Curmudgeon Gamer
18 February 2009
Either disappointment or glorious success (Nintendo DSi)
So the Nintendo DSi is coming out on 5 April 2009 in the U.S. at a price of $170. (Announcement and demo video at Wired, among others.)
Either this is going to blow up in Nintendo's face or they'll come out looking even more invincible.
For a while now Sony's been selling the PlayStation Portable (PSP) for $170 by itself or $200 bundled. According to data provided to me by NPD, and some figuring done on my own through other sources, the average for PSP sales has been $190 or higher. Significantly fewer people buy the core system and many are willing to jump up $30 for a bundle.
All the while the Nintendo DS has been $130. Each month Nintendo DS sales are at least twice the monthly PSP sales. It's not that the PSP sells poorly -- it actually does pretty well -- but the Nintendo DS is in much higher demand. Yet, in January 2009, sales for the PSP were off significantly.
I don't want to read too much into a single data point, but I think it's possible that Americans (increasingly pessimistic about the economy and the future) are finally reaching the point where a slick $200 handheld system isn't feasible. Even worse, they may be saying a $170 handheld isn't worthwhile.
And that's where I'm worried that Nintendo's DSi won't catch on. The upgrades here are the SD card slot, downloadable software, and two cameras. (The GBA slot is gone, but my anecdotal experience leads me to believe no one will notice.) I believe (although I don't know for sure) that it will also play more nicely with modern wireless access points. (Goodbye WEP, I hope.)
But like the PS3, the DSi is making a proposition based on logic that the consumer won't buy. The PS3 is a great media center, hi-def player, and game system. It also is a decent way to browse the web in the living room. But it's also $400.
The DSi is 95% of the Nintendo DS, with added features -- cameras, downloadable software, and a card slot -- that bump the cost up to $170. To paraphrase a line from an article I once wrote: A consumer who can't afford a $170 handheld still won't be able to afford it just because it has two cameras and new software capabilities.
All that said, I'm terrible with predictions. That's essentially why I write about the sales figures after they come out instead of trying to predict them. And, it should be noted, the Nintendo DS launched at a higher price and eventually dropped to its current $130 level. That may well happen with the DSi, and at that point at least it should return to crazy-wild sales levels.
Either this is going to blow up in Nintendo's face or they'll come out looking even more invincible.
For a while now Sony's been selling the PlayStation Portable (PSP) for $170 by itself or $200 bundled. According to data provided to me by NPD, and some figuring done on my own through other sources, the average for PSP sales has been $190 or higher. Significantly fewer people buy the core system and many are willing to jump up $30 for a bundle.
All the while the Nintendo DS has been $130. Each month Nintendo DS sales are at least twice the monthly PSP sales. It's not that the PSP sells poorly -- it actually does pretty well -- but the Nintendo DS is in much higher demand. Yet, in January 2009, sales for the PSP were off significantly.
I don't want to read too much into a single data point, but I think it's possible that Americans (increasingly pessimistic about the economy and the future) are finally reaching the point where a slick $200 handheld system isn't feasible. Even worse, they may be saying a $170 handheld isn't worthwhile.
And that's where I'm worried that Nintendo's DSi won't catch on. The upgrades here are the SD card slot, downloadable software, and two cameras. (The GBA slot is gone, but my anecdotal experience leads me to believe no one will notice.) I believe (although I don't know for sure) that it will also play more nicely with modern wireless access points. (Goodbye WEP, I hope.)
But like the PS3, the DSi is making a proposition based on logic that the consumer won't buy. The PS3 is a great media center, hi-def player, and game system. It also is a decent way to browse the web in the living room. But it's also $400.
The DSi is 95% of the Nintendo DS, with added features -- cameras, downloadable software, and a card slot -- that bump the cost up to $170. To paraphrase a line from an article I once wrote: A consumer who can't afford a $170 handheld still won't be able to afford it just because it has two cameras and new software capabilities.
All that said, I'm terrible with predictions. That's essentially why I write about the sales figures after they come out instead of trying to predict them. And, it should be noted, the Nintendo DS launched at a higher price and eventually dropped to its current $130 level. That may well happen with the DSi, and at that point at least it should return to crazy-wild sales levels.
--jvm at 09:14
Comment
[ 4 ]
04 December 2008
REVIEW: Civilization Revolution DS
The novelty of being able to play Civilization on a pocket-sized device got to me, and I bought Civilization Revolution for my DS. The result is rather good, excellent even, but it also suffers from a number of irritating little lacks, lacks that result from the developers not taking the DS version seriously.
Let's do the DS stuff first, and talk about Civilization Revolution itself, as a game divorced from platform, later. It's a major point in the DS version's favor that, although it lacks the Civilopedia, that massive database of information on everything in the game, and scoreboard support, it is an essentially-complete version of the game. As far as the core gameplay is concerned, it has been crippled in no way by being for the DS. The DS version of Civilization Revolution is, basically, the same game as that for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. It uses the same game rules (a simplified mix from across all four Civilization games), it has the same four victory conditions, and the same punishing A.I. drives the computer players.
And why shouldn't it be the same game? The DS is not an underpowered piece of hardware, compared to many systems. It's much more muscular than the Gameboy Advance, and that handled Advance Wars 2 with style. It turns out that, in Japan, the Super Famicom got a release of the original Civilization, and that's on a processor clocked at less than 2 mHz. These are turn-based strategy games, which are not known for tiring out a processor unless it's high-level chess or something similarly insane. If the core logic of a Civilization game is demanding enough that it requires a Cell processor to make it run then frankly I don't think I'd want to play it. Let's keep the difficulty level within the realm of human ability, hm?
In one respect the DS version is better than the 360 and PS3 versions. Because it's a portable system, no one expects it to have great graphics, so visually the game has been graphically regressed to Civ 1 style. And to that let me add: it's about time!
Isometric tiles and 3D interfaces may look great, but they're really fancier than a Civilization game has to be, a feature to sucker people into buying it who have no real idea what Civilization is about, and probably have no business playing it anyway. This is a game series that, even from the first version, was pushing it concerning control complexity. Adding in visual clutter was ill-advised. "Normal" players might be drawn to the game by the visuals, but the players who are really serious about Civilization will want to keep the display as simple as possible. And the DS version of the game does this pretty well. Screenshots of the 360 and PS3 versions reveal that the graphics in those versions has been given a thick coat of fluorescent paint. Oh well, at least it's not gray and brown.
The primary advantages of the DS version are simplified display and holy cow porta-Civ. These are huge benefits, enough that, if done perfectly this could have been the version of Civilization Revolution to own. It seems it was hard for the developers to believe because there is ample evidence they viewed the DS version as a throwaway project. There are a few notable lacks that, while I'm not sure they're not similarly lacking in the other versions, I doubt it.
One of the most surprising has to do with an outright error in the inexcusably-poor manual. It claims that on the easiest difficulty the requirements for winning are relaxed, but this is completely false: I've played several Chieftain-level games, and none of them has ended early.
Second, although they tried to make the interface DS-ish by using the second screen a bit (and having a a battle display obviously inspired by Advance Wars), I'd much rather have that screen used to provide an overview map of the known world. There is no way to get a view zoomed out any more than the normal view. It's infuriating, especially since the game is obviously capable of displaying a zoomed-out map: it uses just such a map to show the game history movie at the end! (That movie, by the way, is itself buggy and inaccurate with nation borders. Did this game get put through QA or not?)
As mentioned before, leaderboards are not supported in the DS version of the game. But why? The end-of-game score list ranks the player on what looks very much like a vanity board, but it doesn't persist; the next time you play, your game will be ranked against the same list of default names. Considering that the first time the game is turned on it spends several minutes erasing an epic amount of EEPROM storage, it seems laughable that they couldn't spare a few hundred of those bytes to implement a real score list.
One particularly galling lack amounts to the only gameplay difference between the versions that I can see, but strangely it has nothing to do with system power. I've not played the other versions in order to verify, but cross-platform reviews remark that the DS version is lacking the ability to sell units for gold. Why this might be missing, of all features, I have no idea. It's as if they simply forgot to add that button to the game. I suspect that whatever reason they might give would be an incredibly poor one.
There's a UI flaw that I find consistently annoying. After a unit's last move is used, the game will instantly scroll the map over to the next unit to be moved, even if there was something more you could have done with the previous unit. This is really obnoxious when you want to have a settler build a city before an enemy unit captures it. Also, when a unit with automatic moves lined up gets its turn, it moves immediately; those moves aren't queued for the end of the turn. This gives the player a reduced chance to stop it if he wishes the movement to be aborted.
Another bugs that crops up from time to time involves the Oxford University Wonder of the World. When built, it's supposed to grant the player a random advanced technology. The computer players go for it fairly reliably on higher difficulties, but when the human player goes for it, something like half the time, upon completion, it vanishes, replaced by a nearly-useless SDI Defense building. When this happens the Wonder completion message fails to appear , and apparently the player doesn't get credit for it, although it does disappear from the Wonders-to-be-built selection. Whether this is intentional or not isn't explained by the (again, woefully inadequate) manual, and I have no idea if it happens in other versions, but even if it is somehow planned behavior, the very least the lack of feedback to the player that it has happened is infuriating.
All this may sound like I'm griping. And I am, dammit, none of these limitations are excusable. But the game itself is still marvelously addictive. In the couple of months I've had it I've played dozens of games, and it's yet to get old. In all, Civilzation Revolution is one of the best versions of Civilization. It might lack some of the epic sweep of other versions, but as a pick-up-and-play game that can be completed in an afternoon it's excellent. And the DS version, played on a portable, is well-suited towards just that scale of experience. It's a shame that the developers didn't have that vision for the game, because with a better UI this could well have been an Advance Wars killer. Even the game's bugs and maddening limitations can't quite diminish the brilliance here. It is just really nice to play.
Let's do the DS stuff first, and talk about Civilization Revolution itself, as a game divorced from platform, later. It's a major point in the DS version's favor that, although it lacks the Civilopedia, that massive database of information on everything in the game, and scoreboard support, it is an essentially-complete version of the game. As far as the core gameplay is concerned, it has been crippled in no way by being for the DS. The DS version of Civilization Revolution is, basically, the same game as that for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. It uses the same game rules (a simplified mix from across all four Civilization games), it has the same four victory conditions, and the same punishing A.I. drives the computer players.
And why shouldn't it be the same game? The DS is not an underpowered piece of hardware, compared to many systems. It's much more muscular than the Gameboy Advance, and that handled Advance Wars 2 with style. It turns out that, in Japan, the Super Famicom got a release of the original Civilization, and that's on a processor clocked at less than 2 mHz. These are turn-based strategy games, which are not known for tiring out a processor unless it's high-level chess or something similarly insane. If the core logic of a Civilization game is demanding enough that it requires a Cell processor to make it run then frankly I don't think I'd want to play it. Let's keep the difficulty level within the realm of human ability, hm?
In one respect the DS version is better than the 360 and PS3 versions. Because it's a portable system, no one expects it to have great graphics, so visually the game has been graphically regressed to Civ 1 style. And to that let me add: it's about time!
Isometric tiles and 3D interfaces may look great, but they're really fancier than a Civilization game has to be, a feature to sucker people into buying it who have no real idea what Civilization is about, and probably have no business playing it anyway. This is a game series that, even from the first version, was pushing it concerning control complexity. Adding in visual clutter was ill-advised. "Normal" players might be drawn to the game by the visuals, but the players who are really serious about Civilization will want to keep the display as simple as possible. And the DS version of the game does this pretty well. Screenshots of the 360 and PS3 versions reveal that the graphics in those versions has been given a thick coat of fluorescent paint. Oh well, at least it's not gray and brown.
The primary advantages of the DS version are simplified display and holy cow porta-Civ. These are huge benefits, enough that, if done perfectly this could have been the version of Civilization Revolution to own. It seems it was hard for the developers to believe because there is ample evidence they viewed the DS version as a throwaway project. There are a few notable lacks that, while I'm not sure they're not similarly lacking in the other versions, I doubt it.
One of the most surprising has to do with an outright error in the inexcusably-poor manual. It claims that on the easiest difficulty the requirements for winning are relaxed, but this is completely false: I've played several Chieftain-level games, and none of them has ended early.
Second, although they tried to make the interface DS-ish by using the second screen a bit (and having a a battle display obviously inspired by Advance Wars), I'd much rather have that screen used to provide an overview map of the known world. There is no way to get a view zoomed out any more than the normal view. It's infuriating, especially since the game is obviously capable of displaying a zoomed-out map: it uses just such a map to show the game history movie at the end! (That movie, by the way, is itself buggy and inaccurate with nation borders. Did this game get put through QA or not?)
As mentioned before, leaderboards are not supported in the DS version of the game. But why? The end-of-game score list ranks the player on what looks very much like a vanity board, but it doesn't persist; the next time you play, your game will be ranked against the same list of default names. Considering that the first time the game is turned on it spends several minutes erasing an epic amount of EEPROM storage, it seems laughable that they couldn't spare a few hundred of those bytes to implement a real score list.
One particularly galling lack amounts to the only gameplay difference between the versions that I can see, but strangely it has nothing to do with system power. I've not played the other versions in order to verify, but cross-platform reviews remark that the DS version is lacking the ability to sell units for gold. Why this might be missing, of all features, I have no idea. It's as if they simply forgot to add that button to the game. I suspect that whatever reason they might give would be an incredibly poor one.
There's a UI flaw that I find consistently annoying. After a unit's last move is used, the game will instantly scroll the map over to the next unit to be moved, even if there was something more you could have done with the previous unit. This is really obnoxious when you want to have a settler build a city before an enemy unit captures it. Also, when a unit with automatic moves lined up gets its turn, it moves immediately; those moves aren't queued for the end of the turn. This gives the player a reduced chance to stop it if he wishes the movement to be aborted.
Another bugs that crops up from time to time involves the Oxford University Wonder of the World. When built, it's supposed to grant the player a random advanced technology. The computer players go for it fairly reliably on higher difficulties, but when the human player goes for it, something like half the time, upon completion, it vanishes, replaced by a nearly-useless SDI Defense building. When this happens the Wonder completion message fails to appear , and apparently the player doesn't get credit for it, although it does disappear from the Wonders-to-be-built selection. Whether this is intentional or not isn't explained by the (again, woefully inadequate) manual, and I have no idea if it happens in other versions, but even if it is somehow planned behavior, the very least the lack of feedback to the player that it has happened is infuriating.
All this may sound like I'm griping. And I am, dammit, none of these limitations are excusable. But the game itself is still marvelously addictive. In the couple of months I've had it I've played dozens of games, and it's yet to get old. In all, Civilzation Revolution is one of the best versions of Civilization. It might lack some of the epic sweep of other versions, but as a pick-up-and-play game that can be completed in an afternoon it's excellent. And the DS version, played on a portable, is well-suited towards just that scale of experience. It's a shame that the developers didn't have that vision for the game, because with a better UI this could well have been an Advance Wars killer. Even the game's bugs and maddening limitations can't quite diminish the brilliance here. It is just really nice to play.
--JohnH at 21:55
Comment
[ 3 ]
27 August 2008
GameStop sells returned games as new
Welcome to another Tales of Teh Suck! with JohnH.
I recently managed to find a copy of Geometry Wars Galaxies for Wii at a Circuit City for what turned out to be $17, even though it was marked $50. It was $17 of the best bucks I've spent on my Wii, an absolutely awesome game, arguably a better sequel to Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, from what I've seen, than the official sequel on Xbox Live Arcade.
It was good enough that I immediately started looking with interest at the copy of Geometry Wars Galaxies DS that had long been on the shelf at the local GameStop, the only place I had ever seen a physical copy of the game. Now this GameStop has, as one of its managers, an acquaintance of mine I knew from college. I don't know him really well, but he's always been pretty decent, and he's actually fairly knowledgeable about games and game accessories.
ASIDE: The thing about game store employees, and this is nearly a constant, is that the moment you're hired to stand behind the counter and accept money for software it's mandated that you consider yourself an expert in all things gamish. The way that the most spurious rumor will get accepted as fact is worse than sixth-graders at recess speculating about sex. Today I heard, in that store, that bluetooth controllers are super-easy to fry by disconnecting them, and that connecting a MadCatz controller, in addition to the usual problems with the discount accessory company's wares, could irreparably damage your console. Ahem.
In any event, I bought that copy of Geometry Wars DS for $19.99, new, from the New rack, and with a white price sticker on it attesting newness, and took it home to discover that there was a save file already on it! Someone named "ABC" had played and unlocked the first few planets already.
What would you do in a situation like this? By rights I should have taken it back and raised hell (and probably be branded Unmutual by doing so), but such was, and is, my mania for Geometry Wars that I didn't. I could just erase the created profile after all and the game would be as good as new.
But I was still bothered by it. Geometry Wars Galaxies DS is easy to revert to a new state by deleting all the profiles, but not all games are so easy. Some can only be reset by entering a special code, one that's almost never printed in the manual. And further, it was sold as a new game. They sell used games at a (often pitiful) discount after all. And I couldn't go back and demand a shrink-wrapped copy because, it seems, none of their DS games are shrink-wrapped. They keep the case on the shelf but the game cards in a drawer, it would seem, as an anti-theft measure. (This may also be true for console games, but I have not made any inquiries or rigorous observations on the subject.)
So anyway, I was in the store today in a bid to rid myself, at last, of CrossworDS, and I saw my manager friend in there, so I brought up the save file. What he told me right there in the store defies belief. He said that "if I'd look up" chain policy on the matter, that they reserve the right to sell returned games as new. While the policy pages on their website do stipulate that returned games must be in saleable condition, it makes no mention that I could find of how they are to be sold, as "used," "returned," or "refurbished." When I bought GWG DS, they didn't tell me that it was a returned copy. Since wear on a game disk or cart is invisible in small doses, it would have been undetectable. I only happened to notice it in this case because they hadn't erased the save file. For console games, which these days are all sold on disk, it would be universally undetectable unless the disk had actually been scratched.
GameStop, you suck.
I recently managed to find a copy of Geometry Wars Galaxies for Wii at a Circuit City for what turned out to be $17, even though it was marked $50. It was $17 of the best bucks I've spent on my Wii, an absolutely awesome game, arguably a better sequel to Geometry Wars Retro Evolved, from what I've seen, than the official sequel on Xbox Live Arcade.
It was good enough that I immediately started looking with interest at the copy of Geometry Wars Galaxies DS that had long been on the shelf at the local GameStop, the only place I had ever seen a physical copy of the game. Now this GameStop has, as one of its managers, an acquaintance of mine I knew from college. I don't know him really well, but he's always been pretty decent, and he's actually fairly knowledgeable about games and game accessories.
ASIDE: The thing about game store employees, and this is nearly a constant, is that the moment you're hired to stand behind the counter and accept money for software it's mandated that you consider yourself an expert in all things gamish. The way that the most spurious rumor will get accepted as fact is worse than sixth-graders at recess speculating about sex. Today I heard, in that store, that bluetooth controllers are super-easy to fry by disconnecting them, and that connecting a MadCatz controller, in addition to the usual problems with the discount accessory company's wares, could irreparably damage your console. Ahem.
In any event, I bought that copy of Geometry Wars DS for $19.99, new, from the New rack, and with a white price sticker on it attesting newness, and took it home to discover that there was a save file already on it! Someone named "ABC" had played and unlocked the first few planets already.
What would you do in a situation like this? By rights I should have taken it back and raised hell (and probably be branded Unmutual by doing so), but such was, and is, my mania for Geometry Wars that I didn't. I could just erase the created profile after all and the game would be as good as new.
But I was still bothered by it. Geometry Wars Galaxies DS is easy to revert to a new state by deleting all the profiles, but not all games are so easy. Some can only be reset by entering a special code, one that's almost never printed in the manual. And further, it was sold as a new game. They sell used games at a (often pitiful) discount after all. And I couldn't go back and demand a shrink-wrapped copy because, it seems, none of their DS games are shrink-wrapped. They keep the case on the shelf but the game cards in a drawer, it would seem, as an anti-theft measure. (This may also be true for console games, but I have not made any inquiries or rigorous observations on the subject.)
So anyway, I was in the store today in a bid to rid myself, at last, of CrossworDS, and I saw my manager friend in there, so I brought up the save file. What he told me right there in the store defies belief. He said that "if I'd look up" chain policy on the matter, that they reserve the right to sell returned games as new. While the policy pages on their website do stipulate that returned games must be in saleable condition, it makes no mention that I could find of how they are to be sold, as "used," "returned," or "refurbished." When I bought GWG DS, they didn't tell me that it was a returned copy. Since wear on a game disk or cart is invisible in small doses, it would have been undetectable. I only happened to notice it in this case because they hadn't erased the save file. For console games, which these days are all sold on disk, it would be universally undetectable unless the disk had actually been scratched.
GameStop, you suck.
--JohnH at 17:31
Comment
[ 5 ]
14 May 2008
NYT Crosswords vs CrossworDS
It's possible to take it for granted these days that, if it's a casual kind of game made for the DS and it's not published by Nintendo, then it's a sucky piece of trashware produced solely to cash in on the system's huge user base. And conversely, that Nintendo has produced a similar game that is much better.
That had been the case with Nintendogs (as opposed to Catz, Dogz, Horsez, and the horrifying "Babyz"), with the severely underrated Clubhouse Games, with the two Brain Age games... heck, the Sudoku applet in Brain Age is so clearly better than every other version of the puzzle on the DS that it brings one to a kind of despair. Why is Nintendo's Sudoku minigame so well-made when others' full Sudoku applications are so crappy? Putting these things together is not brain surgery. It's enough to make one wonder if Nintendo doesn't have a patent on non-stupid number grid entry on portable gaming computers (USPTO # 951827364).*
It would be easy to assume that Nintendo's version would be better than Majesco's. It is not, by a long shot.
From looking at the games, initial impressions would seem to indicate the usual first-party upstaging. Crossword DS has a brilliant interface nearly as good as Brain Age Sudoku, and with better character recognition despite having 16 more glyphs to distinguish. It's not obvious at first that Majesco's game HAS character recognition. Furthermore, that game's color schemes range an odious gamut from ugly to unreadable, while Nintendo notices that a crossword game that's not black boxes on white squares is a slight against the memory of Arthur Wynne.
Majesco's game commits a few other grave offenses, although they're only obvious compared to Nintendo's interface. NYT Crosswords shows only Across or Down clues at a time; Crosswords DS shows them both at once. NYT uses a thin-stemmed, seedy newsprint typeface for clues and what looks like hateful Comic Sans for entered letters; Crosswords DS uses sharp, thick-lined sans-serif characters for both. NYT uses annoying button assignments that make it far too easy to accidentally receive an irrevocable hint, and only offers one type of hint at that; Crosswords DS uses the book orientation popularized by Brain Age, ignores button presses in favor of a visual interface, and will give stuck players the option of seeing a single letter, a whole word, or even providing alternate, easier clues, ala GAMES Magazine's World's Most Ornery Crosswords. And while both programs offer more than a thousand puzzles, Crosswords DS also provides Word Search puzzles and Anagrams.
And yet, of the two, despite Nintendo's typical meticulous attention to usability, their product is far inferior where it counts. Ultimately, in a collection of crosswords, the quality of the puzzles is
paramount. The New York Times is just about the most respected source of puzzles out there, and Majesco's inclusion of several years of their output shows that, while they may not be the best at putting together an interface, they care about the puzzles themselves. And once gotten used to, the interface isn't really so bad.
The handwriting recognition particularly turns out to be pretty good when used, even if the drawing area is restricted to a small input box. The ugliness of the interface can be remedied by entering a code. This essential code is "up up down down B B Y Y," and instead of being hidden away on GameFAQs, it should be printed in large, boldface type on the front of the very box, just beneath the title. Thankfully, once entered it's saved to the game file, allowing players to forget the low-contrast sins of the original color scheme.
While NYT Crosswords features years of top-notch puzzles, ranging in difficulty from a relaxing pastime to uncommonly challenging, Crosswords DS's puzzles... well, to be honest, I don't really know how hard they become. You see, in the same way that Brain Age Sudoku starts out with only a selection of low and medium-difficulty puzzles available and a bunch more that must be unlocked, Crosswords DS also forces players to begin with easier puzzles before letting him tackle harder ones.
This wouldn't be so bad, except that the easy puzzles are grievously simple! We're talking 4x4 grids here, progressing up to 11x11 for the harder ones available at first. You should know that these puzzles are included in the game's puzzle count, so when the back of the box says over 1,000 puzzles, a good percentage of them is this slight fare. Even the New York Times Monday puzzles, the easiest of the lot in Majesco's title, are full-sized grids.
Furthermore, while the NYT clues are filled with the wit and cunning for which the Times crosswords are famous, Nintendo's clues honestly read like something better suited for elementary school students. Fill-in-the-blank clues are over-common, as well as slipshod "partial word" clues along the lines of "the farmer in the d _ _ _". While it's possible, should the player persevere through the featherweight stuff to get to the harder puzzles, that the package redeems itself, it is unlikely to match the New York Times' Will Shortz-edited output.
Yet even one of the subgames in Nintendo's package fall prey to this kind of shoddyness. The very first Anagrams puzzle accepts, and in fact requires, "lase," which is a real if obscure word defined by Answers.com in regards to lasers, yet rejects "ale." The Word Searches seem to be okay, although they are hampered by the fact that they're word searches, the decaffeinated coffee of word puzzles.
Were this a perfect world, or at least one less encumbered by exclusive licensing, we would have a game that combined Nintendo's wonderful interface with Majesco's formidable puzzle assortment. It's possible that the problems with Nintendo's game has to do with them trying to play to both kid and adult audiences, which would explain the near-beer clues and word search inclusion. I usually dispute claims that Nintendo's efforts to keep most of their games friendly to children ruins them for adults. For insecure adults, maybe. But in this case it certainly has.
* Don't look that number up; it's a joke.
That had been the case with Nintendogs (as opposed to Catz, Dogz, Horsez, and the horrifying "Babyz"), with the severely underrated Clubhouse Games, with the two Brain Age games... heck, the Sudoku applet in Brain Age is so clearly better than every other version of the puzzle on the DS that it brings one to a kind of despair. Why is Nintendo's Sudoku minigame so well-made when others' full Sudoku applications are so crappy? Putting these things together is not brain surgery. It's enough to make one wonder if Nintendo doesn't have a patent on non-stupid number grid entry on portable gaming computers (USPTO # 951827364).*
It would be easy to assume that Nintendo's version would be better than Majesco's. It is not, by a long shot.
From looking at the games, initial impressions would seem to indicate the usual first-party upstaging. Crossword DS has a brilliant interface nearly as good as Brain Age Sudoku, and with better character recognition despite having 16 more glyphs to distinguish. It's not obvious at first that Majesco's game HAS character recognition. Furthermore, that game's color schemes range an odious gamut from ugly to unreadable, while Nintendo notices that a crossword game that's not black boxes on white squares is a slight against the memory of Arthur Wynne.
Majesco's game commits a few other grave offenses, although they're only obvious compared to Nintendo's interface. NYT Crosswords shows only Across or Down clues at a time; Crosswords DS shows them both at once. NYT uses a thin-stemmed, seedy newsprint typeface for clues and what looks like hateful Comic Sans for entered letters; Crosswords DS uses sharp, thick-lined sans-serif characters for both. NYT uses annoying button assignments that make it far too easy to accidentally receive an irrevocable hint, and only offers one type of hint at that; Crosswords DS uses the book orientation popularized by Brain Age, ignores button presses in favor of a visual interface, and will give stuck players the option of seeing a single letter, a whole word, or even providing alternate, easier clues, ala GAMES Magazine's World's Most Ornery Crosswords. And while both programs offer more than a thousand puzzles, Crosswords DS also provides Word Search puzzles and Anagrams.
And yet, of the two, despite Nintendo's typical meticulous attention to usability, their product is far inferior where it counts. Ultimately, in a collection of crosswords, the quality of the puzzles is
paramount. The New York Times is just about the most respected source of puzzles out there, and Majesco's inclusion of several years of their output shows that, while they may not be the best at putting together an interface, they care about the puzzles themselves. And once gotten used to, the interface isn't really so bad.
The handwriting recognition particularly turns out to be pretty good when used, even if the drawing area is restricted to a small input box. The ugliness of the interface can be remedied by entering a code. This essential code is "up up down down B B Y Y," and instead of being hidden away on GameFAQs, it should be printed in large, boldface type on the front of the very box, just beneath the title. Thankfully, once entered it's saved to the game file, allowing players to forget the low-contrast sins of the original color scheme.
While NYT Crosswords features years of top-notch puzzles, ranging in difficulty from a relaxing pastime to uncommonly challenging, Crosswords DS's puzzles... well, to be honest, I don't really know how hard they become. You see, in the same way that Brain Age Sudoku starts out with only a selection of low and medium-difficulty puzzles available and a bunch more that must be unlocked, Crosswords DS also forces players to begin with easier puzzles before letting him tackle harder ones.
This wouldn't be so bad, except that the easy puzzles are grievously simple! We're talking 4x4 grids here, progressing up to 11x11 for the harder ones available at first. You should know that these puzzles are included in the game's puzzle count, so when the back of the box says over 1,000 puzzles, a good percentage of them is this slight fare. Even the New York Times Monday puzzles, the easiest of the lot in Majesco's title, are full-sized grids.
Furthermore, while the NYT clues are filled with the wit and cunning for which the Times crosswords are famous, Nintendo's clues honestly read like something better suited for elementary school students. Fill-in-the-blank clues are over-common, as well as slipshod "partial word" clues along the lines of "the farmer in the d _ _ _". While it's possible, should the player persevere through the featherweight stuff to get to the harder puzzles, that the package redeems itself, it is unlikely to match the New York Times' Will Shortz-edited output.
Yet even one of the subgames in Nintendo's package fall prey to this kind of shoddyness. The very first Anagrams puzzle accepts, and in fact requires, "lase," which is a real if obscure word defined by Answers.com in regards to lasers, yet rejects "ale." The Word Searches seem to be okay, although they are hampered by the fact that they're word searches, the decaffeinated coffee of word puzzles.
Were this a perfect world, or at least one less encumbered by exclusive licensing, we would have a game that combined Nintendo's wonderful interface with Majesco's formidable puzzle assortment. It's possible that the problems with Nintendo's game has to do with them trying to play to both kid and adult audiences, which would explain the near-beer clues and word search inclusion. I usually dispute claims that Nintendo's efforts to keep most of their games friendly to children ruins them for adults. For insecure adults, maybe. But in this case it certainly has.
* Don't look that number up; it's a joke.
Labels: crosswords, crosswordsds, ds, majesco, newyorktimes, nintendo, nyt, portable
--JohnH at 06:31
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08 November 2007
Sonic Rush Adventure is Confused
Sonic Rush Adventure seems to have gathered itself a plethora of relatively encouraging review scores. I'm no mathematician, but I'm going to say that it gets about an 8/10 on average.
Which it sort of should, but mostly shouldn't.
It's actual levels are all fine. Running, jumping, smashing enemies open, it's all very Sonic. Classic Sonic, one might say. Let it be known at this point that I like Sonic, and I've played pretty much everything that Sega have churned out with his spiky blue face on the cover. Sure, most of them are utter guff, but that's besides the point.
I still don't understand why Sega feel a need to inject unnecessary peripheral garbage into the games. Sonic Rush had a nice balance, I thought. Enough story for Sega to congratulate themselves on creating something, but mostly just levels. Bosses were a bit of a bore, but you can't win them all and, thank god, at least it wasn't Sonic 360.
So, all well and good. Sega felt a need to create a sequel. First thing they did was add in another animal character for plot purposes. Nobody cares, Sega. Then they didn't get Hideki Naganuma to do the soundtrack, which is a shame. Then they put way too much focus on some drab stylus-based mini-game with a boat. Yawn.
I have to watch about ten minutes of cut-scenes before I can play some of the fun levels. Then I need to plot out routes with the stylus. I get why they're doing it; they're trying to justify the “Adventure” suffix they've slapped onto the game. Well, Sega, Phantom Hourglass has got that area covered. There's my adventure. I want some platform game, okay?
I feel a need to re-emphasise that the platforming part of Sonic Rush Adventure is great. But that's it.
Sega's problem with Sonic is that they fail to stick with one idea. Nintendo are very aware of Mario and, as such, games like New Super Mario Bros and Mario Galaxy are very polished, refined games that stick to the platforming. The Mario Party series has lots of mini-games. The RPG series caters for a more adventurous slant. Granted, we end up with a lot of Mario games, but at least they're not a confused mish-mash of wannabe genres like Sonic Rush Adventure.
Which it sort of should, but mostly shouldn't.
It's actual levels are all fine. Running, jumping, smashing enemies open, it's all very Sonic. Classic Sonic, one might say. Let it be known at this point that I like Sonic, and I've played pretty much everything that Sega have churned out with his spiky blue face on the cover. Sure, most of them are utter guff, but that's besides the point.
I still don't understand why Sega feel a need to inject unnecessary peripheral garbage into the games. Sonic Rush had a nice balance, I thought. Enough story for Sega to congratulate themselves on creating something, but mostly just levels. Bosses were a bit of a bore, but you can't win them all and, thank god, at least it wasn't Sonic 360.
So, all well and good. Sega felt a need to create a sequel. First thing they did was add in another animal character for plot purposes. Nobody cares, Sega. Then they didn't get Hideki Naganuma to do the soundtrack, which is a shame. Then they put way too much focus on some drab stylus-based mini-game with a boat. Yawn.
I have to watch about ten minutes of cut-scenes before I can play some of the fun levels. Then I need to plot out routes with the stylus. I get why they're doing it; they're trying to justify the “Adventure” suffix they've slapped onto the game. Well, Sega, Phantom Hourglass has got that area covered. There's my adventure. I want some platform game, okay?
I feel a need to re-emphasise that the platforming part of Sonic Rush Adventure is great. But that's it.
Sega's problem with Sonic is that they fail to stick with one idea. Nintendo are very aware of Mario and, as such, games like New Super Mario Bros and Mario Galaxy are very polished, refined games that stick to the platforming. The Mario Party series has lots of mini-games. The RPG series caters for a more adventurous slant. Granted, we end up with a lot of Mario games, but at least they're not a confused mish-mash of wannabe genres like Sonic Rush Adventure.
--Martin at 16:22
Comment
[ 3 ]
05 July 2007
Bill Budge Pinball Construction Set reborn?
Saw Powershot Pinball Constructor for Nintendo DS on Game | Life and have added it to my want list.
I hope they don't screw this up, because the idea -- especially on the stylus-wielding system -- is brilliant. Just like it was years ago when Bill Budge did it on 8-bit computers:
GameSpot has more images here (of the new NDS game, not the classic).
I hope they don't screw this up, because the idea -- especially on the stylus-wielding system -- is brilliant. Just like it was years ago when Bill Budge did it on 8-bit computers:
GameSpot has more images here (of the new NDS game, not the classic).Labels: construction kits, ds, pinball
--jvm at 15:07
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[ 1 ]
08 April 2007
Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP: Game pricing update
With the basic PSP dropping to $169.99, I felt it was time to see what had changed since I did some rudimentary number crunching on Nintendo DS and Sony PSP game prices five months ago. Not only has the system price dropped, but publishers have abandoned $50 PSP games. Average PSP game prices have shifted down $2.16, although it still has more high priced games than the Nintendo DS. During the same period, average DS game prices have come down about $1.68.
Here's the key result:
Some of the drop in the average PSP game price can be attributed to the disappearance of $49.99 games. In November 2006, the PSP had one such game. Removing just that one game from the November data would have dropped the average price of a PSP game by $0.16.
The only PSP game that currently lists for $49.99 is the PSP version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, an unreleased game slated for a December 2007 launch. (As it is unreleased, it isn't figured in the numbers shown in this article.)
Other points of interest:
The disappearance of the $50 game makes things a bit harder for publishers on the PSP. Being able to charge $50 for a PSP game was one advantage that system had over the DS. It would be interesting to know if publishers have made a pricing decision based on market conditions or whether Sony has set a $40 ceiling on PSP game prices. I suspect that Nintendo generally won't let publishers charge $40 on the Nintendo DS, although an exception has clearly been made for Final Fantasy III DS.
Now that the $50 option is missing, the big name PSP titles launch at $40. Moreover, I suspect that some publishers are less likely to stay at $40 as long when there are no games in the higher $50 bracket. Notably, even Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories can command only a $30 price tag six months after it was released; by comparison, Liberty City Stories stayed at $50 for almost the entire first year after its release.
I look forward to examining sales data over the coming months to see if the hardware and software price adjustments affect PSP sales.
Feel free to download the data for yourself: OpenOffice ODS, plaintext CSV.
Here's the key result:
| Average Game Price | Mid-Nov 2006 | Mid-Apr 2007 |
| DS | $28.97 | $27.29 |
| PSP | $31.97 | $29.83 |
Some of the drop in the average PSP game price can be attributed to the disappearance of $49.99 games. In November 2006, the PSP had one such game. Removing just that one game from the November data would have dropped the average price of a PSP game by $0.16.
The only PSP game that currently lists for $49.99 is the PSP version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, an unreleased game slated for a December 2007 launch. (As it is unreleased, it isn't figured in the numbers shown in this article.)
Other points of interest:
- EB Games lists 102 new games for the Nintendo DS and 94 new games for the PSP. This doesn't count out-of-stock and unreleased games, so the numbers could shift 2-3 games either way in a day's time.
- The median game price for each system is $29.99.
- About 33% of all PSP games retail for under $25. Around 41% of Nintendo DS games are below the $25 level.
- About 1/3 of all PSP games retail for $39.99. Only one Nintendo DS game sells for that price (Final Fantasy III DS), while about 23% of Nintendo DS games retail for over $30.
- 18 out of 22 Nintendo DS games priced at $34.99 are Nintendo-published games.
The disappearance of the $50 game makes things a bit harder for publishers on the PSP. Being able to charge $50 for a PSP game was one advantage that system had over the DS. It would be interesting to know if publishers have made a pricing decision based on market conditions or whether Sony has set a $40 ceiling on PSP game prices. I suspect that Nintendo generally won't let publishers charge $40 on the Nintendo DS, although an exception has clearly been made for Final Fantasy III DS.Now that the $50 option is missing, the big name PSP titles launch at $40. Moreover, I suspect that some publishers are less likely to stay at $40 as long when there are no games in the higher $50 bracket. Notably, even Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories can command only a $30 price tag six months after it was released; by comparison, Liberty City Stories stayed at $50 for almost the entire first year after its release.
I look forward to examining sales data over the coming months to see if the hardware and software price adjustments affect PSP sales.
Feel free to download the data for yourself: OpenOffice ODS, plaintext CSV.
--jvm at 01:36
Comment
[ 7 ]
23 March 2007
Touch the Dead
With a name like Touch the Dead, how can a fan of Typing of the Dead and Pinball of the Dead pass it up? As seen on GSW.
Update: Ruffin prodded me with links to the official site and some images of the game from IGN. Motivated to look further, I found some others on Worth Playing which show both screens and appear to be from last month.
Update: Ruffin prodded me with links to the official site and some images of the game from IGN. Motivated to look further, I found some others on Worth Playing which show both screens and appear to be from last month.
Labels: ds
--jvm at 11:16
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[ 1 ]
23 February 2007
Why, yes, the GameStop/EB Games merger was a bad idea...
Chulip is a quirky PlayStation 2 title I've been watching and considering buying. It can currently only be bought in the United States through EB Games/GameStop. That is both surprising and dismaying.
Maybe the only way it could have been published was to secure a distribution deal with a huge retailer ahead of time, and EB Games/GameStop fits that description. However, it is precisely this kind of exclusivity crap that I fear will get out of control and lead to an even more consumer-hostile environment.
And Chulip isn't the only game. Settlers DS is getting the same treatment.
Maybe the only way it could have been published was to secure a distribution deal with a huge retailer ahead of time, and EB Games/GameStop fits that description. However, it is precisely this kind of exclusivity crap that I fear will get out of control and lead to an even more consumer-hostile environment.
And Chulip isn't the only game. Settlers DS is getting the same treatment.
Labels: business, ds, game stores, ps2
--jvm at 22:11
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[ 4 ]
04 January 2007
Not dead
I hate to start the new year this way, but I literally have nothing to say. The news has been light and nothing I've read has particularly interested me. I'm busy playing games (Final Fantasy III DS and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops) and doing some reading.
For what it's worth, I'm considering an LCD TV over a PS3 for the time being. So there is that.
For what it's worth, I'm considering an LCD TV over a PS3 for the time being. So there is that.
--jvm at 21:04
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[ 7 ]
13 December 2006
Nintendo DS: sold out
A post on NeoGAF reminded me that I'd expected the Nintendo DS to sell out this holiday season. I just did a quick check and Amazon, EB Games/GameStop, Wal-Mart, and Target all list every version of the Nintendo DS as out of stock or, in the case of Target, available in stores only. (I might be in a local Target soon to have a look at their stock.)
Nintendo sold almost a million Nintendo DS systems in the U.S. during the month of November alone. If they can keep the stores stocked, they'll be able to hit that or more in December. It now appears that's could be a fairly significant "if".
Nintendo sold almost a million Nintendo DS systems in the U.S. during the month of November alone. If they can keep the stores stocked, they'll be able to hit that or more in December. It now appears that's could be a fairly significant "if".
--jvm at 20:49
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[ 3 ]
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