Pharra

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Game Reviews: Continuing to provide us what we don't want

I'm glad that someone is writing about how games are reviewed, because the current model is utter crap. Examples otherwise are far and few between.

First of all, game reviews start out with the fictional setting of the game and its story, when gamers really want to know first and foremost "What kind of game is it?" If it's a 3d game, what kind of 3d game is it? 1st person? 3rd person? What do you do? Drive cars? Wander a haunted, indoor environment?

Also important but often omitted: Does the game have cooperative play? Versus play? If there is a multiplayer component, what is it like? How does it operate?

Many NDS games to date have woefully pitiful explanations as to what the multiplayer mode is or does.

After the mechanics of the game are settled upon the fictional setting can be told.

GP2X and Retro Gaming

Retro Gaming
I didn't know there was a GameCube GBA Player. I feel, humbled at my lack of knowledge. I try to not let anything worthwhile in gaming pass me by - a lesson I learned from missing out on the heydays of the SNES and some GameCube games.

I didn't miss out on Shadow of the Colossus! I think I have the 'net's only remaining copy of their technical rundown of how they made the game in English.

GP2X specific Retro Gaming
MAME on the GP2X seems baaad. ROMs that run craptastically in MAME run great on the CPS2 emulator.

Different NEO GEO games like different settings so I'm trying to figure out how to create indifidual "CF" settings files for the Rage2X frontend of the GnGeo emulator. One shoe does not fit every iteration of Samurai Shodown.

NEO GEO Retro Gaming
My 10yo has found she enjoys the Samurai Shodown series (she hasn't seen the bad ones yet, just I and II) and the penultimate 2005 ROM of King of Fighters.

In King of Fighters I pick ... this really big guy who has a toddler son ... and press heavy kick. To mock her, I put my right hand on my head and use one finger - that rests on the heavy kick button, and every time I attack I say "Kick to the Head!" She can't figure out how to approach me, either while walking, jumping, or attacking while doing either of those, without receiving "Kick to the Head!"

She did find a guy who wields a pole-arm that beats this strategy quite well.

My other trick is saying "Block Low." I can pick any fast character and do this, though it's funnier with the drunken master. I run up to her and say "Block Low" just before I attack (I say "Kick to the Head" after or as I kick). While she has kind of figured out how to "Block Low" she hasn't figured out what attacks always counter a low attack, so I usually end up either KO'ing her or knocking her down a lot.

Until she found the guy with the bo-staff I could go through all 3 of her characters with "Kick to the Head!" My right shoulder was almost bruised the first night, so I warned her I'd hit back the next night.

This all makes it sound like she can't play : Samurai Shodown proves she can, and she can pull off several special moves in King of Fighters. She just doesn't understand timing well, or when to block - the old adage of "I know my opponent is about to attack, I'll block now and hit him next." Unfortunately for her, these are the perennial necessities of fighting games. She'll learn it eventually, because I don't always choose my "Kick to the Head!" character.

But at any rate, we've been enjoying nightly sessions of MAME. There's only, like, a thousand game to try. For some reason she asks for Samurai Shodown and "Kick to the Head!" I mean King of Fighters.