Here is some advice on how to rate graphics. First, I would like to tell you not to say that gameplay is more important than graphics. Graphics are more important than you think. With good graphics, you can tell what everything is, where the hit boxes are, and what is crucial to your progress. For some reviewers, the "Graphics" category is a throwaway one, just like "Replay Value". By that, I mean that graphics can sometimes be just another way for a fanatic to praise, or a "hater" to bash a game. Some people, if they like a game, but notice that the graphics are not very good, say "they were good for the time". How do you know that? What a cop-out! I was not a gamer when the NES and SNES had graphical advances or any other kind of revolutionary feature, so I do not care about how good something was "back in the day". I care about how not obsolete it is against all these other new ones. I love Mario Golf 64, and even I am willing to admit that the graphics are in no way revolutionary or state-of-the-art. They were not "good for the time". I still like them, and wish they could be repeated in future installments of the Mario Golf series, but they are not standard-setters. Neither were the graphics on any other N64 game. The N64DD looked cool, and I would have rather had that than the Game Cube, but I understand why the Nintendo company decided to go with the Game Cube: they were tired of two-dimensional fences and blurry signs. Paper Mario 1 made a farce of the N64's graphics. And I must stress again, for those of you who are retro game fanatics, stop giving 8-bit graphics a free ride. You cannot just like graphics for what games they are in.
I am fully aware of the fact that I mention Mario Golf and Lost Levels in a lot of my blog posts.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Reviewing Difficulty
Here is another section that needs work for some reviewers: the Difficulty section.
I have to say this first: Do not rate the difficulty of a game from 1 to 10 based on how hard the game is, especially if you are doing averages, which is a very tacky method of reviewing, since not all of the categories of the game are equally important (Retro fanatics have over-stressed this: "Graphics are not as important as gameplay". Come on, tell us something we have not already heard so many other times). And it is all the more flawed if one of the categories is not a direct measure of how good a part of a game is. Instead, score that category based on how good the difficulty curve is. Even the most notoriously difficult games have a few easy levels to start you off with. Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels had an excellent difficulty curve, one that you would find in normal games. In games that are nonlinear, such as Mega Man platformers (obviously) and the Mario Golf series, rate the learning curve, which is how quickly you can get the hang of the game, or just do not have that section at all.
I have to say this first: Do not rate the difficulty of a game from 1 to 10 based on how hard the game is, especially if you are doing averages, which is a very tacky method of reviewing, since not all of the categories of the game are equally important (Retro fanatics have over-stressed this: "Graphics are not as important as gameplay". Come on, tell us something we have not already heard so many other times). And it is all the more flawed if one of the categories is not a direct measure of how good a part of a game is. Instead, score that category based on how good the difficulty curve is. Even the most notoriously difficult games have a few easy levels to start you off with. Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels had an excellent difficulty curve, one that you would find in normal games. In games that are nonlinear, such as Mega Man platformers (obviously) and the Mario Golf series, rate the learning curve, which is how quickly you can get the hang of the game, or just do not have that section at all.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Replayability Values
I can honestly tell you that replay value is not a good category to include in a review.
Most of the time, reviewers' scores for Replay Value is heavily based on a bias for a game or system you grew up with. Every system that came before or after will usually get lower ratings of replay value. For example, I grew up with the N64, and I find NES games to significantly lack replay value because of a lack of save features, difficulty that sometimes feels unfair, lack of nonlinearity or extra content, the fact that the games are usually short, and usually, lame endings. People who grew up with NES games inherently love them and do not mind playing them over and over again. Scores for replay value are commonly similar to those of the "gameplay" category, and are just an extra category for fanatics or haters. Sometimes, games can score more "replayability" points than "gameplay" points. As you know if you are a reviewer, these instances are very rare. Replay value is very important to me, but it is not a good category to put in a review.
Being a critic of any kind does not require any experience or training. So gamers, try not to make it look like that!
Most of the time, reviewers' scores for Replay Value is heavily based on a bias for a game or system you grew up with. Every system that came before or after will usually get lower ratings of replay value. For example, I grew up with the N64, and I find NES games to significantly lack replay value because of a lack of save features, difficulty that sometimes feels unfair, lack of nonlinearity or extra content, the fact that the games are usually short, and usually, lame endings. People who grew up with NES games inherently love them and do not mind playing them over and over again. Scores for replay value are commonly similar to those of the "gameplay" category, and are just an extra category for fanatics or haters. Sometimes, games can score more "replayability" points than "gameplay" points. As you know if you are a reviewer, these instances are very rare. Replay value is very important to me, but it is not a good category to put in a review.
Being a critic of any kind does not require any experience or training. So gamers, try not to make it look like that!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Long Lost Sequels and Wiimakes
With games that are in the same series as ones that came out a long time ago, such as Punch Out and Mega Man 9 and 10, many gamers have started obsessing about ideas of which direct sequels they want to see, such as Star Fox Wii or Pilot Wings Wii. And I have a few ideas of my own.
Even though they seem to dislike the Wii, fans of classic series' such as Star Fox and Pilot Wings have been obsessing about new sequels, and have started creating many ideas for them. Here is one of my ideas: Star Fox 2 on Virtual Console! I was not a big fan of Star Fox 64, but every aspect of Star Fox 2 looks awesome and right up my alley. As you already know, Star Fox 2 is a real game that was going to be released in 1995, but it was not. Nobody knows exactly why, but it seems to be because the N64 was coming up. To me, it is pretty silly how game companies think that games that are not for newer consoles will not sell well. Do they seriously think nobody liked the older console anymore?
Here is another one: Mario Golf 64 2! Same graphics, same gameplay, but completely different courses! Except no more cheating with save and quits. Combining the exclusive characters, graphics and gameplay with Mario Golf 64 with the content from later games in the series is a winning idea! And it would be played with only the classic controller, not the Game Cube controller or motion controls.
Upon completing all of the first eight worlds in Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels, which is my favorite 2D Mario platformer, I think that instead of a Super Mario Brothers 4, I think there should be a Super Mario Brothers 3: The Lost Levels. And no, I do not want it to be like the other Super Mario Brothers 3, which is a very fanboy-oriented game that I did not enjoy. I want this to have the same graphics, gameplay, and music as Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2: The Lost Levels. Even though I do not like the music, the game would not be the same with different music. And of course, I want it to be hard, just like Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels. Give the sequel of the Mario Brothers' alternate sequel some support!
People have a lot of ideas for Star Fox Wii, such as having cooperative play and counting high scores again. People who want a Pilot Wings Wii have barely created any ideas, and I understand, I do not have any ideas for it either. I was thinking that a Pilot Wings 2, which uses the Super FX 1 chip or Super FX 2 chip would be a good idea, since it would at least fix the problem of everything on the ground being flat. Some basic ideas would be combining the events from the two games and of course having big environments and new types of tests. I just hope that it will not be dumbed down in any way and there would still be music. I tend to be more agreeable with Pilot Wings fans, since they are not very fanatical. If they were, they would have created their own ideas rather than just left it up to the company that is more experienced in creating them.
I pitched in some ideas. Three of them were completely original and unconventional, and two of them were going along with other ideas that I liked. We can only hope- or can we?
Even though they seem to dislike the Wii, fans of classic series' such as Star Fox and Pilot Wings have been obsessing about new sequels, and have started creating many ideas for them. Here is one of my ideas: Star Fox 2 on Virtual Console! I was not a big fan of Star Fox 64, but every aspect of Star Fox 2 looks awesome and right up my alley. As you already know, Star Fox 2 is a real game that was going to be released in 1995, but it was not. Nobody knows exactly why, but it seems to be because the N64 was coming up. To me, it is pretty silly how game companies think that games that are not for newer consoles will not sell well. Do they seriously think nobody liked the older console anymore?
Here is another one: Mario Golf 64 2! Same graphics, same gameplay, but completely different courses! Except no more cheating with save and quits. Combining the exclusive characters, graphics and gameplay with Mario Golf 64 with the content from later games in the series is a winning idea! And it would be played with only the classic controller, not the Game Cube controller or motion controls.
Upon completing all of the first eight worlds in Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels, which is my favorite 2D Mario platformer, I think that instead of a Super Mario Brothers 4, I think there should be a Super Mario Brothers 3: The Lost Levels. And no, I do not want it to be like the other Super Mario Brothers 3, which is a very fanboy-oriented game that I did not enjoy. I want this to have the same graphics, gameplay, and music as Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2: The Lost Levels. Even though I do not like the music, the game would not be the same with different music. And of course, I want it to be hard, just like Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels. Give the sequel of the Mario Brothers' alternate sequel some support!
People have a lot of ideas for Star Fox Wii, such as having cooperative play and counting high scores again. People who want a Pilot Wings Wii have barely created any ideas, and I understand, I do not have any ideas for it either. I was thinking that a Pilot Wings 2, which uses the Super FX 1 chip or Super FX 2 chip would be a good idea, since it would at least fix the problem of everything on the ground being flat. Some basic ideas would be combining the events from the two games and of course having big environments and new types of tests. I just hope that it will not be dumbed down in any way and there would still be music. I tend to be more agreeable with Pilot Wings fans, since they are not very fanatical. If they were, they would have created their own ideas rather than just left it up to the company that is more experienced in creating them.
I pitched in some ideas. Three of them were completely original and unconventional, and two of them were going along with other ideas that I liked. We can only hope- or can we?
Pilot Wings Experience
I have played both of the Pilot Wings games, which has its usual panel of fans who moan about nostalgia, think the games are perfect, and demand more. Usually, I would be slamming games for this, but I liked both of Pilot Wings games. The primary reason I liked them was because I was not collecting stuff. Rather, I was accomplishing stuff. It was all main game, there were no side-quests, there were only tests and levels that had to be completed. Sure, it is irritating to have to watch your hang-glider fly for three minutes just because you did not land correctly, but I found the games to be enjoyable because they were based on skill and had a good difficulty curve. There was also a good sense of going from novice to expert. And yes, they were pretty relaxing.
Pilot Wings 1 was much smaller and shorter than Pilot Wings 64. I mean it, I did everything there was to do in that game in three days. The graphics showed their age, but they were not bad, and I do not have any ideas on how to improve them. In the Sky Diving events on levels 2, 5, and 6, the white spheres/snow gets bigger as you go upwards, then gets smaller again as you go down. Despite being one of the first games on the N64, Pilot Wings 64 had some of the hugest environments on the console.
So far, I have not been very disagreeable. This does slightly have to do with the fact that the two Pilot Wings games are not nearly as hyped as some other games. There was nothing glaringly bad about Pilot Wings 1, except for the helicopter levels. They were a good attempt at a level idea, but they seem to be luck based. Helicopter Level 1 went from taking me lots of tries, to taking a few tries, to taking me lots of tries again. And I beat Helicopter Level 2 on my first try, proving once and for all that they are luck based. There is at least one place where I seriously disagree with fans of this game. My least favorite mode was Bird Man. It was way too slow paced, and it was pointless. The player is destined to either quit or crash. I totally support a Pilot Wings for the Wii.
By the way, it is ironic how the first two games for Nintendo's first console with four built-in controller ports were single-player games.
Pilot Wings 1 was much smaller and shorter than Pilot Wings 64. I mean it, I did everything there was to do in that game in three days. The graphics showed their age, but they were not bad, and I do not have any ideas on how to improve them. In the Sky Diving events on levels 2, 5, and 6, the white spheres/snow gets bigger as you go upwards, then gets smaller again as you go down. Despite being one of the first games on the N64, Pilot Wings 64 had some of the hugest environments on the console.
So far, I have not been very disagreeable. This does slightly have to do with the fact that the two Pilot Wings games are not nearly as hyped as some other games. There was nothing glaringly bad about Pilot Wings 1, except for the helicopter levels. They were a good attempt at a level idea, but they seem to be luck based. Helicopter Level 1 went from taking me lots of tries, to taking a few tries, to taking me lots of tries again. And I beat Helicopter Level 2 on my first try, proving once and for all that they are luck based. There is at least one place where I seriously disagree with fans of this game. My least favorite mode was Bird Man. It was way too slow paced, and it was pointless. The player is destined to either quit or crash. I totally support a Pilot Wings for the Wii.
By the way, it is ironic how the first two games for Nintendo's first console with four built-in controller ports were single-player games.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Predictable Gamers at Nintendo Power
This is my fifteenth blog-post! And that is somehow significant. Because it is a multiple of five, right? So I will celebrate the same way Nintendo Power did in their 250th issue- re-establishing facts I have already hammered home many times before.
In Nintendo Power's 250th issue, they did what I, the Controversial Gamer, abhor. They basically rehashed every bit of popular information they have drilled home in previous issues (Shigeru Miyamoto created these original NES games, which have memorable songs! The N64 controller was the first controller to have a control stick! Mario is a platforming hero, and he saves Peach a lot! Mega Man can absorb weapons from defeated Robot Masters! "Do A Barrel Roll" is a famous quote!, etcetera). When people read anything, they expect to discover new, surprising information. Tell them something they do not know! We get it, Earth Bound is a classic, and Metal Blades are powerful. What a waste of an opportunity that comes once every fifty issues.
And one more thing: in this issue, and most other Nintendo Power issues, there was not a single mention of Mario Golf. Mario Golf is a very underrated series, and it deserves fanatics and hype, as well as a huge section that takes up half an anniversary issue.
In Nintendo Power's 250th issue, they did what I, the Controversial Gamer, abhor. They basically rehashed every bit of popular information they have drilled home in previous issues (Shigeru Miyamoto created these original NES games, which have memorable songs! The N64 controller was the first controller to have a control stick! Mario is a platforming hero, and he saves Peach a lot! Mega Man can absorb weapons from defeated Robot Masters! "Do A Barrel Roll" is a famous quote!, etcetera). When people read anything, they expect to discover new, surprising information. Tell them something they do not know! We get it, Earth Bound is a classic, and Metal Blades are powerful. What a waste of an opportunity that comes once every fifty issues.
And one more thing: in this issue, and most other Nintendo Power issues, there was not a single mention of Mario Golf. Mario Golf is a very underrated series, and it deserves fanatics and hype, as well as a huge section that takes up half an anniversary issue.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Beginning of Sonic
Instead of explaining why I downloaded Sonic The Hedgehog 1 and 2, I will just skip ahead to the part where I play them.
Let me make this clear: I have absolutely no bias towards Mario, and I was more than willing to try Sonic. Every "good" (popular) video game series or franchise had humble beginnings, and Sonic The Hedgehog 1 is no exception. To be honest, I did not like it very much. The game had cheesy graphics, repetitive, screechy music, and what is with all of this waiting around in a game where the main character's defining attribute is his speed? Come on, I just want to zoom through zones! Other people who played my Wii liked it though, so I bought Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with them in mind. I enjoyed it a lot more, it was better in every way (except for bonus levels, but those are optional). The zones were big and showed the huge areas that the Genesis was capable of. The music and graphics were better too, they were very high-quality, unlike those in Sonic 1. The levels also had more creative enemies and obstacles. And plus, there was a new move: the Spin Dash. I love this move and I am glad it became a staple of the franchise! Whenever you stand still, you can press down, then one of the three buttons and your character will start spinning rapidly. If you let go, it is like pressing down while running, except you get to go fast while doing it, and not slow down to a stop, where you are a sitting duck. You can still press down while running though, but it will not have the same effect as spin-dashing. The bosses are more creative too, but they are still pretty easy. You have to be patient on bosses, but those take place in one screen, so I do not mind, and patience is a winning strategy. Even on the Metropolis Zone boss, said to be one of the hardest bosses in Sonic history, I found that the pattern is wait in the corner, jump when he floats to the side, jump again when he floats to the other side, wait in the corner for the balloons to go crazy, and when they form a stable circle, get in one hit. If you are impatient and try to hit him at any other time, you will get hit and become frustrated. When he does a laser attack, stand under him and jump. You win! That was not so hard, was it? If you want to get into Sonic, I suggest you start with Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
Let me make this clear: I have absolutely no bias towards Mario, and I was more than willing to try Sonic. Every "good" (popular) video game series or franchise had humble beginnings, and Sonic The Hedgehog 1 is no exception. To be honest, I did not like it very much. The game had cheesy graphics, repetitive, screechy music, and what is with all of this waiting around in a game where the main character's defining attribute is his speed? Come on, I just want to zoom through zones! Other people who played my Wii liked it though, so I bought Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with them in mind. I enjoyed it a lot more, it was better in every way (except for bonus levels, but those are optional). The zones were big and showed the huge areas that the Genesis was capable of. The music and graphics were better too, they were very high-quality, unlike those in Sonic 1. The levels also had more creative enemies and obstacles. And plus, there was a new move: the Spin Dash. I love this move and I am glad it became a staple of the franchise! Whenever you stand still, you can press down, then one of the three buttons and your character will start spinning rapidly. If you let go, it is like pressing down while running, except you get to go fast while doing it, and not slow down to a stop, where you are a sitting duck. You can still press down while running though, but it will not have the same effect as spin-dashing. The bosses are more creative too, but they are still pretty easy. You have to be patient on bosses, but those take place in one screen, so I do not mind, and patience is a winning strategy. Even on the Metropolis Zone boss, said to be one of the hardest bosses in Sonic history, I found that the pattern is wait in the corner, jump when he floats to the side, jump again when he floats to the other side, wait in the corner for the balloons to go crazy, and when they form a stable circle, get in one hit. If you are impatient and try to hit him at any other time, you will get hit and become frustrated. When he does a laser attack, stand under him and jump. You win! That was not so hard, was it? If you want to get into Sonic, I suggest you start with Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
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