The less talking in my platformers, the better. Galaxy 2 has a couple chatty characters, but most of the talking takes place in the beginning. Not as much overall as the first game, too, which is good.
You forgot to mention the snow level where only one of us could sneak around the buildings because we only had one disguise kit.
And yeah, some of the levels made me long for the days of Halo and the arrows on the ground showing you where to go. On the other hand, people pay good money for large open world games these days.
Actually, it's worse now if you ask me. The DRM'd version of the game only let's you install it 5 times. Even if you uninstall you don't regain an install, so you're basically screwed if you reformat a lot or have a lot of computers at home you'd like to play the game on.
There is good news though! Good Old Games has it DRM free for $10, which is definitely the way to go now.
Also, funny you should mention the code wheel because I've been thinking about writing about early attempts at DRM (such as code wheels or picking out a particular word in the instruction booklet).
The original MS-DOS version of the game (I have my boxed copy buried around here somewhere) used a code wheel, a sort of circular slide rule printed on card stock, to solve a graphic puzzle at the start of the game. This was done to prevent unauthorized copying, as the game wouldn't run unless the correct code sequence was entered. By using abstract graphic symbols instead of Roman characters and Arabic numerals, the code disk couldn't be reduced to an alphanumeric table that could be stored in ASCII format. Of course, if one lost the code wheel, the program became useless. Does the 15th Anniversary Edition still use this gimmick?
I've played (and beaten) Arcana. It's fun if you're into really old school RPGs, but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise since it requires an asinine amount of grinding and even then the difficulty is a little crazy.
Can play Shenmue 2 on Xbox/possibly 360. It also comes with "Shenmue the Movie," a dvd of what happened in the first one. Shen1 was pretty good but 2 pretty much significantly improved everything.
and thus no Shenmue, one of the few beloved console games I've never experienced. I also haven't played Indigo Prophecy, though I've heard decent things about it. Most of it, anyway.
I've found that most Wii remote prompts used in QTEs or other finishers are very forgiving. As in, as long as you move the correct piece of equipment in any direction in a sharp manner, it will register as a success. Still doesn't make it right, though!
Yeah I didn't mind Shenmue at all. In long sequences you could miss a few also and still pass it. I'm sure there were a few annoying ones though.
That Spiderman clip looks TERRIBLE. Actually everything about it looks terrible aside from the hilarious failures. Also, I have no idea why they'd put something like that in an RE game also and that whole area looks nothing like RE but then again I haven't played the series in a while. Heavenly Sword clip doesn't look too bad, seems like the game is directed pretty well with good production values.
Great article. I was really pleased with your analysis. QTEs are not bad in and of themselves, however, poorly implimented QTEs are the blight of the earth.
Here's my quick thumbrule guide to QTEs.
GOOD QTEs
1. Single button finishers (basically fight an enemy normally then get a prompt for a brutal finisher, miss the prompt, and you don't get the joy of the brutality, but you still probably defeat the enemy)
2. One time Panic QTEs. (but must be vary simple like, "shake wiimote" or (hit X/A) . (Like the boulder in RE4. It can scare you once and make you panic trying to hit the button, but is easily passed the next time.)
BAD QTEs
1. Any QTE required to win a boss battle, such that if you fail you have to try again and again and again.
2. Any QTE that should do damage if successful, but hurts you if you fail
3. Using a DIRECTION in any QTE, particularly on an analog stick. (Heavenly Sword combined 1 and 3 in a single battle, possibly the most hair pulling moment of my gaming career)
4. Any QTE in a cutscene where you can "fail" the cutscene
Secondly, I've played a lot of QTE heavy games you didn't mention such as Shenmue and Indigo Prophecy. At least Shenmue had a real fighting engine they used during bigger action scenes and I don't really remember anything really obnoxious QTE related. Indigo Prophecy, on the other hand, began degenerating into a giant QTE fest near the end of the game, but since they didn't have any other action gameplay elements, how else do you "fight" a final boss? Disappointing.
I was recently playing Dragon's Lair on the Iphone and was annoyed by just how bad that game was executed. This should have been a tip off to devs that QTE sucks!
I bought the RAM expansion for my N64 just for this game. As I recall, you couldn't play the entire game without it. I spent 2 years converting my control schemes to match my N64 days. It took forever for me to separate the running and turning. Was it that bad? I remember circle strafing in GoldenEye with no problems at all.
One thing I remember from GoldenEye that still beats many games today is that at the end of each level, when James would get to an elevator, it would transition to a cutscene. In the cutscene James would be holding the same weapon you had at that point in the game. I STILL play games today that don't do this. The cutscenes will just show the player with whatever the "standard" weapon was instead of the one you actually had equipped. (EVEN HALO!) Ever since GoldenEye, this has totally bugged me.
Yeah Goldeneye/Perfect Dark had some horrendous framerates, especially if anything was exploding @_@ That also kinda made the ridiculous auto-aim retical necessary I suppose. I remember that taxi thing too >_<
Something you need to understand is that the Ur-Quan Masters is actually a port of a port. If you were to see the original, or even the 3DO Interactive version, you'd be confronted with a much, much better beginning and ending cutscene, as well as be able to look at 3d spinning renders of the various ships!
For mentioning Borderlands. It's one of the best recent implementations of New Game + I've seen. I think that's a big reason I kept playing. In fact, I think I'll go play right now. :)
Majora's Mask is a New Game+ over and over again. You start at the beginning with the items you've collected, and you have to do it many, many time to finish the game. In fact the story even takes it into account!
There's a new game+ in Shadow Complex, that wee Metroid homage that sold like hotcakes on Xbox Live last year. When you start a new game after watching the credits roll, you'll lose all weapons and items previously acquired, but keep all experience points and other benefits. This means, instead of starting as a low level 1, you'll be shooting down enemies as a higher level. Also, some of the benefits are really great to have early on, such as unlimited grenades.
I've now completed the game three times, working on my fourth. Without New Game+, it would not be as much fun as it most certainly is.
That said, I'm putting frickin' Chrono Trigger DS on my birthday wishlist for sure.
I tried to finish FF6 twice but lost interest. Chrono Trigger had me hooked almost all the way through. And I don't have nostalgia to thank for that, I didn't even play it until the DS version was already a year old. And as you say, the DS extras were just awful. The game suddenly got terribly repetitive during one sidequest, and I immediately knew it must have been added for the DS release because the entire game before that point had been excellent. Also I find it funny you mention Ozzie and Flea but not Slash. Guess that makes sense, Slash was the least interesting of the three.
I'll have to check out Crimson Echoes sometime, wonder how that would have turned out...such a shame.
Still have only finished Chrono Trigger once. Someday I'll run through New Game + and get all the endings. The first one might be pretty tough, considering I finished the first time with neither Crono nor Marle on my front lines.
Glad to see I've managed to turn the site into a column about neat game features in less than a month lol
Metal Gear Solid 4 had a pretty good New Game Plus. It wasn't labelled as such, but your save restarts on whatever difficulty you want after you beat it, and once you get the Mk II you also get all the items and weapons you had before. Of course, the railgun makes the bosses a piece of cake.
But it keeps it interesting with various challenges and unlockables. If you aren't seen once in a playthrough, you get stealth camo that makes you completely invisible. If you beat it without killing anybody, you get a bandana that gives unlimited ammo in all weapons.
All in all, one of the better new game plusses I've seen.
I collected all 120 stars in the first Galaxy because it didn't feel like the game was complete until I did. I even put off fighting Bowser until I had the max of 108 or whatever at the time.
The hall of lasers was the only scary part in that movie.
"Guys in Hollywood? Make a good movie from some original material ..."
Even when Hollywood wasn't completely out of ideas, this was asking a lot.
Side note: The Mass Effect 2 soundtrack was playing in iTunes when this post came up in my reader. Creepy!
Talk about Chatty, have you played Super Paper Mario? Great game, but good grief, there's more reading than more true RPGs.
The less talking in my platformers, the better. Galaxy 2 has a couple chatty characters, but most of the talking takes place in the beginning. Not as much overall as the first game, too, which is good.
You forgot to mention the snow level where only one of us could sneak around the buildings because we only had one disguise kit.
And yeah, some of the levels made me long for the days of Halo and the arrows on the ground showing you where to go. On the other hand, people pay good money for large open world games these days.
Actually, it's worse now if you ask me. The DRM'd version of the game only let's you install it 5 times. Even if you uninstall you don't regain an install, so you're basically screwed if you reformat a lot or have a lot of computers at home you'd like to play the game on.
There is good news though! Good Old Games has it DRM free for $10, which is definitely the way to go now.
Also, funny you should mention the code wheel because I've been thinking about writing about early attempts at DRM (such as code wheels or picking out a particular word in the instruction booklet).
The original MS-DOS version of the game (I have my boxed copy buried around here somewhere) used a code wheel, a sort of circular slide rule printed on card stock, to solve a graphic puzzle at the start of the game. This was done to prevent unauthorized copying, as the game wouldn't run unless the correct code sequence was entered. By using abstract graphic symbols instead of Roman characters and Arabic numerals, the code disk couldn't be reduced to an alphanumeric table that could be stored in ASCII format. Of course, if one lost the code wheel, the program became useless. Does the 15th Anniversary Edition still use this gimmick?
I've played (and beaten) Arcana. It's fun if you're into really old school RPGs, but I wouldn't recommend it otherwise since it requires an asinine amount of grinding and even then the difficulty is a little crazy.
Can play Shenmue 2 on Xbox/possibly 360. It also comes with "Shenmue the Movie," a dvd of what happened in the first one. Shen1 was pretty good but 2 pretty much significantly improved everything.
Also it's quite a love-or-hate game.
and thus no Shenmue, one of the few beloved console games I've never experienced. I also haven't played Indigo Prophecy, though I've heard decent things about it. Most of it, anyway.
and then, yes, he did punch that rock.
I've found that most Wii remote prompts used in QTEs or other finishers are very forgiving. As in, as long as you move the correct piece of equipment in any direction in a sharp manner, it will register as a success. Still doesn't make it right, though!
Yeah I didn't mind Shenmue at all. In long sequences you could miss a few also and still pass it. I'm sure there were a few annoying ones though.
That Spiderman clip looks TERRIBLE. Actually everything about it looks terrible aside from the hilarious failures. Also, I have no idea why they'd put something like that in an RE game also and that whole area looks nothing like RE but then again I haven't played the series in a while. Heavenly Sword clip doesn't look too bad, seems like the game is directed pretty well with good production values.
Great article. I was really pleased with your analysis. QTEs are not bad in and of themselves, however, poorly implimented QTEs are the blight of the earth.
Here's my quick thumbrule guide to QTEs.
GOOD QTEs
1. Single button finishers (basically fight an enemy normally then get a prompt for a brutal finisher, miss the prompt, and you don't get the joy of the brutality, but you still probably defeat the enemy)
2. One time Panic QTEs. (but must be vary simple like, "shake wiimote" or (hit X/A) . (Like the boulder in RE4. It can scare you once and make you panic trying to hit the button, but is easily passed the next time.)
BAD QTEs
1. Any QTE required to win a boss battle, such that if you fail you have to try again and again and again.
2. Any QTE that should do damage if successful, but hurts you if you fail
3. Using a DIRECTION in any QTE, particularly on an analog stick. (Heavenly Sword combined 1 and 3 in a single battle, possibly the most hair pulling moment of my gaming career)
4. Any QTE in a cutscene where you can "fail" the cutscene
First, wow, those clips are awful.
Secondly, I've played a lot of QTE heavy games you didn't mention such as Shenmue and Indigo Prophecy. At least Shenmue had a real fighting engine they used during bigger action scenes and I don't really remember anything really obnoxious QTE related. Indigo Prophecy, on the other hand, began degenerating into a giant QTE fest near the end of the game, but since they didn't have any other action gameplay elements, how else do you "fight" a final boss? Disappointing.
I was recently playing Dragon's Lair on the Iphone and was annoyed by just how bad that game was executed. This should have been a tip off to devs that QTE sucks!
That Spider-man clip was hilarious! Especially since the QTEs were Wii remote movements. I can't even imagine trying to do waggle QTEs.
Also, did Chris Redfield really just punch that rock?
I bought the RAM expansion for my N64 just for this game. As I recall, you couldn't play the entire game without it. I spent 2 years converting my control schemes to match my N64 days. It took forever for me to separate the running and turning. Was it that bad? I remember circle strafing in GoldenEye with no problems at all.
One thing I remember from GoldenEye that still beats many games today is that at the end of each level, when James would get to an elevator, it would transition to a cutscene. In the cutscene James would be holding the same weapon you had at that point in the game. I STILL play games today that don't do this. The cutscenes will just show the player with whatever the "standard" weapon was instead of the one you actually had equipped. (EVEN HALO!) Ever since GoldenEye, this has totally bugged me.
Yeah Goldeneye/Perfect Dark had some horrendous framerates, especially if anything was exploding @_@ That also kinda made the ridiculous auto-aim retical necessary I suppose. I remember that taxi thing too >_<
Something you need to understand is that the Ur-Quan Masters is actually a port of a port. If you were to see the original, or even the 3DO Interactive version, you'd be confronted with a much, much better beginning and ending cutscene, as well as be able to look at 3d spinning renders of the various ships!
For mentioning Borderlands. It's one of the best recent implementations of New Game + I've seen. I think that's a big reason I kept playing. In fact, I think I'll go play right now. :)
Majora's Mask is a New Game+ over and over again. You start at the beginning with the items you've collected, and you have to do it many, many time to finish the game. In fact the story even takes it into account!
There's a new game+ in Shadow Complex, that wee Metroid homage that sold like hotcakes on Xbox Live last year. When you start a new game after watching the credits roll, you'll lose all weapons and items previously acquired, but keep all experience points and other benefits. This means, instead of starting as a low level 1, you'll be shooting down enemies as a higher level. Also, some of the benefits are really great to have early on, such as unlimited grenades.
I've now completed the game three times, working on my fourth. Without New Game+, it would not be as much fun as it most certainly is.
That said, I'm putting frickin' Chrono Trigger DS on my birthday wishlist for sure.
I tried to finish FF6 twice but lost interest. Chrono Trigger had me hooked almost all the way through. And I don't have nostalgia to thank for that, I didn't even play it until the DS version was already a year old. And as you say, the DS extras were just awful. The game suddenly got terribly repetitive during one sidequest, and I immediately knew it must have been added for the DS release because the entire game before that point had been excellent. Also I find it funny you mention Ozzie and Flea but not Slash. Guess that makes sense, Slash was the least interesting of the three.
I'll have to check out Crimson Echoes sometime, wonder how that would have turned out...such a shame.
Still have only finished Chrono Trigger once. Someday I'll run through New Game + and get all the endings. The first one might be pretty tough, considering I finished the first time with neither Crono nor Marle on my front lines.
Glad to see I've managed to turn the site into a column about neat game features in less than a month lol
Metal Gear Solid 4 had a pretty good New Game Plus. It wasn't labelled as such, but your save restarts on whatever difficulty you want after you beat it, and once you get the Mk II you also get all the items and weapons you had before. Of course, the railgun makes the bosses a piece of cake.
But it keeps it interesting with various challenges and unlockables. If you aren't seen once in a playthrough, you get stealth camo that makes you completely invisible. If you beat it without killing anybody, you get a bandana that gives unlimited ammo in all weapons.
All in all, one of the better new game plusses I've seen.
I collected all 120 stars in the first Galaxy because it didn't feel like the game was complete until I did. I even put off fighting Bowser until I had the max of 108 or whatever at the time.