Another Emulation Tragedy

Fans of commercial emulation packages, prepare for anger. From the Taito Legends review at Gamespot:

For the most part, the games are well emulated and play just as well now as they did in arcades. The light gun games are the exception. Operation Wolf, Operation Thunderbolt, and Space Gun all place a gun cursor on the screen, which you move around with the analog stick. This isn't a very suitable replacement for actual light gun support, making these games a little boring.

I'd like to think that the author, Jeff Gerstmann, was holding back a burning rage as he wrote those lines. If I were a die-hard fan of any of those three games, and had been looking forward to them for months, I would be furious at Taito for treating these games so shoddily.

Look, Game Companies, here's a very simple rule for you to follow when rereleasing old games.

If you cannot do the game right, do not do it at all.

Do not rerelease Star Wars: The Arcade Game with terrible controls. Oops! Do not rerelease Kaboom! without decent mouse/trackball/paddle support. Blast! Ok, no (more) crying over spilt milk on those two, I promise. Let's think about the future. Here's one for you, Taito: Do not rerelease Arkanoid without mouse/paddle/trackball support.

--jvm at 19:06

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Two Castlevanias in One

I've rambled about Castlevania a good bit, especially the handheld versions. Two GBA Castlevania games, Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow are now coming out in one package, presumably in one cartridge. I presume this is to meet any demand generated by recent the Nintendo DS game, Dawn of Sorrow, sequel to Aria of Sorrow.

If you're interested in these, at all, this is a great deal. Not only are these difficult to find and overpriced if you can find them, they're really quite good games. I'll admit right now that Harmony has its problems, but Aria of Sorrow is the best of the series since Symphony of the Night on the PSOne. I played Aria of Sorrow entirely on a GameCube, but it's fun on the small screen too. One last thing: the market (on eBay) appears to have been flooded at one time with Hong Kong pirate versions, so this is a good opportunity to get legit versions. Pirate GBA carts, I'm told, can lose the ability to save quickly, compared to the real thing.

Since Ruffin's now playing my copy of Aria of Sorrow, perhaps he'll chime in with his thoughts on that game.

I'll probably, against my better judgement, snag the upcoming Curse of Darkness for PS2, sequel to the truly disappointing Lament of Innocence. Hope springs eternal, and all that crap.

Labels: nintendo

--jvm at 21:52

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Robotron: 2084 for $500

As a foolish teenager, I once brazenly disobeyed my father and went to the local arcade to get in a few games. For this transgression, I enjoyed a final meeting with corporal punishment. What game drew me to the arcade that day? Robotron: 2084.

Robotron: 2084 is a demoralizing game to play, both in theme (Mankind destroyed by his own creations) and difficulty. Yet, it is the only arcade game that I would want to play every day until I die. It's just that intense and I'm that stubborn.

In the near future, I hope to own a stand-up arcade version of Robotron: 2084, and it appears that it will cost significantly less than I had expected. Starting this holiday season, Target will be selling a multi-game system, in a reduced-size cabinet, for $500. In addition to Robotron, the cabinet plays Defender, Defender II, Joust, Bubbles, Splat!, Sinistar, Rampage, Root Beer Tapper, Wizard of Wor, Timber, and Satan's Hollow. It's pictured at right.

On eBay a single Robotron: 2084 stand-up sold yesterday for $810.

Now, I just need to convince the wife that this is a good idea.

--jvm at 20:56

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Civ IV: Where's the personal touch?

I've been playing the Civilization series for a while, as the screenshot on this blurb I wrote a while back implies. It's been, to date, a great run.

But what's almost strangely missing in an era where football games let you decide what sorts of freebies to give away to entice fans to the stadium -- I'm using that to represent much too much detail in games where it isn't needed -- where are the minigames that allow Civilization leaders to interact, well, personally with other civ leaders? What if Queen Isabella has a, um, liking for Chairman Mao?

What the Civ series does is put the gamer in the privileged position of becoming the state in the same way kings (and a few queens) used to all but literally embody their kingdoms. Nevermind that the vassals/citizens are all virtual; that's precisely the beauty. Now we can all lead with the authority of [the] G/god[s].

What's missing, obviously, is the way the humanity of these holy/elected/powerful leaders influences all of history, and I don't just mean that Gingis Khan tends to get mad quickly. At some point, I'd expect the Civ series to get to the point that it at least offers the player a chance to interact personally (virtualy speaking) with other leaders, merging Sim with Civ to a degree, and some real learning (kinda like what I pitifully tried to talk about here) about how irrational the development of the world really is could take place.

--rufbo at 13:49

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Winter Vacation in Liberty City

One of the regulars in the IRC channel I frequent has Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP already. Reading statements like "cruising saint marks on a pcj 600" brings back memories that remind me that I know Liberty City, block by block, better than any other city, real or virtual. Lazlow is back for Chatterbox, apparently, and my favorite station, K-JAH is back on the air. (Let's hope they got The Scientist back for more dub magic.)

I tell you, I can barely restrain myself from running to buy it right now.

Ultimately, I know I have Real Life responsibilities that will consume me until winter break starts in December, so no game for me. But when the right time rolls around, and I have a few free hours in my life, you'll find me vacationing on the streets of Liberty City.

--jvm at 21:03

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EA Slacking on Madden 06?

About 10 months ago Electronic Arts announced its exclusive NFL contract, making its Madden NFL series the only professional football videogame for the next five years. Recent history had shown Sega's series, developed by Visual Concepts, to be a serious competitor to EA's dominant Madden franchise. Conventional wisdom considered this rivalry good for the industry and good for the consumer; the exclusive license ended all that, and EA now competes only with itself.

Regarding the quality of future games, the official line was:

"The onus is on EA to keep making a better game each year ... that's the hurdle you have to clear every year."
-- Jeff Brown, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Electronic Arts

So, is EA living up to its calling?

Bring on the Graphs

To compare, I've collected data from three sources: GameSpot, IGN, and GameRankings. All scores were mapped to a 100-point scale.

Let's see what was going on over at GameSpot for the past few years, on the PlayStation 2:

Ever since it appeared on the PlayStation 2, Sega's series had always rated higher. Madden was maintaining a very respectable score during this period. Then the first year with an exclusive license, and Madden NFL's score takes a dive by more than five points.

Let's look at IGN, again only on the PlayStation 2:

Both series showed fairly consistent improvement over the past five years, with Madden NFL edging ahead slightly for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. As with GameSpot, however, the review score took more than a five point dive this year.

Only two sites does not a trend make, but we might be able to get an idea of what's going on across the board by looking at GameRankings averages, again only on the PlayStation 2:

It looks like that five-point drop holds, even when we consider how dozens of sites reviewed EA's Madden NFL series. Given the data on this graph, one certainly wonders how NFL 2k6 might have fared.

To compare, I've also done the same graphs for the Xbox versions of these games, shown below. The key feature here is that the same five-point (or more) drop appears to be consistent across the board.



What does it all mean?

It would be convenient to say that EA has already taken advantage of its exclusive license and stopped pushing the Madden developers to produce an ever-better product. However, the graphs above don't provide definitive proof of that.

And don't forget: Madden NFL basically dropped from being a great game to a very good game. This isn't like EA dropped the ball completely. Perhaps we'll know next year if this is the new standard level for Madden NFL.

It could just be that EA's developers had an off year, and the timing happened to conincide with the first year they had no competition. It could be that, measured against itself, Madden NFL doesn't improve enough each year to justify an ever higher score. That is, having competition made it easier to laud the improvements, big and small, that EA put into each new season's game. Frankly, I'd like for someone who has access to real sales data to investigate a bit, and let us in on just what the ramifications are of a huge market like professional football being dominated by one company.

In lieu of that, we do have some recent news reports to guide us.

At the beginning of October 2005, UBS Investment Research predicted that total software sales would be down this year, some from the loss of a competitor in the NFL football game market. Just two weeks later the September 2005 sales results are in and we find total sales down by 25% while Madden takes the number one spot for the second month in a row. In short, while the rest of the market is sluggish, EA continues to reap tremendous profits.

Back in December 2004 an analyst commented to GameSpot:

I really respect [Electronic Arts], but the consumer really loses [with this exclusivity deal]... EA is both evil and really smart.

With EA raking in the dough in a down market with a game that's reviewing poorly compared to last year, the wisdom of this statement seems undeniable.

Labels: data, graphs

--jvm at 21:21

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Ridge Racer for PSP

With Rage Racer on the original PlayStation, I learned to love Namco-style drift racing. So when I snagged a cheap copy of Ridge Racer for my PSP, I was eager to experience the handheld translation. The good news is that this single handheld version is worth owning over all five of the previous installments.

The reason? Ridge Racer PSP has all of the important tracks from the previous games. This isn't as hard as it sounds, since all previous games only had three or four tracks to race, with the option of then racing each of those tracks in reverse. So instead of owning Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer Revolution, Rage Racer, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, and Ridge Racer V, this one game does it all. It also contains some audio tracks from previous games, but from what I can tell, not the ones I really liked from Rage Racer. A disappointment, but I'll live.

What matters more in a racing game is control, and Ridge Racer PSP has that down pat. The little analog nub on the PSP is as natural after five minutes as the NeGcon was on a PlayStation. Drifting is easy, and enjoyable. The variety of cars, with different engines and handling and upgrades, is thoughtful but mostly unnecessary. The addition of nitro, earned through successful drift, is mildly amusing but strikes me as mostly a gimmick.

Visually, this is a great title to show off the PSP's abilities. I love seeing the Rage Racer tracks brought to life in higher resolution and detail, and I can imagine devoted fans of the other games feel similarly. The blur effect when zipping along on full nitro is impressive.

However, the late-game races have left a nasty taste in my mouth. There are several special races, against a single opponent, which are horribly rubber-banded. The AI slows down your opponent to keep you in the race, but then speeds up unrealistically when you start to lead. Two ways I've seen this cheating manifest itself. These special opponents get to use nitro in the first 15 seconds of a race, something I cannot do. Second, I've lost by less than a second in total time to the AI with an average speed of 180mph during one race and 192mph the following race. If it were really racing its best the whole time, there's no way I could lose by less than one second each time! On the other hand, the AI for the non-cheating cars in standard races is pretty pathetic, to the point that you might want to consider them simply slow-moving obstacles rather than opponents.

While Ridge Racer PSP is still my favorite PSP game by far, over Lumines and Twisted Metal: Head-On, I still think the rubber-band AI is a dirty trick, and my final estimation of the game is lower as a result.

--jvm at 14:16

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Parappa 2 Fails the Kid Test

I snagged a used copy of Parappa 2 for about the same price Ruffin did a couple of years ago and gave it a lengthy test drive. What a disappointment!

I tried playing it with my young son sitting with me, as he had with the first game. The same child who sat intently focused on the TV for well over 30 minutes watching me play the original Parappa was tired of the sequel after 10 minutes. When he said "Daddy, can we go play blocks?" I knew he was thinking the 3-year-old equivalent of what I was thinking: "This game bites!"

I still put in a good 35 minutes total with the game, and it's hard to say what exactly fell apart here. The tunes are ok, but not catchy. The rapping interface gives better feedback on timing, but the addition of three dials to measure your performance offsets that advance. The story is also not very interesting: "Oh no! All the food is turning into noodles! Save us, Parappa!" Booooring.

Save your dough for something fun. Like Diablo 2.

--jvm at 00:32

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New Site: Update Links, Feed

As you may have noticed, things changed. I needed to get away from Geeklog and into something simpler, so here we are.

If you're using an RSS reader, please update your feed: http://curmudgeongamer.com/atom.xml

Update your bookmark, if you use one, to point to http://curmudgeongamer.com/ (that is, without the index.php).

The old site can be found here. I won't be getting rid of it, but I will be disabling posting/comments.

--jvm at 23:19

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Ace Combat and Dual Analog Flight Stick

Back in the era of the original PlayStation, Sony made a dual analog flight stick for use with flight sims and some other games. As you can see in the picture at the right, it was a pretty giant piece of hardware. My recollection is that it retailed for around $80, which put it out of my price range.

However, with my recent interest in Ace Combat, I figured I might see what they were going for lately. Turns out, pretty cheap, and I got mine for around $15 (plus shipping).

Playing Ace Combat 2 is a real challenge with these sticks. During my first mission with the sticks, I flew mostly like a crazed drunk. By the time I played the second, however, I made a much better show of it. With practice, I think I could fly a tiny bit better with them than with a standard Dual Shock controller, since the dual flight stick offers an analog throttle.

What really makes me angry, however, is that neither Ace Combat 04 nor Ace Combat 5 support this controller. I can't imagine that there are that many games that could really benefit from a flight stick of this type on the PlayStation or PlayStation 2, except flight games, and I would be surprised if Namco weren't in on the design of the original controller. So, why leave it out? Strikes me as just plain lazy.

Then again, it could be money. Not that it cost a lot to support this old controller, but rather that Namco made their own flight stick which was sold alongside Ace Combat 5. Those packages were about $100 at retail.

--jvm at 18:09

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