An aside on Mobile and Free to Play.

Video games have been around for several decades by now, but they are most prevalent on mobile devices. An almost brand new way to play, Mobile games have the advantage that most of the population already have some form of device to play them on. This market is unfortunately, also one of the most misunderstood and potentially damaging to the medium.

Mobile gaming has fostered a race to the bottom pricing strategy that de-values games, and as a result of that we see bad “free to play” games that take advantage of customers. Such games end up sowing distrust and apathy in those who might otherwise be lifelong consumers. They don’t necessarily need to be this way, and I believe that it is very possible to get out of the pit.

Mobile games created new price brackets for titles, letting players drop a dollar or two for smaller, digestible experiences. From that however, comes the devaluation of the games themselves. People are less willing to spend more on what might be a better quality title, when they can get several other titles for cheaper. It’s a paradigm shift that developers and Apple alike are concerned about, but the value proposition question is inherently hard to solve.

Free to play games are the best example of this paradigm shift, and fundamentally, it’s not a bad system. Asking no entry fee of a potential audience, then allowing them to spend however much they deem necessary has worked previously in the music industry. When games try this, they tend to stumble with a lack of design. Games frequently fail to give players a reason to spend money; or they force players to stop, and demand money from the players.

The latter is far too often the approach, and leaves players feeling taken advantage of. A few players will pay to advance in Candy Crush, but many more will either just get bored of the game or stop playing out of principle. At worst, if this is the player’s primary experience with games, they can very easily write off an entire medium, filled with different experiences. Like one writing off cinema after seeing their first Michael Bay flick.

The solution might be a little morbid, but none the less necessary. The free to play market needs to contract drastically.

There are many parallels between the mobile market of today and the events that led to the video game crash of the 80’s. Quality control is at a bare minimum and games come out barely working, or taking huge advantage of the player in the name of advertising. People will eventually say no, and start to ignore mobile games.

Such a retraction is only a first step. The tricky part comes in where it goes from there, and how mobile gaming rebuilds itself. Until then, consider how a game is structured, and who that structure is serving. You might not like what you come up with.

Yes, graphics matter.

Continuing our breakdown of how a game earns that prime 10 status, let’s talk about where visuals fit into a game, and all the little things that can break your impression of them.

A popular argument is that “Graphics don’t matter”, and to a degree it is true. It’s also hyperbole. They play a very important part. They don’t always need to be the most cutting edge, but they need to build a world. Like the alliteration in a good piece of writing, they place you in the scene and give context.

Super Mario Brothers. Obviously very rudimentary by the standards of today. But everything is purposeful, from the colour of the bricks to the design of the titular Mario. It creates a world that captures the imagination and lets your suspension of disbelief fill in the blanks.

Let’s contrast this with a Gears of War. It’s taking advantage of the latest technology to create a dystopian vision. The problem is, all those grey and brown tones aren’t always the best choice. It’s visually boring, without contrast. But that said, it has a place. It fits the tone the game wants.

Where a game can really fall flat though, is when it has failures in technical or artistic design. A stuttering framerate can not only have gameplay implications depending on the game, but that jumpy nature can make a title feel uncanny, and even make people feel sick. Or when a game has clashing art styles or a tone that doesn’t fit into the world the game tries to build. It’s not cartoony colour or self aware muddy textures that can bring down a game. Those alone don’t often even call attention. It’s when a failure in presentation brings you out of the world of the game, and reminds you that it is just that (A game), when the problems really set in.

Next time, the wonderful word that everybody loves to throw around. Innovation!

The eternal struggle, or the search for the holy 10

We’ve talked about review bias before, and attracting the bile of gamers who think that a title deserved a higher score than a critic gave. Such ire is usually given just by looking at the score itself, without regard to context of the review given by the body.

The idea that most critics approach a game with is that of a holistic approach. They’ll dive into the mechanics, visuals, narrative and other things that make a game tick, or conversely crash right into a wall. The score doesn’t come first, it’s a final thought.

They attempt to cram a ton of exposition given in the actual review into an arbitrary number that readers all too often take as word of god, though that is a different discussion.

Bayonetta 2 has been on the tongue of gamers lately, sitting with an amazing 91 on Metacritic and a “Prime” 10 on many of the websites that Metacritic is deriving that number from. I want to stress that word choice there. Prime. Not “Perfect”.

Gamespot has in fact simply taken to calling it “essential”. A title that shouldn’t be missed, yet still avoiding the word “perfect”. As if it could possibly be the earthly manifestation of paradise pressed onto a disk.

Using Bayonetta 2 as a jumping off point, I would like to discuss what it takes, personally, for me to grant a title that golden goose egg of a “10”. I do not speak for all critics, because as is way to often misunderstood, critique is a subjective idea. Defined by filtering a piece of content through the critic and telling people about the end result.

I’ll approach a title with a handful of criteria in the back of my mind, but defining these criteria comes after time with the game. First, gameplay and it’s mechanics are considered and that’s the heaviest part of how I’ll weigh a game.

After all, I’m no book reviewer or film critic. I put so much time into this particular medium because of the things that only it can tackle. And it’s not only about “fun” as a singular objective idea.

Let’s look at the simple idea of Pac-Man, and what works with it mechanically? You run around a maze and eat dots to progress, but what if the ghosts were truly random and unpredictable? In fact, they all have differently programmed “personalities” such as chasing after you, or cutting you off at the pass. These patterns aren’t set in stone, but with enough experience a player can start to use their knowledge of the ghosts to more effectively illude them.

 

I’ll define mechanics as the rules of the world, and how those rules affect your interaction with it. We’ve all played the title where you suddenly die without knowing what hit you. When a game breaks it’s own world’s rules as they were first introduced to the player, or doesn’t properly introduce a new concept before throwing a player into the deep end, it feels cheap. Like the game handed out a pop quiz before it ever went over the material, or in the glitch metaphor, the instructor disappears into the air and dies on the way to his home planet.

On the other end of the coin, a game that rigidly sets up the rules of it’s world, always sticks within them and is sure to introduce any iteration upon them in full before throwing the player into a situation, making sure they are set to tackle the challenge, don’t necessarily need to be easy. In fact, many examples can offer up quite the challenge. But they do make sure that when a death occurs, it’s the players own fault and they know it. Games like Shovel Knight are excellent in this regard. Offering the player a chance to learn how the world works, practice with the rules, and then play with the rules.

We’ll pick up from here next time, with presentation and it’s role in world building. Until then, folks.

Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS review

One has to wonder what voodoo or devil’s pact Nintendo made that turned out such a high profile series as Smash Brothers. Originally they didn’t even intend on releasing the game outside of Japan, and now on its fourth entry Smash has become a worldwide phenomenon with a hype train that just won’t stop.

Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS marks the first time the series has had a handheld entry, and it’s meant to link up with the Wii U version once released. Standing alone as it’s currently doing though, Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS is rather cramped within It’s  hardware and it shows in very unfortunate ways.

“ There are of course, other fighters that I’m avoiding for the sake of spoilers, but the newcomers all fit very nicely into Smash cannon.

It’s still Super Smash Bros, of course. Now boasting an inarguably massive roster of 51 characters (12 of them to be unlocked), the digital take on sumo wrestling has never been livelier. New fighters fit into the veteran roster like a glove and with all the care and detail one would expect from the series.

For example, longtime request Mega Man is a very projectile based character and many of his special moves and smash attacks demand a bit of distance to use effectively. Villager is just as quirky as one might expect, able to pocket just about anything in the game and turn it against the user. Shulk offers a different take on the sword fighter with different modes to utilize that change up properties on his moves and Pac-Man represents not only himself, but a swath of classic arcade titles within his moveset.

There are of course, other fighters that I’m avoiding for the sake of spoilers, but the newcomers all fit very nicely into Smash cannon. Even a few returning veterans have their move sets shaken up, with Dr. Mario returning and playing much closer to how Mario manoeuvred in Melee, Olimar downsizing to three Pikmin but gaining some new moves himself and Shiek, Zero Suit Samus and Charizard all breaking free of their previous transformation status and becoming full fledged fighters.

“ Nine stages are shamelessly ripped from older titles in the series and positioned right alongside the new stages, when previous titles only ever positioned them as bonuses.

There are still a handful of clones, and some of them are rather jarring after Brawl established that even clones play a bit different. Lucina is an almost note for note copy of Marth, with the sole difference being her more consistently damaging slashes. Pit gains a more fleshed out move set courtesy of his recent revival in Uprising, making it rather baffling how they didn’t use Dark Pit to reprise his style from Brawl, thus using him in a similar fashion as Dr. Mario.

Smash doesn’t stop its recycling with fighters though. The game borrows a lot of stages from older titles simply to flesh out its locations. Nine stages are shamelessly ripped from older titles in the series and positioned right alongside the new stages, when previous titles only ever positioned them as bonuses. Even a handful of the new stages reuse concepts almost note for note from older stages, making the battlefield selection feel lazy at best.

Single player modes have been given a bit more love however. Classic mode borrows the intensity system from Kid Icarus: Uprising, allowing you to tailor the difficulty to an obtuse degree and bet in game coins that you can take the abuse in exchange for better and more prizes. All Star Mode has been condensed considerably, challenging you to a gauntlet of fighters based off when they first appeared to the world. The approximately six fights take about 20 minutes, meaning it still works for a bus ride.

“ [Smash Run is] at the core a very repetitive style of game.

The classic distractions of Home Run Contest and Multi-Man Smash return to offer a break from the fighting, and they bring along a Nintendo take on Angry Birds with the “Target blast” mode that asks you to fling a bomb into a structure and take out as many targets as possible. Trophy Rush is the new trophy collecting game and thankfully is much more involved than anything previous. Paying in money for more time in the mode, you want to break as many crates and blocks as you can to build up to a frenzy mode and then collect your prizes. It’s fast, frantic and most importantly, not the coin shooter from Brawl.

The most significant new mode, and one specific to the 3DS version of Smash is the new Smash Run mode. Challenging you and three other fighters to wander through a simply massive stage while fighting enemies from all kinds of games, you’ll build your stats via pickups, find items and take on challenge doors that can offer great prizes to those who can best them. Random events can occur on the map that fighters can take advantage of, such as certain power up types being more plentiful, a special challenge door appearing, or a protective light from above. Following the timer, a final battle will take place. Anything from a basic smash to “climb higher than your foes” or “Race to the Finish” could occur, and ask you to make use of the strengths you built up to claim victory

If this sounds familiar to anybody who’s played Kirby Air Ride, the developer himself admitted that the concept for Smash Run was shamelessly borrowed from the Kirby racer. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with borrowing the idea, it’s at the core a very repetitive style of game. There is only one stage in Smash Run, and while it will take a few plays to see it all, you will eventually have taken the tour. The random nature of the pickups and final event might also rub some the wrong way and see them ignore the mode completely. Though it’s more engaging to play the mode with friends, you’ll need them in the same room. No Wifi for Smash Run.

“ The biggest hurdle to the online mode, and it’s a rather unacceptable one given that Nintendo has had about seven years to figure this out, is the shaky netcode.

The Online mode itself has only improved marginally from Super Smash Bros Brawl, and that means the good and the bad. Random online is now split between “for fun” and “for glory”, or as most other fighting games would call it, unranked and ranked respectively. For Glory takes place solely on Final Destination and stage variants of it, with no items and even disables every character except Fox (Ok, not every character. Miis are unavailable, but more on that in a bit). Free for all, team battles and one on one all offer different flavours of battle to the death.

“For Fun” is quite the opposite. Locking out any form of Final Destination and keeping all the items on, it’s a mode to just fight without worrying about a K/D Ratio. Classic, wacky fun kind of smash. This one just has free for all and team smash variants. Spectate returns for the betting wo/man in all of us, though it’s a novelty at best. For Friends offers the full suite of battle options among those on each others friends lists.

The biggest hurdle to the online mode, and it’s a rather unacceptable one given that Nintendo has had about seven years to figure this out, is the shaky netcode. Lag is still way too frequent during games and turns this otherwise gorgeous looking game into a slideshow way too often. Nintendo has had several very smooth online titles on the 3DS, such as Mario Kart. It’s inconceivable how Smash still has issues.

“ …considering that it has to be able to keep those visuals up at about 120FPS when the 3D is considered, it’s a marvel that they even crammed it all onto a single cartridge.

During general gameplay though, it’s inarguable that the little 3DS is groaning with the pressure. Most assets run at a full 60fps, and in full 3D if you want. It’s visually about as impressive as Melee was, and especially considering that it has to be able to keep those visuals up at about 120FPS when the 3D is considered, it’s a marvel that they even crammed it all onto a single cartridge. The only hiccup comes in the assist trophies and pokemon, which only run at 30FPS and eagle eyes might find that jarring.

It’s not as musically sweeping as Brawl was unfortunately, limited to two tracks a stage and again, many of them repeats. The tracks that are there though are at least on par production wise with Brawl’s soundtrack and the rest of the game. Trophies return, with a massive 686 to collect within the 3DS version. Whoever wrote the descriptions clearly let loose here too, making them a lot more fun to read and several are rather punny. Take that to mean a good or bad thing as you will.

Smash 4 makes several changes to gameplay mechanics as well that make it more friendly to competitive play and more fair to casual play as well. Character size difference is more drastic this go, making the larger characters have larger hitboxes and smaller fighters even more nimble. The dreaded random tripping from Brawl is out completely, though a loose banana peal can still send characters tumbling and game speed sits somewhere between Melee and Brawl.

“ Smash 4 has the fighting down better than ever before, but it’s still easy to miss the distractions that the 3DS version is lacking.

The most striking changes lay in edge grabbing though, buffing tether recoveries and allowing multiple tethers to grab at once, and in an amazing shake up of a Smash defence staple, characters with lower damage will be able to knock ledge guarding characters out of the way so they can grab themselves. It’s the most balanced Smash in a long time, and the changes are able to be appreciated by casual and core alike.

Smash 4 has the fighting down better than ever before, but it’s still easy to miss the distractions that the 3DS version is lacking. Matches can only be time or stock, and we drop coin matches and special condition fights. Event match is nowhere to be seen and there is no Target Test to speak of. Smash Run is poor replacement for the adventure modes that the series has had since Melee, and though Classic mode has been iterated upon it’s bound to get tiring.

Finally, the most unique thing about Smash 4 is the introduction of a customization system. Each character has two alternates for their special moves that can be unlocked, and they can change a character subtly or drastically, depending on the fighter. Equipment can also be loaded on that alter the stats of a fighter, but they do little else. This option also plays heavily into the Mii characters. There are three classes of Mii, the Swordfighter, the Brawler and the Gunner, and they can all be customized to a degree within their class. Most of the moves are in fact ripped right from other fighters, though you can now link them in unique ways. The customized fighters can be saved as presets, though they have to be activated before they can be made useful and are banned from online random matches, making the function another novelty to play with before dropping.

Overall, Smash 4 is great, but between all the borrowed content, missing modes and disregard for basic series principles, it’s hard to say Super Smash Bros for 3DS has an identity. It’s just kind of a thing. Honestly, what it does do is done well. It’s impressive that it made it onto 3DS and while I’m glad it exists, I’m not sure it needed to exist. Corners were cut, and this certainly isn’t the main course. You won’t go wrong if you want to play the 3DS version of the game, but dial back the hype and put it on the Wii U version.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.
(Content originally written for Gamingbolt.com)

Not all special: Misconceptions of gaming criticism

We’ve all seen it. Those bottom of the barrel internet comments sections and youtube war zones. When a big name title comes out and it gets less than expected scores from a reviewer (never mind the actual body, because who actually reads those these days) there is an incredible amount of bile and accusations thrown at the critic.

While these concerns have recently snowballed into a whole kerfuffle and flagrant abuse of the -gate suffix, that’s for another time. I simply ask the gaming audience to consider something. Not every child is special, and in such a heavily subjective medium, not every game is a perfect 10 until proven otherwise.

Consider two games, one that does very interesting things with setting, mechanics and visual design but has a few bugs and one that functions flawlessly but is completely archetypal and boring in execution. Which one would be the more interesting title to discuss? Which one should be panned for it’s rigidly sticking to the formula?

It’s a poor critic who begins with the game at a ten and subtracts from there. In fact, score should really be the last thing decided upon, but unfortunately is the first and too often last thing people look at. Take some time to read the content and understand the careful reflection of the mechanics, presentation and any other factors. Try considering a score as holistic of an experience, something meant to represent but not necessarily to completely explain.

Score as a concept is a tricky subject, and not a discussion so easily wrapped up. What i’ve very briefly touched upon here is only a basic view, but one i believe worth discussing. I would love to see what you all think in the comments below.

 

Quality Control and not running with the double edged sword

Remember this?

This is a microcosm of today’s topic; What not to do when it comes to Quality Control.

It’s probably a more prevalent issue than ever before. The advent of digital marketplaces has created a golden age for independent developers and a golden opportunity for scam artists. Back in the day when dinosaurs like Atari still roamed Pangea, the Nintendo Official Seal of Quality was much sought after but demanded very stringent content limitations be followed if you wanted to release a game on the NES.

At the time it was really the only game in town, before the PC had truly taken off for gaming. From there, the record of unlicensed NES software speaks for itself as many who wanted to dodge the heavy quality control measures Nintendo enforced made their own cartridges (with blackjack, and hookers).

Nintendo was certainly at the heavy right side of the spectrum at the time, and were fought back on this authoritarianism. This is far from how they run third party relations today but it’s an interesting case study still none the less. Jumping right to the far left though and total anarchy, there is another more modern example worth a look.

 

While the Apple app store has its own problems, and isn’t much better in terms of overall quality at least Apple holds a few strainers up to catch the big chunks of crap. Google on the other hand primarily makes sure the app runs before dropping it into the storefront for all the world of Droid users to play with, and this has resulted in many devices coming down with a bad case of the malware in the past. This isn’t even diving into the sheer mountains of just plain crap games that are asking for money on both Android and Apple devices, a problem that finds even Apple concerned that people won’t pay for a game on their devices anymore.

I don’t want to place all of the blame on the big corporations here this time. There are benefits to control and availability when it comes to game development, and mega hits like Minecraft wouldn’t have even existed if there wasn’t any room for an indy developer in today’s game development world. There should rightly be some expectation that a customer will research a product they buy, at least to the point of finding a secondary source to confirm the game’s quality. But on the flip side, there needs to be avenues for a burned customer to recover from a bad purchase and this is something that all digital marketplaces still struggle with. To continue the political analogies, one does still need to know what they are voting for.

Surely there is a middle ground to be found though. Has nobody pioneered that special place where the customer doesn’t need to do everything on their own but still leaves the market open to anybody who has an idea they want to put out there?

Steam sure just made a few strides. While it can still be criticized for allowing something like Air Control to exist and ask for money, they recently updated their storefront in a few very interesting ways. First, Steam Discovery finally learns a trick that Amazon picked up a long time ago and smartly uses your library and reviews to find and point you toward new games you might enjoy, and even lets you filter out things that Steam thought you might like, but would rather not see.

Curation is now possible too, allowing users to basically manage their own storefront with recommended titles and opens an avenue for people to follow critics who they trust or have similar taste to. With two small changes, Steam avoided making it harder to get out there, but made it less about sifting through the chaff. Hopefully other storefronts follow.

Preorders bite back

 

  If you haven’t heard about this one yet, please advise us as to which rock to send information to.

Destiny was a hype train that just wasn’t going to stop. A thing that everybody knew about, a new property from the creators of Halo? Sign us up, right? It set up expectations of an ever evolving world and seamless blending of shooters, loot, RPG elements, and MMOs, and it was going to be the game to end all games.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ooooohhhhh….That’s gotta hurt.

Let’s not get the wrong idea. I’m not saying an average of 77/100 makes Destiny a bad game. At least from an objective standpoint. But suffice to say that it’s hardly the second coming. And with news coming out that Bungie had $2.5 million dollars on the line if this thing got received at a minimum 90 average, It’s hurting them just as much as the burned gamers who ended up disappointed with the final product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many are enjoying Bungie’s latest work too, so this isn’t really what todays ramblings are about. Destiny, regardless of quality is a reminder of the dangers that come with preordering a product. Destiny was never in danger of selling out. You could walk into a store and purchase the game right now, and even if you couldn’t then you could still download it.

The point was to offer little bonuses, and get as many people riding the hype train as possible, and thus to grab as much of money as possible before the word got out that it wasn’t ready for primetime.

Preorder bonuses have gotten more and more desperate in recent years, such as Alien Isolation cutting the cast of Alien out so it could be sold at a later time. These little slices of content are being divvied up and publishers are trying to use this to instil fear that by not preordering, and locking yourself into a purchase before the actual quality of the game becomes apparent. Content can even be split between retailers, making it impossible to actually get all the content. None of it is to the benefit of the gamer.

 

 

There are reasons to preorder. Niche titles like Persona that one might be unable to find otherwise are one of the very few exceptions. We should sit back and weigh whether or not we’ll be able to carry on without a shiny spear for the new Assassin’s Creed game.

Sometime, a degree of skepticism can be healthy. So why don’t we all take a step back and ask ourselves “What’s in it for us?”.

After all, to grossly paraphrase the 90’s, you wouldn’t prepay for a car you knew nothing about, would you?

Rouge Legacy impressions

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  I ndependent games have seen something of a resurgence in recent years. Mainstream darlings such as Minecraft have seen ridiculous success while being created entirely by one man. The gaming landscape is now more open to the little guys than ever before, and that has facilitated the return or birth of many kinds of games.

Rougelikes are an acquired taste in this field to be sure, and many hundreds of hours (and dreams) have been crushed by titles such as Spelunky. A Rougelike is simple in what it asks, not to suck. changing level design prevent simple muscle memory from taking over and demands you learn to assess and adapt to any given situation. I’ve been playing Rouge Legacy on the Playstation Vita lately, and it’s claws are dug in deep by it’s interesting application of persistence towards the genre.

 

While simply being asked to concur a castle, you’ll gather gold as you make attempts to survive. It’s unlikely that your chosen hero will make it out of the ordeal alive. not the first, and probably not the thirtieth either. But with each trek, you’ll gather some amount of gold which is brought over to the next in your lineage. Upgrades made at your initially quaint little shack will improve the entire genealogy, and not only provide a sense of progression even in the face of your worst runs through the castle halls but also gives Rouge Legacy a kind of consistence that not many in it’s genre enjoy.

 

It’s amazing how a simple, single idea can completely change the feeling of an otherwise standard game. I look forward to spending more time in the world of Rouge Legacy and mastering it’s corridors. This title is available on PC and Playstation systems, so i would urge those interested to give it a shot.

 

 

-Alex Jackson

Welcome!

Here we go!

Welcome to Frozen Thumbsticks, began as a humble SAIT student blog I aim to discuss all things gaming, either generally or directly from a uniquely Canadian perspective.

News, Reviews, Editorials, controversy, any kind of discussion to be had has a place here on Frozen Thumbsticks. In the past, i’ve written on Gamespot.com and for Gamingbolt.com, and can’t wait to see where this goes.

Until next time, readers.