So I picked up Fat Princess after finding out it had been released. I had no idea it finally came out since it was being delayed so much I stopped following it. The game was incredibly fun for the first day but now I’m kind of sick of it. It was already worth the $15 I payed for it though.
There are a total of 6 classes with 4 abilities each. This is because each class has an unlockable alter ego you can switch to whenever you’d like. Each of these classes has 2 abilities. Usually an area effect and a single target attack with some exceptions. My personal favorite is the priest as you can really push/hold the line when playing.
Much more fun than a night at the movies. I always compare gaming expenses to a $10 movie ticket but now that I think about it aren’t movies just overpriced anyway? Maybe I should find a new standard of entertainment expense vs reward to judge games by.
It seems like there has been a struggle between quality physics and quality graphics in games as of late. Either a game has an incredibly nice physics engine with decent graphics or the opposite. I think this is trending towards gaming PCs and even consoles requiring a physics card in the future. Right now physics are handled by the CPU but with a dedicated physics card the CPU could be freed up to perform more base level engine code with the physics card picking up all of the slack.
There have been some attempts at this in the past but nothing has really stuck. I think this is primarily because no game developer wants to adopt a standard method of physics modeling which a physics card will require. Basically, no one has made OpenGL/DirectX for physics yet. A physics library like that would be incredibly useful though.
The L4D2 boycott leaders were flown to Valve to supposedly see that L4D2 is worthy of being a full sequel and not just additional content. They said they agreed the game was nice and well polished but they weren’t giving in. I applaud their decision. The original L4D was supposed to get many more updates than it actually received. Releasing them in a sequel even if it does include things that weren’t possible in L4D doesn’t make up for the half finished title they released.
One of my major complaints now is that when I try to play L4D there are only a handful of lobbies available. Like literally only 3-4 games to choose from. You can’t even play all of the maps anymore because not enough people are playing/creating lobbies.
Just added a new category “Much Needed” and this is my first post in it. This category will focus on things that the gaming industry needs to create. This installment of Much Needed will focus on additional peripherals in gaming.
It seems like ever since Dunk Hunt came out no gaming peripheral has been able to compete until the guitar of Guitar Hero. What is happening in the gaming industry that no other interesting control schemes can be created? One thing that comes to mind is a “Mech” type game that required a $120 joystick/control system to play. I wonder if this cost barrier is the main reason we don’t see more interesting peripherals.
With a game like Rock Band you can appeal to a huge audience including non gamers. However, with a joystick and “Mech” game you’re still limited to people who play games often. Then in addition to that you’re limited to the gamers who can afford such a setup. This is basically adults or spoiled children which is probably a smaller market (currently) than the casual child/teen gamer.
I could definitely stand to see some new interesting controllers especially when it comes to PC games. I’d like some kind of Wii type aiming system that incorporates movement as well. I have to imagine a title like this would be cheap to produce and sell extremely well considering the PC market has essentially zero peripherals other than the keyboard/mouse/joystick.
More and more titles are releasing full new games instead of DLC for their existing games that have the exact same functionality. The worst offender of this is Rock Band and Guitar Hero as you could probably have guessed. They add more songs, some background videos, and suddenly you’re expected to pay another $60 for this? These should be getting released as $20-$30 content packs for the original titles.
It’s really a shame to see gaming companies doing this but it’s even more sad that gamers are willing to put up with it and buy small upgrades as if they’re entirely new games. This ties into why I hate consoles in general though. If these games were on PC there would simply be modding communities churning this stuff out for free. By keeping it on consoles they’re allowed to get away with this robbery and the people tied to consoles eat it up because there are less titles for them since console developers are split between choosing which of 3 consoles to develop for.
The Nintendo Wii is seriously lacking games that will attract so called “hardcore gamers.” This is causing them to miss out on a huge share of the video game market. However, they’ve almost created an entirely new untapped market of casual gamers and fitness nuts. I can’t even remember how many older people I’ve heard tell me they’re getting a Wii for Wii Fit. It’s really surprising to me that so many people are willing to invest around $300 for something they could easily do without any electronics at all. In fact, you could probably get a better workout by NOT using the Wii Fit than you can with it.
