Sirlin’s 2007 Game Awards
Giving out truly unbiased and thoughtful awards is a lot of work and requires a lot of research. It also yields pretty predictable, boring results, so that's why my awards are totally biased and generally unfair. Also, don't you hate it when award stuff starts counting up from like the top 100 when you just want to know the #1 winner? Me too, let's start with that.
Best Game of 2007: Portal
Even though it seemed packaged as thrown-in extra content on the Orange Box disc, the game is a real gem. You get to control your character immediately with no intro story. Even though there are no cutscenes or story segments, you learn the story of what's going on through context and voice acting from the computer that runs the facility. And most importantly, the portal mechanic itself is great fun and the developers did wonderful puzzley things with it. This is a good concept with great execution.
2nd Best Game of 2007: Tie! Chess, Go, Magic: The Gathering, and World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game
Just a reminder to look outside of just video games. These are hard to top, and honestly as good as Portal is, these games will be much longer-lived.
3rd Best Game of 2007: Resident Evil 4 Wii
You might be saying, "But Resident Evil 4 came out in 2005, didn't it?" Ok, that's true. Last year, you might remember that I was grumpy the game did not even get *nominated* at the 2005 Game Developer's Choice awards, and was somehow disallowed from a couple other award givers due to some technicality about the exact release date. That prompted me to, you know, accidentally include it in my 2006 awards due to a reverse-technicality.
But now we had a Wii version of the game in 2007, and it's definitely a barely, slightly better version than ever before. Aiming with the Wii remote makes the game feel a little better, and the prerendered cut scenes are actually real time in this version, making the game slightly more consistent-looking. It's two years old, but still quite an achievement.
4th Best Game of 2007: Super Mario Galaxy
I wrote an article about this game that will appear on gamasutra.com, so you'll have to wait for that to hear more. The short version is that in addition to having great art, this game is rare in that it evokes the feelings of surprise and wonder.
5th Best Game of 2007: Rock Band
This game resonates with hardcore gamers and even non-gamers, so it's doing something right. I'm missing the genes that make people care about music, and even I like it. There aren't many games I can play with my girlfriend, but this is one of them (and was Mario Galaxy, btw).
And now for some specialty awards.
Best Puzzle Game of 2007: Puzzle Fighter HD Remix
The original Puzzle Fighter is, in my opinion, the best 2-player puzzle game there is. Now that it has updated drop patterns for better balance and new graphics, this is lock. Factor in that I did the balancing on this game myself, and consider yourself lucky I didn't put it as best game of the year.
Worst Award Nominations of 2007: Gamespot's nominations for Best Puzzle Game. They managed to scrape up FIVE puzzle games that did not even include Puzzle Fighter. Ha! Seriously?
Award for a Bunch of First-Person Shooters: Tie! Crysis, Bioshock, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, and Halo 3.
These were truly a bunch of first-person shooters.
Game Whose Amp Was Turned Up to 11: Every Extend Extra Extreme (XBLA)
Have you seen this thing?? It's a visual extravaganza. See my post about it here, but the short version is that it's the most incredible, mesmerizing screen saver I've ever played.
Best Character of the Year: The Weighted Companion Cube
There's something about this metal box with hearts on it (from Portal) that sticks in my mind. Other characters might have had more polygons or emotions or were humanoid, but the Weighted Companion Cube is hard to beat.
Hardest Gaming Thing to Buy: Nintendo Wii System
Did you try to buy these things? I tried to buy three in December and ended up with zero. Amazing that it's sold out two years in a row.
Honorable Mention: Rock Band (At least I managed to buy one of these.)
Best Use of Usually Pointless RPG Mechanics: Puzzle Quest
Combining Bejeweled with leveling-up RPG stats could have gone horribly wrong, but somehow it ended up as more than the sum of its parts.
Most Underrated Game of the Year: Settlers of Catan (XBLA)
IGN: 7.7. Gamespot: 7.9. I don't get it. What do you want form this game? It's an incredibly well-designed board game, usually regarded as one of the best and most landmark board games of all time by boardgamegeek.com (or in the top 5 at the very least). And now we have an absolutely wonderful translation to digital form, easily and cheaply available for download on XBLA. Maybe I should have put this in my top 5 of the year.
Most Mind-bending Game I Didn't Play Because It's On a Shitty System: Crush (PSP)
Please make this for Xbox or Wii or something, it looks really interesting.
Best Game That I Can't Ever Be Good At: Team Fortress 2
The art style is GREAT. The gameplay, from my limited understanding, seems great. I love the variety of abilities and the careful thought the developers put into balance and map design. If I liked games that involved spatial intelligence in a 3D world, or aiming, or relying on teammates rather than your own skills, then I would call this the best game of the year.
Best Game of Next Year That I Won't Be Actually Good At Either: StarCraft 2
It's going to be awesome and I'm going to be somewhat decent at it.
Most Reformed Game: World of Warcraft
You may remember a little soapbox piece I wrote about this game a while ago, and many of my objections have since been answered. Sure, solo play is still second class to grouping and the terms of service still add an unnecessary layer of squishy rules, but the game has made major advancements since I wrote that article. The old honor system is out and areanas are in. Arenas give rewards without demanding ludicrous amounts of time (at least I think, I don't actually play anymore). Raids have been reduced from 40 man to 10 and 25. PvP gear is good in PvP now, as opposed to raiding gear being the only viable gear at all as it was before.
I love all those changes, great job Blizzard. Now just allow me to pick a premade character for PvP so gear and time spent count for nothing and skill counts for everything, and then the game can be a real e-sport. There must be some way of doing that while still allowing it to appeal to the casual masses. If not, I'd like to make that e-sport game as its own entity. Dear publishers: fund my idea. Dear developers: let's make that game, and no Guild Wars doesn't count but it was a good try.
Best Game Made By My Friends: God of War 2
God of War 2 is really good, surely at least a 9 out of 10 if not more. It improved on the mechanics and enemies of the first game and was as polished as ever. If you want to know how to do combat in a 1p game and you don't feel like hiring me as a consultant, then at least look at this game.
Worst Game Ending of 2007: God of War 2
Sorry guys, but I haven't been so let down in a long time. Nothing felt resolved and it blatantly ended at the most unsatisfying point possible. You can't just call it an Empire Strikes Back Cliffhanger and get away with it. I was going to say 9.4, the ending took it down to a 9 for me.
Most Excruciating Beginning of a Game: Super Paper Mario
You have to play this game something like 17 minutes before you get to the actual beginning. It's like 8 minutes before you even do anything other than click through dialog. A like 10 minutes, an NPC asks you if you will accept some item. If you say no, he asks again. If you say no again he says you really should and asks again. If you say no a third time, you get GAME OVER and sent back to the title screen. Note that there was no possible way to save before then and that there is no way to skip the 8-10 minutes of dialog to get back. Wow.
Best Fighting Game of 2007: Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix
What, you haven't been playing this? I guess you haven't because it's not out yet. Well I've been playing it and it's really damn good. It's so fun now that special moves are easier for characters like Cammy and T.Hawk and that there are fewer character mismatches than before.
Best Fighting Game of 2008: Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix
Yeah, I said it. Let's hope it stands the test of time.
--Sirlin
January 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[…] Sirlin.net â?? Your source of shocking insights on game design placed an observative post today on Sirlinâ??s 2007 Game AwardsHere’s a quick excerpt […]
January 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
[…] Sirlin.net â?? Your source of shocking insights on game design added an interesting post today on Sirlinâ??s 2007 Game AwardsHere’s a small reading […]
January 13th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[…] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Sirlin.net — Your source of shocking insights on game design […]
January 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
[…] Sirlin.net â?? Your source of shocking insights on game design placed an observative post today on Sirlinâ??s 2007 Game AwardsHere’s a quick excerpt […]
January 13th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I love how you let STHD in the 2007 awards with a Not-Unlike-RE4 “Technicality”
January 13th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
It’s funny that you mention WoW and potential e-sport status as I personally think there are too many problems with WoW as an e-sport even with premade geared level 70s for there to be any significant success.
1) Ridiculously hard to follow from a spectator’s perspective. I think this is best explained through showing a crappy low-quality video from a somewhat recent 3v3 tournament:
http://www.gametube.fr/#/video/YI8JC1qLNvnQu1hIYPrpaQNTWIE=
I highly doubt anyone but the most hardcore arena fanatics could understand what happened and why on any sort of live stream. Fighters/FPS are 500x easier to follow and are actually exciting to watch.
The tournament (if you care): http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season2/wow/global_challenge_dh/rankings/
The worst thing about it? 3v3 isn’t the most balanced bracket. 5v5 is the most balanced but 5v5 is even harder to watch. The 2v2 tournament no one cares about since it’s incredibly boring (15 minute drain mana matches woo) and balance is abysmal. But hey, it’s mostly watchable.
Maybe there’s a WoW gametype out there that would be both watchable and competitively worthwhile but you won’t find that in arena matches.
2) Room to outplay individual opponents. Because of how WoW is designed you can be placed into situations where no amount of player skill can overcome them. The real game is planning so that you don’t get placed into such situations, but the individual player skill cap is low regardless. In 3v3 anyway counter-compositions play a huge role and you will get stomped by someone who doesn’t play at a top expert level in a given class (aka someone who picked up the class for an hour or two and knows the basics and a good team strat) just because their team composition destroys yours.
3) A hundred other issues (retarded amounts of RNG/ridiculous setup required/lack of good spectator UI/crappy maps/situations that lead to stalemates where it is a disadvantage to attack/situations that lead to match resets/class balance) that could potentially, only potentially, be addressed in a perfect WoW Tournament edition or something.
PS Anyway I like your list. Portal is godlike. Resident Evil 4 is still godlike. I’m sick of FPS also.
PPS I hope I don’t steer this comment section into some bad WoW discussion. I apologize in advance if I do.
January 13th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
lol I fail, I linked the wrong video (the previous video is actually easier to watch than most of the others and easier to explain). Let me try this again:
http://www.gametube.fr/#/video/NoZqzdkL10qFs6FRyt16xJzLkHs=
January 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
q-ball, yeah WoW and Guild Wars are both terrible to watch. It’s almost hopeless as a spectator compared to watching a fighting game where you have a simple sideview and can see the entire fight close up. You’ll get no argument form me there. And 5on5 makes it even more of a mess to watch. I’d think 2on2 would be easier to understand, and surely there is a way to beat 15 minute draining teams. Shrug, I don’t know. Incidentally, I’m considering 5-boxing for the hell of it, but if I were smarter than I am, I wouldn’t. Just throwing that out there.
Also, you have guaranteed that the comments will be World of Warcraft related junk, lol. Hopefully someone will comment about something else, anything else.
–Sirlin
January 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
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January 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
[…] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Sirlin.net — Your source of shocking insights on game design […]
January 13th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
What about Street Fighter IV?
January 13th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
“Also, you have guaranteed that the comments will be World of Warcraft related junk, lol. Hopefully someone will comment about something else, anything else.”
You really should see if you can get into the Quake Zero beta. I’d argue it will probably be one of the best games of 2008.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:53 am
I have to say, nice list. I’m a bit surprised at two omissions though
1) Metroid Prime 3 - While it didn’t to anything terribly special compared to the first two with story and world design, it continues a great thing. Additionally, it managed, for the first time ever, to make FPS controls feel natural on a console. While Halo 3 and the others (even portal!) may use the dual stick setup well, it simply is hard to get used to. I can pick up a wiimote and nunchuk and start up Prime 3 and within 2 minutes my only difficulty is figuring out which hand to aim with and which to use for movement.
2) Desktop Tower Defense - This little flash game managed to get an amazing following. From being kongregate’s #1 game to having an excellent multiplayer mode available at the casual collective, to actually winning “game of the year” on some silly TV show (and getting nominations from several legitimate publications) DTD is an amazing little flash game that pulls you back for another go, and then another, and then another.
Aside from those two omissions, your top games setup is spot on. As much as I enjoyed Super Paper Mario, I’m not starting up a second game of it anytime soon, I don’t want to go through that dang intro.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Was Desktop Tower Defense released in 2006 or 2007? It’s definitely awesome.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:01 am
I nominate Zack & Wiki for Most Mismarketed Game. The advertising on its site is geared primarily towards younger audiences, but the retarded lives system where you have to start the entire level over unless you spend lives that become more expensive as you buy them makes it poorly suited for that audience, along with the difficulty of the puzzles and the inability to make any kind of save during a level.
I also nominate it for Most Premature Underdog because of the way the entire gaming press treated it as the Best Game No One Played before it even came out.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:16 am
I’d like to nominate Gears of War PC as the buggiest AAA release. I’ve lost my save data so many times that I’ve just stopped playing it unless someone’s online to co-op with on Windows Live. Speaking of which, Windows Live just *doesn’t work*. The server browsers take minutes to respond, you have to pay money for premier features like inviting friends into private co-op games, and I often get booted out for no apparent reason. Plus there’s no dedicated server support - that’s right, multiplayer games are hosted on listen servers - even of the host can handle the game, you can’t beat the bandwidth of a dedicated server (yes 8 player multiplayer is laggy and there’s no lag compensation system). To top it off, developers are *already* seeing how Windows Live kills games (another example is Universe at War) and are avoiding it completely. Honestly, it feels like DRM for games.
In fact, I want to nominate Windows Live as the worst gaming related idea of 2007.
And Sirlin, Guild Wars 2 is sounding like the game you want out of WoW. They’re completely separating the PvE from PvP, with standardized levels, gear, and 100% access to skills for PvP. They’re also adding a jump button, and it looks like they’re addressing the clunky controls of the first game.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:42 am
You may thing that SST:HD is the best fighting game of 2008, y’know, because you worked on it and all, but I’ve gotta say, Super Smash Bros. Melee is the most fun multiplayer game i’ve ever played, and if SSBB is any improvement whatsoever, you may be given a run for your money starting Feb. 10th.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Lashof, if you asked me if SSBM is a great game, I’d have to say definitely. Just look at the player base and the strategy involved. I personally can’t stand the feel of the game, the jump physics are totally wonky to me. It will be hard for me to award it best anything if I’m not even going to play it. Maybe “Best Fighting Game I’m not Playing,” which it will almost certainly deserve.
Unless something unexpected goes really wrong with SSF2T:HD Remix, I’m still sticking with that as my 2008 guess. That it *started* on the foundation of a 13 year old game that’s balanced and good is quite a bonus. Plus, jump in combos feel ok.
PoisonDagger: I tried so many times to play Guild Wars that I lost count. After interface tweaking I was able to get it from “feels totally wrong” to “feels half wrong.” I also couldn’t figure out why in 3 years they didn’t come up with lifebars that are better looking that a flat shaded rectangle. I want to like that game, but wow it has weird UI issues. Maybe they’d pick up a few million more players by adding a check box to just copy WoW’s mouse/camera/controls. If they are going to have the same hotkeys for map, quests, and character pane, and question marks over quest-givers’ heads, they might as well go the rest of the way.
Oh yeah, and it’s not designed for 1on1. 8 moves is too few for a 1on1 game.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:36 am
[…] One game that seems to have stuck out beyond any other from last year, praised by the likes of David Sirlin and Penny Arcade…and that game is Portal. Just from seeing the trailers alone, I love the idea of Portal. I really want to play Portal. The trick is, I can’t buy Portal. […]
January 14th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I’m disapointed you didn’t put DOTA anywhere. REally, dota is as you wish WOW to be… I don’t understand why you are so obsessed with WOW and don’t try DOTA.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
<blockquote>
You get to control your character immediately with no intro story. Even though there are no cutscenes or story segments, you learn the story of what’s going on through context and voice acting from the computer that runs the facility.
</blockquote>
Integrated story! Imagine!
Love the comment about FPS games. I have the exact same opinion. Bunch of FPS games - yay. This genre was stale 10 years ago.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Oops I suck.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am
What about Shadowrun? It’s an immensely well balanced FPS, where teamwork and strategy are more important than shooting.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:29 am
What about Shadowrun? It’s an immensely well balanced FPS, where teamwork and strategy are more important than shooting.
It’s not just ‘another FPS’ though. The game combines magic and technology, and has 4 different races (human, elf, dwarf, troll). Each race is unique, and it has a round based/buying system similar to Counterstrike.
I’d talk more about it, but the many intricacies of the game cannot be described in this comment box.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Well, for DTD, Version 1.5 (the main version everyone’s playing) came out this year. I thought that the game itself started in 2007 but I could be mistaken.
As a big SSBM fan, I have to agree that brawl has some pretty high standards set for it. While I have to admit that SSBM may not quite have the lasting power of SF2, its certainly my favorite fighting game and a very good tourney game. It’s just too bad I locked myself into a subpar character (Peach, currently rated #5 but if we were to really re-evaluate things she’d definitely fall to #7 or worse) to the point where I really can’t control the top ones well. I have to say though, sad as it is, if brawl DIDN’T come out, the game was likely to be dying competitively in the next few years. A game where 90% of the players are playing as one of 3 characters just can’t last the long run, and melee has become more and more just a game of Fox, Falco, and Marth lately at the highest level of play.
On the subject of Portal… I’m sorry, but I’m trying to think of what the game DIDN’T do perfectly. All kidding aside, the PC version (I’m a bit averse to the 2 stick controls on the 360) appears to have done everything right. Seriously though - how many games are enjoyable enough that you’re willing to go through them all over again with developer commentary? How many games GIVE YOU THAT OPTION?
January 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Have you seen the reviews game mags give the Guilty Gear series? They are fucking sad. 7.5 and below on average. Its like they arn’t even playing the same game. Although I’m completely scrubish at gg; i respect how complex the system is and I love all the characters. It’s just disturbing how they rate the game, and don’t even dwell on why they rate it so low.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Good list, refreshingly down-to-earth compared to the more mainstream Halo 3-wankfests.
I am getting decidedly bored of Portal, though.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
The only thing I’d change is put Halo 3 (a game I’ll be playing for years) up there with Portal (brilliant game but it only lasted 2 hours). my humble opinion, etc.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Developer commentary, love it… give a reward for game with best commentary.
Do you still have time (and cards?) to play Magic: the Gathering? I’d also like to know how often you play Go, since if I think it’s the perfect game according to this website.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
FPS is only mostly stale. Team Fortress 2 has its flaws, but it does manage to create a varied experience through the 9 classes, which are “actually different” as opposed to, say, the difference between an AK47 and an M4A1, which are not actually different.
Most FPS games fall into a number of holes before even coming anywhere near good. The worst is the realistic military shooters that fall into the counterstrike hole, where they devolve instantly into a test of an uninteresting and fully execution-based “skill” of moving the mouse to place the crosshair on the pixels of the head and clicking the button. Not only is this skill uninteresting, it’s also exactly the same every single time.
But even for games that avoid that pitfall, there is not enough to get good at to keep my interest. The skill is either not deep enough, or too execution-based.
But you have to bear in mind I’m a tribes 2 player, so I’m used to actually having a very deep skill just to the simple act of moving around in the game world, and then all of your combat is built on top of fast-moving rapidly-changing patterns of motion.
Normal games where you walk around with your feet just seem amazingly slow and limited by comparison.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Oh man, I made the same mistake of saying “no” three times on Super Paper Mario. What a pain that was!
And yeah Super Turbo HD Remix is nice and all, but will it feature Yoda or Darth Vader? j/k
January 15th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I still can’t believe I killed the Weighted Companion Cube…for cake…
It’s like Sophie’s Choice…but with a cube…and cake…
But I think that putting Portal in as the game of the year is a bit of an overstatement. Like other people said…it’s only three hours long if you play it slowly. And the advanced maps make it five hours, max. Sure, the song at the end is catchy, but it’s still hella short. I’d have to say game of the year should go to another part of the Orange Box, Team Fortress 2. Which, I think, is the best multiplayer game of the year.
Oh, but I don’t think the PSP isn’t really “shitty” anymore. It’s got too many fighting games ported onto it. That and it has games like LocoRoco, Daxter, Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops (IMO, one of the most under-appreciated games in recent years) and SOCOM (the most under-played tactical shooter ever). I own one. I play on it. The non-game features are over-blown and most of the games are either enhanced ports of old games or dumbed-down ports of released games, but it’s still a good piece of hardware that has more than a few games that are enjoyable on it.
Lastly, it really is complete bull that Puzzle Fighter didn’t win any awards. I only know one place that gave Puzzle Fighter best of anything, which is truly a heresy.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:59 am
What’s your beef with FPS Sirlin? Is it because you are no good at it?
As for FPS being stale; that is a load of rubbish: The complexities of all of the facets would take an age to go stale. Look at the 100 meters race in athletics. On the face of it, it seems 1 dimensional, but when you explore it properly, it is very complex. Some would consider it “stale”, but they probably don’t know what they are talking about. It’s easy to dismiss something you don’t understand. “Open your mind” - Kuato
grep
January 15th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Good list.
Super Paper Mario is incredibly text-driven. If you don’t like the writing style this game becomes an epic turn off.
Super Mario Galaxy’s 2 player mode is vastly underrated. Thanks for mentioning it.
I love Rock Band, even though I don’t really care about its music. Luckily I can apparently sing well.
SSBB has a huge bar to look up to. I’ve heard it plays more like SSB than SSBM, a bit slower-paced yet still fluid. We’ll see it a month, I guess.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:23 am
I’ll agree with grep. I understand that the review was supposed to be biased and that FPS’s aren’t Sirlin’s cup o’ tea. However, there’s this myth propagated about FPS’s and depth that doesn’t quite jibe with me. Many of them do have strategy that is more than accuracy with a mouse or joystick. Knowledge of maps, weapon placement (or weapon choice, depending on game), and knowledge of general methods people use all come in handy–these are things good players know and use to their advantage. Good players will start thinking about their tactics and change to avoid getting caught in a variety of traps or situation (depending on maps). They will make the scrub fight the good player’s game.
I think some of the FPS bashing comes from the Wii-koolaid crowd (not bashing the Wii, just the mindless folks who parrot Nintendo’s marketing slogans) that the 360 has too many shooters (they have a point), but all shooters are different and they are different in important ways.
I could say the Super Mario Galaxy is stale: rescuing the princess, bowser again, stars, but I’m guessing that the game has both important and subtle differences that make it great.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:26 am
A thought on Settlers: I haven’t played the XBLA version, but might the interface have something to do with it? Converting a board game to an online video game is usually pretty straightforward, but Settlers is a game that derives a lot of its fun from the social experience. The implementation of negotiation is pretty important. I remember playing some PC implementation of Settlers, with specific buttons for offering resources, accepting, making counteroffers, etc, and being pretty unimpressed. (Not to mention this doesn’t allow for more complex trades, such as paying someone to use their port.) I know Xbox Live has microphones, which should make things pretty easy, but does everyone have/use these? (I suppose for more complicated negotiation games, that’s another wrinkle - you need to be able to control who you’re talking to - but I guess that’s what a keyboard’s for.)
January 15th, 2008 at 10:14 am
“I could say the Super Mario Galaxy is stale: rescuing the princess, bowser again, stars, but I’m guessing that the game has both important and subtle differences that make it great.”
Super Mario Galaxy is not a genre that has hundreds of games in it, and the things you list are not even gameplay features.
If there were hundreds of games like SMG then it probably *would* be stale. The shooter market is overcrowded, even you seem to acknowledge that. Too many games with too little innovation and original content.
It’s like fighting game fans saying that all fighting games are different in important ways. In some ways that is perfectly true, but it’s also true that at a high level most of them are much more similar than different. People who are heavily invested in a genre tend to blow up minor differences.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am
You know what games with lots of dialogs need? A Fast forward button. If you’re going to be a non-interactive cutscene, give me my non-interactive cutscene(read: Movie) controls.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Indeed, they do need to have fast-forward things during script (a la Metal Gear Solid 2/3).
But SSBM is just plain terrible, Sirlin! I’d put ST:HDR, Tekken 6, Soul Calibur 4, KOFXII, SF4 (if it comes out) and any other real fighting games ahead of SSBB interms of games to anticipate in 2008.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I guess it depends on what you like about the games. Personally I don’t really think of SSBM as fighting game, as it has little in common with other fighting games i’ve played.
You like those other games, I don’t really like them. I, however, absolutely LOVE SSBM, its just that good, in my opinion. It’s not necessarily the most strategically challenging game i’ve ever played (that award goes to Magic), but dang it, its just ridiculous amounts of fun. And if we aren’t having fun playing games, then what the hell are we doing anyway?
Thats not to say you can’t play to win. You can, and thats fun. But if you play a game to compete and to win, but you don’t have fun doing it, well, thats bass ackwards in my book.
Thing is, I think both SSB games appeal mainly to people who aren’t hardcore fighting game fans. Most people i’ve met who are really into SSBM are just that, really into SSBM. They aren’t, as a rule, really into fighting games.
Perhaps if you think of SSBM, and by extension, SSBB, as a competitive platformer in many ways, rather than as a fighting game, you wouldn’t (erroneously, i’d say) think it was so bad.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
This is true, but looking at SSBM as a serious fighting game IS doing just that, taking the game and playing it in such a way that it wasn’t initially intended to. The designers of SSBM didn’t try and make it a serious fighting game. But, as we all know, lots of gamers took it that way and ran with it. Same with Pokemon. It was supposed to be Donkey Kong Country meets Final Fantasy for a collecting-based RPG, but it ended up turning into a serious competitive game.
The difference is that SSBM fails to live up to any sort of standard for consistency, quality or balance among competitive fighting games, and there are damn well a whole lot more games that offer more crazy, disjointed fun. I’d break out the Mario Kart, Goldeneye, F-Zero or Starfox 64 for the crazy multiplayer fun over a Smash. SSBM is just one of those games that tries to be a bunch of things to a bunch of people but fails at everything for everyone (but not really, since lots of people still enjoy it).
Pokemon succeeded in the competitive gaming niche and with casual gamers because it is a game that offers a great competitive gaming experience as well as a similarly good casual gaming experience, multiplayer or no.
Now, I can’t criticize you for having fun on it, because fun is fun and fun is good. Me and my family clocked over 150 hours into it doing Melees and I have a good familiarity with the game. But it’s just undeniable that there are better fighting games, and there are more-fun party games.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I think that there are more fun short-term party games, but i’d argue with that claim in the long run.
If you’re going to play a party game just a few times, or with a different group all the time, then fine, i agree.
However, I think that the additional depth afforded by SSBM’s fighting game aspects means that, if you’re going to play something that you want to be wacky fun, but you’re going to play it with the same ~10 people over a long period of time, Melee can’t be beat.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:13 am
um, no offense, but what difference does it make what the designers intended? SSBM has a very competitive fighting game. While its been getting staler of late, it has had 5 years of incredibly competitive tourney experience. It plays significantly differently from the standard fighter, but thats part of what makes it unique and fun. The game is relatively well balanced, especially since up until recently one could expect to be competitive with any of 12 (or more in some cases) characters. If you honestly think ssbm is unbalanced, and you’re a good enough player, go to some tournaments and prove it. There’s ten thousand dollars to be had in prize money (for first, not just split among top players) at at least one tournament.
Also, a bit off topic, but if you’re still reading these sirlin, is there any news on Kongai (your kongregate card game)? I can’t get any real news from there…
January 16th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Desktop Tower Defense? NOOO.
Have you ever played Warcraft 3? Even about 5 years ago it had WAY better Tower Defense maps than that. Geez… why does NOBODY know about that?
January 16th, 2008 at 1:50 am
The relative depth of SSBM to its genre is so minimal that it eliminates the novelty of it even being considered a fighting game. I’m not an elitist prick. I’m not going to say it’s trash because it’s not made by Capcom. I’d have to say that Smash Bros holds only a moderate amount of value as a party game. Like I said, Mario Kart 64/DD holds the top spot for whacky over-the-top fun where you don’t need actual skill or anything to win (that isn’t to say you can just come in and beat an expert, obviously, but just like when your opponent hits a home run with you in SSBM, you aren’t the inferior player in Mario Kart when you lose after being hit with a blue shell 10 feet from the finish line and drop into third place).
And x1372, really, there is one winning strategy in Smash. Let’s take Evo’s rules: no items, 4 lives, 4 minute time limit. You play as Fox, you kill your opponent once, then you run. Like. Hell. For the next 4 minutes. And it’s pretty unbeatable. Granted, this strategy is eliminated in 4 player tournies (but not really, depending on the level), but it just plain isn’t a game that can be played in any sort of consistent way at a high level.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:49 am
You really like to pick on Smash at any opportunity for no apparent reason, spud. What’s the deal? How can you possibly have played it for as long as you claim to, and yet completely hate the game in every way? Yes, I agree that the competitive scene is a bit… silly, at times. But I completely agree that it’s one of, if not the best, party games out there.
First of all there’s genre distinctions… if you don’t like racing games, or don’t like FPS, then you won’t like any of the “better” options you mentioned. That happens to be completely true for me. The reason me and my friends originally played Smash is exactly what lashof mentioned. That is, we had 4-5 guys that all played videogames together regularly, and we all loved VF and soul calibur, and whatnot… but 2 of those guys would win approximately 90% of their matches, and the rest had fun playing, but didn’t stand a chance competitively. As much as I don’t personally favor Smash, it became instantly more popular with the entire group, and stayed that way for years. For a game that wasn’t directly built for a competitive tournament group (i.e. ST), it really has a phenomal amount of staying power.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:20 am
since 2 of the goals of STHD is 1.to make it easier to play w/o ruining the tactical aspect and 2.somehow making it so it won’t suck online cuz of lag, read my idea plz, maybe you’ll like it:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=4696369&postcount=782
January 16th, 2008 at 7:02 am
claytus, i played magic the gathering for 11 years and i can talk trash about it for months
January 16th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Claytus,i played magic the gahtering for 11 years and i can talk a lot of trash of it. Myabe playing a game lot makes you note the flaws that are there?
January 16th, 2008 at 9:02 am
There’s a difference between picking out flaws and saying a game sucks. I have played Magic for almost as long as you, and while i can certainly pick out a lot of flaws, its a damn good game.
That’s not what spud is saying here. He’s saying, “I played smash for a long time, and it sucks.”
Like, if he really thought it sucked that much, he wouldn’t have played it for so long. I’m sure you CAN talk a lot of trash about MTG, but if you thought it sucked, you’d have quit long ago, especially because its so expensive.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I have to strongly disagree with the “fox, 1 stock lead, run away” thing. Frankly, I’ve TRIED it. I’m known as “camper bob” in the smash community for being one of few players who actually plays a defensive/avoidance game.
Furthermore, even if that WAS the case with evo’s rules, evo’s rules were crap. The smash community has ALWAYS been saying 2 minutes per stock specifically because anything else can create situations where someone might be able to run away for the last few seconds. Smash may not be quite the same as other fighting games, but it has surprising depth at the high levels of tournament play. The fox runaway crap may win some matches, but it won’t win a tourney, not against top players (from my recollection almost none of the top players went to evo, which is kinda sad).
I have no problem with you not liking smash as a competitive game. Most people don’t. But don’t insult those of us who do by saying that it can’t be one, or isn’t one. Fox runaway? Powerful tactic. Unbeatable? HELL no. Every single tourney legal stage has choke points to be able to catch a runner. And that’s not even beginning to consider half of smash’s true tourney appeal: 2v2 teams.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I think you guys are partially missing why I posted. Which is that, if you read this site meticulously, and go through the full comments on every article, I would bet there are more articles at this point that include a comment where spudly rails off some diatribe against Smash, then there are articles without such a comment.
Regardless of whether he’s correct (personally, I think it’s around 50/50), it’s getting really, really old, having to read the same damn thing anytime that the game gets even mentioned.
Lol, at the early poster afraid he might have started a WoW discussion… there’s much bigger targets when we have people like spud around to de-rail for us!
January 16th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
SSB’s 2v2 is awesome. Even if you don’t like 1v1 competitively, you have to admit Smash did real-time teams better than any fighting game had yet before it, or came close.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:11 am
To be fair, I have hated on Smash often, but I never “derailed” a topic to do so. Somebody hated on ST for having a ban on Akuma. I said that was entirely reasonable, compared to other games like Super Smash Bros. Melee. In this thread, somebody else brought up Smash Bros, and I went on to provide wholly valid reasons why it was terrible, and not fit for competitive play. Claytus just likes to follow me around and criticize me for very undeniably putting him on his e-Ass when it comes to discussing SSBM’s complete lack of tourney playability.
And x1372, 2 minutes per stock is nice…but why not just run like hell for 1:55, beat them up, then run some more? There are so many ways around that rule that it’s ridiculous you’d point to it as remedying that situation. There are two ways to solve that problem: 2v2 like you pointed out, and turning on items.
And Lashof, SSBM isn’t the first game I put lots of hours into, then noticed how much stupid crap there was in it, never to touch it again. Once I learned how to play SC at high levels (that is, 2A and 3B attacks) I never played SC2 or SC3 again. And I sincerely doubt I’m the only person to have a similar experience.
Lastly, ycz6, I don’t think SSB/M has much competition in the 4 player department.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Ugh, we really should take this to the forum to not clutter the thread further. The 2 minutes per stock timer thing means that there is MORE than enough time for an attacker to catch an evasive opponent. Defensive strategy DOES NOT WORK at the top levels of play, trust me, I’ve been playing that way long enough to know. I adopted the strategy after tourneys started banning items, and it works against about 80% of the smash community, but the top players time and time again crush it.
I’m going to make a SSBM topic in the forum right now, please continue the side discussion there.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am
What spudlyff8fan is saying is obviously false and is proven so by tournament results and videos. Taking off one stock with Fox then running the rest of the time does not work, period.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I always get the impression the forums, and comment threads tend to be completely different people posting, but maybe I’m not paying enough attention, I often read both, but never made a forum account;;
And spud… come on, the post right before yours starts with the line “I don’t really think of SSBM as a fighting game”, and then you preceded to explain why it wasn’t comparable to other fighting games… you appear to be in your own little world, and if this 15+ post discussion doesn’t count as a de-railing, I don’t know what does. Also, I still don’t understand how you’re putting me “on my e-ass”… when I COMPLETELY AGREE with you about SSBMs poor tournament viability from a game design perspective. The things I (and apparently the entire rest of the world) disagree with you about are your silly generalizations like “fox can run away indefinitely in every situation, and always wins”. Fox is a very powerful, possibly broken character… but it still doesn’t make that statement true.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Camper Bob: Check the evo X topic on SRK, I posted 25 tournaments from 2007, there attendance, and payouts. Evo Finals were well attended (270 people) and included many of the best players. The best of 1 did mess things up, considering M2K randomed to DL64 against Mango’s Jigglypuff, but overall the results weren’t very skewed.
Spudlyff8fan: Its obvious from what you’ve written that you’ve never actually experienced SSBM on a competitive level. I can make this judgement based on: you mentioning things like 4 player tournaments and the homerun bat come mind, and your blanket arguments that also make me question your ability at other fighting games. To beat a camping Fox all you need to be good at is 1)pressuring and 2)zoning. You control your approach and pressure Fox (force him to move) and then you use your positioning (zone) to stop his retreat. Fox could very well run against some of the characters in the cast, but Smash tournaments have the added depth of stages to deal with. Gimpyfish, for example, can counterpick Fox players on FoD and suddenly he doesn’t have to worry about the Fox running anymore! And you know what? Gimpy plays as Bowser.
Here are some videos, because I feel points are always better argued with evidence:
Bum (DK) vs M2K (Fox) on Brinstar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHoVKxh5-Uc
Bum vs M2K on Jungle Japes (or Kongo Jungle or whatever that level is)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCVT9GNMgZ4
Bum vs M2K on FD (good one to watch, you’ll notice Fox tries the running strategy but Bum counters it. Things fall apart for Bum towards the end but not because he can’t catch Fox, his problems were elsewhere)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99WmKGOGCs
Bum vs Isai (Falcon)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuGMUzKIlnk
————
-Tournament Stats-
Pound 2 (200 Participants)
June 16-17th
Mount Airy, Maryland
1. ChuDat $2400
2. Mew2King $1040
3. PC Chris $520
4. Chillin $260
5. Drephen $156
5. PC Chris $156
7. DaShizWiz $104
7. Taj $104
9. KeepSpeen $65
9. KM $65
9. Forward $65
9. Cort $65
FC Diamond (256 Participants)
July 12-14th
Southbend, Indiana
1. Mew2King $2,000
2. PC Chris $1,000
3. ChuDat $500
4. Drephen $350
5. Vidjo $225
5. Taj $225
7. Darkrain $125
7. DaShizWiz $125
OC 3 (228 Participants)
July 20-22nd
Santa Fe Springs, California
1. PC Chris $1250
2. Mew2King $600
3. ChuDat $300
4. Ken
5. Drephen
5. The King
7. Vidjo
7. SilentWolf
SCC (200 Participants)
September 29-30th
San Bernidino, California
1. Mew2King $2,000
2. PC Chris $1,000
3. Mango $400
4. Cort $280
5. ChuDat $160
5. Wobbles $160
7. Forward
7. Ken
Viva La Smashtaclysm (188 Participants)
November 10-11th
Torrington, Connecticut
1. Azen $1692
2. ChuDat $846
3. KoreanDJ $282
4. Mew2King
5. Drephen
5. PC Chris
7. Chillin
7. Darc
-EVO Tourney Stats-
Evo South (128 Participants)
March 10-11th
Austin, Texas
1. Wobbles $700
2. Caveman $200
3. Darkness of Heart $100
4. Xzalla
Evo East (64 Participants)
May 25-27th
Stamford, Connecticut
1. Mew2King $448
2. PC Chris $128
3. Cactuar $64
4. Cort
Evo North (43 Participants)
June 22-24th
Northbrook, Illinois
1. Drephen $301
2. Viperboy $86
3. Mathos $43
4. Eddie
Evo West (128 Participants)
July 27-29th
San Diego, California
1. Mew2King $896
2. PC Chris $256
3. ChuDat $128
4. Edrees
5. Hugs
5. Mr. Ganondorf
7. Roy
7. Mango
EVO World (270 Participants)
August 24-26th
Las Vegas, Nevada
1. Ken $5,000
2. Hugs $2,000
3. Mango $1,000
4. PC Chris $750
5. ChuDat $500
5. Eddie $500
7. Chillin $250
7. DieSuperFly $250
————–
“And x1372, really, there is one winning strategy in Smash. Let’s take Evo’s rules: no items, 4 lives, 4 minute time limit. You play as Fox, you kill your opponent once, then you run. Like. Hell. For the next 4 minutes. And it’s pretty unbeatable. Granted, this strategy is eliminated in 4 player tournies (but not really, depending on the level), but it just plain isn’t a game that can be played in any sort of consistent way at a high level. “
” In this thread, somebody else brought up Smash Bros, and I went on to provide wholly valid reasons why it was terrible, and not fit for competitive play. “
No, you haven’t provided any valid reasons. What I just showed you is evidence, which I can then provide reasons for/evaluate. You haven’t done anything except show you really don’t know anything about Smash except that you like to turn items on and play with 3 of your friends every so often. Big whoop, 6 million people do that. Its the 1-5% or so that choose to play competitively that can actually comment on its depth.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Forgot two points:
1)Notice who won/placed top 8 at each tournament, while there are a lot of Fox/Falco/Marth players you also have Peach/Sheik/Samus/Ice Climbers/Ganondorf/Pikachu (ChuDat used Pikachu in some of his top 8 matches at SCC, including when he lost two matches to Corts Peach while using the IC, then counterpicked and won two straight using Pikachu on Peach).
2)There are no “4 player” tournaments in the sense that there is an FFA. Instead, tournaments do “teams” or “doubles”. Take the attendance, cut it in half, take the number of teams that produces and then subtract between 5-10% (example, a 100 person tournament would prob only have about 45 teams, not 50).
January 19th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Nice list! And kudos to making me laugh with “Award for a Bunch of First-Person Shooters”. I’m looking forward to the best fighting game of ‘08!
January 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am
No offense Sirlin, but it sounds like your main complain with the Guild Wars interface is “Not WoW”.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Dilpil: I’ve been over and over and over that Guild Wars interface stuff, so I won’t post it all again here. I don’t want it to be like WoW because I’m used to that. I want it to be like WoW because it would better and more intuitive. Left clicking to select is a standard convention across all computing. Right clicking to get other info is a standard computing convention. The ability to choose whether to rotate camera+character (hold right mouse button while moving mouse) or rotate only camera but not character (hold left mouse button while moving mouse) is strictly better than not having that option. GW has no ability to turn off click to move (when you turn it off, you STILL click to move when you click on NPCs and players). I could go on and on, and yes I know you can fix about half that stuff mucking with options, but only about half my complaints. How about this, it’s just good in the first place? Not same as WoW for the sake of copying, but because WoW’s interface choices are flat-out better.
–Sirlin
January 19th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
x1372: You’re saying that the strategy doesn’t work…but then why, oh why, is there a rule specifically addressing it? If it didn’t work, then why would there be a rule even mentioning it at ANY tournament?
Claytus: Dammit man, I keep on mixing you up with Alex and/or Forty. But still, it wasn’t de-railing because it was on-topic. And to repeat, if they weren’t worried about turtling, why would it be that so many of the tournaments bar it?
January 19th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
And Alphazealot…I don’t see how you can consistently cite tourney results as proof of anything when it comes to SSBM. As there is no widely accepted set of tournament rules when it comes to SSBM. In all seriousness, you can go to smashboards and pull up 5 tournies with 5 sets of rules. I’m sure you already know that, though. But the fact is that there are rules against it for a reason or there are a whole lot of stupid rules in SSBM, which proves my “not tourney-worthy” stance, either way. And even with level counter-picks, that still only results in a 2of3 tourney of a Fox vs anybody else going the same way…except the Fox might not win the second match entirely due to turtling.
And don’t hate on me for saying that just because SSBM’s item setup is stupid as hell and takes all the skill out of the game.
But once again, my chief point is that SSBM isn’t tourney-worthy. And that’s undeniable simply due to the fact (gasp) that there’s no accepted set of rules.
January 20th, 2008 at 7:14 am
What exactly does tourney worthy mean, last I checked SSBM was one of the best tournament fighter titles attendance wise, I guess your idea of tournament worthy also include poor tournament turnout. Just about every tournament runs with similar rules, the only differences are usually the stages, and even then its only slight. Those were all tournaments held through Smashboards, with 3 of them being sponsored by MLG, just because there rules differed slightly doesn’t change that those tournaments were held and featured SSBM. You do know items are banned in tournaments, right?
January 20th, 2008 at 8:44 am
While Settlers of Catan is certainly well-regarded on boardgamegeek.com, it’s currently only ranked #29, and it hasn’t been much higher than that in recent history. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browser.php?itemtype=game&sortby=rank go here for a list of the top-ranked games.
January 20th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
CrazyRacer: In various boardgamegeek threads, it comes up as being one of the best. One was about “if you could only have 5 board games, what would they be?” and another was an attempt to give awards for “most innovative board games ever” and it was top 5 in both. I guess it’s not quite as high on the overall site rankings though.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:06 am
well I can see my attempt to transfer the SSBM part of this topic to sirlin’s forum was a complete failure.
AZ - the current trend among the top and high level SSBM players has been toward fox falco and marth. Unless some drastic change happened, within a few years it is likely that 90% of the top players would be using one of these 3 characters as their main.
spudly, the strategy doesn’t work because in smash, offense is better than defense. On the tourney-worthy stages, its impossible to play a runaway game for very long against a good player. The two minutes per stock is to prevent the match from feeling rushed and to prevent the timer from becoming a significant factor when players are NOT camping. The ban on “stalling” that most tournaments use is there specifically for two unique cases - NOT for avoiding the opponent on the stage via runaway.
Furthermore, as AZ said, there’s a pretty solid ruleset for SSBM. Minor difference between tournaments does not a non-tournament-worthy game make.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Shrug, we’re 6 years in, I don’t think it will narrow much more than it already has. I’ll talk a bit about the top 5/7 from SCC, the last big tournament where I sat around watching and recording matches for MLG.
First place was M2K, who beat PC Chris. Fox and Falco for PC, and I think he tried Peach once. Meanwhile M2K was basically Marth the entire set.
Mango at third went exclusively Jigglypuff the entire tournament.
Cort at fourth, Peach the entire tournaments
ChuDat and Wobbles at 5th. Both used IC’s. However Wobbles used Sheik against Ken and ChuDat used Pikachu against Cort’s Peach.
Ken and…I forget who else was in 7th, I think Taj but I’m not sure. Either way,
Ken used Marth most of the tournament, however he used Luigi on Wobbles IC’s and won a match, prompting Wobbles to switch to Sheik for the last match.
I think you’re a bit wrong in your analysis Camper Bob, mainly because of the way counter picking is structured in SSBM tournaments. 2006 was basically dominated by Fox/Falco/Marth, 2007 started to see a shift though, with Bum (DK), Mango (Jiggly), Cort (Peach), Wobbles (IC) all penetrating into the top tier of tournaments. If I had to make a predication for the next three years I would assume we would see a lot more IC’s, Jiggly’s , Sheik, Falcon, and Peach’s all because these characters either work well against Marth/Fox/Falco or happen to counter the IC’s (who are on equal footing with the space animals, meaning if you main a spacey and run into an icey, you gotta switch to Peach/Jiggly/someone else if you lose that first match, and if you win that second match the opponent needs to switch to Falcon/Marth/Fox/Falco/Sheik/Pikachu (Peach has a bunch of weak match ups, as you know)/someone else to counter that counter, because you aren’t able to fall back onto your main if you lose the first match…this was a long paran).
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
I have to say I see Portal cropping up on a hell of a lot of “Best Game” lists but I suspect very few people have actually played since the week they first bought it.
Yes it was an incredible 2 hour gaming experience but I don’t think it is unreasonable that the game of the year should be a game people are likely to still be playing the year after. If you could have skipped the tutorial levels there is less than an hour of game in there. It is also incredibly linear, it gives the impression of total freedom but most of the time there is only one or two ways to progress.
I would ask the following question to people saying Portal is the game of the year: Have you played Portal in the last month?
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Two or three times, actually. It only takes me an hour, so I’m much more inclined to give it a spin when I have some free time.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
good point, Eamonn, I haven’t played Portal for awhile. But I bet the game is pretty good for speedruns.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I think more important, is the amount of potential that portal has. First, there’s the fact that Valve has said they’re already considering putting the portal gun in Episode3. And, more importantly, while I haven’t gone back to the game recently myself either, I’m sure modders are already cranking out maps you can download.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:34 am
spudlyff8fan:
“SSBM is just one of those games that tries to be a bunch of things to a bunch of people but fails at everything for everyone (but not really, since lots of people still enjoy it).”
What the hell does that even mean?
January 24th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Alphazealot- I don’t see how you can say anything about matchups and counter-picking levels when there isn’t even a decided-on set of rules. It isn’t a tourney-worthy game because there have been so many changes made to what the game is just to make it similar to something balanced and necessitating skill. It isn’t tourney-worthy because it doesn’t have a uniform set of rules, and honestly, doesn’t even play CLOSE to the default settings. If you put a SSBM cabinet in an arcade, imagine the setup would be.
Everyone else: Portal does have soooooo much potential to be entertaining in every possible kind of game played in first person view. Really, just thinking of a multiplayer game with the Portal guns makes me freak out. I mean, imagine the teamwork and the strategy that would result!
That said, it’s an incredible idea…but it isn’t Portal. Portal is a 3 hour, linear puzzle game. Does the portal gun have near-limitless potential in future games? Hell yes. Is much of it realized in Portal? I don’t think so.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
“I don’t see how you can say anything about matchups and counter-picking levels when there isn’t even a decided-on set of rules.” Why do you keep saying this, the only difference between most rule sets is usually just a stage or two. Most tournaments run using MLG’s old rules or slight variations, including EVO. There is also an SBR Recommended Rule List. Its like you ignore that Smash tournaments take place because one tournament runs with Kongo Jungle on and another runs with it off.
Default settings sounds a lot like “designers intent”. Sorry, but you sound like a scrub. If the rules were so different then why are the winners almost ALWAYS the same.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:28 am
I didn’t like TF2 very much. Counter-Strike is my favourite game but before that I played TFC. So I was excited about TF2 but it turned out to be a disappointment for me. Some reasons:
The grenades are out. Ok, they were a bit too good in TFC but they didn’t have to take them out completly, they were fun.
The medic class is boring as hell, the only thing you do is run around behind another guy, holding ur left mouse button.
The demoman sticky grenades are ridiculously good, and boring. Just put them on the walls and wait. And it’s not that much fun for the victim either. There is a reason Goblin Techies are banned from almost all Dota tournaments.
Finally I just want to say that I realize that I have played the game far too little to be somewhat sure about this. But this is how it seems to me. And it just wasn’t fun.
Also, Sirlin, I’m a bit confused: Why do you mention a bunch of old games in the 2007 awards, like Chess and Go? Sure, those games existed in 2007, but in that case put Starcraft and Counter-Strike etc. up at the top, not portal.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Crush is indeed mind-bendingly glorious, but if you don’t enjoy “games that involve spatial intelligence in a 3D world”, I’m not actually sure how much you’d get out of it.
And while Portal was overall a better game, Crush’s puzzles themselves were the best of 2007 hands-down.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Tufflax, I think you are correct in assessing that you haven’t spent enough time with the game.
Grenades: watch the developer commentary, and they discuss this. To sum up: in TFC, lots of players would realize they were about to die, and chuck every single grenade they had left in random directions, and score a bunch of random kills, usually. Removing them does nothing but enhance the need for proper strategy/planning, and supports the whole team based gameplay ideal.
Medic: Don’t be so quick to judge… that syringe gun is actually a surprisingly decent weapon. And, more importantly, your main goal as medic is to survive in order to use ubers, while the opposing team knows this, and will usually target you first. It’s a very different style from normal FPS play, but there’s gameplay to be had there.
Demoman: First of all, note that most classes can shoot sticky bombs, and they’ll get knocked off walls and such, you can really minimalize their threat a lot of times. Also, remember this is “team” fortress. Just have a scout run through and get blown up, and then the way is completely clear for the rest of your team.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Medic boring? Maybe only if you’re playing against retards who don’t target you. The “fun” of the medic is positioning and maneuvering in such a way that you can both live and do your job.
Now, whether or not you actually enjoy this role is another matter, but the class is certainly not designed as a boring one.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Arguments against portal’s inclusion seem to highlight the more general fact that, even aside from gameplay preferences, people have very different valuation schemes. Is the best game the game which can provide the highest ratio of enjoyment to time investment over an arbitrary duration? Is ten hours of fun over a twelve hour game better than 3 hours of the same fun over 3 hours, or worse? Of course the time required to actually earn the money to buy the game is another matter, and how many minutes $20 translates into varies considerably.
I would support its inclusion, certainly as one of the best single-player games of the year, if only because at a high level it is structured in a way that is immensely superior to almost all of the competition and the developers made a lot of design choices that the rest of the industry would probably do well to emulate (even if they might not all be applicable to larger titles).
January 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Go is simply amazing. It’s definitely the best board game by far, maybe even the best game.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
101101101: For what it’s worth, I value three hours fun over three hours enormously higher than three hours fun over ten. I wonder if it’s not this factor alone in portal that’s made it so popular.
Related to this point (Portal is better for being shorter) is that just about everybody who plays the game finishes it. If you can, find some gamers who aren’t hardcore, and ask them when they last finished a game. Remember - for all that the storyline in, say, something like Bioshock is excellent, if a player stops playing along the way, that story is valueless (even moreso if a potential player says “I just don’t have time”).
I stand in that very place with some games that I think would be amazing - Morrowwind, Disgaea 3, and even WoW. Great games I’m sure, but I just don’t have that much spare time anymore. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Agreed, -147 (I’m incorrectly assuming that’s signed :P). I don’t care that Portal is only a few hours long. In fact, I’m *glad* about it - it’s obvious that they simply had a few hours worth of ideas, and stretching that out further would be more of a disservice than a favor. Playing through all the Half-Life 2 games again recently, I noticed that the episodes 1 and 2 are more succinct, not simply shorter - a style of game design I embrace.
Portal deserves every bit of praise it gets.
tufflax: You need to give the game more time. The removal of grenades is a godsend - the classes are much different from each other with that simple change (ie, each class plays much differently in the same situations). Medics take a crapload of skill to be good at - it involves constant decision making and analysis of angles on the battlefield. You have to know when to stick to your buddy, know which cover will keep you safe, know when to stop healing to butcher that enemy who’s on top of you, and know when to leave your buddy out to dry when he overextends himself (you’ve gotta build up that ubercharge, after all - dying will reset it to 0). The ubercharge isn’t mindless, either - it’s only 10 seconds, so you have to time it perfectly. You need to be close to your target (eg, capture point), and your buddy needs to be full on ammo, and you need to do as much damage as you can in those 10 short seconds (ubercharges often go to waste when the duo runs into a roomful of sentry guns, sending them flying into the air unable to attack much).
And that has got to be the most oversimplification of stickies that I’ve ever read. Using them to guard areas is not overly powerful - you can avoid them, you can let one piece of fodder take the hit, or you can simply kill the demoman! If he’s not in sight, chances are he isn’t around to detonate the bombs on you. When used by skilled players, stickies require the most insane amounts of movement prediction since it takes a bit before you can detonate them.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:17 am
When I’m trying to capture a point, my preferred class is the demoman. Simply because I shoot my own sticky in, detonate it and it clears out everything.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:39 am
That would only happen if the enemy team is completely incompetent. First of all, one sticky wont do much, you’ll have to lay down quite a bit more. Any mildly observant enemy will notice the sticky and either get off the point, or shoot it off (yes stickies can be shot away). Even if you do manage to kill some people, the whole rest of the team is there to shoot you to bits.
On medics, I find them really fun to play, when your on a server with good people, both your team and the enemy team. You need to constantly be watching your allies and switching targets to heal. You need to be watching the enemy to avoid being shot. You have to look behind you for spys and pyros. When an enemy gets near you, you have to be able to either run away or quickly take him down. Your constantly communicating with your team, things like your health, your ubercharge level, the fact that a pyro managed to flank you and your gonna die if that heavy your healing doesn’t turn around right that second. You have to be able to coordinate your uber to get maximum effectiveness. Your constantly buzzing around and coordinating your team. There about the most active class in the game. Hardly boring.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:11 am
I mean when an enemy demoman puts stickies all over a capture point (or around the intelligence) I prefer to use my own stickies to push them out.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:00 am
I Guess I misunderstood you, although you didn’t make that too clear in your post. Thats actually a good idea, no idea how effective it is in practice (don’t play demo) but sounds like it would work.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
It works pretty well, but as with all good things in TF2, it requires teamwork. As we all know, even if you clear out the stickies, you’re still likely to get chewed up by sentries and enemies quickly. It’s just that the Demoman, IMO, is the best counter to a Demoman.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Say, I just caught up with all this Passage appraisal since GDC…
I’m wondering if Sirlin didn’t mention Passage because it was not a “game”. Or maybe he just didn’t find it very interesting (like I did)