More like YouAreADickTube.
Seriously, where do all these people come from? America probably.
All of my YouTube video comments are either hateful and insulting, or nice and full of praise. I know I've put up mostly WoW videos, but honestly, is there not a single male out there aged 15-25 with even the slightest bit of intelligence?
When most of your hits are coming from America, probably fucking not.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Xbox LIVE Wishlist
If I could make any suggestions about ways to improve Xbox LIVE, the following two things would be the biggest and most helpful/effective changes.
You see, as I write this I'm attempting to find a ranked online match in PGR4, and I can tell you that it is an obscenely long process at times. Just now I was able to find a quick match after a few minutes of patience, but honestly, I shouldn't have to be waiting a few minutes for every game I want to join. If each one was a championship length series of races, then yes, waiting a few minutes for something that might take 30-minutes to an hour might be worth it. But for a few laps around one track and then ending it, a few minutes is a lot of overhead.
I've had similar problems in finding ranked matches for Gears Of War, where a friend of mine usually hosts a game, and I try to join it. We normally make Annex-type games (which are kind of rare, so it's easier to find his game) but 100% of the time it doesn't appear in the list. That's right, I've never participated in a ranked match with one of my own friends. The whole thing is impeded by 1) not allowing invites in ranked matches of Gears Of War (I'm not sure what other games follow suit) and 2) what looks like a poor implementation of the matchmaking or server set-up system.
There are two words that can solve the number one problem or having trouble finding games, or people hosting games without a decent connection, or even people hosting games for the sake of host advantage.
You see, as I write this I'm attempting to find a ranked online match in PGR4, and I can tell you that it is an obscenely long process at times. Just now I was able to find a quick match after a few minutes of patience, but honestly, I shouldn't have to be waiting a few minutes for every game I want to join. If each one was a championship length series of races, then yes, waiting a few minutes for something that might take 30-minutes to an hour might be worth it. But for a few laps around one track and then ending it, a few minutes is a lot of overhead.
I've had similar problems in finding ranked matches for Gears Of War, where a friend of mine usually hosts a game, and I try to join it. We normally make Annex-type games (which are kind of rare, so it's easier to find his game) but 100% of the time it doesn't appear in the list. That's right, I've never participated in a ranked match with one of my own friends. The whole thing is impeded by 1) not allowing invites in ranked matches of Gears Of War (I'm not sure what other games follow suit) and 2) what looks like a poor implementation of the matchmaking or server set-up system.
There are two words that can solve the number one problem or having trouble finding games, or people hosting games without a decent connection, or even people hosting games for the sake of host advantage.
Dedicated Servers.
I can not, for the life of me, tell you why LIVE (or 360 games in general) allow for dedicated servers. From the all-powerful World Of Warcraft, to the humble days of StarCraft, Diablo, and the battle.net service. Why, now, is it okay for the user to be their own host? Yes some of us have good connections, but there are people who won't. The only games I ever play in that aren't destroyed by latency are ones hosted by my friend Robio on his adsl2+ with 1Mbit upload, or games hosted by me. Even ping indicators are broken in most games. Having started playing Vegas2, I was greeted into many games with green three-bar'd ping indications, but suffered what felt like pings in excess of 300-500ms -maybe more. Whereas if I want to play a game of TF2, I can hop on Steam and have the choice of hosting my own server, or joining a dedicated server.
Woe is me.
And the next problem is determining who on Earth (literally) is playing what game at any given time. Maybe if I threw a friend invite to every second person I played a game with I wouldn't have any trouble finding someone to play with, but I don't want to do that. Why is it that I can read statistics telling me what the top ten games played on Xbox LIVE are, but I can't go anywhere to see those numbers for myself (if there is such a place, tell me, I want to see it). As a member of MyGamerCard.net, I can see a list that's updated every 5 minutes of who is playing what. This is list is barely a few pages long, and not indicative of the entirety of LIVE players. CoD4 does it with it's list of game-types, letting you know how many players are actually playing CoD4 online games, and how many are playing in the currently highlighted game mode.
Woe is me.
And the next problem is determining who on Earth (literally) is playing what game at any given time. Maybe if I threw a friend invite to every second person I played a game with I wouldn't have any trouble finding someone to play with, but I don't want to do that. Why is it that I can read statistics telling me what the top ten games played on Xbox LIVE are, but I can't go anywhere to see those numbers for myself (if there is such a place, tell me, I want to see it). As a member of MyGamerCard.net, I can see a list that's updated every 5 minutes of who is playing what. This is list is barely a few pages long, and not indicative of the entirety of LIVE players. CoD4 does it with it's list of game-types, letting you know how many players are actually playing CoD4 online games, and how many are playing in the currently highlighted game mode.
Where is this feature for the rest of Xbox LIVE?
Honestly, if I could hop onto LIVE, check out who is playing what, and decide on what I want to play. I might have an hour to play some games, and while I've been writing this entry, PGR4 has been ticking away trying to find me a match. It has probably been 15 or so minutes now if not more, and still no game has been found. So I don't want to spend 25-50% of my game time looking for a match to get into. And when I do get into a game, I want it to be reliable. With dedicated servers, quitting or disconnecting could just be counted as a loss against that player, so that any winning streaks get broken so you can't just hax your way to getting achievements or good ratios. That and you won't get kicked by a bad host.
I know that I praise LIVE for how good it is, however it still has its flaws. They seem to be minor at first, but then they start to add up after a while.
In short: LIVE is good. Great when compared to PSN and Nintendo WFC. The best of the 3, in fact. However that isn't saying much, because Nintendo WFC is fairly crap, and PSN is a less feature packed LIVE. So although it is number one, it didn't have to work hard to get there. I might check later to see if there is some kind of feature suggestion thing, or something similar, so that I can attempt to suggest these things in the same way that I suggested ideas to YouTube.
I'm done for tonight.
I know that I praise LIVE for how good it is, however it still has its flaws. They seem to be minor at first, but then they start to add up after a while.
In short: LIVE is good. Great when compared to PSN and Nintendo WFC. The best of the 3, in fact. However that isn't saying much, because Nintendo WFC is fairly crap, and PSN is a less feature packed LIVE. So although it is number one, it didn't have to work hard to get there. I might check later to see if there is some kind of feature suggestion thing, or something similar, so that I can attempt to suggest these things in the same way that I suggested ideas to YouTube.
I'm done for tonight.
Ikaruga? That's what your mum said last night!
Well I'm glad you had fun with my mother playing some Xbox LVE Arcade games. That sure was nice of you.
If you don't already know, Ikaruga was released onto the Marketplace this past week to the oh-so-wonderful tune of 800 MS points. For the unknowing, that is about $12AUD compared to the grotesque sound of something like $90-100 for it at retail on the beloved Gamecube as can be seen below.
If you don't already know, Ikaruga was released onto the Marketplace this past week to the oh-so-wonderful tune of 800 MS points. For the unknowing, that is about $12AUD compared to the grotesque sound of something like $90-100 for it at retail on the beloved Gamecube as can be seen below.
It disgusts me, too.
The reason I'm pointing out the savings of getting this gem on the LIVE that is Xbox is because it is a gem. As far as 2D Shoot 'em Ups (Shmups) go, this is one of the best ever made. I'd say that the reason for this would be that it is a stock standard shooter up to a point, and then tacks on something obscenely cool to mix it all up. Let me explain:
In your standard shooter you pilot some kind of land- or aircraft. Your job is to be a one-an army against a more-than-one-man army which involves dodging any number of bullets, enemy ships, and obstacles on the path to glory. Typically, you'll have either a life-bar of some sort, or a less forgiving one-hit one-kill situation (it's how coin-operated games make their money). Your craft has one or more weapons and to even things out you will generally have at least 1 field leveling (literally) super weapon. In Heavy Weapon it's your nuke, Geometry Wars has that bomb thing and Ikaruga has fancy homing laser things.
One thing changes the way this game does the Shmup genre. That thing is polarity.
Your ship can alternate between light and dark polarities. The enemies in the game are either light or dark and as such they sure bullets of that same polarity. How does this change things, exactly? Well, your ship can actually absorb bullets of the same polarity as you. So if you are dark, and shooting at dark enemies who are shooting back at you then you are practically invincible. Get hit by a light shot, however, and it's R.I.P. for you. The downside to this is that shooting enemies with the same polarity only does normal damage. Dark enemies are weak against light polarity bullets. They do double damage, in fact. So now it's a matter of playing to be an efficient and risky killer, or a slowly but safely kinda thing. Then, for those people looking to get into the high-end of playing the game, there is a combo chaining system.
This system isn't just a matter of pewpew'ing your way through a stage and getting an uber score. It's much harder than that. In order to increase your chain by one you need to kill 3 of the same polarity enemies in a row. You can take as long as you like to get the 3, but your chain won't go up until you pop the third one in a row. Kill two lights then a dark, and your entire chain resets. It may sound easy, but amidst the torrential downpour (at times) of bullets it is difficult to maintain a chain.
If you like 2D shooters at all, then you will love Ikaruga's gameplay. With humble beginnings about 7 years ago on the Dreamcast, then moving on to the Gamecube. That same game is here on Xbox LIVE for a much nicer price and you'd be hard pressed to find anything else as good and cheap.
But now, on to slightly less important things about the game.
The graphics are as good as they were back in the day, maybe even better. From what I understand, the graphics were re-done or optimised or something to that effect for LIVE, but that is inconsequential. The game runs perfectly, and the only slowdown you will ever experience is when the boss of a stage explodes and disappears. But where there are 30 or 40 or more enemies on screen and bullets flying everywhere, the game doesn't even flinch.
I believe my friend Robio best described the music of the game when he said it was "epic," and I agree. The music never intrudes on the game, it's only really overpowering at all the right times. Even if you find yourself failing on a stage over and over, that music will never get old. I should know, Robio and I tried some co-op the night we got it, and fail a lot we did, but the music was always awesome no matter how many times we heard it.
And there is not much more I can say. Given the fact that it is 7 years old and was initially released on a (great) console that would ultimately be doomed to failure, this is a great game. It shows what can be achieved when you take a stock-standard genre, and apply innovative new features to it. That's not to say that every game should feature a polarity system. But that if you have something that you could add to make it more interesting, then go for it (if you can do it well).
I don't really like giving games a score. If you like the genre, then you will most definitely like this game. If you don't, then you may not like it. The only sure way to tell is to go and download the trial version of it, have a go, and see for yourself.
It is 1337.
In your standard shooter you pilot some kind of land- or aircraft. Your job is to be a one-an army against a more-than-one-man army which involves dodging any number of bullets, enemy ships, and obstacles on the path to glory. Typically, you'll have either a life-bar of some sort, or a less forgiving one-hit one-kill situation (it's how coin-operated games make their money). Your craft has one or more weapons and to even things out you will generally have at least 1 field leveling (literally) super weapon. In Heavy Weapon it's your nuke, Geometry Wars has that bomb thing and Ikaruga has fancy homing laser things.
One thing changes the way this game does the Shmup genre. That thing is polarity.
Your ship can alternate between light and dark polarities. The enemies in the game are either light or dark and as such they sure bullets of that same polarity. How does this change things, exactly? Well, your ship can actually absorb bullets of the same polarity as you. So if you are dark, and shooting at dark enemies who are shooting back at you then you are practically invincible. Get hit by a light shot, however, and it's R.I.P. for you. The downside to this is that shooting enemies with the same polarity only does normal damage. Dark enemies are weak against light polarity bullets. They do double damage, in fact. So now it's a matter of playing to be an efficient and risky killer, or a slowly but safely kinda thing. Then, for those people looking to get into the high-end of playing the game, there is a combo chaining system.
This system isn't just a matter of pewpew'ing your way through a stage and getting an uber score. It's much harder than that. In order to increase your chain by one you need to kill 3 of the same polarity enemies in a row. You can take as long as you like to get the 3, but your chain won't go up until you pop the third one in a row. Kill two lights then a dark, and your entire chain resets. It may sound easy, but amidst the torrential downpour (at times) of bullets it is difficult to maintain a chain.
If you like 2D shooters at all, then you will love Ikaruga's gameplay. With humble beginnings about 7 years ago on the Dreamcast, then moving on to the Gamecube. That same game is here on Xbox LIVE for a much nicer price and you'd be hard pressed to find anything else as good and cheap.
But now, on to slightly less important things about the game.
The graphics are as good as they were back in the day, maybe even better. From what I understand, the graphics were re-done or optimised or something to that effect for LIVE, but that is inconsequential. The game runs perfectly, and the only slowdown you will ever experience is when the boss of a stage explodes and disappears. But where there are 30 or 40 or more enemies on screen and bullets flying everywhere, the game doesn't even flinch.
I believe my friend Robio best described the music of the game when he said it was "epic," and I agree. The music never intrudes on the game, it's only really overpowering at all the right times. Even if you find yourself failing on a stage over and over, that music will never get old. I should know, Robio and I tried some co-op the night we got it, and fail a lot we did, but the music was always awesome no matter how many times we heard it.
And there is not much more I can say. Given the fact that it is 7 years old and was initially released on a (great) console that would ultimately be doomed to failure, this is a great game. It shows what can be achieved when you take a stock-standard genre, and apply innovative new features to it. That's not to say that every game should feature a polarity system. But that if you have something that you could add to make it more interesting, then go for it (if you can do it well).
I don't really like giving games a score. If you like the genre, then you will most definitely like this game. If you don't, then you may not like it. The only sure way to tell is to go and download the trial version of it, have a go, and see for yourself.
It is 1337.
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