Microsoft has an advantage that other sites such as Amazon, etc. don't. Ownership verification.
You can prevent people who haven't even downloaded the demo from writing reviews or ranking a game. At least this would be possible if Microsoft fixed their DRM for Live games.
Microsoft could prevent a LOT of fraudulent reviews or hype panderers simply by restricting reviews to accounts that have downloaded the demo version of the game. And label reviews as being written by demo downloaders versus full game purchasers.
If reviews become far too numerous, there's always ranking the reviews for usefulness.
Oh Xbox Live Arcade. You had so much promise which is now...I wouldn't say totally gone, but unless something drastic happens, all I can say is it *had* so much promise. I am an Xbox360 owner. I have purchased about 10 games on XBLA. I've tried about a dozen beyond that at the very least. I've used the Xbox Dashboard on a near daily basis so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to what I dislike about the whole deal. Heck, my Xbox 360 is idling RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE THIS!
Irritation 1: Interface
How many menus I need to go through to get to the games I want to play will get a rant on its own, but the Marketplace for games is terrible. I mean, just freaking terrible. I love how the highlighted color of the text you've selected becomes unreadable. I selected the Spotlight in the Marketplace and "Games" is in this warm grayish white color that's barely legible on the light vermilion background. It certainly doesn't stand out compared to "Top Games" and non-selected options.
I'm looking at a list of games. Full Game - DOOM is selected now. On the right side of the screen is just the name of the game, the rating and a bunch of text scrolling by faster than I can care to read it. Yeah, that really makes me interested. No, it doesn't! What about a few screen shots? A genre? As a consumer, I'm lazy and I'd like to see cool features outlined quickly. *Online Co-op. *Competitive Death Match. *OVER 9000 LEVELS!!!!!! *Smokin' 3D Graphics. You get the idea. I figure everything has been remastered in HD and 5.1 sound so stop wasting your electrons scrolling that.
Say, some of that stupid text actually got me to hit the A button and learn more. I see a link to the demo, full game and any extra crap gamer pictures or whatever if available. At least they finally list the price of the dang thing here. Oh. Do I get any new info on the game? NO! Same lame text from above. The only new info I see is the developer or publisher. Most likely the publisher.
I perused the video interface. Wow. The preview text is a lot shorter. Like, 1, or maybe 2 sentences! Plus I can see a 30 second video preview. I'd like to see a game trailer like that, rather than go to a separate trailers category. Videos get a "Top Videos" list but do games? NO! The games page gets advertisements for TV shows. I guess I see where the money is being made...Quality certify video: make a tester watch it once. Certify a game? You have to pour over the interface, check it for general stability bugs, etc. It's not nearly as easy. You need a tester that really knows what he or she is doing.
Irritation #2! COMMUNITY!
I have an inane confession to make. When cellular phone plans cost $50/month and you had 10 minutes of non-peak time, I used Xbox Live to voice chat with my best friend who was 500 miles away. It was win. People on XBL build clans, teams, you name it for the games they play.
Integrating the community into the marketplace was a revolution that Amazon.com gets a lot of credit for. They introduced a system where you could see the sales ranking, but the biggest boon was you saw what else purchasers of the book you were currently looking at also bought. Free advertising at its finest.
Here's another thing that bugs me. Release slots. Xbox Live Arcade only releases 2 new games a week. I understand this. They want these 2 games to have a full week of being in the spot light and have a chance to sell. Yeah, I know. It doesn't end up working that way due to the clunky interface burying the game. So there's 52 weeks in a year, 104 XBLA games released a year. A lot of developers are upset over how hard it is for them to get their game out.
What better way to get people involved and democratize some of these release lists! Every month, we players pick from a pool of whatever XBLA game has passed certification and is ready for release. Honestly, I'd like to vote for green lighting games too. Let's see here, a port of another game I don't care about or a cute happy co-op dungeon crawling RPG that has a good camera! *Votes* Heck, I'd vote several times a day and try to stuff the ballot box if I really saw a game concept that appealed to me.
I almost missed Omega Five because I saw it, I got excited about it, and then weeks passed before I came out and I forgot about it. Maybe a release reminder would have helped me there. Notify RandomEncounters whenever a game that's cool gets released. Or a 2D shooter. Or some other genre alert.
Irritation 3: Separate the Retro Stuff
They do this with Xbox Originals already. Most developers of original games don't want their products lumped next to buggy ports of 10+ year old console or arcade games.
Countless people I've spoken to want to see this happen. I understand that porting a console game to XBLA is a much bigger endeavor than barfing it up on Wii Virtual Console. Xbox ports get network play functionality, leader boards, achievements, tutorials, demos, etc. Still. Separate please. Thanks!
Irritation 4: Game Rep & User Reviews
I know this should have been in Irritation 2, but it's important enough to get its own section. I really think they're necessary. I don't know of any major American games website that doesn't let the users post their own reviews alongside their staff reviews. If storage and bandwidth is too much of a problem, let us give a game reputation like players get it. I can prefer or avoid a player. When I avoid the player, I can list a reason from obnoxious behavior to leaving early, etc. So let us rank games.
Conclusion
These are all changes I'd want to see just as a gamer. I'd heard about a vicious restructuring of royalties from some very irate XBLA developers, but I personally don't know and can't comment on that.
I owe huge thanks to a friend of mine for helping me prototype my game. I thought I planned absolutely everything out. There are so many fine details my initial Game Design Document left out. Like movement speeds in pixels per second. My friend and engineer gave me something playable(it doesn't crash and absolute minimum game play has been completed.) By not having a lot of other things done, it gave me ideas for other things I want to do with the game. Perhaps if I ever get around to making a sequel, I've got fodder for it.
No matter how tight you think your initial design is, prototypes are very very helpful.
Job? Still looking. I did manage to score a few good leads at GDC, lost another lead(things seemed promising then I just stopped hearing from this one company.) I'm getting some game development out of my system. HUGE thanks to my friend Kyle for engineering and support. The game isn't quite playable yet but at least there's a source control system in place now.
Playing? The Japanese import of Etrian Odyssey 2(whether the game gets that name for a US release is beyond me.) I do love this quirky series of DS RPGs. They're markedly old school, but what intrigues me the most is how utterly well balanced they are. At one point or another, you are very likely to need just about every skill that the game boasts. In the first game, I actually had to stop and power level a new band of characters just to get past a very long series of battles. I had a party built to destroy opponents in a few turns but they completely lacked the ability to survive long fights. EO2 gets rid of a lot of the abilities that were "cheap" in the first game, makes a number of very useful abilities a lot easier to access. Players have a lot more freedom to tweak stats. I can now pile a bunch of points into agility for a typically slow character, allowing them to act first, etc.
Also playing through Lost Odyssey. What's with all these "Odyssey" games lately? It's...typical of a JRPG. Unfortunately, I think I've got a great big sign on my back that says "SUCKER" that only Japanese RPG companies can see. Not that I disdain Western ones(I am very impressed with Mass Effect, I might add.) I guess JRPGs are my equivalent of reading celebrity tabloid magazines. At least, very typical games like LO feel that way. There's plenty of JRPG gold that shouldn't ever be lumped with anything lesser. Or I'm just playing through it to pass the time until Tales of Vesperia or something really good comes my way.
Audio Surf. That Romanian disco track that we all know as the Numa Numa song is one heck of a stage! I've been sticking to Mono Pro(occasionally Ninja) and I still need to futz aroudn with the other play modes.
When I get money again, I'm picking up Bully for 360. And Echochrome for PSP.
I also have a strange bout of guilt. I know a game reviewer. Said reviewer had a game that wasn't their cup of tea. However, it was mine. After much frustration of being unable to pass this one mission, I was given the controls. The mission was hard, and I failed quite a few times. Later, I checked the game's official site. It touted some game mechanics that would make the player's characters more powerful. Possibly enough so to pass the mission. If this feature is so widely touted, why wasn't the reviewer able to pull it off? They sounded like they'd never heard of the mechanic.
To be fair, I wonder how this game taught the reviewer to use this powerful mechanic. If the game did at all. Then again, I skipped the Ring tutorial in Lost Odyssey. BIG mistake, given how integral they are to game play and doing well in battles.
This game is a blast! It's a fun, musical twitch game. It's really surprising to see who else plays through the music I have as well. And I mean, I've got some obscure stuff:
Hito Ookami's Hyper Eurobeat Arrangement of Battle 2 from Romancing Saga.
Running Hell from Cave Story.
Final Fantasy VII Boss Theme.
Opus Xero's remix of The Mighty Obstacle from Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim.
By random chance, I glanced across this blog after completing my last post.
Wow. I'm pretty amazed at how people can play stuff that's pretty much the same darn thing over and over.
Yeah, as an unabashed consumer of JRPGs, at least there are a lot of distinct differences in gameplay, mood and how they go about doing things compared to the same ole same ole "Dash" type games and 3-matchers that have glutted the casual world.
Big congratulations to the fine trio at Easy Game Station on their newest release. Recettear was released at Comic Market for those lucky enough to go to the event but today they released it at a number of well known doujin shops for those of us who couldn't get to Tokyo on Christmas weekend to brave the massive waves of nerdy-types. I've been to a Comic Market and it was so crowded, I got crowd surfed just trying to get to some stairs on the way from the West Halls to the East. Tokyo Big Site has to be one of the largest convention areas I've ever seen and Comic Market makes TBS burst at the seams. I know I could have gotten this game via torrent months ago, but I look forward to some of my favorite retailers hooking me up with a legitimate copy. Seriously, EGS. Look into selling your games on Steam. You guys could even make Valve quake in it's boots for a bit, no pun intended.
Yeah, I know, Super Smash Brothers Brawl is also out, but seeing how I doubt I'd have people over to enjoy local multiplayer which has always been SSB's strong point, I'm paying visits to friends who are raving mad for this game. Especially since they've got bigger entertainment rooms and nicer TVs. The single player game doesn't come close to teaching you how to be really good at that game. You can button mash your way through story but if you even think about trying that "tactic" against a seasoned pro, don't count on landing a single hit. Almost all of the friends I'd go play the game with are the "seasoned pro" type, not looking for the equivalent of Mario Party, The Fighting Game.
The iPhone/iPod Touch SDK is out! I'm still looking for info on touch sensitivity and tilt accuracy that could help me come up with a design for a platform specific game. Hardware horsepower-wise, the platform veers on the PSP's specs. One fellow on a forum said:
"Think of a Dreamcast with 8X the RAM, 2X the CPU, and a generation newer graphics chip pushing 1/4 the pixels."
Dreamcast. That console has some games with absolutely stunning graphics(Soul Calibur, Grandia 2) and now that power is in a wee little device along with a trio of accelerometers that work like Sony's SIXAXIS controller.
Oh, the possibilities....
