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My impression of modern-day video games, at least on the AAA side of things, is that many of them are less like video games and more like interactive movies. Outside of Other M, I can't think of a Nintendo game that fits that bill.
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Nov 30, 2016 06:33
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Usage of "Interactive movie" as a demerit runs into problems, though. To say that the Uncharted series is an interactive movie is accurate (at least not inaccurate), but to use "interactive movie" as an attack, I think, undermines what the series tries to accomplish. The series has always been about blending action and cinematics and does it fairly successfully. Compare this to CoD, which also suffers from being an interactive movie (most story occurs during loading screen between missions), and you'll see stark differences. Sometimes the interactive movie works well; sometimes it doesn't. Lumping them together impairs good definition. I could see why someone wouldn't care for Uncharted due to the movie aspect and understand the reasoning behind it. I just think blanket usage of "interactive movie" can obscure real problems with video games as a story telling medium. Plus, I think old point-and-click adventure games fit as interactive movies which avoid the label because of limitations of the time. You solve puzzles so that you can view the next scene and interactivity is purely limited to what the "story" demands. As for picking up power-ups, a poster linked to a video (I think in one of Slowbeef's Metroid Prime threads), of a man defending Other M. Though I disagreed with the video as a whole, the person proposed some interesting thoughts. One question was why it matters to pick up a power-up token: If the challenge is to reach a room and the reward is the power-up, should the indicator of the power-up really matter? The video missed the bigger issue(s) with Other M, but did provoke thoughts on this subject. I'm sure there is some Skinner Box reasoning behind it. Anyways, it caused me to wonder if a Metroid game could work, where you start off with all your power-ups but can't use certain ones due to environmental reasons such as weak structural integrity in a cave system prevents power bombs or protected indigenous lifeforms prevent missile.
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Nov 30, 2016 18:05
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Honestly I think my main complaint with AAA games these days is that they're too smooth. I feel like I'm being guided through an experience rather than being left to explore and discover/figure things out for myself. I get why that's done; one man's freedom to explore is another man's "I'm completely lost, 0/5 stars". But I liked it better when games weren't this glassy, rounded surface whose only interaction points were carefully defined by the game developer ahead of time.Mr. Highway posted:Anyways, it caused me to wonder if a Metroid game could work, where you start off with all your power-ups but can't use certain ones due to environmental reasons such as weak structural integrity in a cave system prevents power bombs or protected indigenous lifeforms prevent missile. How do you handle gameplay once the player is allowed to use their power bombs again, and then returns to the unstable location? In general I fear that players react poorly to being told "You have all these cool abilities, we just won't permit you to use them." Players react better to "actually getting stronger" even if the gameplay effects are the same. This gets especially pernicious with powers that are primarily defensive or mobility-oriented in nature, and the latter is core to Metroid gameplay. How do you justify Samus not being allowed to use her Space Jump or Grapple Beam or Spider Ball.
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Nov 30, 2016 18:27
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Mr. Highway posted:As for picking up power-ups, a poster linked to a video (I think in one of Slowbeef's Metroid Prime threads), of a man defending Other M. Though I disagreed with the video as a whole, the person proposed some interesting thoughts. One question was why it matters to pick up a power-up token: If the challenge is to reach a room and the reward is the power-up, should the indicator of the power-up really matter? The video missed the bigger issue(s) with Other M, but did provoke thoughts on this subject. I'm sure there is some Skinner Box reasoning behind it. Anyways, it caused me to wonder if a Metroid game could work, where you start off with all your power-ups but can't use certain ones due to environmental reasons such as weak structural integrity in a cave system prevents power bombs or protected indigenous lifeforms prevent missile. The mystery of the unknown is a big part of exploration. Take a couple of recent positive indie Metrovanias, Environmental Station Alpha and Axiom Verge. Particularly with the latter, every time I thought I knew which powerup I'd get next I was pleasantly surprised. Having all your abilities from the beginning kinda ruins that, unless you go well above and beyond your starting kit (Metroid Prime 1/2).
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Nov 30, 2016 18:31
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Finding an item just feels way better than getting permission to use something you already have, even if the end result is the same (getting a new ability). That illusion of agency is super important
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Nov 30, 2016 19:14
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Looper posted:That illusion of agency is super important This is how I feel that separates Other M from the rest of the series, Samus' agency is taken away for like 80% of the game; she doesn't fight Metroids, she gets shot in the back by Adam and he sacrifices himself. She doesn't get to fight Ridley, she has a cutscene panic attack and her buddy takes on Ridley instead. Metroid isn't fun when all of the action happens in a cutscene because that's not what Metroid is. I remember talking to a friend and saying that the underlying issues with Other M (getting "permission" to use her equipment) are all linked back to either having no control over them, so a lack of agency, or them not being justified in a convincing manner. I could buy some of Samus' equipment being "forbidden" at the beginning of the game because the Federation is doing an investigation so Adam saying "Samus, don't use your power bombs right now, it could destroy evidence vital to our investigation" and now you don't feel chastised "oh that's a good idea, I will wait until they're done their investigation before I start blowing this station to poo poo". Similarly I feel that the Ridley fight could still have happened with Samus having a panic attack, maybe this 10th time of seeing that loving dragon is just it, whether from panic or anger she just can't concentrate so some of her equipment is on the fritz. You've gone from giving the player this  cutscene of Samus being rescued to an interesting take on a boss fight, it adds challenge. Heck you could make it more interesting by the fact that if you are taking a really long time to take Ridley out more and more equipment starts malfunctioning, now you have a reason (outside of regular familiarity) to learn how to fight him quickly because the quicker you defeat Ridley the easier the fight is.Sure these ideas maybe don't sound great but it's working with what the game gave us, that and honestly it still sounds more fun than what we were given.
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Nov 30, 2016 20:12
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I too disagree on the use of 'interactive movie' as a demerit. Ultimately the only unique thing that make games such an interesting form media is that interactivity. Where games excel is when they use that interactivity to their advantage, using gameplay to reinforce the story/experience of the game. In the discussed example of Spec Op the line, the game isn't much more than an interactive movie (since you're pretty much going from A to B) but it uses it's gameplay well. In all of the big scenes that help drive home the message of the game, the player is in control and the one pushing buttons. The same scenes could have been done without player input but the ending message would have lost a lot of impact without that input. Another great example is Ashura's Wrath, AKA 'Anime and QTE's the Game.' Most of the game is on rails or watching things happening but Ashura's Wrath uses QTE's masterfully to support the story it's telling. It does so well enough that a significant number of the actual gameplay segments are the game's lowest point because all battles are 'fight until the QTE bar fills then do awesome QTE's.' While this is fine when you're fighting cool and interesting bosses, it's extremely tedious when you're fighting mooks and the whole 'time until awesome things happen' thing becomes transparent. Games are at their best when their gameplay supports what they're trying to do and worse the more disconnected those aspects are. Aces High posted:This is how I feel that separates Other M from the rest of the series, Samus' agency is taken away for like 80% of the game; she doesn't fight Metroids, she gets shot in the back by Adam and he sacrifices himself. She doesn't get to fight Ridley, she has a cutscene panic attack and her buddy takes on Ridley instead. Pretty much. Having read Quovak's LP's of Golden Sun and it's sequel and being inspired by his 'Golden Sun done right' effortposts Metroid Other M tickled my brain enough for me to do an outline of 'Other M done right.' Most of it is about messing with the illusion of player agency. 'If Adam's going to restrict your abilities, he is going to restrict them and his authorization isn't just lip service, it's actually required (see Fusion.)' 'If we can't kill these Metroids, let us not be able to kill them (and reinforce the idea of the stun gun being the only way to deal with them to justify the No-Suit Zero Mission-esque escape sequence.') 'If we're going to be scared of Ripley, make us be scared of Ripley in gameplay terms.' To actually talk about the showcased games a bit, to me it feels like Federation Force is too much of a multiplayer game. A bunch of the tedium that's being felt likely stems from the fact that you're doing things that were designed with teamwork in mind. Four orbs? Four players to figure out the puzzle and being able to help out if people have problems. One person carries the artifact, the others take care of the boulders. The heavy hand-holding is something Nintendo's been doing a lot lately as they try to appeal to the youngest demographic possible. It's annoying but some kids do need to be told that there's four puzzles that need to be solved in order to continue. One of the lessons I hope they learned from Other M was not to crap over their excellent cinematographers by having someone explain no new information about what's going on after they show what's going on 
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Dec 1, 2016 03:43
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why focus on Uncharted though? I haven't played 3 and 4 but I remember the main reason I enjoyed Uncharted 1 and 2 (2 especially) was because a lot of the bigger action sequences were not tied to QTEs and they weren't cutscenes, instead you had to know the controls well enough that "oh poo poo I need to shoot that thing" or "oh crap I need to jump to that other building now". I enjoyed Uncharted because it took sequences that I had normally only seen in cutscenes of games and instead I was now the one performing these action movie sequences. In comparison you have games like that Telltale Jurassic Park game where it actually IS just one long movie that is interrupted every 5 seconds by the player hitting the right key, although then I guess it's similar to "games" like Star Trek: Borg in that sense
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Dec 1, 2016 05:57
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Serious question, why did Nintendo all at once basically decide to dumpster Metroid as a franchise? They didn't even do anything special for the 30th anniversary of the series which, y'know, kinda seems like it should have warranted some token recognition considering that you could reasonably argue that Metroid is one of Nintendo's iconic franchises. Especially coming off of the Prime series which I'm given to believe were genuine commercial as well as critical successes...and then all at once after Other M it's like the franchise as a whole got swept under the rug. It's hard to look at something like Federation Force as anything other than sheer cluelessness, which is equally baffling.
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Dec 3, 2016 08:02
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Kai Tave posted:Serious question, why did Nintendo all at once basically decide to dumpster Metroid as a franchise? The impression I've gotten is that the games aren't very popular in Japan, and for whatever reason Nintendo isn't interested in (or has trouble with) prioritizing an international audience. I've certainly heard that Other M was an attempt to make the games appeal more to Japanese people, for example -- not that it helped, the game was a flop in Japan too. I guess that Japanese people are just as skilled at recognizing turds as everyone else. Another potential cause might be that they never had someone to fill Gunpei Yokoi's shoes. When a series isn't obviously important to the company, it probably really helps to have a high-seniority employee championing it as a priority to invest in.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:32
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 Episode 4: "Destroy The Beeper"  Episode 4: "Carpet Bombing"
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Dec 3, 2016 23:32
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:How do you handle gameplay once the player is allowed to use their power bombs again, and then returns to the unstable location? I picture it more like a specific areas always deny a certain power-up, or maybe that you "solve" a problem in the area and then are free to use the once blocked power-up. As for more mobility-based power-ups, maybe you get upgraded version or "deactivate" hinderances. The game would need some ulterior "collectable" in the form of progression. Like: some sections have increased artificial gravity that need to be turned off or some key grapple points are deactivated and you have to turn on the power. There are "creative" ways to get around the problem. Though, while typing this out, I admit it's just exchanging one collectable for another.
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Dec 4, 2016 02:57
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You know what game did have the battery indicator baked into the HUD? Metroid Prime. (Well, Metroid Prime 3: the Wiimote battery indicator appeared in Samus's helmet.)
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Dec 4, 2016 05:00
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This mission is the one that was used for the demo I played. The missile key flying at the door upright (instead of shooting forward, like a missile) was absolutely hilarious to me for some reason. The Generator is complete garbage: it's boring as hell because it's a giant bullet sponge that offers nothing more than token resistance, and it's got FAR too much health. That fight took Maple Leaf 7 minutes of just mashing the shoot button for a bit before running off and doing nothing. It's no faster or more fun with 4 players. The escape glitched out in numerous ways, from people not being able to activate the elevator switch to the elevator ascending through us, leaving us floating in the shaft. The fight with the Space Pirates was passable, but wasn't nearly enough to make up for the rest of this shitshow of a level.
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Dec 4, 2016 08:04
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Okay yeah that level design was pretty bad, that boss had waaay too much health (especially for a shooter without automatic weapons), and that escape sequence being half elevator was just kind of pointless
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Dec 4, 2016 11:58
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I think the space pirates are normal human sized. Samuel Aaron is just the size of a toddler.
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Dec 4, 2016 18:28
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Metroid Prime: Baby Geniuses of the Federation Force
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Dec 5, 2016 05:11
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I can somewhat see Federation Force being fun if you can get three other people to play it with. However, AM2R is clearly much better. I sped through it, so it's interesting to watch someone slowly go through it and explore, and point out the little details. Not counting the third area since you guys just entered it, I think you only missed one powerup so far. So good going on that. Lastly, you really should update to version 1.1. There's a lot of small changes and one big change at the end that's really helpful.
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Dec 13, 2016 03:14
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DraegonX posted:I think the space pirates are normal human sized. Samuel Aaron is just the size of a toddler.
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Dec 13, 2016 13:48
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Yeah, it's a really - well, odd design choice. "Let's make a game all about a squad of people in these large mech suits! ... And use an art style the makes everything look tiny and cute!" Pick one: "big and impressive" or "tiny and cute." Trying to jam both together just ... doesn't work. The detail that you're a pilot in a mech also seems entirely pointless, which makes me wonder if there are ever going to be segments that force you out of the mech.
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Dec 14, 2016 08:53
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Episode 5: "Zoo Tycoon" Episode 5: "I Am Alive" I blame Olive Branch for these video's tardiness.
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Dec 16, 2016 00:59
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Maple Leaf posted:I blame Olive Branch for these video's tardiness. EDIT: This is the level design philosophy I talked about in episode 5 of AM2R. Olive Branch fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 03:46
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Just based on that last video I'd say that I can totally understand why Nintendo C&D'd the developer because they'd be hard pressed to make a better Metroid game than this. That sidehopper puzzle, wow.
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Dec 16, 2016 16:55
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If Nintendo were smarter, they'd have C&D'd him and then hired him. The disconnect between Nintendo of Japan and the rest of their branches is real. After all, it took them 18 years to officially re-release Earthbound outside of Japan because they actually had no idea there was a cult following outside of it.
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Dec 16, 2016 21:29
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So much for ice beam being next, huh? Anyway, I wanted to point out that you guys are actually on the sequence break path right now. But even without that powerup that you skipped, this section was completely doable. It goes to show how much thought was put into this game. And speaking of multiple paths, notice that getting the speed boost made getting the spazer beam easier, but had you gotten the spazer beam first, it would have made getting the speed booster easier. And lastly, I'm pretty sure the spazer beam is a reference to spazers from Grendizer. At least, it's the only other spazer that I've ever heard of.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:31
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If "Spazer" is anything like "Varia," it could be a mistranslation.
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Dec 18, 2016 06:09
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get that OUT of my face posted:If "Spazer" is anything like "Varia," it could be a mistranslation. I always thought it meant "spread laser" 
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Dec 18, 2016 06:22
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Episode 6: "Pattern Recognition" Episode 6: "Cruise Control" It really is surprising how much AM2R gets right, while MPFF, while itself an inoffensive, milquetoast game, is so far removed from the established Metroid feel and formula.
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Dec 24, 2016 00:17
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I like how you shortened the AM2R episode name on the link from what it is on YouTube. Truth be told, I haven't watched past the second episode of MPFF because it just doesn't feel like a Metroid game, so I'm not compelled to watch it. The only thing Metroid-related is its first-person view from the Prime series.
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Dec 24, 2016 04:35
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The Torizo fight is so drat cool. Fun Fact: You can roll between his legs in morph ball form. Torizo wasn't in Zero Mission. He was in Fusion but instantly turns into a Core-X, so you don't properly fight him.
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Dec 24, 2016 05:38
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I worked up the nerve to watch the third and fourth episodes of MPFF. You guys hit a lot of points of why it's so bland and not at all like a Metroid game, but one thing that confuses me is how this is from the same studio that made Punch-Out for Wii. That felt like an updated version of the NES game. You had all of the same characters from there, plus a couple of fighters from the SNES Super Punch Out and a quasi-new fighter. It built on their quirky personalities and felt like a Punch-Out game. There was so much care and love put into Punch-Out Wii. MPFF is all half-assed. They didn't even bother to come up with a name for the races on these completely unremarkable planets. They said "who cares" in the exact same way someone playing or watching this would.
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Dec 24, 2016 07:48
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get that OUT of my face posted:I worked up the nerve to watch the third and fourth episodes of MPFF. You guys hit a lot of points of why it's so bland and not at all like a Metroid game, but one thing that confuses me is how this is from the same studio that made Punch-Out for Wii. That felt like an updated version of the NES game. You had all of the same characters from there, plus a couple of fighters from the SNES Super Punch Out and a quasi-new fighter. It built on their quirky personalities and felt like a Punch-Out game. There was so much care and love put into Punch-Out Wii. Definitely one of the issues is tone. Punch-Out was very colourful, light-hearted, and made a shitload of jokes all the time, whether it's at Doc's chocolate addiction or being equally racist to everyone, etc. It was also very "hands-off" when it came to gameplay: there was no handholding, there were no hints, and there was no direction other than "beat up that guy. Now beat up this guy, but he's harder and faster. Now beat up this guy..." Next Level Games also did Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, and it had some of the same issues that Metroid Prime: Federation Force is having: while it's dressed up as Luigi's Mansion, it lacks the same feel the original game did. The original game focused heavily on exploration and puzzle-solving, and it had an overhanging tone of isolation and a little bit of helplessness(which sounds like another franchise entirely!). Solving puzzles rewarded you with another puzzle halfway across the mansion, and clearing a room or an area rewarded you by making the area safe, allowing you to rest if you felt like it. The game rewarded you for playing it by telling you, without telling you, that you're making a positive impact on the mansion, and that in turn incentivized you to keep going to fix the whole thing, because you were slowly conquering the mansion room-by-room by exploring it and removing that feeling of helplessness. Dark Moon, though, felt like it didn't understand any of that: the game was mission based, rather than exploration based. E. Gadd told you exactly where to go from the beginning of each mission and why you needed to do it, and then he held your hand through the whole mission, telling you that hey, that door is locked, the key must be somewhere (which sounds like another game entirely!) - this removed the exploration, puzzle-solving, and isolation and helplessness all at once, and left us with... a game with Luigi where he vacuums ghosts. The fact that there were five mansions as opposed to one large one removed the feeling of accomplishment and replaced it with a feeling of monotony: rather than feeling like you're being rewarded by giving you safe zones, you're thrown into a completely new mansion with new gimmicks and absolutely no sense of progress because you're essentially just starting again. What I think it boils down to is direction. Next Level Games is good at being cartoonish and they seem best at designing a game that just wants to have a good time. They made Super Mario Strikers and its sequel, and they were both great games too. Dark Moon and Federation Force are both linear, "serious" games, but they also tried to still be cartoonish and colourful, and they accomplish neither. If Nintendo game them... let's say Excitebike. If they told Next Level Games to make a new Excitebike and follow the same direction Monster Games took Excite Truck, I'm sure they'd knock it out of the park. Then again, according to Wikipedia, Dark Moon sold moderately well and received generally glowing reviews, so maybe I just don't like Dark Moon.
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Dec 24, 2016 08:28
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Federation Force feels like the continuation of the path that Nintendo is taking with old IPs. Like Paper Mario, they make a sequel but absolutely refuse to make it anything like the previous incarnations out of fear of making the same game again. Perhaps it's from the backlash they see with games like Call of Duty, where the main criticism is that it's the exact same game wrapped in a new package. So what they do is make a completely different game that is a part of the franchise in name alone, like that's what it is we want. Despite things like pokemon selling increasingly well without have to stray to far from the original formula. So they bring out a game that is completely different, and it does poorly. So they say, "Okay. The players want the game to be the same as before." So they then bring out Star Fox Zero, which is just a remake of Star Fox 64 which is a remake of Star Fox. Completely missing the point that what we want isn't the exact same game, but the same formula with maybe something different here and there with a new world or area or characters or whatever. It just feels like Nintendo still has this weird disconnect from what we want as gamers, despite us constantly saying what we want. AM2R comes out and everyone is yelling hurrahs, and Nintendo thinks it's going to hurt their IP, rather than thinking about why AM2R was made in the first place.
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Dec 24, 2016 16:15
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Warmal posted:Federation Force feels like the continuation of the path that Nintendo is taking with old IPs. Like Paper Mario, they make a sequel but absolutely refuse to make it anything like the previous incarnations out of fear of making the same game again. Perhaps it's from the backlash they see with games like Call of Duty, where the main criticism is that it's the exact same game wrapped in a new package..
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Dec 24, 2016 19:20
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This pair of episodes was a perfect contrast between the two games. I could see how the last mission on this planet could have been fun with a few people. This mission was just offensively bland. Whereas in AM2R, you have a brand new torizo. It adds a classic element from Super Metroid, to turn a powerup that normally would have just been found in that room, into a boss fight. However, Dr. M64 didn't just copy the torizo fight from super metroid. It starts off similarly, but updated with a slightly more complicated attack pattern. But, once it's first stage is defeated, it grows wings and shows that it's the thematically appropriate space jump guardian. Also, I want to take back what I said about you missing one powerup earlier. I was remembering a powerup that didn't exist. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find a powerup that didn't exist when I started a hard mode run of this game last night.
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Dec 26, 2016 20:19
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Nintendo also insisted on Star Fox Zero having an all-new control scheme a lot of people found awkward to use, so it seems consistent that now an IP has to have something 'innovative' about it, even if it ends up being to the game's detriment. They've also straight up said that's why there's no new F-Zero game. So it seems like what they want to do matters a lot more than public demand for something.
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Dec 28, 2016 20:05
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I understand Nintendo's impulse of not wanting to keep making the exact same game over and over again because lord knows so many other developers do just that, but then you get the swing in the other direction where they just won't make games in a franchise for years. Maybe they should bring back the "racing adventure" genre with F-Zero. It's not innovative but there hasn't been a new racing adventure of any kind since Crash Team Racing.
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Dec 28, 2016 21:37
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Episode 7: "Platform Peril" Episode 7: "Intuition" While the all-caps title and sexy thumbnail did bring in a handful of extra views, it also brought in three times as many Youtube comments (a whopping six) as the other videos have so far. I dunno what that means, if anything, but statistics are fun.
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Dec 31, 2016 15:36
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AM2R has a couple of things that bother me, chief among them that they've sacrificed some responsiveness for bad reasons. If you turn around and shoot, your command will sometimes straight up get ignored because Samus isn't done playing her turning around animation. It makes shooting weirdly unreliable, something past Metroids didn't have a problem with. If it were a deliberate design decision, I'd strongly disagree with it but let it slide if they'd at least buffer the input until the animation is done. But no, your shot will simply not register, and that's messed up. Also, you really should be able to get out of morphball (by pressing up) when the spiderball is active.
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Dec 31, 2016 21:02
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Cordite was the material in Metroid Prime that you can destroy with a Super Missile. Nice touch.
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Dec 31, 2016 23:09
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