell, I want to be impressed by them. I’d love to be able to think of 3D as something other than the latest gimmick to sell us new TVs and monitors, and for Natal to wash away those awful memories of the Eyetoy and silly third-party Wii games. I’ll be trying all of them, hopefully more excited as a result of later announcements this year, and I have a great big hat ready to be eaten. (It’s made of chocolate, just to be on the safe side.)
But I’m not excited yet. And given that we’re talking about the future of gaming for at least the next couple of years, that… that depresses me a little right now.
On a positive note, that Monkey Island 2 remake looks pretty nice…
Meanwhile. Elsewhere…
A few posts in other places, which as ever I forgot to link to. I’m working on a better, automated way of posting updates in a pretty way since I know I’ve been shamelessly lazy about blogging of late, but for now, this’ll do. Remember, at the moment I tend to be posting random off-the-cuff rubbish over on Twitter instead, so if you use that/Buzz/whatever and aren’t following me, you should probably do so. Yes.
NarraFlood: Now That’s What I Call Gaming #1
Nothing adds a bit of spark to a game like a quick musical number. A comic song is often a game’s funniest, most memorable moment – a spooky vocal track the most haunting bit of sound. In the first of this irregular series, let’s take a look at ten interesting ones from the world of adventure games. Not a Best Of, not a comprehensive look, just a random pick of interesting tunes, served up courtesy of YouTube. Let its name be praised.
NarraFlood: Bioshock 2 And The Big Daddy Experience
I had fun, but I was underwhelmed. Having given it time to simmer in my head however, I’m much more impressed. The obvious complaint is that it’s just more of the same, and on one level, yes it is. It’s still a shooter, improved but still very similar, and suffers from a number of the basic mechanical problems as the first game. I wish it was Deus Ex instead. As a story and a narrative experience though, it’s very much it’s own thing…
PC Plus: The 3DTV Gimmick
To hell with 3D. If I could change one thing about the cinema-going experience – other than shooting bloody Pearl & Dean into the sun – it would be to watch every blockbuster in IMAX. That would be a genuine improvement. 3D is just another gimmick, right down there with Smell-O-Vision, electric shocks coming through the seat, vibrating cinema chairs and, of course, the last 17 times that the industry has tried to make 3D into the Next Big Thing. And we still don’t need it.
Valentine For One
Happy Aching Solitude Awareness Day 2010, everybody!
On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for some vicarious romance, check out this quick blog post I just did on the romances in the wonderful Mass Effect 2. It’s over on a long-ignored, unmourned site that I’m planning on doing more stuff with, and you’ll find it right here. Go Be Entertained by Words. Words About Games.
Being Humoured
A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, sharing a house in Bristol. It's the next reality TV sensation... but with a catch. Specifically, reality.
After protests that the new drama series Being Human was depicting the very real monster community in a poor light, the BBC agreed to give three self-proclaimed undead their own reality show to help set the record straight. The following is an unedited excerpt from the first, thus far unbroadcast episode of this exciting supernatural event.
INT: The House, Day Five
MITCHELL: George, have you been drinking my blood?
GEORGE: Your blood? I didn’t see your name on it.
MITCHELL: It’s blood, George, that’s my thing. I’m a vampire, Annie’s a ghost, you’re… you’re the one who’ll be telling the neighbours what happened to their cat.
GEORGE: That is so racist! Just because I got careless, just that one time, don’t go pinning every bad thing that happens on me and my horrific transformations.
MITCHELL: Transformations. Right. You run around naked every full moon, I know that, only I can’t say I’ve heard any werewolf noises while you do it. Now, screams…
The Biggest Loser
Some people say that by publicising things like this, you’re really playing into the creators’ hands. Possibly. However, sometimes, things need to be shared, if only as a warning.
Like everyone, I knew that Sony was putting together a ‘reality’ show about people competing to become a games tester — arguably the most soul-destroying job in the industry, save being whichever poor intern has to get the Lara Croft costume steam-cleaned after shows. Obviously, the idea was always going to be stupid, but I hate to pre-judge. After all, I hadn’t even seen a proper trailer…
Now I have. And in witnessing it, I have come to crave death.
I have no words. Wait, that’s a lie. They’re just words that normally have the vowels replaced by a string of punctuation from the top of the keyboard.
One little vial of ebola. That’s all I ask…