Danny:
Jes:
| Gameplay 5/21/2006 |
I would also be a liar, and live in a bed of deceit and lies. Cuz "Mega Man" is not a whole genre.
There's no thing as a platformer, as I imagine them, anymore.
No one is making legit, console, scrolling platform games, and I think I know why.
Communist propaganda.
Ever since the advent of 3D graphics, all but fighters have eschewed making new console 2D games. 2D is too old-school.
We live in an age where fighters will get railed for lack of a proper hit priority system. First person shooters get thrown out for mising rag-doll physics. Racers need dynamic, real-time explosions. Every genre, once simple, is more diluted and niche. Genres are overlapping and high-tech flashiness is in demand.
Outside casual internet games, simple-but-effective, formulaic genres are dead.
The problem is that a 2D, sidescrolling beat-em-up just does not scale. You cannot change "Final Fight" too much without renaming it. Genres like these, defined by simplicity, just don't mesh with the times.
If you make the movement 3D, it's no longer a sidescroller. If you make the game 3D, it's no true sequel to its ancestors. Somehow, if a game doesn't use sprites, it doesn't count.
Battle Toads, surprisingly, is as advanced a beat-em-up as I think you can do. Do with any honesty, at least. The levels are varied, the minigames make sense, and there are items to pick up.
That's about all that you want to ask.
Remakes aside, every 2D sidescrolling beat-em-up of the last few years has sucked. (Or, in the case of Contra, been too ridiculously hard.) You know why?
They're trying too hard for nostalgic value. They're grasping at the straws of classic, romantic gameplay, at the expense of using legitimate, newfound tools. And that's acceptable in handheld, where not much is expected, and the games are restricted to the realm of mini-games and ports. Or even in a remake, where we ignore obsolete gameplay to relive drinking Pepsis in our friend's parents' downstairs.
But better games outright don't count. Because any attempt to improve the game makes it not in the genre.
The target, dorkmo genre that I love.
Please see a massive flaw in my thinking.
Cuz I do.
Bitching about lack of 2D sidescrollers is akin to missing 2D magical white balls and floating paddles. My generation does not miss Pong.
"Mario 64", "Gauntlet Legends", "Mark of Kri", and "Shinobi" are platformers and beat-em-ups. They're amazing, 3D sidescrollers. And to expect a game company to ignore industry advances for the sake of nostalgia is weak. If you want to play something from the age of blowing-in-cartridges and fear-of-girls, do. Do what I do and go to eBay. Search for "Final Fight" or "Sailor Moon sidescroller" or "Macross shooting game" and buy the thing. And play it, and read Gamespot, and wait for a sequel to come out.
But don't expect that sequel to intentionally suck cuz you miss your Nintendo. To discount games for straying too far into progress is to deny that gaming is advancing at all.
You say you want gaming to be mainstream and respected... but gameplay-wise, you can't get past the Golden Age of Golden Axe. New features are not a "craze".
Nontheless, I can't wait 'til the craze dies down, and we get back to basics. The real-life games that work like real -life does. One plumber, who can't turn left or right, trying his best to jump on mushrooms.
By Danny
| Comments (10) | ||
Ahh, the sign of a budding Magazine writer, Contempt. Contempt is a powerful tool in journalism. Use it wisely.
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Contempt tempered by light hypocracy... That seems more accurate. I can live with that.
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Also...Is Jes saying that she wants slavery back in her drawing?
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We here at Puuba and P20 industries, respectively, have no control, creative or otherwise, over our inhouse artistic talents. The work of each artist should be evaluated on its own merits, and should be taken as representative of the artist's opinions and the artist's opinions alone. That being said... We hate minorities.
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well, it was supposed to be a comment on combat, but sure... I'm all for keeping the black man down.
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"combat"... Or "Kombat"...?
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that was the article for LAST sunday
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Jes, you should have put a Pac Man eating the yellow dots on the flag.
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::wakka wakka wakka: bew bew beww bewww bewwwwwwwwwwww. ______________________________
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Tend to the widow PacMan.
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