The Death of Qaulity. (A rantrospective by The Avardancer.) At first, I was going to talk about the death of innocence in video games; how we went from the slightly gender-biased Donkey Kong to the risque stereotypes of Tomb Raider, FF7, Duke Nuke 'Em, etc. But, THAT is a topic for another time. Today I will talk about the spiraling quality of video games and how to avoid them. (And I'll give a few examples of game series that have actually gotten better.) This is mainly aimed at those who make video games; but it is a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to read it. Chapter 1: Fantasy VS Reality. I say that Realism is Fatalism. When video games first appeared, we had Pong. Pong was an escape tool. You could forget about time and stress by bouncing that dot across the screen forever. Then came games with fantastical themes like battling aliens, saving the damsel in distress, saving the world from robot invaders, saving the universe, making a complete line of four, escaping evil creatures on a pyramid in space! Then as technology got better, we saw more realistic themes like war and historical themes showed up. Then came themes like tournament fighting, and then the first person shooter: WolfenStien 3-D. (I forgot how to spell it.) We had shooting people come up as a "realistic" theme. Then we had such "gems" as "Night Trap" and "Mortal Kombat". It was decided that "realism" equaled gore. Then "realism" equaled sexism. Girls in skimpy costumes showed up in more and more games. Now we have characters that bomb factories, prostitution shows up, murder and senseless death, stereotypes, profanity, violence towards animals, S & M themes, pornography, and unprovoked destruction. If I want this, I can turn on CNN! No more escapes from reality. Of course, reality could be a racing game where you end up stuck on the California freeway; but NO ONE wants to play that. The inflection of realism in a stark and dreary sense has killed quality. I play to escape that craziness, not embrace it. It seems to me that originality has died as well. Now a programmer can put together a few polygons, stick a ton of guts on the screen and call it a game. And people buy it. (Maybe the death of fantasy is because stupid people buy games.) Then when a truly friendly escape from reality game, like Diddy Kong Racing, Parrapa The Rapper, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Racer R, Banjo- Kazooie, etc. shows up people say that it has a "kiddie" theme and ignore what could be an extremely fun game. Maybe I'm dumb; but the point of a game is to escape the heck of everyday life; not plunge deeper into it. Besides good, clean fun is healthier for you. One more note about realism: Realism destroys imagination. Had FF7 embraced the castles and creatures of the older games, it would have been better. Face it, FF6 was better than FF7. FF6 had a fantasy world that seemed of places like Narnia or Middle Earth. FF7 feels like the world of The Fifth Element or Judge Dredd. (Ouch...) AND to top it off, magic was dead in FF7. (That defeats the entire fantasy element completely!) Chapter 2: Graphix Power! Graphics killed the video game star. More than two-thirds of FF7 is graphic movies. (Read: FMV.) With the advent of CD's, there is more cheap space. So programmers throw in a lot of pretty pictures, sounds, and movies to make people want a game. The problem is that they spend TOO much time on graphics and not enough on gameplay. (It's a PLAYstation; not a WATCHstation.) I may sound a little like "Cranky Kong" here; but only because that ape was right. The game is the thing; not the graphics. Why is Gameboy successful? It is after all, black and white. Reason: The games are fun, they may not have flash, smoke, and mirrors; but they're fun. And that makes them quality. Anyone play MDK? I was playing it in a store; and it doesn't have very pretty graphics; but some programmer took the time to give it great gameplay. I just unloaded a ton of bullets at the enemies and that was fun. I didn't mind the dark graphics. Chapter 3: CD's are for music, not games. It used to be that cartridges and floppy disks forced a company to place down a lot of money to make a game. This made them think twice about making a game look pretty; and think more about making the game fun and replayable. A flop game lost a company many dollars. Not so anymore. With CD's, companies can make stupid, make-a-buck, eye-candy, sucker games by the wagon-load and NOT lose a ton of money. This defeated the reasons to make a better game. Now, instead of making a better game; companies can make a bigger buck. The only reason to make a better game would be pure kindness or a gun next to the programmers throat. There are some good games on CD's; but the thought of game CD's still brings back memories of "Make a video with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch." Another thing is that CD's are not a practical medium. They shatter easier (I dropped an AOL disc and it shattered.), they skip, they scratch, and they are misused by many programmers. Some people argue that CD's hold more space and for the most part that is true; BUT if discs are so big, how come I can buy a Zip Drive Cartridge and download the entire contents of a few CD's into it? Cartridges can be as big as they want: From 512 KB (Super Mario Bros. for NES) to 2.5 GB (A $90 zip drive Cartridge.). Then if you figure in compression (Which is impossible on cds.) and instant load time; you can see that CDs are not better. (They're really just shiny floppys with load time.) Enough on that subject. Chapter 4: Movie Licenses are bad. See the movie, buy the game. Again, companies can make a lousy game, pin it with a movie license, and sell it in droves. No creativity, no escape from reality; just a game that ends up in your closet next to the movie T-Shirt. Such horrid movie-license game examples are Space Jam, The Lost World, Spawn, Batman Forever, Cool World, Bebe's Kids, Home Alone, and many more hideous examples. (Off hand, I can think of only GoldenEye as an example of creativity and excellence in a movie-license game. Even the Star Wars license has had awful games.) Some movie liscenses deserve to never be touched by video games. I mean everyone wants to watch Titanic; we just don't want to play Titanic. Chapter 5: Be gentle. Making a game easy kills the quality of the game. I rented Star Fox 64 and beat it in an hour. I rented GoldenEye for three days and still didn't beat it. I'm buying GoldenEye. Why? because a good game is hard. Not play-control floats "hard"; I mean it-gets-more-difficult as-you-get-better "hard". FF7 was beatable in one three-day rental, FF3 took me two weeks. My favorite game of all time: "Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening" took me two months. And the world's best platform game: "Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels" took me five months to beat without warping. (Yes, I admit I'm not very good at some games; but I had fun and FUN is what games are about.) Chapter 6: The game's too freakin' hard! Difficulty can be a bad thing. There has to be some type of reason to come back to a game; if it's hard. In Goldeneye, you come back for the reward of using the level in a deathmatch, Beating a time, activating a cheat, or even just because. But, a game that has extreme difficulty and no reason or reward is a bad game. There must be a balance or option to change the difficulty to make it a good game. Chapter 7: Haste makes waste. Imagine if the N64 had been released in 1994, when rumours and other things started spreading about it. It would probaly have flopped. The chipset wouldn't be complete, the chips would be too expensive, etc. The same type of thing is true with video games. Imagine, if Goldeneye had not been delayed; there would be NO multi-player mode. (Perish the thought!) The point is that good things come to those who wait; and to programmers that take thier time. We may not enjoy delays; but the end results are usually better. Chapter 8: Game Complex. Complexity is okay; in the right places. Complexity of Game Depth (Read: variety and challenge) is good. I like the very well designed first level of Bomberman 64; the idea was to beat and come back to it after you have learned and mastered various techniques to get the Gold Cards. I also like the added complexity of the various power-ups in games like in R-Type, or Super Mario 64. Complex controls are not good and hurt the quality of a title. I love the simplicity of Donkey Kong's control. (Move the joystick to move, press the button to jump.) I hated the complexity of MK Mythologies: Subzero. (Move joypad to move, press this button to jump, this one to turn around, this one to run, this one to punch, etc.) Then again; complexity of gameplay can be bad too. To get a player into a game, you hand them good stuff and challenge a bit at a time. I absolutely hated the fact that in FF5, right after you see the shattered Wind Crystal at the shrine; you get a ton of character classes right off the bat. Forcing you to spend time around the shrine fighting enemies to get those up to speed. In Secret of Mana, you rarely got new techniques, without proper time to power up the last technique you got. The idea is not to swamp a gamer with junk right off the bat. The idea is to release it slowly. A little bit of rain every now and then helps grow plant; whereas a torrent of rain all the time will kill the plant. Same is true with gamers; do not give too much at a time; this creates frustration and boredom. It also prevents you from surprising them with neat stuff later. Chapter 9: Guided blind. Don't you hate it when you're about to see that movie you wanted to see and the idiot in line behind you suddenly blurts out that he/she has seen it X amount of times and talks about how good/bad the ending is or how they were shocked/frustrated at the surprise twist somewhere down the way. That's how it is with games. I love Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, but I'm not too fond of Legend of Zelda: Link to the past. Why? I had to figure out Link's Awakening by myself and I was surprised by the ending. I had a players guide and that dang little black book of secrets next to me when I played Link to the Past. And I had already seen the ending. Maybe, there should be a rule that Players guides, and magazines should not cover game strategy until two months after the game is released. Knowledge can ruin the fun in a game. Then again if you are going to make a players guide; leave out details on the plot! I read a FAQ on FF4 and that ruined all the twists in the game. I read a FAQ on Bomberman 64 and they left out that part about Sirius and I was totally shocked when I got 100 gold cards! (I'm not telling why I was shocked; find it out for yourself.) The amount of guides that appeared (Even before) FF7 was released killed the challenge of the game. (And ruined the Aeris thing.) I vow that when Legend of Zelda 5 is released, I will play through it without help! (That way I can truly appreciate it, and it will truly make the game more worthwhile.) Chapter 10: Game Over. What would you do if I said that endings can ruin the quality of video games? You would probaly be apt to disagree. But, I believe that in some cases; an ending is bad for a game. Take a racing game like the up-coming F-Zero X. If the game were short, it would lag in the "fun" factor. But, thankfully; F-Zero X is promiseing to be the first game that never truly ends. (The 64DD add-on levels give it more variety and I will definately buy it.) What if Pac-Man only had two levels? Ugh. What if Legend of Zelda had no second quest? (We would miss out on a truly inspired part of the game.) The length of game is part of the games quality. Short games lose thier fun-factor after awhile. Imagine how good GoldenEye would be; if it had a virtually infinite amount of levels! (Rare, if reading this. Please give us a GoldenEye-type game with 64DD add-ons and Capture Cart compatabilty...) Length in games is a good thing. The longer the game is, usually, the better it is. (If it isn't a good game; it doesn't deserve more levels.) Chapter 11: Musicals 'R' Us. The music in games has been getting better; or has it? Music is often thrown together for a game and can retract the quality of the game. Music is supposed to be used to emphasis a theme. Imagine that moment in FF6 where Locke talks to Rachel; now instead of the awsome "Forever Rachel" music, imagine that in the background you hear happy techno music. (Ugh.) Or imagine a Goldeneye death-match with the Smurfs theme in the background. (Eek!) Music is meant to add to a game not detract. When you play FF7, wouldn't you expect a little bit of techno (Like in the Magitek factory in FF6.), but instead you get the same classic-type music! Some how it doesn't seem fitting. Sadly, music can detract from a games quality. Chapter 12: Heros and Villians. Huh? Well, a game usually has characters. This part applies mainly to RPGs. The quality of a game in this genre is usually lessened by a stereotyped hero. The main characters should set the mood. A disturbing trend in RPG heros today is the surprising lack of innovation. Look at Cloud from FF7; he shares the same hair with Crono, Randi, several rock bands, chocobos, etc. Aeris is bits of Rosa, Celes, Terra, Relm, Schala, etc. The only truly unique character design in the game comes from Red 13. Everyone else in FF7 is bits and pieces of other characters. Enough of appearence. When was the last time you saw a real deep RPG character? Easy answer here, FF6. You have several deep characters. In an RPG, depth adds quality. If you have a game that is flawless in all other categories; but has a clueless dope for a main character; your game is nothing. Example: Secret of Evermore. Although entertaining, the hero is about as deep as paper plate. Now, for villians. We can hate Sephiroth for his transgressions; we all hate Kefka, Ultros is annoying, Thanatos is pure evil too. But, what about some other villians? I can't hate Zeromous; I don't know Zeromous. What about the Mu? Nope; no hate here. Lavos? Why? Gygias? Nope. Villians that we can't hate detract from the quality of a game. Why? Because it ruins our motivation. Chapter 13: Being original. Argueably; there are NO good ideas left. Or are there? Let us look at the most innovative game out on the market: Wario Land 2. THIS is the first game in which you can't die and you WANT to get hit by the enemies. Sadly, not many games today are revolutionary. There are Mario clones, Parrappa clones, Tetris clones. It's like that old song: "We're all clones." That isn't too bad; becuase a lot of good old concepts are worth imitating. But, some programmers today do take the time to add enough innovation to thier product to make it a viable game. I personally do not wish to experience deja vu in video games. It should be law that games MUST be innovative. I'm sure that video game programmers must have SOME ideas left. (Maybe if we make LSD legal only for programmers.) Well, I'm done ranting about the death of quality. You can leave now. If you feel like flaming me, please do so in a LOGICAL manner.