<![CDATA[[GameRatty] tag: innovative]]> http://gameratty.com/tag/innovative Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:30:00 +0000 iRatty Engine http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Slingo Supreme]]> http://gameratty.com/article/18dfe3b755c40ac328f0be2aa496b1ca http://gameratty.com/article/18dfe3b755c40ac328f0be2aa496b1ca Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:17:35 +0000 devil slingo supreme devil mini games supreme game innovative supreme mode game instant slingos reel nudge infinite amount Slingo Supreme <![CDATA[Interview with Conduit developer: If we arent listening to the fans, we arent doing our jobs]]> http://gameratty.com/article/be767f8490e62265998280c5d500495a http://gameratty.com/article/be767f8490e62265998280c5d500495a Eric Nofsigner, Chief Creative Officer of High Voltage Software, has long been an advocate of better gaming on the Wii. “Most of the games on the Wii look like crap.” Nofsinger told IGN last April, “We want to change that. …Our goal is to be the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet.” High Voltage has spent the last year developing The Conduit, the much hyped independent first person shooter that seems to be pushing Wii graphics to the limit.

At Nintendo’s Fall Press Summit, Eric Nofsinger and I talked about how important fan feedback was to the development of The Conduit.  “One of the things we’ve really done at every one of these shows is gotten feedback from folks, from press, from fans, and that’s been awesome.” Nofsinger says, “We write up a list of all the stuff, and we go back to the studio and put it on a punch list – not all of it gets on there, but a lot of it does.” This kind of fan involvement is almost unheard of in the industry, as we approached the demo unit I asked for details. “Can you show me an example?”

“Absolutely.”

“I can point to a lot of things in this build that have changed since the PAX build directly as a result of fan feedback. One of the things that a lot of the fans talked about in the forums was the jaggy textures, they felt like when you got right up on the walls that the texturing was jaggy. So we went back to the studio and asked ‘how do we fix this,’ and sorted out a way to make it happen so you can go right up on a texture and it’s nice and crisp.”

Eric calls the trick “black magic,” explaining how The Conduit displays different textures depending on player distance from a surface. “I’ve not seen this in another Wii title.” he said, “There are other things we’ve incorporated, People came up to us and said ‘it would be nice if your character ran faster,’ or ‘it would be nice if the general turn speed, or cursor speed was more responsive,’ these are all things that we tweak and tweak and tweak, and people come back to the next show, and we have them try it and say ‘how does this feel now? We’re getting in the striking zone, closer and closer to an ideal, that’s something we don’t want to lose.”

Now I was interested!  I’ve seen fan suggestions ignored, ridiculed and dismissed, but never listened to, let alone implemented! As if reading my mind, Nofsinger continued, “I would hope that a couple of the things that we are doing aren’t typical to the developer/publisher mold, and I would hope that our example will help other folks. How many developers do you know at these shows who walk the hall with a notebook and have it filled up with ideas? I’ve written pages of comments directly from people, and I’ve done that at every show we’ve been to. It matters what the fans think. If we are not listening to them and we aren’t actively putting that stuff in there, we aren’t doing our jobs.”

I began to wonder if this philosophy had caused High Voltage any trouble, not all fans agree on what a game should be like. “What do you do when you have one person asking you to do something one way, and another person asking for the opposite?”
“That’s something we encountered very early on,” Eric explained, “even within our own office. You ask people ‘how should you control a first person shooter on the Wii,’ and out of fifty different people you’ll get fifty different responses. ‘Where should your HUD be?’ Everybody tells you something different!” Remembering a conversation from earlier, I had to interject. “Your colleague was telling me about that yesterday, that there is some dispute at the office about what to do with the HUD. He said you were thinking about letting the user decide.”

“Exactly,” Eric started again, “that’s in the next build, you guys will all see. You’ll be able to drag and drop your HUD elements exactly where you want them. If you want to play with no HUD, great - play with no HUD. If you want to play with your health meter right dead center in the middle of the screen? Sure, why should we stop you? We’ve had some dispute about that, ‘Well, then consumers can break it,’ and it’s like, ‘okay, let them break it if that’s what they want!’ Maybe putting the HUD somewhere that blocks your view is more of a challenge for you, maybe you just want to see if you can do it. After that you can throw it on YouTube and say ‘check it out, I beat the game with all the HUD stuff right in the middle of the screen!’”

One of the reasons High Voltage has the freedom to include fans in the development process is due to the fact that until recently, Conduit has been a completely independent title, without a publisher. Even so, their independent approach and revolutionary graphics for the Nintendo console garnered them a lot of attention. “We’ve had many suitors over the last few months; it was just a process of widdling that down to the ones that really made sense, and there is a lot of criteria that went into that. We weren’t just going with whoever was the highest bidder; we wanted to make sure they were somebody who would be a great partner, and that we would be able to continue to make a great game.”

With all the hype surrounding The Conduit, High Voltage’s long list of suitors is no surprise. When the game’s Quantum3 engine was first revealed as a tech demo in April, gamers and publishers alike were blown away by the promise of 60fps at near Xbox 360 quality graphics. Nofsinger explained that companies were inquiring about licensing the engine for their own games right away. “It’s something we’ve been approached a lot about, the initial tech demo that went out, that was really only made for internal and for publisher purposes, it wasn’t really intended for the public but people really grabbed onto it.

“Right now we’re not really looking to license the engine, really we’re focusing more on making a really high quality game than becoming a middleware provider. We’re trying to raise our quality level and raise the quality level of core games on Wii. We do want to make sure that if we were going to sell the engine we’d want to be sure it’s being utilized in interesting ways, as opposed to selling it to anybody with a dollar – because that pulls the whole thing down again.”
Amid all the licensing requests and fan feedback, High Voltage has still found time to pick out a suitor. “We have a publisher now, it’s just we haven’t announced it yet. It’s supposed to be signed, but there is some back and forth. It’s in the hands of the lawyers now.”

High Voltage Software and its new partner are expected to make an announcement sometime within the next two weeks.

]]> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:49:32 +0000 fans eric conduit eric nofsigner hud stuff wii stuff wii title eric nofsinger Interview with Conduit developer: If we arent listening to the fans, we arent doing our jobs <![CDATA[Doshin creator behind new WiiWare game, Discipline]]> http://gameratty.com/article/c84ed87454f716dfad5261afd80b1ab5 http://gameratty.com/article/c84ed87454f716dfad5261afd80b1ab5 Discipline

Marvelous is supporting the Wii in a big way, and is doing so by publishing a number of genuinely interesting titles from Japanese developers that not many other companies would risk taking on. Kudos, chaps.

Anyway, the latest effort from this innovative bunch is Discipline, a WiiWare title from the mind behind the underrated GameCube oddity Doshin The Giant, and underwater photography sim (predating Endless Ocean by several years) Aquanaut’s Holiday - which has just had a PS3 sequel.

Kazutoshi Iida’s involvement is confirmed, but that’s about all that’s known so far, other than that it has something to do with sea turtles.  The official site can be found here, which contains a pretty damn ace game logo and not much else, sadly.

Still, feel free to click away if nice logos are your thing, or just check out the pic above.

© Shiny Media - visit Wii Wii for more great content.

]]> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:42:26 +0000 visit wii wii wii kazutoshi iidas involvement underwater photography sim gamecube oddity doshin official site innovative bunch discipline japanese developers Doshin creator behind new WiiWare game, Discipline <![CDATA[EA uncovers NFS Undercover game mode]]> http://gameratty.com/article/67b6786ce2d4342bc6f95e2a1333d81a http://gameratty.com/article/67b6786ce2d4342bc6f95e2a1333d81a Filed under:


In anticipation of the release of Need for Speed: Undercover, Black Box and EA just revealed an all new Undercover online game mode called "Cops and Robbers".

Just as it sounds, Cops and Robbers pits two opposing teams of four against each other (one cops, one robbers) in an attempt to earn the most points. Robbers have the mission to pickup various packages and drop them off at specified destinations, while the Cops team tries to prevent the package delivery. Once the round is complete, players will swap sides and play as either the Cops or Robbers. Hmm, sounds innovative!

 

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]]> Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:45:00 +0000 cops team robbers robbers pits cops sounds innovative sounds black box undercover package delivery EA uncovers NFS Undercover game mode <![CDATA[Going Out]]> http://gameratty.com/article/8d10728b6920b117f362360ac2096bd4 http://gameratty.com/article/8d10728b6920b117f362360ac2096bd4 At his Cut Scene blog, Variety's Ben Fritz has responded to 'Coming Home,' my much-trafficked, post-Homecoming rant here at SVGL. You could say I wrote it because I was touchy about being the one of the only reviewers to like the game (that did make me feel weird)[*], but what I was touchy about is how highly arbitrary the strikes critics levied against it were. Some reviews complained there are too many health packs and the game was too easy; others said there weren't enough health packs and the game was too hard.

For the record, I think there were just the right amount of health packs, and survival horror fans know how to pace themselves. Noobs soon learn, and people who prefer plentiful supplies probably should not play survival horror or any game in the Silent Hill franchise.

But that's neither here nor there! The health pack thing is just an example, albeit a slightly off-point one. Anyway, largely, I was expressing some exasperation at the tendency of reviewers (not excluding myself) to be arbitrarily nitpicky -- and what Ben seems to suggest in his response post is that reviewers are actually more inclined to be overly positive than overly negative:
I didn't see many critics deliberately searching for things to dislike in "Grand Theft Auto IV" or "Halo 3" or "Mass Effect" or "Super Mario Galaxy" or "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." On the contrary, these AAA, heavily marketed franchises (mostly sequels) with gameplay very similar to what the hardcore audience has seen and loved before got overwhelmingly positive reviews. Sure, many admitted, the story in "Halo 3" was inpenetrable and the the combat in "Mass Effect" was wonky and "Brawl" is barely an advance over the last installment and has major problems with online play, but those were largely brushed aside as minor considerations.

I felt the same way about Brawl, actually, and wrote an entire column about how we were sold on it before we even played it because of positive associations with the characters. I agree with Ben on the over-positivity thing in general, which is part of why I was frustrated when I felt many Homecoming reviews elected to miss the big picture and focus on the details, or fault it heavily for things that are a matter of taste without recognizing that there's an entire swath of the audience who doesn't have the same taste -- when they'd been so willing to wave other franchise titles through with 9's and without similar close scrutiny.

Ben wrote:
Basically, I think another way of saying what Leigh's getting at is that many game critics, particularly those who write for avid fans, can obsess over controls or menu design problems in titles that are doing something innovative in tone or theme, but downplay the same types of faults in games that are essentially improvements on the ones they already love.
Thanks, Ben -- that's exactly what I was getting at, actually. I neglected to present the flip side of the coin with an example like Grand Theft Auto IV -- as Ben says, now that we're several months out from its release, we can raise a bit more of a skeptical brow at review quotes like "Oscar-caliber drama"(IGN) than we did when we were still in the afterglow of positive feelings around its release and the fact that our expectations -- and desires -- for it were so, so high.

And maybe this also helps explain the puzzling "four-month bell curve" that I've written about before, wherein titles are considered to be near-perfection at the time of their launch and then suffer a fall from grace -- sometimes an out-and-out backlash, as in BioShock's case -- about four months later.

Now, on one hand it makes sense that games with familiar formulas get better reviews than titles that really try to do something odd. There's a reason the formula's being repeated -- because we're familiar with it and it works well. To some extent, games have a laundry list of "things not to do in design," and often when design avoids those line items, the result is largely similar to other things that have been successful.

That's just logic; it's just smart evolution. When a title attempts to explore uncharted areas, it risks stumbling into areas that have been neglected for a good reason -- because they don't work as well. But when we fault them for trying, without recognizing that the game might have done a few new things well, or when we treat creativity or an attempt at inventiveness as a design flaw, we're sending the industry some problematic mixed messages. We demand innovation and invention, and then we crucify any attempts in that direction.

Ben also said something to the same effect:
The result is that we don't value innovation or attempts to do something big and new, like make a funny game that's thematically consistent with an all-time great TV show or create psychological impact through artful storytelling integrated with gameplay, because we obsess on the mechanical problems or the length of the cutscenes. Not that those things don't matter. But they don't matter that much, especially for an artistically immature medium in desperate need of innovation and freshness.

The nature of game design suggests that there probably won't be any overwhelming overnight overhauls. Iteration happens gradually over time, and it probably is a wise strategy -- both in terms of design logic and sales numbers -- to try and make subtle evolutions on the familiar rather than try something totally new. Very few games go way out to left field and do well unless they are both very skilled and very fortunate -- think Portal, Braid, Katamari Damacy.

But the funny thing was, Silent Hill: Homecoming was far from totally new. In fact, it was a subtle iteration on a formula -- a formula Double Helix aped quite admirably for not having originated it. It was about as different from prior Silent Hill games as any of them are from each other, and fans will probably disagree widely on whether or not it worked. Fans have always had subtle Silent Hill disagreements -- which one's "the best" and why, for example.

The fact that I read so many forums and comments and get so much email is actually probably a problem as well for me as a reviewer -- and for others. All of the reviews I've been citing thus far are online. I and my colleagues serve an internet audience. When our readers have expectations, preconceptions or hopes for a title's outcome, they're looking to our review to either affirm or deny. Often, our reviews end up being an extension of their feelings -- after all, we're responsible for addressing their concerns and fears as we've perceived them, or at least we feel like we are.

Moreover, we're part of the community, too, perhaps to an unusual extent. I wrote about groupthink and the hype cycle yesterday -- if there's a tidal wave of buzz, we're riding along on it, too. Interestingly, reviews tend to be the most inconsistent when "the internet" had no preconception or prevailing opinion ahead of the release. Do reviewers feel like they're "supposed to" like a title just because their readers or colleagues are excited about it, or "supposed to" be extra critical just because there are tons of early warnings? I wonder.

I'm always a little surprised at what the world is like when I shut the computer off -- no lie. Even when I go to GameStop, where you'd expect that most of the shoppers would be something "like us." I end up chatting with other customers and am always disoriented -- believe it or not, people shopping at GameStop usually haven't heard of Kotaku. They haven't heard that the game they're in line to buy was delayed twice or is made by the wrong studio.

Then, when those people start to talk to me about what they've been playing lately, I'm always surprised to learn that they enjoyed, say, Kane and Lynch. They didn't notice the problems reviewers did. They never heard of Gerstmann-Gate. They don't know who he is, and they certainly don't know who I am. They thought The Darkness was the best game they played last year. They like Geometry Wars but not Braid. They love Madden and don't even know that "we" snub it.

In other words, they're normal consumers, and their opinion is different than ours. They have a kind of distance on the industry that we just don't. I should try talking to these people more often.

I've digressed all over the place, but anyway, Ben's whole response to my post is very thought-provoking and worth reading.

[*]Oh, addendum: Aside from UGO, whom I noted, Destructoid also liked it.]]> Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:08:00 +0000 design design avoids design flaw design logic game design suggests funny game funny game reviews Going Out <![CDATA[Silicon Knights lays off 26 employees]]> http://gameratty.com/article/60460f352998fdd4209349a9d3f433ac http://gameratty.com/article/60460f352998fdd4209349a9d3f433ac

The guys over at Silicon Knights are revealing a slightly less humane side of themselves as 26 employees have recently been laid off. According to Kotaku, those affected were staff brought in to lay the finishing touches on the first Too Human game. A statement from the company declared, “After any big game ships, there is often some attrition. To that end, Silicon Knights temporarily laid-off 26 employees today [Monday] while they ramp up on other projects. All the company’s directors and leads are still at Silicon Knights and working on its next projects.”

It would be unfair to point the judgmental finger towards Silicon Knights considering that the employees most likely knew all along that they had to leave. Silicon Knights also say that they, if possible, would be happy to take them back for future projects. “Silicon Knights is currently working on several new and exciting games that will be announced to the public in the coming months,” said President Denis Dyack as part of the statement.

“In addition to those projects, Silicon Knights continues to develop and promote other new and original ideas, which will become the innovative games of tomorrow. These 26 individuals are hard-working and valued team members that we hope to bring back as we ramp up on our future projects,” he ended.

]]> Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:57:29 +0000 silicon knights silicon knights continues projects future projects employees president denis dyack innovative games games ramp Silicon Knights lays off 26 employees <![CDATA[Grasshopper takes UE3 for EA horror game]]> http://gameratty.com/article/09fa11a4630d1775188b1ba2ead65c0f http://gameratty.com/article/09fa11a4630d1775188b1ba2ead65c0f Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:56:01 +0000 unreal engine suda51s grasshopper manufactures games faster horror innovative tools grasshopper quickly creative team game engine vision Grasshopper takes UE3 for EA horror game <![CDATA[EA/Suda/Mikami project is Unreal Engine 3 poweredbut what about Wii?]]> http://gameratty.com/article/953bbdaebf26085a102621d8074da28a http://gameratty.com/article/953bbdaebf26085a102621d8074da28a

Tokyo – October 7, 2008 – Iconic Japanese developer Grasshopper Manufacture has licensed Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for a new multiplatform action horror game to be published by Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS). The new game is directed by innovative game designer Suda51 and produced by legendary Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami.

“Unreal Engine 3 is a powerful, easy-to-implement game engine that is helping the creative team at Grasshopper quickly bring our vision to life,” said Goichi Suda, CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture. “The innovative tools and technology in Unreal Engine 3 help developers create games faster, easier and with less risk.”

“It’s an honor to work with Mikami-san and Suda-san on their next project,” said Jay Wilbur, vice president, Epic Games. “Grasshopper Manufacture is one of the most daring and innovative studios in the world, and we can’t wait to see what they’re able to do with Unreal Engine 3.

This is indeed the game that is heading to Wii, but I don’t think we’ll see the UE3 on Wii. I wonder how they are going to work this one out…

Link

]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:24:32 +0000 unreal engine grasshopper manufacture wii game game engine vice president goichi suda games faster electronic arts EA/Suda/Mikami project is Unreal Engine 3 poweredbut what about Wii? <![CDATA[Needs more waggle]]> http://gameratty.com/article/36d2112bd5a95a1e88cfede360431173 http://gameratty.com/article/36d2112bd5a95a1e88cfede360431173 wiiremote.jpg

Last week Nintendo announced it would be re-releasing some classic GameCube titles for the Wii.

It's easy to be cynical about this development, as Wii is already backward compatible with its predecessor, so you can pick up great Cube games for mere pennies in bargain bins or online auctions and happily enjoy them on the newer console.

But there are games that could benefit from new controls featuring the Wii Remote, including titles Nintendo has already announced for re-issue - the Pikmin games, Mario Tennis, Chibi Robo (which was sadly never originally released in Australia) and Metroid Prime 1 and 2.

Of course, some games might also actually suffer from Wii controls, such as Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, which will no doubt lose its novelty and charm without the Cube's delightful (and under-utilised) bongo controllers.

Click below for some suggestions of other GameCube titles that Nintendo or third party publishers should re-release on Wii, and feel free to nominate your own classics that could benefit from some waggle action.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - An absolutely enchanting adventure. (Nintendo should also feel free to also throw in the Collector's Edition disc, which featured The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, The Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, the best extra freebie ever offered with a game.)

Super Monkey Ball 2 - A tricky and addictive puzzler with hilarious bonus multiplayer party games. Loads better than the Wii-native Banana Blitz.

Killer 7 - This wildly creative, pretentious, violent and dazzling circus of horrors deserved a bigger audience and could greatly benefit from a more accessible control scheme.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Another game that deserved more sales and recognition than it received, Eternal Darkness is innovative psychological thriller simulating the descent into insanity.

Super Mario Sunshine - Not in the same league as Galaxy, but still a very entertaining platform game showing glimpses of Miyamoto's design genius. Controlling the water pack with the remote could work well.

F-Zero GX - An upcoming Wii version of Nintendo's futuristic racer is a certainly, but this exhilarating battle against aggressive opponents on imaginative circuits will certainly do in the meantime.

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour - If this was compatible with the upcoming MotionPlus accessory, it could be a great timewaster.

Luigi's Mansion - Sucking up ghosts using the Wii Remote could be a lot of fun, and the game contains some ingenious puzzles worth experiencing.

Wave Race: Blue Storm - Another strong candidate for MotionPlus, using the Remote/Nunchuk "handlebar" technique demonstrated for the jet ski racing in Wii Sports Resort.


Games Screen Play does not want to see given the waggle treatment (for various reasons) - Viewtiful Joe series, Prince of Persia series, Star Wars Rogue Squadron series, Burnout series, Beyond Good and Evil, Donkey Konga, Mario Party series, Shadow the Hedghog, BMX XXX and Charlies Angels.

]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:20:32 +0000 remote wii remote wii wii sports resort wii controls wii-native banana blitz cube games cube games Needs more waggle <![CDATA[Grasshopper goes Unreal for EA horror franchise]]> http://gameratty.com/article/235b78050e6de47d4edfaca6249cb841 http://gameratty.com/article/235b78050e6de47d4edfaca6249cb841 Filed under: , , , ,

It may seem like a stretch, but we're keeping a close eye on every scrap of information surrounding the collaboration with Goichi "Suda51" Suda and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami (as well as Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Q Entertainment). Publisher Electronic Arts has announced (via press release) that Suda51's studio Grasshopper Manufacture has licensed Epic's Unreal Engine 3 for the multiplatform horror franchise. We're curious what the use of UE3 means for the Wii version of the game, given Epic's non-support of the console.

Unfortunately, what's lacking in the press release is any information about the game itself. Said Epic VP Jay Wilbur, "Grasshopper Manufacture is one of the most daring and innovative studios in the world, and we can't wait to see what they're able to do with Unreal Engine 3." Welcome to the club, buddy.

 

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]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:30:00 +0000 grasshopper manufacture studio grasshopper manufacture press release unreal engine multiplatform horror franchise epic publisher electronic arts wii version nintendo wii Grasshopper goes Unreal for EA horror franchise