Am I a gaming aesthete?

Posted Monday, 4th July 2011 under Soapbox rants
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Jeremy Parish recently wrote about the gaming aesthete, and the post captured something I’ve been trying to articulate for a while now. For whatever reason, I seem to prefer games with a particular aesthetic quality and loathe titles that go against my irrational sense of preference. Amusingly, a portion of my taste can be summed up in UK:R’s watershed Blue Skies in Gaming campaign – out with the poo-brown, grey, boring colour schemes, and in with colour, life and vibrancy.

No more silly gangs, testosterone, “extreme”/”hardcore” drab colour schemes and other such douchebaggery. The content doesn’t have to be sunshine, lollypops and pixies, but it should be allowed to have colourful vistas and degrees of depth to its aesthetic execution.

The problem is that with the rise and rise of US development in the gaming sector (underpinned by the dramatic fall from grace we’ve seen from Japan in the last 10 years, and the EU in the 5-7 years prior to that), it’s all very vogue and chic to be an (extreme) macho douchebag mirroring something out of a Michael Bay movie (with optional 1-dimensional arse-kicking but well-endowed female sidekick), or drawl like an (extreme) urban gangster or be an (extreme) racing game with unnecessary (but extreme) back story. You then play this on your (e)x(treme)box or your slick black PS3 (with optional extreme metallic blue/red/moose controller to complement the silly Spider-man font), with trophies/achievements to add to your signature on your underground/alternative message board where you compare how awesome you are.

And with a couple of exceptions, it just doesn’t appeal to me. I prefer the classical Japanese or European approach to gaming, which allows colour and not so much testosterone to overrun the landscape. The problem is that both of these communities are not the stalwarts they once were. In the 8-bit micro and 16-bit computer days, I played more games from the EU than I can count – some were stupid bouts of pixellated testosterone, but the underlying mechanics and aesthetics were fresh and interesting. But with the move to larger teams and bigger budgets, the old models failed to adapt to the changing scenery and unfortunately a lot of talent was lost or quelled as part of larger corporate mergers.

Jump across the pond to Japan, and the quality of their arcade and console games in the 80s and 90s were unmatched and arguably the hive of some of the industry’s core creative content. Sega, Nintendo, Namco, Hudson, SNK, Capcom, Konami, Taito, Square, Enix… amazing studios that produced stunning games. But something happened between the DC/PS2/GCN/Xbox and the current generation, and the Japanese sector imploded – larger teams were required to fuel larger budgets and suddenly the shrinking local console market demanded more conservatism in game design. This meant the baby was thrown out with the bath water to accommodate the Western market (which meant the unique “Japaneseness” that made the games so appealing in the first place was often lost), or developers focused on placating niche local audiences with an abundance of moe and fan service (which are fine in moderation, but stifling when they’re pandering). To offset development costs and the changing Japanese market, the situation was further compound with the dramatic shift of development resources to handheld platforms (which I guess is fine if you prefer mobile gaming, but I prefer to play on a console). Thus you have a variety of factors that have essentially quashed Japan’s ability to compete with the West, in particular the US and Canada.

So that leaves me in an unusual position borne entirely from my own particular tastes in gaming, where I have to look a bit further than Japan for my gaming kicks. For the first time in a while I’ve been playing Western-developed games – The Darkness (developed by Starbreeze in Sweden), Mirror’s Edge (DICE, also in Sweden), Enslaved (Ninja Theory, UK) and Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady, UK)… but what’s interesting is that these have all been developed in the EU (sorry to the UK studios for lumping you in there!), which is a trend I hadn’t consciously realised until thinking about my gaming habits for this generation of consoles. This doesn’t mean I’ve neglected Japan, as I’ve also enjoyed Ninja Gaiden Sigma (Tecmo), Valkyria Chronicles (Sega WOW), Street Fighter 4 (Capcom), Yakuza 3 (Amusement Vision/Sega) and New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo EAD). What’s interesting looking at this shortlist is that some games contain some of the elements I normally don’t like about current-gen games, but they’ve done so in a way that emphasises the often intangible aesthetics that appeal to me.

In short, my gaming preferences are confused and contradictory at times, but share a commonality that points to the resultant aesthetic which entices me to play the game in question.

It also means I’m more likely to play Wonderboy in Monster World on the Sega Mega Drive than Resistance 3 or GTA4.

I think that last point sums up the entirety of this post quite succinctly. Figures 😛

I think Capcom hates gamers (Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D and DRM)

Posted Wednesday, 29th June 2011 under Soapbox rants
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Capcom’s Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D continues to question how much Capcom actually appreciate their market, or if they plain-old hate gamers. Here’s a snippet from DVICE:

It’s been confirmed that Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3DS is a game that once finished, cannot be reset for complete replay. According to both the U.S. and U.K. game’s instruction manual “saved data on this software cannot be reset.”

Basically what Capcom has done is make Mercenaries 3D a one-time play affair. Once you’ve unlocked all the goodies and played the entire game, you will not be able to erase the game’s save data and start fresh as if it were a new copy. Consider this: lending Mercenaries 3D to a friend, a little brother or sister will be worthless because they’ll only be able to continue playing the game with your saved settings and create their own.
(Source [via Tiny Cartridge, via Eurogamer], and GameStop’s follow-up)

Capcom have made some terrible decisions with DRM in the past (Final Fight Double Impact and Bionic Commando ReArmed 2 need to “phone home” before you can play them on the PS3), and its disappointing to see them acting in such a hostile way towards consumers. While some may argue that this is potentially an act to sabotage second-hand game sales (as they derive zero profit from the on-selling of games once they’re past the first run at the retail counter), it’s important to consider the dependence many gaming stores have on second-hand sales in order to make up for the relatively slim margins offered at retail. Mind, I won’t go into that topic in more detail here, as it’s beyond the scope of this post and has probably been argued more intelligently elsewhere.

Returning to the topic at hand, I think this hurts a little more as I genuinely have a soft spot for Capcom games, having enjoyed so many of them over the years (during the Saturn and Dreamcast era, my purchases [at retail no less] led to many gaming sessions). This is the kind of move I would expect from some of the more aggressive players in the market, but not from them.

It also seems incredibly short-sighted in terms of being able to enjoy your purchase over time – I still crank out Atari 2600 cartridges every now and again, and the notion of anti-consumerist DRM would render this kind of thing impossible in years to come for new games. This means that, in the case of Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D, I can’t reset the game back to factory settings to start it afresh; or to give another skew on this topic, in the case Bionic Commando ReArmed 2, I probably won’t be able to play it in 10 years time despite having paid money for it in 2011.

It marks a very dangerous point on the slippery slope of DRM and anti-consumer licensing enforcement on behalf of gaming publishers. Whilst only a handful of games on consoles are toying with the concept of DRM that is ultimately detrimental to the gamer, it’s a dangerous path. I hope Capcom is taking stock of the reaction from consumers to what they’ve tried slipping through with Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D and don’t attempt this kind of tomfoolery in the future.

WTF is with the DRM on Final Fight: Double Impact Capcom?

Posted Friday, 30th April 2010 under New old games, Soapbox rants
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So, Capcom recently added what I previously thought was a great release of the arcade versions of Final Fight and Magic Sword as a two-game pack on PSN and XBLA. Owning a PS3, I was tempted to grab it as I really like both games and thought it would be fun to play them in the main living room of the house.

However, I just found out that the game pack has DRM built into it, part of which requires you to have an internet connection at all times when you want to play the game (thanks to Kotaku for the great writeup).

What… the… #$%@?

So let’s get this straight – I’ve bought the game, I’m using it on my PS3, my internet connection drops out (very much a frequent thing in Australia, despite the hard work of ISPs like iiNet and Internode, there’s only so much you can do given the infrastructure), and BAM – no game for me.

Or what happens if my ADSL modem kicks the bucket and I have to wait a couple of weeks between grabbing a new one – I can’t play a game I legitimately downloaded?

Or, as one of the comments left by a reader on Kotaku pointed out, in 5-6+ years time and PSN changes or whatever (or for the sake of retro gaming, 10+ years – the PS3 won’t be Sony’s primary platform forever), I can’t play the game?

It’s… beyond rational.

For the record, I have Final Fight on Mega CD, have previously had it on the SNES, enjoyed playing it on the Capcom Classics Collection releases on the PS2 and even own an original CPS1 Final Fight PCB. Despite this, I was still happy to launch more money over at Capcom (and I am a big Capcom fan) to grab this so I have the convenience of being able to play it in my living room with Wifey, who loves a good scrolling fighter.

But not now. No way am I supporting this kind or behaviour from a company that should know better.

The worrying thing is if this viral attitude that presupposes every user is a pirate starts to infect other PSN releases – I actually have quite a few titles I’ve happily purchased over PSN and think it is such a fantastic service, and as a platform it is fulfilling a niche market of simpler, old-school and retro-inspired titles that aren’t commercially viable via a packaged release.

But this is the wrong way forward.

I respect the rights of a developer and publisher to protect their IP. But in return, I expect the developer and publisher to respect me as a consumer. I also expect that, despite the game being a digital release, that I’ll still be able to fire up my PS3 in 10 or 15 years time and play it. I figure that if I can still fire up my Atari 2600, where some of the carts are probably around 30 years old, why shouldn’t I have that same expectation of a game I have purchased for my PS3?

Capcom have some interesting titles on the way, one of which includes a new entry in the Bionic Commando ReArmed series. I bought Bionic Commando ReArmed within minutes of playing the demo because of impressed I was with it, and thoroughly enjoyed playing through the game. The sequel will potentially be a day-one purchase. However, if there’s even a hint that this kind of draconian DRM is going to be present, I’m walking away.

Shame Capcom, shame.

Marvel vs Capcom CPS2 B-Board :)

Posted Friday, 23rd October 2009 under Collections
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This one arrived in the post this week 🙂 It’s a phoenixed version of Capcom’s awesome 2D brawler Marvel vs Capcom, and isn’t it a beauty? Haven’t had a chance to give it a whirl as yet since the cab’s got the monitor sitting vertically, so whenever I get around to rotating it back to a horizontal position, I’ll look forward to giving it a go 🙂

Finishing Final Fight on my Astro City! :)

Posted Wednesday, 30th September 2009 under Gaming sessions
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It’s obviously a week for awesome arcade gamage 😀 My brother-in-law Hamez is currently staying with us while he’s back here visiting from interstate, and last night after some subtle suggestions from yours truly, we jumped onto the arcade cab for some awesomeness. This time it was Capcom’s seminal scrolling beat’em’up Final Fight 🙂

While I remember playing this one at the arcades, I have probably clocked up more hours playing the amazing Mega CD port back in the 16-bit era. Because of the difficulty and the continues/lives system, I never managed to finish the game beffore, so it was nice to be able to finish the arcade version and see the ending to the game 🙂 We were actually doing pretty well as far as continues go at the start of the game, but by the time we got to the end, the Free Play setting really came in handy 😀

Anywho, I only started taking pics when we got to the end of the last level – the gallery’s below in all its wonky glory since I was trying to play and take photos at the same time 😛 For those interested, I’m taking up the 2P slot as Guy, whilst Hamez spent the latter half of the game playing as Haggar, doing the grab-jump-piledrive technique over and over again. Because it’s awesome 🙂

[Show slideshow]