how to win at videogames
Aug. 2nd, 2006 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashI have finally figured out how to properly play modern bulletstorm shmups. Turns out it takes all the fun out of them for me.
What I want in a reflex game is, essentially, a music visualizer with interaction and bleepy noises. I want to close a reflex loop between the screen and my hands, and turn my brain off. It's a kind of meditation, when it works.
What I get in a bulletstorm shmup half the time is a system to analyze and break.
I was playing 'Vasara 2' via the magic of emulation. I caught myself playing it in different ways: first an all-the-quarters-in-the-world continue fest that ended on the final level, where continuing resets to the beginning of the level, rather than picking up where you left off, then a few serious, analytical goes at it, playing with the weapons you're given and the rhythms of the game. I really noticed myself analyzing it.
The Tao of Shooters (as taught to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ultraken) is 'be where the bullets are not'. Vasara 2 turns out to be very much about eliminating the bullets, instead. You never need to use your 'main' weapon much at all; it's really a game of using the bullet-cancelling ability of your charge-blast and your smart bomb to carve out ample space to pick up the items that earn you a smart bomb.
And that's that. Now that I've worked this out I'm not that sure I want to play it through - I'd like to win it, I'd like to be able to see all the crazy feudal Japanese robots. But I've worked out how I'm 'supposed' to play, as confirmed by the fact that my bonus multiplier casually climbs up into triple digits, and it's not just much fun any more. It's not conducive to meditation. It's all learning the level patterns and casually spending smart bombs on the mid-bosses, and that's about it. I can get through the first level unscratched 50% of the time, and I'm just not interested now.
It feels finished, even though I haven't put in the time to actually beat the thing. And now I worry that every time I try playing a game of this type - a genre I typically love - it'll just feel like a dry exercise in working out the system, and figuring out what the bonus mechanism is telling me to do. Yeah, yeah, I get to see all the pretty bosses, big whoop. I don't get any joy out of dying repeatedly to hone my perfect pattern through the level any more.
I should probably go try and figure out the Subtle Play of ESP Ra. De or Dodonpachi before I decide I'm all done with bulletstorms. Maybe Vasara 2's just not a good game once you work out the trick that changes it from 'impossibly hard' to 'kinda tedious, with the risk of getting out of the rhythm and getting screwed hard'.
At the other end of the thinking/reflexes, Bullet Candy looks like the kind of shootery goodness I appreciate, at first. It claims to have an unlockable "Minter mode", forchrissake. Unfortunately it turns out to just be an abstract Robotron clone with a little video feedback trickery and not much variety in enemy behavior, and the "Minter mode" didn't show up after I made it through the demo levels on one life. Foo. Maybe I should just have a few rounds of Gridrunner++ and go to sleep.
I continue to wonder if I'm just plain Done with video games, outside of the best of the best. The genres I like I can analyze quickly. The genres I don't still don't appeal to me - this past weekend I played the Tempest-meets-DDR 'Frequency', for instance, did surprisingly well for a first-timer because I was analyzing it while playing, and then realized that its music selection didn't appeal, and it's still a 'music performance' game, which I've never warmed to. But sometimes I just want to while away a few hours with my brain off.
What I want in a reflex game is, essentially, a music visualizer with interaction and bleepy noises. I want to close a reflex loop between the screen and my hands, and turn my brain off. It's a kind of meditation, when it works.
What I get in a bulletstorm shmup half the time is a system to analyze and break.
I was playing 'Vasara 2' via the magic of emulation. I caught myself playing it in different ways: first an all-the-quarters-in-the-world continue fest that ended on the final level, where continuing resets to the beginning of the level, rather than picking up where you left off, then a few serious, analytical goes at it, playing with the weapons you're given and the rhythms of the game. I really noticed myself analyzing it.
The Tao of Shooters (as taught to me by
ultraken) is 'be where the bullets are not'. Vasara 2 turns out to be very much about eliminating the bullets, instead. You never need to use your 'main' weapon much at all; it's really a game of using the bullet-cancelling ability of your charge-blast and your smart bomb to carve out ample space to pick up the items that earn you a smart bomb.And that's that. Now that I've worked this out I'm not that sure I want to play it through - I'd like to win it, I'd like to be able to see all the crazy feudal Japanese robots. But I've worked out how I'm 'supposed' to play, as confirmed by the fact that my bonus multiplier casually climbs up into triple digits, and it's not just much fun any more. It's not conducive to meditation. It's all learning the level patterns and casually spending smart bombs on the mid-bosses, and that's about it. I can get through the first level unscratched 50% of the time, and I'm just not interested now.
It feels finished, even though I haven't put in the time to actually beat the thing. And now I worry that every time I try playing a game of this type - a genre I typically love - it'll just feel like a dry exercise in working out the system, and figuring out what the bonus mechanism is telling me to do. Yeah, yeah, I get to see all the pretty bosses, big whoop. I don't get any joy out of dying repeatedly to hone my perfect pattern through the level any more.
I should probably go try and figure out the Subtle Play of ESP Ra. De or Dodonpachi before I decide I'm all done with bulletstorms. Maybe Vasara 2's just not a good game once you work out the trick that changes it from 'impossibly hard' to 'kinda tedious, with the risk of getting out of the rhythm and getting screwed hard'.
At the other end of the thinking/reflexes, Bullet Candy looks like the kind of shootery goodness I appreciate, at first. It claims to have an unlockable "Minter mode", forchrissake. Unfortunately it turns out to just be an abstract Robotron clone with a little video feedback trickery and not much variety in enemy behavior, and the "Minter mode" didn't show up after I made it through the demo levels on one life. Foo. Maybe I should just have a few rounds of Gridrunner++ and go to sleep.
I continue to wonder if I'm just plain Done with video games, outside of the best of the best. The genres I like I can analyze quickly. The genres I don't still don't appeal to me - this past weekend I played the Tempest-meets-DDR 'Frequency', for instance, did surprisingly well for a first-timer because I was analyzing it while playing, and then realized that its music selection didn't appeal, and it's still a 'music performance' game, which I've never warmed to. But sometimes I just want to while away a few hours with my brain off.
I've yet to find a shooter...
Date: 2006-08-03 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 02:24 pm (UTC)Borrowed that from a friend in the past; last Thanksgiving I was able to casually demonstrate that, yes, I'm still good enough at it to start from scratch and get the butterfly ending in the span of a couple of hours.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 06:37 am (UTC)Warning Forever (http://www18.big.or.jp/~hikoza/Prod/index_e.html) is interesting for a good while. It's just a series of boss fights against a Boss ship that keeps growing stronger. The idea is that the game analyzes how you fight, and tries to adapt to counter your strategy each successive stage. So every time you play it'll evolve differently, using the same basic parts and guns. The best part is tinkering with the AI to try to steer its growth as you fight it.
They're only on windows so I dunno if you can play them, though they're quite good free Japanese vector shooters that break out of the mold in fun little ways while staying as simple as possible.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 08:31 pm (UTC)One of my most pleasing videogame memories is the time I booted up N2O and swapped out the disc for a CD of Mozart symphonies - the whole thing loads into memory at once, and just spools a bunch of Chemical Brothers tracks off the game disc, and allows you to swap in Some Other Album as well. I completely zoned out and got pretty much all the way through the game from the beginning, with no continues. I don't think I really thought about much during that time, either.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 07:46 am (UTC)PC Version soon to come out, also wait for the new XBLA thing we are working on ;)
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Date: 2006-08-03 02:19 pm (UTC)And bundled Neon + Llamasoft on Live keeps making the 360 look like a tempting purchase. Even though I have the impression that most of the 360's catalog is hyper-detailly FPSs and driving sims
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 08:35 am (UTC)Just turn on God Mode and start killing. Play for as long as desired. When I hit the last switch, wake up and smile at the ending text. All the monsters are dead, time to do something useful with myself. Game over. Let's play!
http://doom.ocremix.org/
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 10:50 pm (UTC)