I'm not quite ready to give up on the series yet, but 1UP has a review of Wario: Master of Disguise saying roughly that the game is pretty piss poor. In all fairness, Metacritic has it rated a bit higher, but not quite high enough that I'll pick it up. I love the WarioWare for the Gamecube, but every Wario outing on the DS I've tried, I've hated with a passion (all 1 of them). It's beyond me why WarioWare: Touched got such good ratings. The minigames are nowhere near as good as its Gamecube counterpart, and the non-skippable story mode drove me batshit. Maybe it's just the DS Wario games that are a problem, because I've heard the Wii version is pretty good (good reviews too).
I really do hope they start making better DS Wario games, if only because it'll be another few months before I can afford to get a Wii.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Monday, March 5, 2007
New Resident Evil: Extinction trailer
IGN has a new trailer for the next installment of the Resident Evil (movies). My guilty little secret is that I love watching all forms of zombie movies, including the Resident Evil series. After seeing the trailer I'm intrigued as to what the hell is going on (and how those monuments all got into one place). I'm all about the cheap thrills, and this definately falls into that category.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Shadowrun reimagined
I've been in love with the Shadowrun series ever since I first rented the Genesis game. I didn't discover the pen and paper version until much later, but I rented that game so many times that my parents finally bought it for me. So it should really be no surprise that I was excited about the 360 Shadowrun game in the works. My initial enthusiasm about the game has worn off though. Over the past seven months or so people have been reporting two things which make me very nervous about the game:
First of all, there is definitely not going to be any single player aspect to the game. This is a purely multiplayer game. This is such a let down, since the Shadowrun world makes a fantastic backdrop for an FPS game. You have characters wielding frickin' huge guns, cybernetics, and magic while running espionage and assassination missions for anonymous clients. To me that smells like a great setup for a single player game.
The second thing which bothers me about the game is that the developers have said there will only be 8-10 maps for the game. That's still a good number of maps, but combined with the lack of any single player mode, I'm just worried it won't be enough of a game to keep my interest for very long. For the standard $60 fee you pay for 360 games, I expect to at least spend 20 hours playing it. For example, I played through the entire single player campaign in both Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and Rainbow Six: Vegas on both difficulties in addition to playing massive amounts of it online. Can a game with only multiplayer and a few maps really stack up against something as complete as Rainbow Six?
I suppose it really all depends on how good that multiplayer is. The concept is certainly a good one: guns are for killing, magic is a toolbox to which increases your chances for survival and destruction. The trailer for the game may not have the best graphics I've ever seen but the gameplay looks interesting, and the developers' recent comments have assuaged my fears to some degree. FASA has really put all of their eggs into the multiplayer basket, lets just hope they do it well because if not the game will be a complete failure.
Don't get me wrong. Despite my griping, I will be the first in line to buy it if the multiplayer is as good as it looks. I've certainly spent more than 20 hours on multiplayer in some of the games I own, and I plan doing the same for this one.
Anyway, enough of that. This information has been around for quite a while, and shouldn't be new to anyone who has been keeping up with the game. Instead, I'd like to talk about what the single player game could have been, while still keeping it a first person shooter (though a squad based one):
Imagine a single player storyline made up of around 10-15 well designed levels which take place in corporate buildings, warehouses, and the back alleys of a decimated Seattle. These are the "storyline levels" in which the single player story unfolds, each taking between 10-30 minutes to complete. Each of these maps would be crafted for the storyline alone (i.e. no filler), and approximately 4-6 hours of gameplay would take place in them.
Here's the kicker though: In between these storyline levels, there would be randomly generated levels with randomly generated objectives to complete. Static world geometry would always stay the same in these levels, but the people and objects in the level would change. For example, lets say the mission is to take place in an office building. The program would randomly choose from one of a few pre-built building shells. This building shell would not change (floor plan, stairways, windows, etc), but the game would then fill in the building with security guards, security checkpoints, cubicles, computers, desks, chairs, objectives, enemy runners, and so on based on a heuristic. This is similar to technology used by many other games for instancing a randomly created dungeon (even Nethack is really this idea, on a smaller scale). These intermediate missions would fill up maybe 3-4 hours of gameplay in between the storyline missions. (Or perhaps they are optional, allowing the player to gain experience and money before taking on the next "real" mission.) It would be even better if the game could randomly generate floorplans and sprawling alleyways, but I don't really know the feasibility of this. It's possible it could work because we aren't allowing full exploration of the world (just a single ten story office building, thanks), but that would certainly be an interesting programming/technological challenge.
These randomly generated missions would work in this case for a few key reasons. First of all, they fit into the overall "style" of Shadowrun in that you work a lot of odd jobs for shady characters and it wouldn't make a lot of sense if the story progressed completely linearly in the same way Halo does (for example). Secondly, as much as possible, the storyline missions should be completely devoid of "filler" content. Each of those 10-15 levels should be entirely related to the story must drive forward the game's plot. It is the job of these standalone missions to provide a logical break in the storyline, as well as some mindless fun. Third, having these randomly generated missions are not there to pad the length of the game. These standalone missions should be enjoyable by themselves and the player should want to play them (much in the same way that the Terrorist Hunt mode in Rainbow Six: Vegas is incredibly fun despite the fact that there isn't any storyline or point to it other than killing terrorists). I still go back and play Shadowrun missions for the Genesis despite having beat the game eons ago primarily because the mission structure was well designed. Lastly, this serves as a good way of having infinite missions for online play. I really enjoy playing Terrorist Hunt in R6 with friends, but I really wish the enemies had more than the two or three layouts that they currently do. If you could add a randomly changing floor plan to buildings, and objective targets which could be anywhere in the building you would have a highly replayable system.
Missions themselves (both storyline and standalone) would have one or two primary objectives, and one to three secondary objectives. To complete a mission, you have to complete the primary objectives. To get a bonus payment, you have to complete the secondary objectives as you find them, but you may leave the mission any time you have completed the primary objectives. The randomly generated standalone missions could pick objectives randomly from a few preprogrammed objectives (eliminate character X, hack into the such-and-such terminal, and so on).
With this game we could also add back in the concepts of experience, character levels, and equipment. Other games (such as Planetside and Rainbow Six: Vegas) have added the concept of experience and levels to first person shooters with a good degree of success. The only thing I'd add to this is adding more of the Shadowrun rules, and using money as a limiting factor in the single player game. You actually have to buy new weapons, armor, and cybernetics as they become available. The two sticking points I see with this are combat rules and decking. Pen and paper Shadowrun obviously has specific rules for combat, but I don't see those fitting in at all here. It's possible to slightly increase accuracy (and possibly damage) as the character gains levels, but this is an FPS, and we shouldn't monkey with too much with the mechanics in this department. Decking is right out. It's fantastic in the Genesis version of Shadowrun, and a good DM can make pen and paper decking ridiculously fun, but I really think a game of this nature should focus on meatspace instead of cyberspace.
Lastly, just so we are clear, leave magic in! It's probably a good idea to tone it down slightly though. This is not only to make the game a bit closer to the source books (teleportation, for example, is explicitly forbidden in Shadowrun), but also to increase the challenge of some areas. Even if your character can walk through walls, I doubt Joe Shmo security guard can do the same, so why not just drop through two floors to get away? The ideas the Shadowrun team has for magic would work great for a multiplayer game, but some of them may be problematic for a single player game.
This is what I would do with the Shadowrun series, if given the chance.
Is such a game possible? I'd like to think so. This kind of game would require roughly the same amount of content as a game like Rainbow Six: Vegas does, but some of the hand-created content would be replaced with randomly generated areas. We have seen in other games that randomly generated content is possible, but I bet it would take a good deal of work to ensure that the generated maps are playable. Thankfully, for multiplayer, you wouldn't need to pass these generated maps over the internet, just seed the map generator with the same heuristic and everyone will generate the same one.
Oh well, I can dream can't I?
First of all, there is definitely not going to be any single player aspect to the game. This is a purely multiplayer game. This is such a let down, since the Shadowrun world makes a fantastic backdrop for an FPS game. You have characters wielding frickin' huge guns, cybernetics, and magic while running espionage and assassination missions for anonymous clients. To me that smells like a great setup for a single player game.
The second thing which bothers me about the game is that the developers have said there will only be 8-10 maps for the game. That's still a good number of maps, but combined with the lack of any single player mode, I'm just worried it won't be enough of a game to keep my interest for very long. For the standard $60 fee you pay for 360 games, I expect to at least spend 20 hours playing it. For example, I played through the entire single player campaign in both Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and Rainbow Six: Vegas on both difficulties in addition to playing massive amounts of it online. Can a game with only multiplayer and a few maps really stack up against something as complete as Rainbow Six?
I suppose it really all depends on how good that multiplayer is. The concept is certainly a good one: guns are for killing, magic is a toolbox to which increases your chances for survival and destruction. The trailer for the game may not have the best graphics I've ever seen but the gameplay looks interesting, and the developers' recent comments have assuaged my fears to some degree. FASA has really put all of their eggs into the multiplayer basket, lets just hope they do it well because if not the game will be a complete failure.
Don't get me wrong. Despite my griping, I will be the first in line to buy it if the multiplayer is as good as it looks. I've certainly spent more than 20 hours on multiplayer in some of the games I own, and I plan doing the same for this one.
Anyway, enough of that. This information has been around for quite a while, and shouldn't be new to anyone who has been keeping up with the game. Instead, I'd like to talk about what the single player game could have been, while still keeping it a first person shooter (though a squad based one):
Imagine a single player storyline made up of around 10-15 well designed levels which take place in corporate buildings, warehouses, and the back alleys of a decimated Seattle. These are the "storyline levels" in which the single player story unfolds, each taking between 10-30 minutes to complete. Each of these maps would be crafted for the storyline alone (i.e. no filler), and approximately 4-6 hours of gameplay would take place in them.
Here's the kicker though: In between these storyline levels, there would be randomly generated levels with randomly generated objectives to complete. Static world geometry would always stay the same in these levels, but the people and objects in the level would change. For example, lets say the mission is to take place in an office building. The program would randomly choose from one of a few pre-built building shells. This building shell would not change (floor plan, stairways, windows, etc), but the game would then fill in the building with security guards, security checkpoints, cubicles, computers, desks, chairs, objectives, enemy runners, and so on based on a heuristic. This is similar to technology used by many other games for instancing a randomly created dungeon (even Nethack is really this idea, on a smaller scale). These intermediate missions would fill up maybe 3-4 hours of gameplay in between the storyline missions. (Or perhaps they are optional, allowing the player to gain experience and money before taking on the next "real" mission.) It would be even better if the game could randomly generate floorplans and sprawling alleyways, but I don't really know the feasibility of this. It's possible it could work because we aren't allowing full exploration of the world (just a single ten story office building, thanks), but that would certainly be an interesting programming/technological challenge.
These randomly generated missions would work in this case for a few key reasons. First of all, they fit into the overall "style" of Shadowrun in that you work a lot of odd jobs for shady characters and it wouldn't make a lot of sense if the story progressed completely linearly in the same way Halo does (for example). Secondly, as much as possible, the storyline missions should be completely devoid of "filler" content. Each of those 10-15 levels should be entirely related to the story must drive forward the game's plot. It is the job of these standalone missions to provide a logical break in the storyline, as well as some mindless fun. Third, having these randomly generated missions are not there to pad the length of the game. These standalone missions should be enjoyable by themselves and the player should want to play them (much in the same way that the Terrorist Hunt mode in Rainbow Six: Vegas is incredibly fun despite the fact that there isn't any storyline or point to it other than killing terrorists). I still go back and play Shadowrun missions for the Genesis despite having beat the game eons ago primarily because the mission structure was well designed. Lastly, this serves as a good way of having infinite missions for online play. I really enjoy playing Terrorist Hunt in R6 with friends, but I really wish the enemies had more than the two or three layouts that they currently do. If you could add a randomly changing floor plan to buildings, and objective targets which could be anywhere in the building you would have a highly replayable system.
Missions themselves (both storyline and standalone) would have one or two primary objectives, and one to three secondary objectives. To complete a mission, you have to complete the primary objectives. To get a bonus payment, you have to complete the secondary objectives as you find them, but you may leave the mission any time you have completed the primary objectives. The randomly generated standalone missions could pick objectives randomly from a few preprogrammed objectives (eliminate character X, hack into the such-and-such terminal, and so on).
With this game we could also add back in the concepts of experience, character levels, and equipment. Other games (such as Planetside and Rainbow Six: Vegas) have added the concept of experience and levels to first person shooters with a good degree of success. The only thing I'd add to this is adding more of the Shadowrun rules, and using money as a limiting factor in the single player game. You actually have to buy new weapons, armor, and cybernetics as they become available. The two sticking points I see with this are combat rules and decking. Pen and paper Shadowrun obviously has specific rules for combat, but I don't see those fitting in at all here. It's possible to slightly increase accuracy (and possibly damage) as the character gains levels, but this is an FPS, and we shouldn't monkey with too much with the mechanics in this department. Decking is right out. It's fantastic in the Genesis version of Shadowrun, and a good DM can make pen and paper decking ridiculously fun, but I really think a game of this nature should focus on meatspace instead of cyberspace.
Lastly, just so we are clear, leave magic in! It's probably a good idea to tone it down slightly though. This is not only to make the game a bit closer to the source books (teleportation, for example, is explicitly forbidden in Shadowrun), but also to increase the challenge of some areas. Even if your character can walk through walls, I doubt Joe Shmo security guard can do the same, so why not just drop through two floors to get away? The ideas the Shadowrun team has for magic would work great for a multiplayer game, but some of them may be problematic for a single player game.
This is what I would do with the Shadowrun series, if given the chance.
Is such a game possible? I'd like to think so. This kind of game would require roughly the same amount of content as a game like Rainbow Six: Vegas does, but some of the hand-created content would be replaced with randomly generated areas. We have seen in other games that randomly generated content is possible, but I bet it would take a good deal of work to ensure that the generated maps are playable. Thankfully, for multiplayer, you wouldn't need to pass these generated maps over the internet, just seed the map generator with the same heuristic and everyone will generate the same one.
Oh well, I can dream can't I?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Further homebrew updates...
This guy seems to have the state of homebrew on the big three platforms correct. Nothing really new to add except it looks like Sony is opening up an API of some sort to be announced soon. I guess we'll see at this year's GDC.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Wow a lot of turtle news today. About a week ago someone leaked a video of a the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game for Xbox Live Arcade. That's fan-fucking-tastic. Especially the fact that you can cooperatively play 1-4 players locally or over Xbox Live. This is definitely a release day purchase for me.
I spent hours playing the NES TMNT game as a child which, to my eternal shame, I have never beaten. Then around a year later I found the arcade game in my local Domino's Pizza and played to the detriment of many an allowance. In fact, I can remember three arcade games I played more than any others while I was growing up: Street Fighter II, Area 51, and this particular game. I am even more excited about this than I am about the new game coming out.
I spent hours playing the NES TMNT game as a child which, to my eternal shame, I have never beaten. Then around a year later I found the arcade game in my local Domino's Pizza and played to the detriment of many an allowance. In fact, I can remember three arcade games I played more than any others while I was growing up: Street Fighter II, Area 51, and this particular game. I am even more excited about this than I am about the new game coming out.
XNA and Homebrew
I found this while Digging; a quick rundown of what's going on in the various homebrew scenes. I am actually quite surprised that XNA for the 360 doesn't have a bigger interest. In his article, he points out '
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)