Everyone Is a Sith: Saints win the [chat]

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Saints win the [chat]

41 comments:

_J_ said...: This officially makes up for Katrina.

Officially.; February 7, 2010 at 10:51 PM
Caleb said...: No, you've got it all wrong. This was God punishing America for not overturning Rowe v. Wade.

Go Colts!; February 8, 2010 at 12:06 AM
_J_ said...: ...

That makes much more sense, Caleb.; February 8, 2010 at 12:52 AM
Mike Lewis said...: one comment i saw on the twitters or a blog was like, i kinda wish W was still the president so he had to look these guys in the eye when the come to the white house.

also, the ads, super terrible this year. but sarah's food was awesome.; February 8, 2010 at 9:35 AM
jet said...: I did not have any of Sarah's food...so...my evening was just a major lame.; February 8, 2010 at 3:16 PM
MA17 said...: So, Master of the Monster Lair. It's one of those DS RPGs that emphasizes dungeon exploration over virtually everything else. Whereas Etrian Odyssey was about drawing dungeon maps, MML is about making the dungeon itself.

It's a tight premise and although the repetition of running through your own damn dungeon sets in after about the second level, my interest remains sufficient to continue onward.

Full review to follow after I either finish the game or snap it in half and throw the halves into an oven.; February 8, 2010 at 5:57 PM
_J_ said...: The covers over my ceiling lights were once graveyards to ladybugs and moths which had flew too close to the sun.

Now the covers are clean and sparkly.; February 8, 2010 at 6:04 PM
Roscoe said...: Adam, what is it about the DS that makes it the GO TO system for.. bizzare throw back RPGS to ... not THRIVE.. but.. .. well.. no.. Thrive works.. infest.; February 9, 2010 at 1:42 PM
Unknown said...: It is by far the cheapest console to develop for and it has deeply penetrated the market, making it easier to reach the few people who would pick up these games.; February 9, 2010 at 3:46 PM
Unknown said...: This is also the reason so many experimental games are released on the DS.; February 9, 2010 at 3:47 PM
Mike Lewis said...: i think market share has more to do with it than cost.

It turns out that developers are fleeing the wii for iphone/touch.

which makes since i guess. iphone is based around common language (Objective-C) and a bunch of open graphic standards.; February 9, 2010 at 3:53 PM
Mike Lewis said...: speaking of awesome stuff

Sketch Pad is a full blown, web based drawning program written completely in HTML 5 (it also looks like there is a little CSS as well); February 9, 2010 at 3:54 PM
Unknown said...: I wouldn't call Objective-C a common language. The DS API is similar to OpenGL which is about as common as it gets for the given market.; February 9, 2010 at 4:10 PM
Mike Lewis said...: okay - i was under the understanding the Objective-C was a derivative of C++ but mac flavored.

also, everything one needs to develop for the iphone family apple gives away for free.; February 9, 2010 at 6:45 PM
_J_ said...: Phil from Deadliest Catch died; February 10, 2010 at 12:36 AM
Unknown said...: Objective-C is more a derivative of C that went a different direction than C++.; February 10, 2010 at 10:12 AM
Mike Lewis said...: so, what we have learned is that one should not listen to the guy who muddles his way through HTML/CSS with the help of google search's and an old book when discussing technical matters of game development.

that said, i have not touched my DS since i got an iphone.; February 10, 2010 at 11:20 AM
Roscoe said...: well.... certainly. Game price would factor into THAT equation as well, though.. and device consolidation, etc.

That said, the iPhone? Not remotely as robust a platform, is it? Especially considering this conversation began with RPGs..

Just wondering aloud if the two devices serve mostly disparate markets by now..; February 10, 2010 at 4:32 PM
Mike Lewis said...: the platform not being robust? how?

internet says that the DS has has two ARM 7 CPS running at 67MHz and the iphone 3G/ipod touch has ARM Cortex-A8 running at 600 MHz and a dedicated graphics chip in the newest models of each.

so on Raw power, the iphone is about 10x better. Now, that is not a super fair comparison because the iphone is more closely related to a standard computer. the DS is based around playing largely sprite based games.

the catalog is a completely different issue. yeah, there are a lot of very nichey RPGs for the DS, but you cannot say there are not games on the touch that do not appeal to core gamers.; February 10, 2010 at 5:56 PM
Mike Lewis said...: that being said, there are tons of bizzare and eccentric games for the iphone. I have been playing the shit out of "falling ball" and ReBounce; February 10, 2010 at 5:59 PM
Unknown said...: I would say it isn't as robust in that the user interface is painfully limited compared to a DS. Both implement a touch screen (given the iPhone's is larger and more robust), where as a the DS also implements a D-pad plus 8 buttons. I think they have similar amount of screen space.; February 11, 2010 at 12:34 AM
_J_ said...: "That said, the iPhone? Not remotely as robust a platform, is it?"

Let's assume that we've had a 3 hour conversation about what "robust" means and then got bored with that adjective.

My guess is that the DS / iPhone distinction occurs along these lines:

Controls:
Buttons are pretty great. Touch screens are ok. ONLY touch screen is kinda lame.

Storage Space:
iPhone has a lot of internal storage space, but people probably do not want to download a 500 MB iPhone game, whereas a 500 MB DS game would not be a problem since it's on a little card.

Marketshare:
Lots of people own iPhones and will plunk out $.99 for a tetris clone.

I like playing games on my iPod touch. There is this game called "pets" which is like an mmo version of pokemon...kind of. I like playing Clash of Heroes on my DS.

They are two very different "systems" that do different sorts of things.

bla bla bla; February 11, 2010 at 2:26 AM
Roscoe said...: Catalog, Storage Space/andor Game size were my big options.

iTunes games seem to be a bit.. smaller/shorter/more casual.

Though I recognize entirely that's a flimsy general statement..

Robust is.. well.. J's right, it's not a great term. What I'm wondering right this moment, though.. is if the iPhone would make a good format for things like Genetos or Tumiki Fighter...

Homemade art-shooters, etc that are art intensive but small on the file/game size.; February 11, 2010 at 1:27 PM
Mike Lewis said...: i just checked - DS cards can hold about 50 megs on the ROM and somwhere in the 15meg range for saves. graphics heavy iphone games from from 30megs (Rolando) to 200 megs for GT Racing.; February 11, 2010 at 3:32 PM
Mike Lewis said...: an upcoming iphone game.; February 11, 2010 at 3:36 PM
_J_ said...: According to the wikipedia page there are a billion and a half different kinds of DS cards. Wikipedia may be incorrect.

That game looks enjoyable. It would be more enjoyable with a directional pad and buttons.

I want to agree with Roscoe insofar as I want to posit a qualitative difference between the gaming experience on a DS and the gaming experiece on an iPhone. I just do not know what the difference is.

My contention is not that one is a phone and the other is a gaming platform. Toss that idea right out.

If we just look at the DS, and just look at the iPhone / iPod Touch as gaming platforms...what is the difference?

DS: Go out, buy a cartridge, play the game.
iPhone: Download the game via app store.

DS: Analog controls.
iPhone: Touch Screen.

Other than that, aesthetics aside, the two systems are very similar in their being portable, battery powered little mobile gaming systems.

It feels like the DS is a gaming platform on which one would find a Final Fantasy esque RPG and the iPhone would be a way to play bejeweled.

But I cannot think of anything which would preclude, say, Final Fantasy or Kirby running on the iPhone...

Other than buttons? I cannot discern a difference.; February 11, 2010 at 4:25 PM
Roscoe said...: I wonder if it's the cartridge buying aspect of it.

I mean.. I consciously want to discount the link Mike put up to a pretty damned beautiful Gauntlet clone with an interesting thumb-control scheme on the touchpad..

Without any good reason, on pure assumption, I get the impression it'd be a bit short and/or repetitive.. And I've got absolutely NOTHING to back that up except that you're not paying for a physical artifact.. Which obviously doesn't support my reasoning.

And yet.. while we've all paid too much for a far too short GBA/DS game.. we've also all paid for games that were longer than we expected on those carts, too. Maybe it's just that my experience with phone/downloadable games has never brought any parity to me with the full-fledged/lengthy games on the dedicated systems..

I dunno. Now I'm wondering if Civ Revolutions came out for iPhone...; February 11, 2010 at 5:22 PM
Mike Lewis said...: Civ Revolutions is out for the iphone.; February 11, 2010 at 5:52 PM
Mike Lewis said...: for the sake of this discussion: Here are the games i have bought and played on the iphone (ones with * are games that are currently on my phone)

- Archon (battle chess but more complex)
- Auditorum (puzzle game)
- Crossbones (Puzzle game)
- Cube Runner* (tunnel nav game)
- falling ball*
- Fieldrunner* (tower defense game)
- MotionX poker* (poker dice)
- reBounce*(Puzzle / brick breaking game)
- Rolando 1 & 2 (smiler to LocoRoco)
- Tap defense (tower defense game)
- traffic rush (puzzle game)
- Peggle (its fucking peggle)
- UniWar - similar to advenced war on the DS)

As we all know my taste in video games is puzzles platformers. most RPG's do nothing for me. FF7 was awesome to replay on the PS3 a few months ago but i do not know if i will get the next one when it comes out.

i have pre-ordered Heavy Rain.; February 11, 2010 at 6:01 PM
Unknown said...: I would say that game is more of a Smash TV or Zombie Apocalypse clone than a gauntlet clone. The controls are identical.; February 11, 2010 at 6:05 PM
_J_ said...: I wonder what happens to the cartridge criteria when we recognize that PSP games went to direct download.

And, you know, Steam.; February 11, 2010 at 11:22 PM
Roscoe said...: Yeah.. I think Mikey's last post there encapsulates the difference, without being clear about it.

(hang on.. 1- Kyle, it's clearly a Robotron clone. From which Gauntlet and Smash both have their roots)

The thing about Mikey's post is.. those are all fairly full, and yet, very CASUAL games... and his own personal preference in games, as defined by our previous history of console gaming.. makes no appearance. Unless Rolando counts.. and that's.. well.. Rolando/LocoRoco.. those are the epitome of blending a causal puzzle mechanic with a platformer, no?

I mean, I fucking KNOW Archon and Auditorium are brilliant, polished games.. but they both fall slightly outside of "traditional console" fare...

AS for digital distribution.. god.. I honestly don't know. That circles back to both the PC vs Console as platform series of diatribes, and the heyday of the PC Gaming rig.....Take a look at how much on Steam/Greenhouse/GOG, etc.. that are rereleases of old games...; February 11, 2010 at 11:41 PM
_J_ said...: I wonder what the relation is between a casual game and a technologically simplistic game. Do we equate these two?

Is it the case that a game is casual until it has X levels or bosses or characters or something?

If we put Bejeweled next to WoW then, yeah, Bejeweled has much less in terms of code...which translates to less...shit in the game.

But if "casual" just means "less shit", if those are equal terms...then it seems silly to talk about "casual" and "hardcore" and rather we can just talk about how many MB the game code occupies on a storage card.; February 12, 2010 at 1:37 AM
Unknown said...: For the most part casual, to me means, less immersive. Technologically, iphone games are much more complicated than say Dwarf Fortress, and Dwarf Fortress is about as far from casual gaming as one can get.

I think casual just comes down to a game a person can play in a short duration of time (less than 30 minutes). I think for the most part they as a rule should not have any sort of narrative or complications outside of the mechanics of the games themselves.; February 12, 2010 at 2:18 AM
Mike Lewis said...: while the WoW / bejeweled comparison makes a good point - it is not a fair comparison.

I think we need to stick to talking about hand held games for the moment.

the games i keep on my phone are games that i can play while waiting in line to get coffee or play with one hand while on the train/bus. to say these games are not immersive is bullshit. I have gotten lost in plenty of hand held games. but i generally want to play that sort of game on my couch not on a train.

we need to get past this casual/hardcore dichotomy. It is only a way to pass negative judgment on games one does not like.

instread i think we need to talk about core-gamers v. non-core gamers.

core games are people like us, who talk/aruge about games at all sorts of levels, non-core gamers are people who play freecell at there desk at work but never go beyond that. or people who bought wii's 2 years ago because they were trendy and have not played them since

also, New Super Mario Bros Wii is fucking hard.; February 12, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Unknown said...: New super mario brother's wii is really easy, i thought. They give you an Oh Shit button in multiplayer in which you can save yourself from dying from just about anything.

I didn't say hand held games a whole are not immersive. I said casual games are not immersive. If they were immersive, then they wouldn't be something you can play while waiting in line to get coffee. Noncasual games require a commitment from the player that a casual game doesn't, thus the term casual.

If I play a round of Bejeweled and have to quit to go do something else, then I just do it with no emotional response, unless I'm having the Bejeweled game of my life, which by definition isn't very often. If I were to try to do the same thing with Demon's Souls, for example, I would probably be frustrated with whatever distracted me.; February 12, 2010 at 2:07 PM
Mike Lewis said...: it took sarah and i about 50 times to beat Bowser. the Oh-shit button only helps if you hit in time.; February 12, 2010 at 4:48 PM
_J_ said...: "the Oh-shit button only helps if you hit in time."

Kind of like a quick-time event.; February 12, 2010 at 5:46 PM
Mike Lewis said...: only worse.; February 12, 2010 at 6:36 PM
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Everyone Is a Sith

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Saints win the [chat]

41 comments:

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