h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Up until this week I had given up on the computer games market. Over the past 6 years my interest has gradually waned in the computer games market with the lack of creativity hitting Hollywood standards.

Then I did something I rarely ever do. I bought something in the spare of the moment. I managed to haggle with one of the shop assistants at Game for a Game Cube, and finally bought it.

Best decision I have made in years. Metroid Prime is excellent, and Star Wars : Rogue Leaderis amazing. I'm thinking about getting Resident Evil, and Legend of Zelda when it comes out. Don't believe the cr*p about it being a kids machine. Do you think kids don't buy X-Box's and PS2's? The GC is one serious piece of kit.

Looking back at what I have written it looks like the worst piece of spam ever, but I say it as I see it.

I admit it : I would love to see Nintendo back at the very top, and still very much see Sony and Microsoft as invaders in the computer games industry. They're not games companies they're businesses. Admittedly very good businesses.

But anyway if there was a time to get a game cube it would be now, with the huge selection of games and the dropping price of the machine.

Anyway, I'll wait for my fiver in the post from the head of the big "N" any day now .

Nah , I'm just wondering what anyone else thinks. Like me do you see it as a tragedy that a company that is still winning awards for the quality of its games is being overlooked? Or do you prefer the regurgitated stuff of the PS2 and the X-Box (Halo excluded...maybe). Or maybe you completely disagree with me and see it a different way. Who knows .

Verc

BTW : I will not accept any arguements about Zelda, Star Wars and Metroid being regurgitated stuff. They are completely original games in all but name.

Hmm... well... I hope X-Box fails dismally... but then I tend to be rather anti-Microsoft

I'm not a consoles kinda guy, but if I was... hmm... I'd probably go for a PS2. Why? It's the one I've heard most about...

When I play games I play PC games, and good ones too... NetHack, anyone? (alright, not strictly a PC game, but still...)

(If you've never played NetHack, it's a free download and has been for longer than I've been alive... well worth getting into)

(er, this post seems to have drifted a bit... er... never mind)

I was about to leap to the defence of the PS2... then I looked at my shelf.

Unreal Tournament: a sequel, and a FPS.
Timesplitters 2: a sequel, and a FPS
Hitman 2: a sequel, and a third person stealth mission shooter.
Tenchu 3: a sequel, and a third person stealth mission shooter (sort of)
MGS2: a sequel, and a third person stealth mission shooter.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4: press x to jump, [] to do a flip trick, o to do a grab trick, and ^ to grind. And a sequel
Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder: press x to jump, [] to do a flip trick, o to do a grab trick, and ^ to grind.
Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX 2: press x to jump, [] to do a flip trick, o to do a grab trick, and ^ to grind. And a sequel.
Grand Theft Auto Vice City: Commit various crimes, then hijack cars and drive around a sumptuous 3D city to the next checkpoint for the next mission. A sequel.
The Getaway: Commit various crimes, then hijack cars and drive around a sumptuous 3D city to the next checkpoint for the next mission.
Virtua Fighter 4: beat the beejeezus out of some poor f****r. A sequel.

The one and only game in my collection currently which is in any way original is "Stuntman" - not a sequel, and while it does involve driving cars around it is NOT a racing game, not a "hijack" game and not a battle game.

But here's a thing - I still like all those games. I did not buy Tenchu 3 because I thought it was going to be original. I bought it because I thought it was going to be like Tenchu 1 and 2, but better. It happens that I don't think it IS better than 2 - but it IS better than 1, and that means it's excellent.

People do talk a lot about the golden age of originality in gaming in the eighties, and bemoan the preponderance of sequels and lack of innovation.

But games these days cost literally millions to develop - the days of spotty nerks bashing out 48k of machine code in their bedroom in eight weeks and topping the charts are gone.

Like it or not, gaming IS a business, and part of the reason for Sony's massive success is their recognition of that. But another part of it is their recognition that they can't do it alone. The reason the PS1 annihilated the N64 was that Sony allowed pretty much anyone to write games for it, while Nintendo were strictly controlling access to dev kits and requiring a big cut of ALL carts sold. So sure, there were massive amounts of real dross released for PS1, while the N64 had some real quality (Goldeneye, Mario World). But PS1 hosted Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, WipeOut, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid, Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo - genre-defining games all.

To an extent I do NOT think the PS2, despite its bigger numbers, had the same effect on the industry, simply because the PS1 crossed the biggest boundary - the one marked "3D".

Before PS1, games were either in 2D (e.g. Street Fighter, Mario Bros.) and used sprites, or were in 3D with sprites (e.g. SNES Doom) or polygons (Starfox) which looked blocky.

Then came Tomb Raider and Tekken. Suddenly there were recognisably human characters on the screen in full motion 3D. We can of course now render those characters in more photorealistic detail, but I don't think there will ever again be an advance in on-screen gaming to compare with the leap to real 3D.

All I can say to someone who says "get a Gamecube" is: yeah, those games ARE great. But Halo in coop 2 player mode is probably the single most absorbing gaming experience I've had, ever. And there are gems on PS2, too. The trick is, as it always has been, sorting out the entertainment from the dross, and with the explosion of the internet you don't even have to buy a magazine to do that any more. Find an online reviewer you trust (i.e. who likes the same stuff you do) and look at what they're playing.

I think I lost the point somewhere along the way....

H.

"I don't think there will ever again be an advance in on-screen gaming to compare with the leap to real 3D"... want to bet?

I'm thinking along the lines of intelligent use of the Internet or other networks... serious AI... hmm... new input methods... (Minority Report, anyone?)...

It's been a bit quiet in the past five or ten years, but give it another ten and we could see something genuinely new...

Or maybe not. Who knows. But I don't think we're at the limit yet... let's face it, games are a little... limited.

Yes, I do wanna bet, actually. Note I said "on-screen" gaming. That was a careful qualifier.

As long as games are images projected on a two dimensional screen, I think you'll have a hard time convincing the public there's been a big advance.

Better AI? People wouldn't *notice*. The cheapest chess machine can beat most people who know the rules. And at the end of the day, the best AI will be like playing against another person - and that's hardly going to be a new experience, is it?

New input devices? Whatever happened to datagloves? As long as "up, down, left, right, forward, back, strafe, jump, fire, pickup/use" is the paradigm, any controllers more complex than Playstation pad will be a novelty gimmick. (I've got a few myself - a one-handed Playstation pad (which IS useful for Resident Evils very restricted button set), a twisting controller for driving games...)

The main exception I can think of to that is something ELSE which originated (I think) on Playstation, at least for home use - the dance mat, invented to interface with the single biggest original idea in games in the last decade, rhythm action.

I think if the public is to see and understand an advance, it has to be BIG, and OBVIOUS. Better AI will appeal to us afficianados, but to the man in the street it's as relevant as a revolutionary new form of valve-timing for car engines - it's happening under the bonnet, and they don't *want* to know what's going on under there.

The next big thing? Who knows. Predicting is usually the best way to look very silly in a very few years (or sometimes even months). But I'd guess the next leap is going to be a fundamentally different display technology - TRUE 3D - images projected into the air, instead of images projected on a screen. I can't even *imagine* what kind of games would be possible, but they would be to Tomb Raider what Tomb Raider was to Donkey Kong, and more to the point the games-indifferent member of the public will be able to see and understand that fact.

H.

Alright, you're on... I'm going for a big advance in network use, I think... 'Massively Multiplayer' gaming in every home...

I expect that will come before any other advanced, because the technology already exists, it's just a matter of using it...

Hmm. Good one. But it's NOT just a matter of using it, because if that was true then the Playstation 2 would be trailing a very poor second to the network-ready-as-soon-as-you-bought-it Dreamcast.

Hands up any Dreamcast owners? Hello? Anybody?

The technology is there - but not only does it have to work, and work well, but the games have to be good and the public has to be convinced that this is something they want to spend their time and money on. And of course money is going to be a big part of it - online gaming holds out to publishers the concept of a game that you buy once and keep paying for for the next six months. Tempting.

Personally, I'm not convinced. One of the joys of playing multiplayer Halo, or Tenchu, or Syphon Filter, or whatever, is that the person you are playing with or against is there in the room, and you KNOW them and can throw Pringles at them when they beat you or let you down. I'm not, personally, convinced of the selling value of being able to play a game against someone I've never met, when I can, for less money, simply play against the AI which may not be *quite* as good but is certainly cheaper.

Of course, I'm somewhat shooting that argument in the foot by having this good-natured and interesting conversation with you, a person I have never met...

The next year or so is going to be an interesting one for UK gamers, because I think online gaming as a concept within these shores will live or die, again, within that time.

H.

I have a PS2.

I have an Xbox.

I have a Gamecube.

I am a gaming s!ut!

I'm also Capcom's beeyotch. I'm not interested in Metroid Prime, or Zelda or Pikmin or whatever. I got the Gamecube for Resident Evil. That's it. REvil and REvil Zero are seriously sweet games. And the graphics are just droolworthy.

The Xbox, Microshaft aside, is good to. I got that because I already had the other two. But Halo, and Hunter: The Reckoning are great multiplayer games. And it's good to have a console that you can directly rip cds to, so you can listen to your own music mid-game.

TopHat : Tsk, where's the fun in owning all the consoles . I would seriously consider getting Metroid Prime though.



As far as multi-player games is concerned, I agree that its a lot more fun beating someone you actually know and can "throw Pringles at". Online gaming at the moment (not completely unlike h2g2) is very all consuming where time is concerned, and most people just don't have the time. Back in the days when my Super NES took pride of place next to my television, I loved beating my sister at Street Fighter II (which wasn't as often as I'd have liked). But there were times when I just enjoyed to come home from school and take all my stress out on the control pad. It was great.

I've always been a little suspicious of multi-player gaming, I still have little confidence in using a chat room, which seems a little odd since I'm talking to you on here - though I find h2g2 differen't in some way.

As for the future, I think multi-player games will have a place - though we could be waiting a little while yet before it becomes main-stream... but maybe I'm wrong.

Where's the fun? Me, I'm a technophile. I like gadgets and bits and bobs and boxes that go beep, so just having them all is inherently fun.

I won't be getting Metroid Prime, though. Beyond the fact that I'm broke, I'm kind of very fussy about my games. And the only GC games that have caught my eye so far are REvil and Eternal Darkness respectively. I'm set in my ways, me.

Has all three as well.

Incidentally I was a very dissapointed with the WWE wrestling games on both GC and X-Box. GC Crete-a-wrestler had no masks for any of the characers (pitful) and Raw on x-Box while graphically quite impressive is woefully out of date (Undertaker with long hair??) and some staggerign ommisions (no double team moves for instanceso that's the Dudley's 3-D out the window then. )

Smackdown: shut your mouth on PS2 is the only real crediable wrestling gma in my oh-so humble opion.


The Game cube however has got a trump card - Capcom are developing the Rez Evil series exclusively for that console. so not only is there the re-vamped rez evil game. the recently released prequel Rez evil 0 Plans to release all the remainding rez evil series on the cube but also Rex evil 4 to look forward to.

These titles alone make the GC a worthwile investment and banish once and for all the charge that it only has games for kids.

please excuse the horrendous spellng errors in that last post.

The big N's graphics may be kidsy and cutesy in a lot of games but the plots, the stories, the actual events in these games are often darker than the 'oh, I've shot you and you've exploded splattering 45 pints of blood on the wall' type games *yawn*

I play PC/Mac, NGC, PS2, GBA - chosen in terms of pure adrenalin powered, addictive, absorbing gameplay?

Gameboy(Advance thesedays) anytime!

(I'm not saying 'not ever' to the X-Box but whilst the only decent games on there are available on other formats - hell, they're even working on an Apple Mac conversion of Halo! I can't really see the point - maybe, when Rare's games start coming out but that'll be at least 2 years away)

And we want to see more women admitting they play games - we all know you do it!

I know I play games. I'm a girl gamer geek!

Oh, you meant more /other/ girls

And we love you for it

The GameCube is the closest I've come to buying a console, still going to get one at some point (maybe when I graduate). Looks like a lot of fun, and since I have a PC that's capable of running just about anything (once I give it some more disk space) I can play all the 'serious' games on that, because most are ported to the PC anyway. GameCube games, from my perspective, offer a great deal of pure fun, and that's great.

I think we are seeing a fairly significant albeit evolutionary difference in games coming up... looking at what's in current development, we're getting games which actually pay attention to lighting and sound reverberation, and have their AI characters respond to them in a pretty realistic way. Probably doesn't sound like much, but think for a moment about the gameplay differences between these two ideas:

One: Your character is sneaking along a corridor. The game engine detects you've entered a trigger area. It sees if you're moving under a threshold speed. If you are, it leaves you alone, if not it dispatches a nearby AI guard to intercept you.

Two: Your character is sneaking along a corridor. An AI guard is just around the corner. The game engine calculates exactly how much noise you're making, and the guard's AI code ignores you if it can't hear you. Likewise, it would react to an unfortunately-cast shadow.

The latter's cropping up in various places now - Splinter Cell, originally for X-Box and now for PC and PS2 (like the PS2 can cope with that thing) includes lots and lots of very fancy lighting and sound stuff making it one of the best sneaking games around. Deus Ex 2: Invisible War is based on the idea of the computer characters having generic AI routines instead of just a few basic reactions and a load of specially-scripted routines depending on their location, and also uses a lighting/sound simulation thingybob.

Sure it's not a revolution, but I suspect it'll be a pretty significant development in the way games like those play.

True AI would probably be the next big thing, but I'm not entirely sure that's possible - however, increased processing power does allow us to have far, far better simulation of the AI, and given that game worlds are necessarily limited at present, that's okay.

Of course, can you imagine gaming in an unlimited world... maybe that's not such a good idea, anyone familiar with 'Better Than Life'?

Interesting thread...

I bought my Game Cube for one reason - there were a large quantity of multi-player games which increased their appeal tenfold after half a dozen pints. I have precious little patience with labrythine single-player RPGs - my Cube is a social tool, pure and simple.

And I have consequently equipped it very well with Super Monkey Ball, Burnout, Super Smash Brothers, ISS2, James Bond: Agent Under Fire, and Ace Golf (well, all my friends like golf too...). I bought Rogue Leader and Pikmin on release, and haven't played either of them since December, as they have no multi-player appeal.

Whatever you do, make sure you buy four joypads.

B

Bah. Bollocks to the four joypads. The cube is mine. MINE I say! Anyone else who attempts to touch it will get their hands gnawed off.

I just think it's cool in terms of size, as well. I mean, It's so small, and it's got a convenient carry handle! Unlike the Xbox, which is a hernia just waiting to happen.

Now that the new Zelda has come out, I'm going to get a Game Cube just for that.