Warning! Elitist views are about to be uttered. While I try to avoid being elitist as best as possible there is no other way to say what I think about this subject without being so.
Disclaimer: I do not feel that I am the best in the world, nor do I feel I am even close to that. I do feel like I am one of the more skilled players and I have taken part in many things that would back up my experiences. (i.e. Hard Modes etc etc.) Also be warned that this is a rant.
With the upcoming patch to WoW labeled 3.3 Blizzard is AGAIN catering to the masses. While it is not completely unreasonable to make a game easily accessible to people of all skill levels I do feel it is unfair to penalize those that are of the higher skill capabilities. The Cost/Benefit ratio of actually putting in the effort and learning to adapt to new situations and learning to coordinate to complete an encounter is becoming lower and lower. With each patch since Wrath of the Lich King came out they have made it easier for even a fresh Level 80 player to get to the same raiding gear levels as those that actually raid and have a reasonable understanding of the games mechanics.
3.3 is no exception. Blizzard has again decided that it is a brilliant idea to spit in the face of the people who actually have the skills to complete the encounters they create. Those of us who have spent countless hours bashing our heads against a wall to try and figure out the way to coordinate a victory in these encounters now get the shaft. The "perk", if you want to call it that, to completing these before they grant access to the gear rewards, for actually beating them, to those with the mentality of an 8 year old are achievements. In some rare cases, however, there are titles for being able to execute a strategy well. That's nice. But it is insanely aggravating to work hard for your gear that realistically should reflect your skill level and/or your experience and capability. While there are always those who get carried by those around them, you used to be able to get a fairly good impression of a persons ability through how they looked.
It worked kind of like a credit score. And while we all know Credit Scores are the bane of existence to some they do tend to reflect a better idea of someones ability in life than nothing. Now I walk around with my gear I've obtained from the hardest modes of an instance many people haven't even completed yet, (Ulduaar), and some schmo who saved up triumph badges from heroic dungeons as difficult as walking across the street is wearing better gear than I am. Now... I don't see where Blizzard felt this was appropriate. Those same schmucks with "better" gear can't even beat the normal version of Ulduaar bosses and yet my guild beats them on the hardest difficulties and our reward is an achievement. Granted... when we can finally beat Yogg +1 we will get a 310% drake and that will make things all the more beautiful, without accomplishing that we have nothing to show for our efforts.
So now, when 3.3. comes out, all the hard work that has been put into beating 10m HToC will be eclipsed by your average nonchalant individual who saves up with triumphs gained from beating a puppy to death every day. That is what I compare the normal heroic dungeons to. They are simplistic now with the monumental leap in gear levels from what's available now and what was available when they were first released. It's like going out to a pound and beating a defenseless puppy to death for its carcass to give to a person who will give you a reward that when combined with enough can yield amazingly powerful items. Ones that rival, if not surpass that which is gained from actually doing something legit like defeating a raid boss on their hardest difficulty.
What is truly and utterly sad is that even with gear a full Tier above if not 2 Tiers above Ulduaar there are many many guilds who have yet to even complete the normal version of it. Those same people will get to gear up in the new Icecrown gear and still won't be able to beat Ulduaar because the mechanics and intelligence needed will elude them. That's an astonishing 3-4 entire Tiers of gear higher and they will be unable to beat it. Yet, those of use skilled enough and/or lucky enough to get into groups of people skilled enough to actually complete the content when it is new and current are only given a pat on the back with an achievement and told to walk the streets of Dalaran looking the same as your 10 yr old who plays only long enough to do the heroic daily and get the tokens to purchase the gear.
That being said let me take just a second to clarify that there are some who are struck with the insane misfortune to meet wonderful people socially that mechanically and skillfully lack so greatly they are held back in the available content. I realize that this is what this brilliant method of dumbing down is aimed to help alleviate.
My problem is that I believe that there should be a Tier of armor for those who save up, badges/emblems/tokens/items of no worth until gathered in mass, and a tier for those that actually raid. It doesn't need to be some enormous gap, but a gap should be present. I shouldn't be able to gear an alt to the same gear-ability as my main character doing nothing more than running heroic dungeons once a day.
If you want to talk numbers let's just say that with 3.2 there should have been iLVL 225 for badge etc farmers and 232 for raiders. That small gap would give some homage to those that put in the effort. And while I personally don't see a way to prevent them from going to older content and getting the credit for those wins I almost feel that those achievements should be made into Feats of Strength because they no longer require the same level of skill and coordination because the increase in iLVL allows for a lot more flexibility due to higher DPS output. I also realize that is just an achievement and it's not amazing, but I just feel that there is something that should be done to help make a raider feel like they are doing something that is worth anything rather than something that just gets them to point A a week before Joe Schmo.
I know I'm complaining abit much and not ushering in an amazing solution, but it's something that irritates me greatly and I just wish that a company that has billions of dollars of revenue flowing through it should be able to get their think tanks to come up with something that does, in fact, bolster the moral of those that put in the time and effort to become skilled enough to pass the trials of new content. That's my $.02 in a nutshell.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Dissidia! It's like crack...except it only costs you money once!
Final Fantasy has been one of the most amazingly fun series to play in my off-time. While I do not feel that every single thing with Final Fantasy attached to it has been golden... *cough* Crystal Chronicles Crap *cough*As a generality it has been incredible with it's vivid environments and breath-taking visuals. The story has been rich and enjoyable and the characters have been more than memorable, even sometimes epic. Final Fantasy has spurred many geek-outs and tons of cosplay's, among many which should not have been done... /shiver, while also giving inspiration and creative guidance to it's genre's advancement. Many great games have taken some key components from the revolutionary content that Final Fantasy has given birth to and made them shine brilliantly.
This is not to say, however, that the Final Fantasy series did not take ideas from other great games and expand upon them. We have many great games that were made in the Role-playing Genre that have been equally, if not much more, amazing in story, art, architectural design, environmental design, character development, music composition, and the list could go on and on beyond my current one... A few greats come to mind... Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, and Legend of Dragoon. They all shared something that kept bringing players back and sometimes even to this day. That is addictiveness. These games were so addictive I know that I personally spent many, many hours of my life I should have spent doing other things attempting to get that one last rare item, or beat that one last boss.
Sadly, I have not been impressed enough by many games as of late to the point in which I am with Dissidia. I cannot deny that I bought it with some relativity to the fact that I could play with some of my favorite Final Fantasy characters and that maybe... just maybe that drove me harder than other things to purchase it. In my defense... I did play the demo beforehand. It was amazing. Fairly simplistic, enjoyable, addictive action litters this game throughout it's entirety. I have only played this game for 7 days currently and the amount of content remaining to even be attempted is immense. While I would have loved to play with more characters the amount already playable is very enjoyable and makes up for the want to play as some of my favorite, less mainstream ones. Then again, with today's technology we can see updates to the games we buy and might can look forward to a content upgrade in 3-6 months.
In addition to the interesting storyline, there are your typical modes of play for a fighting game. There is Arcade Mode, Quick Battle, and the online capabilities with the ability to fight friends who you've sparred with in the past in a "ghost" fight. You have the ability to create 3 different sets of equipment per character allowing you to use three different play-styles with the same character. There is a leveling system from 1-100 and any RPG gamer would know the difference that each level can make in any fight. The visuals are amazing, the gameplay is solid, and the storyline even incorporates strategy due to the FF:Tactics style movement progression. You have to choose between fighting two enemies to the left and getting to your end point faster, thus ensuring greater chapter rewards or choosing the more treasure filled route that will make your end of chapter rewards non-existent. If chosen wisely and executed properly you can even get through with all the treasure and still get the best rewards with the Destiny Points Award system. Certain conditions arise on specific enemies that if you fulfill them you gain DP in order to attain greater end-of-chapter rewards. Each turn takes up 1 DP and so your goal is to be strategic in reaching your goal with as many DP's as possible while also accomplishing the most you can.
In addition to all of this there is tracking of your accomplishments and you are rewarded for doing well in fights consistently. You receive many accessories for completing "achievements" such as winning 1000 fights, dealing 100000 damage, obtaining X number of certain items, performing different actions X number of times, and executing certain scenarios flawlessly. All these things alone make the game seem very rewarding to play and with a calendar that is set up to reward you based on your play-style you can play and benefit at your leisure.
If all that wasn't enough there is another mode which I have yet to even unlock called the Duel Coliseum which is apparently a card game that allows you to get the rarer items necessary to create the ultimate armor/weapons. That said, the amount of content in Dissidia is nothing to be scoffed at and I can tell that as addictive as it already is I won't know what to do with myself once I unlock more of it. It's as addictive as crack atm with the exception that it was cheaper, legal, and I can use it in public. ^^
This is not to say, however, that the Final Fantasy series did not take ideas from other great games and expand upon them. We have many great games that were made in the Role-playing Genre that have been equally, if not much more, amazing in story, art, architectural design, environmental design, character development, music composition, and the list could go on and on beyond my current one... A few greats come to mind... Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, and Legend of Dragoon. They all shared something that kept bringing players back and sometimes even to this day. That is addictiveness. These games were so addictive I know that I personally spent many, many hours of my life I should have spent doing other things attempting to get that one last rare item, or beat that one last boss.
Sadly, I have not been impressed enough by many games as of late to the point in which I am with Dissidia. I cannot deny that I bought it with some relativity to the fact that I could play with some of my favorite Final Fantasy characters and that maybe... just maybe that drove me harder than other things to purchase it. In my defense... I did play the demo beforehand. It was amazing. Fairly simplistic, enjoyable, addictive action litters this game throughout it's entirety. I have only played this game for 7 days currently and the amount of content remaining to even be attempted is immense. While I would have loved to play with more characters the amount already playable is very enjoyable and makes up for the want to play as some of my favorite, less mainstream ones. Then again, with today's technology we can see updates to the games we buy and might can look forward to a content upgrade in 3-6 months.
In addition to the interesting storyline, there are your typical modes of play for a fighting game. There is Arcade Mode, Quick Battle, and the online capabilities with the ability to fight friends who you've sparred with in the past in a "ghost" fight. You have the ability to create 3 different sets of equipment per character allowing you to use three different play-styles with the same character. There is a leveling system from 1-100 and any RPG gamer would know the difference that each level can make in any fight. The visuals are amazing, the gameplay is solid, and the storyline even incorporates strategy due to the FF:Tactics style movement progression. You have to choose between fighting two enemies to the left and getting to your end point faster, thus ensuring greater chapter rewards or choosing the more treasure filled route that will make your end of chapter rewards non-existent. If chosen wisely and executed properly you can even get through with all the treasure and still get the best rewards with the Destiny Points Award system. Certain conditions arise on specific enemies that if you fulfill them you gain DP in order to attain greater end-of-chapter rewards. Each turn takes up 1 DP and so your goal is to be strategic in reaching your goal with as many DP's as possible while also accomplishing the most you can.
In addition to all of this there is tracking of your accomplishments and you are rewarded for doing well in fights consistently. You receive many accessories for completing "achievements" such as winning 1000 fights, dealing 100000 damage, obtaining X number of certain items, performing different actions X number of times, and executing certain scenarios flawlessly. All these things alone make the game seem very rewarding to play and with a calendar that is set up to reward you based on your play-style you can play and benefit at your leisure.
If all that wasn't enough there is another mode which I have yet to even unlock called the Duel Coliseum which is apparently a card game that allows you to get the rarer items necessary to create the ultimate armor/weapons. That said, the amount of content in Dissidia is nothing to be scoffed at and I can tell that as addictive as it already is I won't know what to do with myself once I unlock more of it. It's as addictive as crack atm with the exception that it was cheaper, legal, and I can use it in public. ^^
Friday, August 28, 2009
It's been awhile~ 1yr Anniversary!
Yeah it's been awhile since my last post/rant/frustrated concoction of irritability. Just rereading that makes me fired up again. I'd like to say that it is extremely disheartening to know that more than a year later... I still see the exact same situation. How sad is it that Sony has still yet to be able to pull their heads out their bum in order to bridge the Grand Canyon gap that is between Microsoft and them.
So here is to the 1 year Anniversary of Sony's continued Epic Fail.
They apparently decided that to celebrate their fail they would finally get on the path to redemption by releasing the PS3 Slim at a reduced price of $299. It's a start. Is it sad that I am wondering where my restitution is for the time I've had their system with it's unrelenting attention to mediocrity? I'm waiting for my stimulus check to revitalize my faith in them. With each passing day I defend that pathetically underutilized paperweight. I continue to wonder if there will ever be a day that I can say I'm glad I own a PS3.
I can only say that only on a few brief glimpses of reality can I remember being happy that I owned a PS3. The first one was on the first week of having one. I remember watching the, then included, Blue-Ray movie "Surf's Up" on a High-def T.V. and I was impressed. I then found out that I could utilize a "Folding @ Home" program to help find the cures for diseases and help in research to develop advancements in modern medicine. This struck home for me, because my mother was diagnosed with Cancer when I was younger and she fought it off and even when it returned again she was able to survive. I thank god/whoever for the fact she was able to remain in my life. So for that one program I am glad I own a PS3. Sadly, however, that is the only real "saving grace" for the PS3 that remains so.
The only other thing I can remember making me feel happy that I own a PS3 was when FF7 was released for the PSP/PS3. That was simply amazing. The ability to swap between my PSP and my PS3 is awesome and allows the enjoyment of the greatest RPG game ever made (imo) to be available regardless of where I am as long as I have my PSP at my side.
That, however, brings me to a sad point. The 360 is great in it's own regard without any peripheral. How sad is it that the PS3, imo, is only worth anything when coupled with a secondary device? This is infuriating..., but alas I should be used to it by now. I feel like I might have battered-wife syndrome... Sony continues to beat me with it's incredulous ability to disappoint me, but yet I continue to hit the power key in the hopes of some grandeur to lure me back. I continue to make excuses for it and hold onto every snippet of it's "getting better". I make excuses for my bruised ego and damaged opinion of it and can't help, but get irritable when it's integrity is questioned.
But maybe in retrospect that's Sony's way of helping me save money? If they don't produce anything that makes me "have" to have it then I don't spend my money on it... maybe I should be thanking Sony instead of being irate with them... But wait... if my money isn't going to them...then as a gamer... it's going to a competitor... Damn logic to it's core. Without our consumer's money you can't produce the things they love...which in turn keeps them from being able to keep us happy...it's a viscous cycle, so maybe this price decrease is their first real step in taking responsibility for their mistakes and getting on the path to righteousness...
One can only hope. Happy Anniversary Sony~!
So here is to the 1 year Anniversary of Sony's continued Epic Fail.
They apparently decided that to celebrate their fail they would finally get on the path to redemption by releasing the PS3 Slim at a reduced price of $299. It's a start. Is it sad that I am wondering where my restitution is for the time I've had their system with it's unrelenting attention to mediocrity? I'm waiting for my stimulus check to revitalize my faith in them. With each passing day I defend that pathetically underutilized paperweight. I continue to wonder if there will ever be a day that I can say I'm glad I own a PS3.
I can only say that only on a few brief glimpses of reality can I remember being happy that I owned a PS3. The first one was on the first week of having one. I remember watching the, then included, Blue-Ray movie "Surf's Up" on a High-def T.V. and I was impressed. I then found out that I could utilize a "Folding @ Home" program to help find the cures for diseases and help in research to develop advancements in modern medicine. This struck home for me, because my mother was diagnosed with Cancer when I was younger and she fought it off and even when it returned again she was able to survive. I thank god/whoever for the fact she was able to remain in my life. So for that one program I am glad I own a PS3. Sadly, however, that is the only real "saving grace" for the PS3 that remains so.
The only other thing I can remember making me feel happy that I own a PS3 was when FF7 was released for the PSP/PS3. That was simply amazing. The ability to swap between my PSP and my PS3 is awesome and allows the enjoyment of the greatest RPG game ever made (imo) to be available regardless of where I am as long as I have my PSP at my side.
That, however, brings me to a sad point. The 360 is great in it's own regard without any peripheral. How sad is it that the PS3, imo, is only worth anything when coupled with a secondary device? This is infuriating..., but alas I should be used to it by now. I feel like I might have battered-wife syndrome... Sony continues to beat me with it's incredulous ability to disappoint me, but yet I continue to hit the power key in the hopes of some grandeur to lure me back. I continue to make excuses for it and hold onto every snippet of it's "getting better". I make excuses for my bruised ego and damaged opinion of it and can't help, but get irritable when it's integrity is questioned.
But maybe in retrospect that's Sony's way of helping me save money? If they don't produce anything that makes me "have" to have it then I don't spend my money on it... maybe I should be thanking Sony instead of being irate with them... But wait... if my money isn't going to them...then as a gamer... it's going to a competitor... Damn logic to it's core. Without our consumer's money you can't produce the things they love...which in turn keeps them from being able to keep us happy...it's a viscous cycle, so maybe this price decrease is their first real step in taking responsibility for their mistakes and getting on the path to righteousness...
One can only hope. Happy Anniversary Sony~!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Gaming Rant...Tangents beware~! Interactive Art?
Here I am, enjoying my morning cup of water... (Yes, screw coffee I drink water or highly sugarized kool-aid) When I remember the kick to the nads I recieved not so long ago from the announcement that my beloved, long awaited, game I had so anxiously been waiting for to be released on my PS3 was, in fact, going to be released no longer on solely the PS3, but the 360 as well.
Now I know some of you reading this are rolling your eyes and sighing with the fact that this has been heard to the point of nausea elsewhere, but I'm ranting so if you don't like it leave.
While it may very well be my own fault for placing such high hopes that Final Fantasy 13 would remain exclusive and give me a reason to feel justified in my purchase of a PS3 I still hold the bitterness that came with the announcement of the dual release. After dreaming of the extreme glory that would be achieved by FF13 coming to the PS3 and proving that it can, indeed, perform at greater specs than the 360 it hurt to hear it would not be so. Production of value must have slowed to a crawl when this was announced because they were already hitting things that the 360 might find hard to handle. This means that instead of delving further into the complexity that is allowed by the PS3 they purposely restricted themselves to the means of the lesser system.
There is no reason for more effort to be put forth to exemplify this point, when so much money can be saved by getting lazy and leaving the game as is. Granted this game promises to be great, but my point is that now that it is dual-platform...aside from making almost two completely different games FF13 will no longer be pushed to the limits and those that make it are most assuredly no longer trying to push it beyond the expectations of all it's predecesors... No more revolutionary ideas will be pushed to the brink, no more great ideas will be expanded upon. At least not with this game. Instead it will be as is, continue with what is present, and end with what exists. While this still may mean utter greatness, it means that what could have been will not be for even longer. Instead of pushing every limit beyond measure, it has been decided that it will be released with the as-is notation and that any and all revolutionary ideas will be saved for future things instead of being performed now.
FF13 promised to leave such a lasting impression that it would become a legend... like that of the greatest RPG of all time. Final Fantasy 7. Instead..., while it may still leave an impression, will no doubtedly be foreshadowed easily in the next release of games only months later. While previously being capable of being insurmountable for years it has now been left open to be overtaken by others so very soon of it's release. Perhaps it is too much to continue to expect a company that has produced legends to do so anymore...and maybe it is too much to expect it to be as mind blowing as I hope it to be, but the developers have always had the ability to produce things that even to this day have not entirely been eclipsed in grandeur.
I can just picture how exactly it all went down.
Bill Gates, tired of trying to barter with Square-Enix while being a cheap-skate realized that FF13 would help fuel the 360 sales and help further keep the PS3 down decided to bring an obnoxious proposal of money to make it a dual platform title. Casting all dignity away Square took the money with that crap-eating grin and announced to many's dismay that it would be dual released.
Some people may wonder why this irks me so...so let me delve into my reasoning for my upset.
Atm, (I say this because soon they will upgrade their system and this will be a mute point...) the PS3 blows the 360 out of the water in capability. Keyword, however.... being "Capability". Not to say that there haven't been games to somewhat prove the PS3's superiority in nearly every design category, but none has been able to definely purge all doubts in the general public's mind that the PS3 can indeed perform better.
The problem is that developers are paid to make a company money, no more no less. It is no longer about making a game that will wow for years to come due to depth, storyline, gameplay, and replay value. No longer about creating greatness, but about producing cookie cutter games that are polished to look different and forced upon the public. Now it's about making a game look pretty with some fancy visuals that are present in roughly 10% of the game and leave a lackluster, bland taste in the mouth of those who dish out their hard-earned cash to purchase.
Too many times has the general public been lured in by fancy visuals to have their virtual scrotum be kicked in by the realization that they just wasted $60 on a game they played a few days ago in the bargain bin at their local game store with enhanced graphics and a new feature or two. This comes from actually expecting greatness from those that have actually produced greatness.
Yes, visuals are nice. I like. Do I have to have to enjoy the game? No. Would I like it in addition to a game with great depth and enjoyment? Hell yes. But making a game with visuals alone to hold it up is utterly retarded.
I now have a new name for games of this sort... Interactive Art. Screw calling them games anymore if the true substance is solely in the artistic expression. I, for one, love art, but when I purchase a game that looks beautiful I also expect some kind of fun to usher forth from my purchase. I mean, if a person can put as much work and intelligence into making that game that unbelievably beautiful and complex.... Why the hell can't they add some depth somewhere else? Story? Gameplay itself? Game Mechanics? There is a reason there is a TEAM involved in the production of a game.
1 man may have the idea, but very few can come up with a great idea and bring to the table the best in all departments. That is where other individuals SHOULD come in.
This is how I see the good folks that made Assassin's Creed got together and talked.
(Note: Same Guy Proposing each thing to the board.)
"Here is my art for the game" Response: " Wow that's great I love it, let's do it!"
"Here is my concept for gameplay in the first chapters" Response: "Omg, amazing! Let's duplicate that throughout the entire game~!"
"Here is my concept for the mechanics" Response: "Yeah, that's awesome...Basically Prince of Persia with a few tweaks to make it our own...except...let's let them play with the best they can possibly expect from the get go and hope they are so wowed they actually waste hours upon hours of their lives re-achieving that same lackluster pinnacle."
As you can tell I was not wooed by the brilliance of Prin...I mean Assassin's Creed. Great game...if it didn't end 2 hours into itself. After you assassinate your first real target you have, in essence, beaten the game. You have done all there is to offer and you have done all there is to care about.
Copy and paste that same city, randomize it abit...place it 500 miles that way and recolor a few pieces and you have your next city. Rinse and repeat til the end of the game and you have Assassin's Creed's "amazing and revolutionary" construction.
I'll give it this much.... It was fun as hell...until I hit the brick wall of monotony... The worst part about this is that it is an ACTION game...I should be on the edge of my seat at all times and be enjoying the action that comes from it. Instead I enjoy the few hours I can of silently killing people and merging into the crowds until I get bored, happen to come across some folks I can listen in on to find out there is a guy standing 5 feet from me I need to assassinate. Congratulations.
I play RPG's... and when an Action game bores me...there is something wrong.
Anywho...to get away from that tangent and back to my original complaint... The PS3 is capable of much that 360 just cannot handle. It is just a fact of the construction of both systems. However, due to the fact that gaming has become so much more about the bottom line then actual substance games are created to the specs of a 360 capability and then copied and reformatted to work on a PS3. No enhancements of any kind... No splitting of the processors duties as to allow for smoother gameplay... No increase in detail as allowed by the more capable and numerous processors... No alternate modes of gameplay that could be added as a result of the larger memory storage of a Blue Ray disc.... Nothing.
Some might argue that this is good, because it doesn't force anyone to need to own both systems to enjoy a game etc etc. To those of us that have both systems and obtained them through means other than mommy and daddy, we would like to see some kind of exclusivity to warrant the existence of both systems. When there was Playstation and N64 you knew what kind of games were played on Nintendo's machine and what was played on Sony's.
Now, you are given the same game on two different platforms and aside from the draw of earning achievements for the 360 offer no real incentive to own any specific platform's version. I was a Diehard fan of the Playstation ever since the original, but now... I can't help but be drawn in by the megalith known as Microsoft's Xbox 360. The interface is more user friendly, I enjoy getting acknowledged for busting my ass by accomplishing something out of the ordinary, and I enjoy the ease of virtual navigation through the various services offered.
My PS3 has sat in front of my T.V. since I purchased it and has been turned on a max of 30 times in it's entire life. I occasionally dust it off and whimper quietly as I realize that my PS3 is just not going to offer me what I had hoped. I will play my 360 and enjoy it and remember that my PS3 has disapointed me time and time again and hope that someday I might be proud to own one.
I feel like the PS3 is that child that some people have that just can't achieve greatness no matter how hard they or everyone around them try to help them achieve. I'm a parent of this imaginary child and I will continue to hope that someday I will be proud of my PS3 and that someday I will have no regrets from throwing down such a large sum of cash for such a worthless construction of gaming equipment.
Now I know some of you reading this are rolling your eyes and sighing with the fact that this has been heard to the point of nausea elsewhere, but I'm ranting so if you don't like it leave.
While it may very well be my own fault for placing such high hopes that Final Fantasy 13 would remain exclusive and give me a reason to feel justified in my purchase of a PS3 I still hold the bitterness that came with the announcement of the dual release. After dreaming of the extreme glory that would be achieved by FF13 coming to the PS3 and proving that it can, indeed, perform at greater specs than the 360 it hurt to hear it would not be so. Production of value must have slowed to a crawl when this was announced because they were already hitting things that the 360 might find hard to handle. This means that instead of delving further into the complexity that is allowed by the PS3 they purposely restricted themselves to the means of the lesser system.
There is no reason for more effort to be put forth to exemplify this point, when so much money can be saved by getting lazy and leaving the game as is. Granted this game promises to be great, but my point is that now that it is dual-platform...aside from making almost two completely different games FF13 will no longer be pushed to the limits and those that make it are most assuredly no longer trying to push it beyond the expectations of all it's predecesors... No more revolutionary ideas will be pushed to the brink, no more great ideas will be expanded upon. At least not with this game. Instead it will be as is, continue with what is present, and end with what exists. While this still may mean utter greatness, it means that what could have been will not be for even longer. Instead of pushing every limit beyond measure, it has been decided that it will be released with the as-is notation and that any and all revolutionary ideas will be saved for future things instead of being performed now.
FF13 promised to leave such a lasting impression that it would become a legend... like that of the greatest RPG of all time. Final Fantasy 7. Instead..., while it may still leave an impression, will no doubtedly be foreshadowed easily in the next release of games only months later. While previously being capable of being insurmountable for years it has now been left open to be overtaken by others so very soon of it's release. Perhaps it is too much to continue to expect a company that has produced legends to do so anymore...and maybe it is too much to expect it to be as mind blowing as I hope it to be, but the developers have always had the ability to produce things that even to this day have not entirely been eclipsed in grandeur.
I can just picture how exactly it all went down.
Bill Gates, tired of trying to barter with Square-Enix while being a cheap-skate realized that FF13 would help fuel the 360 sales and help further keep the PS3 down decided to bring an obnoxious proposal of money to make it a dual platform title. Casting all dignity away Square took the money with that crap-eating grin and announced to many's dismay that it would be dual released.
Some people may wonder why this irks me so...so let me delve into my reasoning for my upset.
Atm, (I say this because soon they will upgrade their system and this will be a mute point...) the PS3 blows the 360 out of the water in capability. Keyword, however.... being "Capability". Not to say that there haven't been games to somewhat prove the PS3's superiority in nearly every design category, but none has been able to definely purge all doubts in the general public's mind that the PS3 can indeed perform better.
The problem is that developers are paid to make a company money, no more no less. It is no longer about making a game that will wow for years to come due to depth, storyline, gameplay, and replay value. No longer about creating greatness, but about producing cookie cutter games that are polished to look different and forced upon the public. Now it's about making a game look pretty with some fancy visuals that are present in roughly 10% of the game and leave a lackluster, bland taste in the mouth of those who dish out their hard-earned cash to purchase.
Too many times has the general public been lured in by fancy visuals to have their virtual scrotum be kicked in by the realization that they just wasted $60 on a game they played a few days ago in the bargain bin at their local game store with enhanced graphics and a new feature or two. This comes from actually expecting greatness from those that have actually produced greatness.
Yes, visuals are nice. I like. Do I have to have to enjoy the game? No. Would I like it in addition to a game with great depth and enjoyment? Hell yes. But making a game with visuals alone to hold it up is utterly retarded.
I now have a new name for games of this sort... Interactive Art. Screw calling them games anymore if the true substance is solely in the artistic expression. I, for one, love art, but when I purchase a game that looks beautiful I also expect some kind of fun to usher forth from my purchase. I mean, if a person can put as much work and intelligence into making that game that unbelievably beautiful and complex.... Why the hell can't they add some depth somewhere else? Story? Gameplay itself? Game Mechanics? There is a reason there is a TEAM involved in the production of a game.
1 man may have the idea, but very few can come up with a great idea and bring to the table the best in all departments. That is where other individuals SHOULD come in.
This is how I see the good folks that made Assassin's Creed got together and talked.
(Note: Same Guy Proposing each thing to the board.)
"Here is my art for the game" Response: " Wow that's great I love it, let's do it!"
"Here is my concept for gameplay in the first chapters" Response: "Omg, amazing! Let's duplicate that throughout the entire game~!"
"Here is my concept for the mechanics" Response: "Yeah, that's awesome...Basically Prince of Persia with a few tweaks to make it our own...except...let's let them play with the best they can possibly expect from the get go and hope they are so wowed they actually waste hours upon hours of their lives re-achieving that same lackluster pinnacle."
As you can tell I was not wooed by the brilliance of Prin...I mean Assassin's Creed. Great game...if it didn't end 2 hours into itself. After you assassinate your first real target you have, in essence, beaten the game. You have done all there is to offer and you have done all there is to care about.
Copy and paste that same city, randomize it abit...place it 500 miles that way and recolor a few pieces and you have your next city. Rinse and repeat til the end of the game and you have Assassin's Creed's "amazing and revolutionary" construction.
I'll give it this much.... It was fun as hell...until I hit the brick wall of monotony... The worst part about this is that it is an ACTION game...I should be on the edge of my seat at all times and be enjoying the action that comes from it. Instead I enjoy the few hours I can of silently killing people and merging into the crowds until I get bored, happen to come across some folks I can listen in on to find out there is a guy standing 5 feet from me I need to assassinate. Congratulations.
I play RPG's... and when an Action game bores me...there is something wrong.
Anywho...to get away from that tangent and back to my original complaint... The PS3 is capable of much that 360 just cannot handle. It is just a fact of the construction of both systems. However, due to the fact that gaming has become so much more about the bottom line then actual substance games are created to the specs of a 360 capability and then copied and reformatted to work on a PS3. No enhancements of any kind... No splitting of the processors duties as to allow for smoother gameplay... No increase in detail as allowed by the more capable and numerous processors... No alternate modes of gameplay that could be added as a result of the larger memory storage of a Blue Ray disc.... Nothing.
Some might argue that this is good, because it doesn't force anyone to need to own both systems to enjoy a game etc etc. To those of us that have both systems and obtained them through means other than mommy and daddy, we would like to see some kind of exclusivity to warrant the existence of both systems. When there was Playstation and N64 you knew what kind of games were played on Nintendo's machine and what was played on Sony's.
Now, you are given the same game on two different platforms and aside from the draw of earning achievements for the 360 offer no real incentive to own any specific platform's version. I was a Diehard fan of the Playstation ever since the original, but now... I can't help but be drawn in by the megalith known as Microsoft's Xbox 360. The interface is more user friendly, I enjoy getting acknowledged for busting my ass by accomplishing something out of the ordinary, and I enjoy the ease of virtual navigation through the various services offered.
My PS3 has sat in front of my T.V. since I purchased it and has been turned on a max of 30 times in it's entire life. I occasionally dust it off and whimper quietly as I realize that my PS3 is just not going to offer me what I had hoped. I will play my 360 and enjoy it and remember that my PS3 has disapointed me time and time again and hope that someday I might be proud to own one.
I feel like the PS3 is that child that some people have that just can't achieve greatness no matter how hard they or everyone around them try to help them achieve. I'm a parent of this imaginary child and I will continue to hope that someday I will be proud of my PS3 and that someday I will have no regrets from throwing down such a large sum of cash for such a worthless construction of gaming equipment.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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