Make your game more replayable

A lot of my blog has been touting stuff I like and bashing stuff I don't, but I am going to try to make it up by providing something game developers might learn from. I played Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2, a game I do not recommend even for beginners. It is not a terrible game, but its main flaws are being too easy and too repetitive. You will have to do the exact same tournament upwards of 10 times in the campaign mode. The game seems to constantly give you rewards and make sure you are a step ahead. The expectations are low just so you can exceed them and get extra rewards. And if you happen to fail enough, there is even an easy mode you can turn on without any penalty! I understand that modern discs have a lot more space than cartridges did, but you do not have to use all of it. It is like how, if you are making a video, you do not have to make it last the website's time limit. If you do, you will probably end up adding a lot of filler. At the end of the day, it will not matter how many accessories, clothes, and hairstyles I unlocked as long as I know I hardly had to work for them. Two important things to think about are how challenge in a game can make you feel like you have accomplished something and how a short length can add replay value. There are benefits to making a game short enough to complete in one sitting, such as including limited lives and continues. One aspect of a lot of the older cartridge games are that you are only required to do things once in them. Even though the game I am talking about does not have this, it is also good to not have an economy so you do not have to complicate things and you can save extra disk space, and there would be one less time-consuming, unbalanced part of the game to complain about. I hold disdain for short-but-challenging games because they are short games made even shorter by the fact that one of the parts is too hard for many players, but that is only when it is mentioned by people who I feel think they have better tastes because they play older games. In truth, that design can do a lot to help a game. Instead of adding in things that are not fun and exist to make it feel longer or cheat you out of a victory to make you play it longer, you could use that extra space saved to add in all sorts of content. If you insist on appealing to newcomers, you can have some challenging sections and some sections players just know they are going to win. The difficulty would be uneven, but that can be good because players would have something to look forward to besides increased difficulty on the next part. I know it seems awkward for people to take breaks while they are already playing a game, but it puts some variety into it and lights at the end of tunnels. Having lots of dialogue, long cutscenes, busywork and sidequests is not good either. Come on, I just want to play! "Hours of playtime" is not a good thing to put on the box of a game because the amount of time it is played is up to the player and that could mean the game is slower paced or there is a lot of filler. You do not put a bunch of easy parts in the main game because what if someone wants to start over and make a new file? They will have to go through a bunch of unfulfilling tutorials and easy parts, along with slow parts that involve hearing or reading things they have already heard or read. The easy parts should just be limited to the training/practice/how to play mode that is not part of the main game, and the first part, maybe the first few parts of the main game. In the aforementioned game, there are sometimes special rules added to tournaments or match games, such as having mirrored holes, limited clubs, or extra penalty strokes for landing in terrains that are not even out of boundaries. The problem is, along with rain, the rules do not show up often enough, and you are left with the same tournament you have already done many times. The game could be improved by including special rules and rain a lot more often, and earlier in the game. Other improvements involve making the competition stiffer and requiring less activities before the next part of the campaign mode. Also, make the game faster paced so you can have all eighteen holes instead of just nine and make the game more exciting. With all that extra replay value and disk space, you can include a higher difficulty or two, or maybe some videos so you can watch the game instead of making it easy. Now that is more like it! Just something to think about for Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 3, or whatever the next game in the series is going to be named.

With innovation comes flaws

It irks me when I see games with blatant, unavoidable flaws get called the best of all time, and until now, it has confused me why these mediocre games warrant so much praise and popularity. The answer: they added something new to the genre. And to most, that simply cannot be overlooked. My favorite games have been the ones that seemed unnecessary at the time, maybe even de-innovated, but were well-designed, fun games that fixed flaws of previous ones. If you are familiar with me, you know that Lost Levels and Mario Golf 64 are two games that I love. They are as cash-in and non-innovative as can be. But with innovation comes flaws. A lot of things that were ahead of their time were flawed. I do not care if a game can bring a map screen or multiplayer mode if they come with horrendous flaws. I just want to play good games. People complain about the lack of innovation in a lot of Capcom's games, but that is what makes them successful a lot of the time. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is another game that seems like an unnecessary rehash, but it toned down problems that have been present in Mario games for a long time: easy difficulty, childish presentation, generosity with rewards, and in-your-face throwbacks to past games. I also loved Bowser's Inside Story because it fixed a lot of problems with RPGs that make them user-unfriendly. Lots of things that were ahead of their time were very flawed. This is why revivals of old games are popular.

Difficulty in old games

The real reason older games are difficult is not because the industry cared more about their more devoted fans, or that companies were not afraid to make their games hard. A high difficulty was the way to extend the play time when games did not have the advanced and expansive enough hardware to make their games long while still having a good amount of content. Eight levels was the standard. Obviously, the practice required to be able to consistently beat the tougher stages was an addition to the play time. A big portion of arcade games were often hard, cheap, and unforgiving because it would make people get game overs more often so they would have to insert more quarters. Also, the big wall in the road in many of these hard games were either the third or fourth levels. The reason the huge difficulty spikes showed up that early is because players would feel their experience was much incomplete, and would spend a lot more time trying to beat these levels and get even farther. Developers cannot do that anymore. The replayability of games is a lot more based on the things that matter, such as the different routes or events you can choose, and how charming it is, not how hard it is. A game that is difficult for good reasons is really special now. When you have a console where 98% of the games are hard, not so much. For the newer audience of gaming, cop-out tricks that pulled the wool over veterans' eyes is a repellent. And it is good for the industry to expand its audience, or else it could not survive. Another thing: I do not have much of a problem with virtual handholding, but I do feel it is a little unnecessary because there is already internet video.

"Hardcore" has no real definition

The definition of the word "Hardcore" is entirely based upon opinion. There is no actual criteria. Some think they are hardcore because they play old games. More accurately, others think notoriously difficult games are hardcore. Others think that whatever games they think are the best are hardcore. Some criteria make more sense than others, but I find it unnecessary to compliment a game I like with a word that has no real definition.

Pre-Ordering is dumb

Pre-ordering is a dumb idea, especially when you hardly know anything about the game you are pre-ordering. You have to pay extra money as well as full price and return to the same store. Even if there are already millions of pre-orders, you can still get a copy of the game the day it arrives in stores. Renting is a bad idea too. I suggest thorough research, followed by a purchase of a used copy, which you can either keep or return in a week.

Good marketing idea?

Many gamers are against the idea of creating a console for non-gamers. I am against that idea too, because that idea will actually end up appealing to nobody instead of everybody. It will alienate hardcore gamers, and non-gamers will still not know how to play. I have seen people who do not know how to play other consoles be just as clueless about the Wii. You cannot please everyone. There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family".

First is the worst

Whenever a product is the first to do something, people get excited, forgetting that when something is the first of its kind, it is usually the most poorly executed because there is nothing to compete with or improve on, and there has never been a product before it that had the same feature, so the creators would not know what to fix.

When the N64 had the first main controller to have a control stick, customers were excited, but the product was flawed. Out of the current five Nintendo consoles' main controllers, the N64 controller is my least favorite, because it is unevenly set up, and is not very durable, especially when it comes to the control stick. It lacked the brawn it needed to last through plenty of use. Fortunately, the control sticks for other consoles fixed those problems.

The Wiimote got customers excited too, and caused them to forget about the possibility of it not working. Countless games on the Wii resulted in more complaints about the motion controls not working than praise for the innovation. We must remember that because the Wiimote is the first main controller to have a special feature that no other controller has had before, it is the "primitive" edition, and motion controls for any future consoles will likely be a dramatic improvement over it.

If you are a reviewer, it is very important to wait to review games until they are not new anymore and the problems with the game are not obscured by hype. This is the case with Wii Sports 1, which every Wii owner knows is one of the first games for the Wii. This game and Wii Play both failed to show the true abilities of the Wiimote. Most of the events in Wii Play involved pointing at the screen and maybe turning the Wiimote. The controls in the events in Wii Sports 1 were little more than swinging. Until Wii Sports Resort came out, all the Wiimote could do was point, tilt, and swing.

The Boxing event in Wii Sports 1 is the average least favorite event out of the five. This is because the controls are very unresponsive. Kids who run up to the screen and swing like crazy often have more luck than those who try to come up with a strategy, at least for the first few rounds, because your beginning opponents barely make any attempt to attack you. There is almost no way you can lose. In the Showdown mode, which is part of Sword Fighting, by far the most popular event in Wii Sports Resort, the first level is a joke. You can win just by holding the Wiimote in front of you and jumping up and down until you finish. There is the possibility of getting hit once, but this level is too easy because the enemies barely attack you. I am happy to report that this problem has been fixed in all of the other levels, as the same strategy I mentioned before resulted in quickly losing to the first enemy that wears a red suit.

One more thing: In order to get the Wii Motion Plus to work correctly, you have to lock it in.