Game Sensei

GameCritic's Dialectical Realism...bah

2008-03-13T16:42:12Z

I was going to leave a comment at GameCritics for the recent article by Brandon Erickson. However I got too many errors trying to post it, that I decided I would just write about it here instead...How Assassin's Creed killed its own potential

here's my response to his article: Dialectical Realism:How Assassin's Creed killed its own potential
You absolutely nailed it on the head, the point about the realism of a game brought out by the character's ability to interact at a higher level within the games architecture. An example where this obvious interaction fails is in FPS games, when you can shoot up crates, blow through tanks with your rocket launcher, and you can't even blow through a wooden wall in a cabin or kick down the closet door.

Granted Assassin's creed had several short comings, such as the inability to swim, enter any buildings, or explore the scenic cliffs/mountains.
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I was able to complete each assassination without the use of any aids. This includes side missions, and combat. I can't imagine playing the game this way for the first time, but once you have the experience, Ubisoft has give you the ability to play it at it's core.

You mention the "dna flutters" that highlight enemies and targets etc... If you don't use the "vision" ability, that effect isn't noticed. If you don't use the vision, the highlighted characters, don't become highlighted. The "vision" is for the noob. The targets/characters you need to assassinate/interact with through the game are apparent through camera angles, clothing and actions. If you are free running around, using a full HUD, and the special vision as a crutch, you will miss the finer details that were included in the game.

You belittled the fighting system. I, (for one), love the combat system. The assassin is not some all powerful brute that can power through the masses. He is a skilled assassin and in the art of killing 1-1. That is how the combat is oriented. Sure you can use a knife/sword/hidden blade as your tool. But the noob will button mash or play the waiting game with the sword to get past those 20 man fights. I tell you this, when you can finish the game using only your assassin's blade without attacking with the sword/knife etc... then you will understand the brilliance of the combat system. The technique they used for quick kills isn't as unforgiving as the one found in Onimusha, and makes the fighting so much more enjoyable.

-one hit kills, branched combinations, gaurd drops, counters...perfect for the assassin.

-Finally you complain about the Desmond/Altair disconnect for the player. Perhaps you weren't aware that Assassin's Creed is part of a Trilogy. As much as I loved the "historical" point of view of Altair, with the gameplay "genius" behind assassin's creed, I would hate to see it go to waste in 3 games of the same era/time period. I can only imagine that the Desmond/Altair separation wasn't a gimmicky add-on to piggy back off the "matrix effect", but rather the paradigm that was used to allow the "series" to take place in ANY time period that they wanted to do, from as far back historically to beyond present day reality to the future. That appears to me as a design decision to allow the story to mature in any direction. It allows them to take there new interactive gameplay to any location they want.

The Extremely Late Bioshock Final Impression.

2007-11-27T03:10:50Z

You can accomplish a lot of things over a 4 day Thanksgiving weekend. As for me, I finished my first (and only) FPS without using any cheat codes! That says a lot because I grew up playing games like Doom, Rise of the Triad and Duke Nukem. To more recent titles such as: Half-Life 1 and 2, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Call of Duty...etc. I never beat any of these games unless I used a cheat code, and most of the time I would get bored and just set them aside. Bioshock managed to quickly grab my attention and throw it all around the city Rapture with its amazing story and deep customization.

]]> When I look back, I'm very surprised with how different the game felt between the beginning and the end. The game gradually goes from FPS horror to an interesting FPS RPG that I've never seen before. Yes, I know Bioshock is a spiritual sequel to System Shock 2, but I never played SS2...so no comments!

There were many moments of great satisfaction in Bioshock:

Using your plasmids to find alternate methods to defeat your enemies.
Killing your first Big Daddy with everything you've got.
Crossbow - Bioshock's answer for the little sniper in ya.
Using a Big Daddy as your personal bodyguard to clear out any obstacle. No wonder Little Sisters love these guys!

The story is probably the most influential aspect of this game. An entire city was created to explore and uncover the dark and twisted lives of its citizens, and it was your job to uncover audio diaries, and listen to people who once lived and suffered in Rapture. On top of that, you had to fight your way through an infinite number of various enemies called Splicers, and there was always a boss battle (besides the real boss battles) around any corner, you just listened for the earth-shattering stomps of a Big Daddy. On top of the great selection of weapons and ammunition, plasmids become crucial to your success, and there is never a perfect combination to handle the various situations in Bioshock.

I could go on about how great this game is, but I won't ignore the negative aspects. You are overwhelmed with the number of plasmids, and there are many plasmids that I didn't care to use since I played the game by boosting my character's offense abilities, rather than using my environment to help me. I understand the developers emphasized different ways to approach situations, but I reject those ways! (Inside joke, play the game) I preferred my shotgun, camouflage and the plasmid that releases bees. The backtracking wasn't a huge issue (especially since I played Metroid Prime) but it was annoying during those fetch missions. Oh, and the invincible Big Daddy bug and audio glitches were a nice touch.

There is so much to talk about, but other videogame sites have discussed these in full detail...when this videogame came out. J As for me, I'm moving onto Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4. I've already beat Super Mario Galaxy (Collected 102 stars), which explains why it took me 2-3 months to beat Bioshock. November was a rough videogame month for me. L

Resistance Fall of Difficulty?

2007-11-13T17:16:23Z

I am in by no means a good First Person Shooter (FPS) gamer when it comes to consoles and their wanky controller/joystick. Sure my console FPS roots go back to Turok on the N64 (I am looking forward to the new Turok by the way) and span through to the latest Timeshift game, but I tell ya, if you think my skills on an FPS console can be referenced as elite, then my friend, you have no idea what skill really. I am am a PC FPS purest. Regardless of how good an FPS game is on a console, if I know it will be released at anytime in the future for PC, I will hold off playing it until can play it on the PC. I love the wasd and mouse controls, and being inches away from the monitor really make the FPS well, more upfront and personal.
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My good buddy had finished the game on the normal difficulty. Naturally, I felt I had to step it up a notch, so I played on the game on "hard". On the very first level I almost regretted my decision. I died more times in the first alley way of the first level than I had any where else in the rest of the game on this difficulty. It was frustrating beyond all belief. Eventually, I was able to "overcome" the controller and inch my way to the end of the level. Which in turn leads to my demise (part of story).

So after the first level, your character acquires the ability to rejuvenate health. Since I played on Hard I can't compare to previous difficulties, but I suspect the difficulty would effect the amount and/or frequency of health for this ability. (It's a given that difficulty effects enemy AI/Accuracy/Strength/Damage dealt/Number of...) The health bar is broken in to 4 bars, and if you lose a bar, the "ability" will rejuvenate one bar for me. If I never lost more than one bar in a spray and pray run, I could huddle and regain full health. When I realized how it worked, I felt I was unstoppable, even on the "hard" difficulty. With this new ability, everything was easier. So what was up with that first level???

So on Hard, a few shots from the enemies "high tech" gun would drop a bar... four good shots and you were hosed. Then tack on there were more enemies, and fewer health packs...it was a miracle to survive that first level. It felt like playing Prince of Persia 3D...

Walk into room, run towards goal, die from trap floor...start over...Walk into room, run towards goal, jump over trap floor...die from poison darts...Walk into room, jump over trap floor, roll under poison darts, die from tumbling column...etc... Eventually you get through, but there's almost no way to survive without knowing what to expect.
Examples in resistance...enemies coming through the one narrow barricade, no problem...all of a sudden there are enemies in the windows above the bus, wtf?, Where did they come from? Ok no big deal, take out enemies in narrow barricade lob grenade into window above. Next down the long back alley road, you pick up a new weapon sweet, as you follow your comrades, you get to the next firefight and get nailed from behind...wtf, where did they come from?? Well now you go running do that hall way back pedalling as you pick up the new weapon two enemies spawn...hahaha easy kill...next...etc... So in the first level, when you do not have the ability to regen from a "mistake", and with minimal health packs, it was a frustrating almost agonizing first level. In contrast, I felt the rest of the game was very easy. There were no frustrating or difficult passages that really tested the skill of the player, as much as the first level. With the healing ability on top of the upgraded weaponry, the game became easier and easier.

Regardless of difficulty, there should be some balance in the first level to be adjusted for the lack of an ability. The damage they dealt was the same on the first level as it was on the rest of the levels by those enemies... The difference is that in later levels (the majority of the game) you have a power up to rejuvenate. The AI was balanced and tested for your "ability" at that difficulty. So without that ability, it is an unfair balance towards the enemy, therefore making the first level very frustrating. The balance could've come from any number of areas, more health from health packs, less damage from AI, less accuracy from AI...etc...but the first level should have been better balanced.

Why would you want to discourage players in the first 30 minutes of a game? If this was on demo at a game store...there's a lot of FUD passed around on that first level. Not good for trying to sell the game.

So replay value...since the game was so easy on "hard" when you beat the game you unlock another difficulty...perhaps the "real" hard? I didn't bother giving it a shot because I remembered the first level. That first level will probably be the one thing I will never forget from this game...But on top of the extra difficulty, there are 6 new weapons that are unlocked, but stashed within the game. A great way to make you replay the levels, to acquire those new weapons. Maybe...I was more bummed that after I finished the game, I had to go BACK to find those weapons to try them out. I got the first two new weapons and was bored.

There wasn't enough motivation to go through and find the rest. On the other hand, if I could replay all the levels WITH all the weapons, and I could try out the new weapons immediately, I would've replayed more of the game.

The additional weapons should have either been part of the original game, and not an unlocked feature, or once unlocked, available in campaign immediately. If I were to design it differently, I would have included the weapons from the beginning, but left them locked from multiplayer until the game was beaten.

In addition, the weapons of the game were some of the best weapons I've seen in a FPS to date. Apart from the standard shotgun/sniper/machine gun, they had some very creative new "alien" weapons. For those that like to think outside the box, or play beyond the games intention, I would've also included modes to allow for unlimited ammo/usage of the weapons.

I for one, loved the sniper rifles secondary mode of "slow" down to snipe. I would've played through the entire game using just that mode if I could. There's your replay value for ya!

Overall, The game was very enjoyable (after the first level), but was lacking the motivation for me to replay the game further. However, as a one pass game, it was a nicely polished game and I am glad to add another notch for this game.

Do the design decisions on one console effect the gaming on another console?

2007-10-12T00:00:00Z

Will Microsoft's choices to not include HD-DVD or a hard drive, affect the end result or outcome of game development on the PS3. That is the question that I have. Obviously this is hypothetical and arguable until such time in the future that games start becoming more exclusive because of this fact or that there is a dominant winner between the 360 and the PS3. Just for clarity, I consider the Wii in a league of its own.
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According to an anonymous developer on Gamer.Blorge,
"Where the real problem stem is in the two system's processors. While Xbox games can be tweaked to move up to the PS3, the reverse is not always the case. Due to the PS3's advanced processor, games developed for the Sony backed platform sometimes can't be downgraded to the the 360's chip."

As if having a weaker processor wasn't bad enough, not everyone with a 360 will have a hard drive, but every PS3 and PC will have a harddrive. In addition when it comes to capacity of a game, the 360 and PC both support DVD as the standard, where as the PS3 stands out on Blu-ray. The type of medium I don't think is really the issue, I think it comes down to capacity. So lets estimate 50GBs for the Blu-ray and 9GBs for the DVD. This means that the DVD capacity is the limiting factor, but a closer look would reveal it's really the DVD capacity is the limiting factor because of the 360's lack of a harddrive.

With PC games, it's been normal for a game to span an install across multiple CDs. This would be justifiable for DVDs as well. So with that in mind, a game that would fit comfortably on Blu-ray, would still be able to be installed on a PC, through an installation spanning multiple DVDs to the harddrive. The 360 on the other hand does not have that option. The game would have to seriously be re-written to support disc swapping, which I feel is not worth the breaking up of the gaming experience (depending on the game), and not worth the additional effort for the port. So again, I see the 360 being the lowest common denominator between the 3 platforms because of its primary use of DVD and the lack of a harddrive.

Even on a game scheduled for release in less than a month the lack of what could be on the 360 is rearing its ugly head. The Creative Director of Assassin's Creed shared some thoughts with GamersGlobal on the issues coming up when developing games to be cross-platform compatible:
"It's all being done in parallel. On all versions, AI and 3D and animations are the same, so it's not really difficult to port the game to PS3 and PC. The tougher part - maybe I'm saying too much here, but who cares? - is the storage device. We are talking about DVD on Xbox 360 and PC versus Blu-ray on PS3 here, 8 GB versus 50 GB. That's the real difference."

So this means that a game needs to be coded without a harddrive in mind, and that it must fit entirely on one DVD. For short term exclusive titles that launch on the 360, this means that the PC and PS3 are easily fair game for porting after the exclusivity period ends on the 360. One could assume that as the games progress into the future, demanding more capacity and hardware that the ability to port from PC or the PS3 to the 360 will become less and less of a viable option or come with more and more sacrifice of the game experience.

Since PC's and the PS3 are on par or have greater capabilities than the 360, this is almost a non-issue when developing a game purely for the 360 that turns out to be more popular than anticipated and then ported to the other platforms. It becomes an issue when a game is developed primarily for the PS3, as an example, that surpasses predicted interest, that leads the business to push for a port to the 360. Porting a game to a lesser platform typically leads to degradation of the gaming experience. In the case where you already own the game on the PS3, then you could probably care less for the 360 users that have to suffer/deal with the weaker ported version of the game.

This same issue was commonly seen across the PS2 and Xbox. For cross-platform games, the Xbox always had an obvious edge over the PS2. For those of us that only had a PS2, it was a bummer to see beautiful Xbox screenshots, then look at the struggling PS2 screen shots, that would clearly show how aged the PS2 had become. At the time of this article, this is less prevalent between the 360 and the PS3, but I don't doubt that there will be a time that this will more noticeable between the two consoles, with the PS3 being the favored console.

I don't have any problem with the degraded content on ports, that's been going on since the dawn of gaming. What I have a problem with is when a game has to drop features or make compromises due to the limiting factor of the weakest link, that of the 360. With a young console this is less of an issue, it becomes more of an issue during the middle of the lifespan of the leading console. Where developers are apt enough to stretch the legs of any given console to make it work the way it was intended and at an acceptable level, while continuously raising the bar from the previous release.

When planning a known triple-a title, when it is known that there is obvious benefit to the game experience, gameplay, visual quality, amount of content,... on the leading console, but the decisions is made to force the game to be cross platform. In essence, changing the three layer wedding cake that would've been to a molded sheet cake. Thus becoming cross-platform compatible without changing the way the game plays between each port.

On GameDaily BIZ, the Creative VP of Rockstar, Dan Houser has also confirms that that bringing GTA to the Xbox 360 is is a hurdle they haven't yet decided how to overcome, due to the limitations of the 360 compared to that of the PS3.

A hypothetical example, is if they could create a game such as GTA VIII that would span the entire United States, UK, and Japan, with the same level of detail and quality that can be seen from google streets. All mapped perfectly in rich detail. Complete with accurate in game scaled travel time and distances. Yet due to limitations of a platform that cannot store to a harddrive, and that must fit on a 9GB disc, that the 3 country game becomes another 3-city game...NY, London, and Tokyo... Knowing what could've been, and getting the latter, merely to support the lesser platform, would clearly hurt the game, by keeping it from growing into the next-gen system.

Would this really happen? Or would they fork the game development, and make a 3-city game for the 360 and the full blown countries for the PS3? I can't say, but I can see money grubbing publishers forcing developers to make cross-platform games to ensure the highest possible return on their investment of a game.

Although it is still too early to truly see an affect on the quality of the next-gen gaming experience due to Microsoft's short-sighted decision to not include a Harddrive and HD-DVD in all their 360's I am not in doubt, that this may become more noticeable as developers mature in their ability to develop cross-platform titles.

When we start seeing more cross-platform titles that are...

Feature rich on one system and lacking on the other.
Visually richer and more compared to the other.
Varied gameplay and level design between each other.
Given external funds to be made/ported to the other platform
Exclusive titles on games that were previously cross-platform, when not binded by contract to a specific platform.
When all the game developers at once cried out in aguish against the weakness of one console

...then, we will know that this has become fact.

Assassin's Creed - Raising the bar for sandbox games.

2007-10-06T17:31:21Z

There was a brief video development diary focusing on the various freedoms that Assassin's Creed offers over on filefront.

I am always impressed when a developer makes the decision to create a sandbox (flowerbox) environment pushes the envelope for creative interaction from the user. What UBISOFT has done with Assassins Creed is closer to what I would call "The Perfect Game". It's still pretty far from where it needs to be, but it is clearly a step in the right direction.

Assassin's Creed is a good mix of Grand Theft Auto style sandbox with Shadow of the Colossus. You have a very detailed city that allows you to "climb/travel" with freedom to go anywhere within the city, that you want to go. Or at least that is the impression that is given when watching this video. It's too soon to tell whether there are certain "areas" you can explore or if everything is "explorable". It helps that the architecture of the in-game city is so beautiful that it urges you to explore the beauty up close.

Gunbound on wheels

2007-10-06T03:22:39Z

Today my friend messaged me about an online game called Kart Rider, so I finally decided to try it out. I used to play Gunbound, so the menu system looked very familiar. It's definitely no Mario Kart DS, and...well...it was nice to see the familiar banana item. Anyways, if you decide to try it out my username is demon180. I've seen a lot of those odd Maple Story commericals, maybe I'll try it out and waste more of my life collecting useless game items.

Oh ya, I signed up to receive free XBLA games for purchasing my 360, and I finally got an email to redeem my games: Robotron 2084 and Joust. Ya...not my first picks, but FREE is better than nothing, right? :( I can't wait to receive my Zelda Quill Stylus for registering Zelda DS. Too bad I'll be done with the game by the time it arrives.

FREE Protection for your Wiimote

2007-10-02T18:30:16Z

I woke up this morning and noticed a soft glow coming from my Wii. At first, I thought it was Nintendo trying to persuade me into purchasing "Yoshi's Story" for the Virtual Console, but I was surprised to read about another free accessory offer!

This time Wii owners can sign up to receive free protective sleeves for their Wiimotes, just in case your 60 year old Grandmother decides she's too old to use the wrist strap while playing Wii Sports, and launches the Wiimote into your nice 50" plasma HDTV.

Just go to Nintendo's website and look for the offer, and remember you'll need the serial number off of your Wii console.

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The time is "nearly" upon us...

2007-10-02T17:15:00Z

The time to upgrade to a newer, faster PC that is! If you haven't read my previous article "Why wait longer to build a new system?", read that bugger before moving on to this one. Just scanning through the usual list of "happenings", I noticed the stars beginning to align themselves in what will be a great era for PC gaming.
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First was the announcement of Intel's Yorkfield processor launch date. Slated to be released in Q3 2007, which from Intel's calendar apparently means November 12th, 2007!. Woohoo, that's a hop skip and a jump away. Coming in fast for $999, is a 3.0Ghz, 45nm Quad-Core processor with a 12MB L2 Cache (2x6MB). Hell Yeah! So what kind of memory should we throw at this badboy with a 1300MT/s FSB ?

Next there was a review on NeoSeeker on the OCZ DDR3 Memory. This memory is pushing 1800MHz with 8-8-8-24 timings. DDR3 is now starting to show reason to move away from DDR2.

Finally yet another piece of the puzzle was reviewed on X-Bitlabs. The ATI Radeon HT 2600 GDDR4 video card. Keyword here being the GDDR4! It's about time we start seeing some GDDR4 break into the graphic market place.

This is all fun and exciting, but it is still not time to upgrade. Nvidia has yet to release their next big guns which should have a smaller core as well as the GDDR4 memory, not to mention a good nForce motherboard to house the new yorkfield CPU and some of that DDR3 memory. Still, it is really nice to see the emergence of these newer technologies (45nm CPU, DDR3, GDDR4) this year. By the time that fatty tax return check comes in next year, the rest of the equation will hopefully have been released and we will be able to cash in on a vicious gaming system.

RACE '07, sneak peak.

2007-10-01T20:59:40Z

Dave Gamble has posted a short sneak peak of SIMBIN's upcoming racing title RACE '07 WTCC over at the Gaming Nexus. I have been a supporter of the GTR series of racing games that have come from SIMBIN. With RACE '07 they look to add even more minutia to the already astounding gameplay and mechanics of their existing game.

I think it's time I grab the demo and see how much different this is from GTR2. If it's really that much of an improvement, then I will look forward to the October 10, 2007 release date. ;) If all is as it should, my Logitech DFP steering wheel will still work. ;)

Why wait longer to build a new system?

2007-09-18T04:25:14Z

So you have an ancient gaming rig, that's struggling to run flash games from yahoo and you are thinking about upgrading to a nice Core2Duo/Athlon X2 2.4Ghz or something CPU with some fast Corsair/OCZ DDR2 Memory on that nForce 650i/a motherboard and drop in a bombing 8800 series PCI-Express video card....
If you did that you could get a screaming rig for pennies...And it would definitely do justice to the likes of BioShock and maybe even Call of Duty 4. But that rig won't last more than a few months before it becomes an out-dated gaming rig. If you are the "late adopter" buyer that gets the best bang for the buck at the end of the life-cycle of a killer product then, don't let me hold you back. But if you are waiting for the next best thing and once everything is out and you want to pick the winner, now is a bit too soon (or late rather). Let me tell you why I think it's too soon.
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Next up to bat, is the RAM, DDR2 is in the mid to late end of it's game. DDR3 is now available. Within a few months DDR3 will become the norm as more hardware is released to support the higher bus speeds that the new DDR3 memory can handle. Sure if you want the lowest latency it will be a while before the DDR3 architecture is fine tuned for lower latency, but even at the current offerings (read slow offerings) it's on par with current high end DDR2 offerings. So the DDR3 performance curve is going up from DDR2 and is just going to get better.

Now for video cards, nVidia is top dog. The GeForce 8800 Ultra sits on the throne with it's 65nm core and GDDR3 memory. nVidia's new GeForce 9XXX series will consist of 45nm cores and GDDR4 memory. The first run of cards in this new series will attack the mid-range market. It's when they bring out the big guns to over throw the current 8800 Ultra that I will be interested in picking up one of these bad boys.

Now that AMD has acquired ATI, I see more motherboard support for Intel down the road from nVidia. I have always been a supporter of the nForce chipset which have always favored AMD CPUs, that's going to change. The nForce 7 series will be the perfect opportunity to create a new board for Intels 45nm CPUs with support for DDR3. That's what I am waiting for.

How long do I have to wait? The new CPUs and Video cards will be out before the end of the year. DDR3 memory is already available. The motherboard is what may be holding up the line. I have no estimate, but I doubt nVidia will wait any longer than early next year. That's still a long ways off. But then again, There's not a lot to play today. Sure there's BioShock, but that's single player...

In the meantime, we can also wait for Call of Duty 4, Crysis, HL:Episode 2, TimeShift, Unreal 3, BlackSite:Area51 and a few other titles that escape me right now....so by the time the last game in the list has come out, the system should be prime for building to play those games.

Can you stay in the game with AGP?

2007-09-16T17:30:00Z

Checking the requirements of the latest and greatest FPS to grace the PC, BioShock recommends systems in the 2.4Ghz CPU range with 1GB of system RAM and a health 256MB video card. Based on that, if you are thinking about retiring your single core AGP based gaming rig, perhaps thing again. XFX has dropped the 512MB 7950GT processing power onto an AGP card.

]]> $215 after rebates) You can add some serious GDDR3 bandwidth to your archaic gaming rig. Based on some preliminary research, it appears this card is not only adequate for current gaming at the "mouth watering" settings, but with the 512MB of memory it is also ready for HD, supporting resolutions up to 2560 x 1600.

Sure you can get faster, better, DX10 compliant GeForce 8 Series PCI-Express video card for the same cost. But this isn't about the best gaming out there, this is about squeeing the last bit of juice out of your dusty gaming rig that is on it's last legs.

If you have a 2.4+Ghz CPU the speed is plenty fast for gaming. The average dual core gaming rig is less than 2.4 Ghz per core. And if the game doesn't support dual-core, the single core with a higher clock speed should keep up just fine. If you have less than 2GB of memory in your old system, then pinch the extra $60 or so to get it up to 2GB of the fastest DDR memory that matches your board/CPU FSB limits.

Then you can definitely stretch the legs of your rig with this AGP card, and stay in the game just a bit longer...waiting for the next best thing...(45nm CPU Cores, DDR3 Memory, Geforce 9 Series with GDDR4...)

How hard is it to design a simplistic gaming blog?

2007-09-16T07:12:52Z

It's literally a walk in the park. With no skill needed, simply picking aup to 3 different colors, and maybe providing an email attachment or link to a few images that appeal to the design of the site and it's a no brainer to put together. But no...everything rests on the shoulders of the developer to come up with the scope for a project that someone else wants completed. ;)