Aboutgameusurper Expertise TOPICS I can answer questions about:
Game Strategy, Recommendations (based on age or genre preference), History of a game, Recalling a game you played, Game music, Company or Creator info, and System troubleshooting
GENRES:
My specialties are Adventure, RPG, Survival Horror, Action, and a small amount of Strategy and Puzzle. I avoid sports games like the plague, and have little interest in any racing games save for a few, F-Zero, Mario Kart and Wipeout being the main ones. Nor do I know many fighting games, mainly Bushido Blade and a few others. I am not much of a fan of First Person Shooters either. I am especially well versed in RPGs, particularly Final Fantasy and most of SquareEnix's other titles.
GAMES:
Not limited to the following. These games are series, and I know them all. There are MANY other individual ones. Feel free to ask and I will let you know if I can help you.
Actraiser, Alundra, Breath of Fire, Bushido Blade, Castlevania, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Donkey Kong, Dragon Warrior/Quest, Drakkhen/Dragon View, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, King's Field, Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, Mana, Mario, Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Parasite Eve, Resident Evil, Rygar, Silent Hill, Spyro, Star Fox, Suikoden, Tomb Raider, TMNT, Wild Arms, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Zelda, and Zone of the Enders
SYSTEMS:
I have recently added the Wii and PSP to my collection. NES, Super NES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy Color, GBA, DS, PS1, PS2 and PSP plus computer, but I'm not really a big computer gamer.
Systems I plan on getting in the future are XBOX 360 and eventually PS3 (When the price goes down...a lot) I am also a big fan of emulators on the PC. I have many of the old 8-bit and 16-bit systems and ROMS for my computer and know a lot about them. These include NES, Super NES, Genesis, Turbografx, MSX, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and GBA.
Experience I have been a video gamer for nearly 20 years. I started with the original NES way back in 1988 and have owned or played nearly every popular console since then. I have completed hundreds of games and played thousands. I have a large file cabinet filled with hundreds of hand-made maps, lists, and various stategies for many of the games I have conquered in the past two decades. I subscribe to 5 different game magazines to keep up to date on the newest stuff out there. I would officially call myself an expert on the subject of videogames. And if I don't know the answer, I can find out about it and direct you to someplace that does.
Publications Nintendo Power magazine, and I am thinking of writing for Gamegrene and GameFAQs in the future.
Education/Credentials Experience with games baby, and lots of it. Nothing formal if that's what you're wondering. Just good old playing and reading.
Question QUESTION: The game King Kong is my favourite, and I have the PS2 version, which I have completed over and over again. But I was wondering if it would be possible for a game to be re-released in like, 20 years time, when we'll have real blast-away technology. Do you think the King Kong game, which is best on Xbox 360 of course, will ever come out again in the future when we have super technology? It's such a great game, and the platforms it's currently available on will soon be obselite. What do you think? Oh, and I was also wondering, which is better: Xbox 360 or PS3? I'm sticking to my belief that the 360 cannot be so easily beat.
ANSWER: Well, as far as the game King Kong based on the recent movie of the same name being released in 20 years. I suppose there is always the possibility. I doubt it would resemble anything of the original game though. I may follow the same or similar plot, but the graphics would probably be nearly if not completely photo-realistic.
It is always possible that a popular series or movie game of yesteryear will be revived in a few decades. Just look at what they are doing to Ghostbusters, and that movie and the original games made for it are about 20 years old too. Although, I REALLY wouldn't want them to remake the old games for that movie. They were bad, really bad.
Or TMNT. Heck, the Turtles are just as old but they still keep coming out of their shells to show off new technology. Some of their games rocked and some of them sucked you know what.
I never played the King Kong game you speak of, but he has been around in one form or another since black and white motion pictures. So the character definitely has longevity. It's just a matter of if there is a demand for a return of these stories 20 years from now or not. Chances are SOMEONE will make a King Kong related video game product in the future. But will it follow the plot of a 20 year old movie? That is hard to say.
And you are asking me which of the two systems I think is better. Currently, I am undecided. I don't own either because there are not enough of the games I want on either to justify me buying them. I am an RPG buff with adventure games coming in second. The only two games for 360 that really interest me are Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, the latter which just came out. I may perhaps try Mass Effect since I have heard good things about it. But that's really it.
The PS3 has nothing that I can't live without at the moment. Waiting for Final Fantasy 13 obviously, as well as MGS4, Silent Hill 5 and RE5. If I want to play the games on these systems, I simply go to a friend's house and waste a few hours checking out what they have, since there is nothing that I truly want to own right now. So my opinion is...I don't have one that would be backed by experience with owning either system. So sorry, can't answer that one with any honesty.
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QUESTION: Sorry I haven't replied lately, I go away at weekends. You should play King Kong on whatever platform; if there was a catagory for 'Most Impressive Graphics and Scenery', Kong would win it. It was received very well, I'm not surprised. Reviewers say it was excellent, which is apparently not said often about movie-to-game conversions. The technology in the future... I wonder if it will be like controling REAL actors! I don't play a HUGE amount of games, so I don't know much about the technology used in creating them. What improvements could benefit today's video game standards, and what will most likely change in the future?
Answer This is the same answer as in your private question. I just realized that the other one was private and would not be displayed for people to read, so I copied it here as well. I integrated both questions together since they were so closely related. Happy reading.
I apologize for not answering your question sooner. I have been hit with a glut of questions the past week and have found myself with less time than usual to get to them. I prioritized answering the easier and less involved ones while thinking about how to answer yours. I also didn't want to leave those who were stuck on a gameplay issue waiting for days until they could get an answer.
And I also noticed the follow-up you sent to your original King Kong question back in the middle of last month. Apparently follow-ups don't show on my notifications or something because I didn't see it until someone else sent me a normal question. So, I am answering this one and your previous one at the same time since they are related to each other and as not to repeat myself in either answer.
Q: Are games, like movies, stored in a giant safe somewhere?
This could be possible. I am sure Nintendo and other third party companies that are still going strong (Like Konami, Capcom and others) have old games from back in the Nintendo and Super NES days back in their store rooms somewhere. Who knows, maybe they whip them out for big retro parties every couple years to study what made games fun back in the day and help them realize that they should keep doing THAT. Well, some companies could benefit from doing such things, anyway.
This question would apply more to those companies that aren't around anymore. What happens to the Okami's of the industry when their studio is dissolved? In this case, Capcom probably still hangs onto the game rights since Clover was an offshoot of theirs. But what about the games made by companies like SNK, Broderbund, Taxan, Sunsoft and Hudson? Some of the oldest of Nintendo licensees? Companies that, to my knowledge, no longer exist in their initial form, if at all. Where do Crystalis, Battle of Olympus, 8 Eyes, Blaster Master, Adventure Island and Faxanadu wind up?
Is there a large communal storage facility where all the expiring third party companies stash the fruits of their labor in the hope that 50 years from now, someone will come along and put their stuff in a video game museum?
This possibility of video games disappearing into the void of time is the main reason I advocate emulation and the ability to archive this kind of creative work. Even if the physical cartridge or disc the game came on no longer exists, at least the program that numerous people spent years of their life creating will not be lost to the sands of time.
Q: Oh, and what advancements can be made in the next 10 years in terms of CGI/video game technology?
When it comes to CGI, really all you are doing is creating a motion picture using models that aren't real actors. They may move similar to real actors, thanks to motion capture technology, but in the end they are simply really cool graphics. Since CGI is not active polygonal 3D, it takes less processing power to run it than a full 3D rendering of the same thing. But the downside is it cannot be explored and interacted with the way a 3D world can. It is designed to be basically a movie, but using computer generated images instead.
We have been doing full CGI features since Toy Story in 95 and as special effects for long before that. And other than integrating motion capture into the animations and refining the complexity of detail and expression we can display with it, the media itself hasn't changed much in the past 12 years. A full CGI film is still just really cool graphics displayed in a motion picture format just as it was at it's inception when it was used in Toy Story. The graphics are just more detailed and they move better. Look at films like Spirits Within, Cars, Robots, Advent Children and Beowulf for examples of the progression of CGI in the last 7 years.
I believe that video game graphical improvement is reaching what you could call a plateau. If you look back 20-30 years ago when the home console was in it's infancy, (God I feel old) and compare it to where we are today, you can see an astronomical leap in improvement.
Back then we were displaying graphics with large, single squares on the screen or trying to combine them in interesting ways to make them look like something more than large, single squares. But when you look at today's graphics and those in the near future, there hasn't been as drastic an improvement in graphics since the PS2 came out. And that was nearly 8 years ago.
This is my opinion, by the way. Many will argue the PS3 is a drastic improvement over the PS2. I agree that it is refining what the PS2 began with making 3D games the standard. Or that my saying that the PS2 setting the standard for 3D is wrong because it was the PS1 or even the N64, that actually did that. The PS1 and N64 seemed to me more of an experiment with what was capable in 3D, but if you look at a lot of their games, they are very choppy and noticeably polygonal in their makeup compared to the PS2.
This is why I say the PS2 is where the 3D standard began. All other consoles from this point forward will simply be refining it's graphical formula. Making the graphics prettier and smoother, and making the physics more true to life.
The next true game innovations will not be making a game's graphics so incredibly sharp you can cut yourself on them. Because you can only do that so much more. Graphics are approaching the point of near photo realism, particularly with CGI. But even in-game polygon graphics are getting to the level of 'There is not much more we can do to make these look like things in the real world'. And then the question arises, where do we go from there?
Whether Sony and Microsoft like it and want to admit it or not, Nintendo is the most innovative of the current generation of consoles. Yes, Nintendo may not have the uber 1080p graphics or the system so stacked with multimedia options, it can make you toast and mow your lawn. But what they do have is a new way of interacting with our games. If you look at Nintendo's history, they have led the way in control for every console generation. This is not my opinion, this is fact.
The NES controller was the advent of the eight way digital thumb control pad and multiple buttons.
The Super NES controller was the first to use shoulder buttons.
The N64 controller was the advent of analog stick pressure sensitive technology allowing multiple speeds of movement in fully 3D worlds.
The Wii-mote controller was the advent of your real life actions translating into equivalent onscreen actions. It can also sense distance away from the TV as well as orientation and speed.
If game companies want to really wow us with their consoles in the next 10-20 years, I believe they are going to have to get away from tethering both our hands to a controller while sitting in front of the tube, and allow us to get up and interact using our whole bodies while translating those actions to the game.
This could mean eventually utilizing holographic technology to display game graphics. It could also mean giving us body sensors or a machine of some sort that can sense body movement without us having to hold anything. Who knows?
With what can be displayed to the human eye reaching its near pinnacle probably within the next 10-20 years or so, we will need to branch out and look to ways of allowing more freedom for expression in those imaginary environments.
Previous Q: What improvements could benefit today's video game standards, and what will most likely change in the future?
I am about to go on a rant. There are two games in particular I have played in recent years, that while having their good points, annoy me to no end and I feel like venting about it. This is relevant to your question, though, so bear with me.
World of Warcraft is cool, don't get me wrong. The world that has been created in this game really knows no rival within the MMORPG world. It is big, bold and beautiful. And I realize the gameplay formula that Blizzard began in late 2004 can't really be changed that much as the game gets older without altering a lot of work. This is why I would like to see companies in the near future that wish to create a goliath the likes of WoW in Blizzard's stead, take a lesson from them.
For god's sake, please give us more options as we play through your game. Seriously, when you boil down WoW's gameplay, it is essentially completing the 4 same kinds of quests ad nauseam for 50+ levels until you gain enough equipment and stats to get powerful enough to do the 'cool' stuff at levels 50-70. Unfortunately, this 'cool' stuff involves grinding repeatable instances for more equipment that has an even less chance of dropping than the earlier stuff. If I get a group of 40 people together to run one of these things, I would at least like to get rewarded for doing so in a more reliable fashion. Hoping for a random drop after spending numerous hours inside one of these places and having to decide who of the 40 people to give it to is not my idea of time well spent.
And herein lies my main issue with WoW. It is focused too much on the goal and not the journey. The power curve favors spending as little time at each experience level as possible while having a far too linear and exponential power increase between the lowest levels and the highest levels of the game. The game relies too much on stat bonuses and uber gear than the creative use of a wider range of normal, but more varied resources. But it's not the game's fault. It just can't do anymore than that. It can't step outside its own design.
I would like to see an MMORPG focus less on cookie cutter classes and the gaining of power and more on the exploration of the world and the character's ability to interact with it. This means less focus on combat and more on types of actions that can be done that don't have anything to do with combat. Heck, eliminate the 'combat' aspect altogether and let anything I choose to do affect the world for good or ill. If something in the world is hurt, killed or destroyed due to it being a harmful interaction, so be it. Please don't limit my ability to interact with the world to different 'modes'. Allow me to do anything I can think of and have a way for the game to deal with it.
Give me a less linear and upward way of progressing through an MMORPG in favor of more lateral progression where the more you explore and do, the more options become available to you. Allow me to become whatever I want instead of shoe-horning me into some premade mold that can be controlled, quantified and measured.
I understand that WoW's main draw is its online community, chatting with friends while trying to fulfill objectives in the game world. And to this end I think it does well. I just don't like that it only supports a very narrow kind of gameplay, mainly combat, to progress. Give me more to do in my MMORPGs than slaughtering legions of respawning mobs and I will gladly give you my $14 a month.
The other game is Final Fantasy XII. An FF game that's annoying? Blasphemy! Read on and see why. While I love this game's balls in taking the traditional FF formula and revamping it to eliminate random encounters. For some reason that escapes me, they chose to make random, an element that never used to be. Mainly, the damn chests and rare mobs! Seriously, what were they smoking when they came up with this?
I understand wanting to make the end game equipment a bit challenging to acquire, but forcing me to run around for hours between screens, attempting to open certain chests or kill certain monsters in the hopes of gaining the best item from it, is akin to WoW's sin of making me run instances over and over for little to no reward. Not only does it totally blow any suspension of disbelief and involvement I had in the game world by making me repeat something that shouldn't make any logical sense, like killing or opening something more than once. But it tends to annoy and upset me. I can understand if the game has a large online community as WoW does, wanting to keep the most powerful items relegated to a fraction of the most dedicated populace. But this is a single player game guys! Why must I endure MMORPG like mechanics without the ability to complain to my friends about it over a chat channel?
A better solution would have been to have the most powerful items be held by strong bosses or have to be made through the bazaar using dropped loot, that although it appears 100% of the time from a particular boss, when the loot is combined, the particular equipment can be made only once. This would keep me from obtaining multiple copies of something while at least allowing me to get them with 100% certainty, while having more fun (figuring out how to defeat a difficult enemy) as opposed to not having fun. (making me do repetitive opening of chests and slaying of monsters)
This is where your video game standard thing comes in. To all game companies: If the whole point of having really good graphics and surround sound is to immerse us in your digital worlds, please don't take us out of them by making us do things we wouldn't find fun, interesting and exciting in the real world. If my game is too much like work, I will find something else more enjoyable to occupy my time. I guess the moral of this rant is that wasting my time with unfun things is not the way to make me happy. I would rather be allowed to explore a larger array of options, than have my options limited, but have to repeat them many, many times. This just gets tedious and boring and makes me not want to play anymore. And it kind of defeats the purpose of your 'game' to begin with.
The 'old hats' of gaming didn't get that way by being boring and tedious to play. They didn't depend on super graphics to be good. They worked because they were fun. They gave us options within the context of their worlds and the limitations of the hardware they were on and allowed us to explore them. Make things too straight forward or repetitive and you take away the fun and replace it with something else less so.
