Why BioShock Infinite Left a Lasting Impression on Me, and The Last of Us Didn't ...

I'd like to preface this article by saying that I genuinely loved both games. I already wrote an article comparing them, but I don't want to get into direct comparisons and arguments about wether or not one is better than the other. The great thing about artistically strong games like these is that they are art. What I do want to address is why I feel BioShock Infinite left a bigger impression on me than The Last of Us did. Also, possible SPOILERS are ahead.

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET PLAYED OR COMPLETED

BIOSHOCK, BIOSHOCK INFINITE, OR 

THE LAST OF US - TURN BACK NOW!

Sorry. I just refuse to ruin any of these amazing experiences for people who haven't yet played them.

Let's get going.

Familiar Territory

I genuinely consider The Last of Us to be the first big budget game to really nail the feeling of a zombie apocalypse in every sense; from story to atmosphere to tone. The realism in the game is astonishing and the tension is top notch. The characters are believable and the setting is beautiful. However, it's that very strength that is it's weakness. We've seen the zombie apocalypse. We've seen it done well. We're familiar with the archetypes of character's evolutions in these situations. We've seen these plot twists. It's familiar territory done astonishingly well, but it's familiar territory nevertheless. 

BioShock Infinite has the benefit of having a completely unique setting and story. We've not seen this is a video game before, or any medium for that matter. A city in the sky built by a religious defector of the United States who uses the manipulation of quantum mechanics to manufacture his status as a powerful prophet in the 1910s? It's unfamiliar territory, and it's new to us. BioShock Infinite has a lot to say and by the end of the game we feel as though we've just been through a mind bending experience. The music, the world, and the atmosphere all merge into this incredibly unique experience that I've never experienced in a game. 

Profound Ideas

By the end of BioShock Infinite we are left to contemplate so much. The game explores racism, religious extremism, revolution, multiverse theory, quantum mechanics, abuse of power, nationalism, political idolatry, time travel, humanity, rebirth etc. It asks profound questions. What is free will? Is choice an illusion? What is the difference between the malevolent dictator and the violent revolutionaries? Are we our own worst enemies? 

There are questions the player will have upon completing the game. It doesn't hand everything to you at the end. It leaves you with the biggest piece of the puzzle, but it's up to the player to piece it together. The second time playing the game gives it new meaning. You understand what the world of the game is saying. You understand the nuances that you may have missed before. Making those connections is a fascinating experience. It was much like the end of the original BioShock when you finally understand the significance of Atlas's particular way of speaking only on a deeper and more profound level. There is not a single thing in BioShcok Infinite that is in the game for the sake of being in the game. It's all there for a reason, and having completed the game 10 times and finally pieced that puzzle together, I can say that with the upmost confidence. 

Expect The Expected

At the end of The Last of Us we're left to contemplate wether Joel was a good person or not. Is it selfish to abandon the chance to save the human race in order to keep what you love intact, or is it smart? It asks us what we're willing to sacrifice and for what? Unfortunately, this is again familiar territory. We're asked to contemplate exactly what we were expecting to contemplate simply because the situation in which the game takes place is so familiar. Perhaps if The Walking Dead hadn't been so recent The Last of Us might've hit a little closer to home, but it doesn't break new ground in what it does so much as it breaks new ground in how it does it. The Last of Us, again, is the finest example of capturing the feel of a zombie apocalypse, but if they had just deviated from the norm just a little bit, it probably would have been even greater. 

To this day I think deeply about the ending of BioShock Infinite, and I only ever think of The Last of Us when BioShock Infinite is mentioned simply because the two were so closely compared for so long. The Last of Us is definitely an amazing experience and I very much doubt you'll forget playing it. It's one of those games that you'll likely remember several years from now, but in terms of leaving a lasting impression? In terms of blowing minds? In terms of asking unique questions in new ways? It's not likely to be something you'll think about too often. The Last of Us is a story to be experienced. BioShock Infinite is an experience that will make you think. If there's any reason BioShock Infinite left a lasting impression on me, it's this:

It's well beyond unfamiliar territory.

Is Call of Duty Finally Losing Ground?

  Back in 2007 we saw Call of Duty become a juggernaut in the gaming industry with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Ever since that year we've seen a slew of titles that have tried to emulate the series. It is undeniable that Call of Duty has left it's mark on the industry. Games like Homefront, Medal of Honor, even Crysis and Halo took notes. For a while it seemed Call of Duty was too big to fail. It was an annual series and consistently broke sales records with each new release.

  I'm going to be brutally honest here. I genuinely dislike the series. I owned Call of Duty 4 and I even enjoyed Modern Warfare 2 for a little while, but people can only handle so much redundancy. The games came year after year with such little innovation that it quickly became stale.

You know a game is stale when I can show you a 

screenshot and you can't tell which game it's from.

  Regardless, it still sold millions, but with E3 in our memories and the excitement of new hardware, new intellectual properties, and promises of greater experiences fresh in our minds, is Call of Duty finally on death row? This is the first time that I've felt confident in this answer but, I honestly think it is. We are at a point in time where we are demanding more from our games. For the next generation of consoles we want experiences that we haven't had before. Call of Duty couldn't be further from a fresh experience if it tried.

  The curse of having a popular franchise is that the risks that the developers are willing to take in said franchise are minute. If you change too much about the game it ceases to identify with fans and it becomes a different intellectual property and if a new intellectual property launches it lacks the name recognition of the series which will hurt sales. 

When you're biggest marketing point is the ability

to play as dogs, you should probably 

reevaluate the situation.

  This is the first year in what seems like ages that Call of Duty didn't have a presence at the E3 press events. The first we saw of it was at the official Xbox One hardware reveal and the promise of the developers was this: dogs and a deep story. Destiny promises open landscapes and persistent worlds in which players will travel through the solar system all without loading screens or starting menus. Dead Rising 3 promises a persistent online world without loading screens, the ability to use anything as a weapon, unique and varied artificial intelligence systems that learn from player interactions to create the best zombie apocalypse game in existence. Call of Duty Ghosts promises ... dogs. 

  Not only are there other games that are promising better experiences than the folks developing Call of Duty, but Respawn Entertainment, ex-CoD developers, are making their game better than Infinity Ward is. Have you seen Titanfall? It's Call of Duty + Mechs + Persistent World + Parkour + Jetpacks.

It's like Mirror's Edge, with Call of Duty, 

with Hawken, with Crysis.

Awesome.

  Titanfall is basically Call of Duty, but fresh, fun, and unique. This is exactly what we want. I wanna jet pack out of a giant mech, and latch on to the brain of an enemy mech and shoot it's brain until it explodes. I want to rip the pilot our of a mech like ripping a heart out of the enemy. That's just cool. I'll admit, I enjoyed playing Modern Warfare 2. It's mindless fun, running and gunning, and it's nice to just relax and not think too much when playing a game. I totally get that, but just because something is mindless doesn't mean it can stay the same forever. If you sell the same product to the same people every year, they're going to get bored. Titanfall is definitely looking up to being a great mindless run and gun game with some awesome twists and I look forward to playing it, because like it or not we can't run on games like The Last of Us. Sometimes we need to blow off steam. However, if Titanfall follows the same path Call of Duty is now on, it wont last. Annualizing Titanfall would be an awful idea and hopefully the folks at Respawn Recognize that. 

  I honestly believe Call of Duty is on the decline and if there's any game that's going to take it's place I have a feeling it's going to be Titanfall. Of course Titanfall doesn't release until spring of next year, so if anything's going to dethrone Call of Duty Ghosts in 2013 it's GTA V, but that's just my guess.

  Will Call of Duty still continue to sell millions? I don't even remotely doubt that. There will continue to be fans of the franchise who will pick up Ghosts by the millions, but I can say with certainty that in the year 2014, Call of Duty will not break any sales records and will fall behind. A 2013 sales record being broken for the franchise is more likely, but even that I'm skeptical of. 

Why the Wii U is Struggling

I'm not gonna give you sales percentages, figures, or any of that, but I will say this. The Wii U is not doing well. To put things in perspective, it should be noted that in the last few months the Wii has been outselling the Wii U. That's not remotely good. So what's the problem with the Wii U? Why is it doing so poorly? To answer that question we first have to look at how Nintendo handled their new console launch.

It's a Wii U ... no, wait ... that's the controller.

Is this a Wii controller? I'm so confused.

Now, I'm not an idiot. I knew what the Wii U was immediately when I saw it. This is a new console that utilizes a second screen controller. To the hardcore gamer this is obvious information. The problem with that is that they marketed the new console in a way that would be most easily understood by the people who were the least interested in buying it in the first place. The gaming landscape has changed, so let's be honest with ourselves. Hardcore gamers are not in Nintendo's camp anymore. The casual market is the market that Nintendo has committed themselves to. The Wii set a precedent that Nintendo was the family friendly console, the console that focused on gimmicks and family friendly entertainment. 

A vast majority of people had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what the Wii U was. People thought it was a Wii peripheral, some thought it was a handheld, and some even thought it might have been a Wii slim. The marketing was unclear and now they're paying the price, but is that they only thing they messed up on? No, Sir. 

This is a next generation system. The Wii U is not.

In the last generation, Nintendo made a console that was vastly inferior to it's competitors in terms of versatility, processing power, and graphical capability, but it made up for it by being the cheapest console on the market, having a simple but unique twist on motion controls, and being 100% backwards compatible. The Wii U did none of this. The Wii U is fairly expensive, the control design is essentially just a tablet with an analog/button layout, and it's backwards compatible for Wii games only. That's not so bad. I can play Super Smash Brothers Brawl and ... um ... Oh.

On top of the fact that the new console offers none of the benefits of it's predecessor, it was also kind enough to maintain all of the same detriments. It's a vastly inferior console to it's competitors. The PS4 and Xbox One have 8 gigabytes of RAM in total to utilize and optimize the UI and performance. These systems are capable of doing things not even possible on this generation of hardware and games like Watch Dogs and Destiny are fine examples. The Wii U has two gigs of RAM total to utilize the UI and performance. 

To put this in perspective, understand that the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 all had the same amount of RAM available: 512 MB. The reason the Nintendo Wii was much less powerful that it's competitors was because of how that memory was allocated. In the next generation, not only is the Wii U left in the dust when it comes to power and memory, it's RAM is 43% slower than the Xbox 360's. 

This is the Xbox One. It's as powerful as 8 Wii U consoles

combined. 

The problem with the Wii U is this: It's already the weak link. 

We live in a society in which technology advances drastically every single day. When your technology is out of date in today's world, you've already fallen too far behind. The Wii U has one gigabyte of RAM to utilize for games. That's almost two Xbox 360s. Power is important. We don't need to change the way we play games. We don't need fancy tablets to take the place of our controllers. We want hardware that's strong enough to facilitate the ambitions of the developers. The Wii U doesn't have that. 

The PS4 and Xbox One allow for independent game development, persistent online worlds, and enhancements to the way we operate our systems and play our games. The key word there is "enhancements." What Nintendo has been trying to do is change the way we play games, not make our games play better. That's the fundamental issue with the Nintendo brand as of late. "We've got a tablet for a controller. You like normal controllers? Well, we sell that separately, but most of our games are specific to the touch screen controller, so I guess you'll have to deal with it."

Xbox 360 (LEFT) Xbox One (RIGHT)

Microsoft did the exact opposite. They took the controller that worked and enhanced it. They fine tuned the way the triggers and bumpers worked, they integrated the battery pack, they tightened the dead zones on the sticks, and they redesigned the D-PAD. They took what was already good and made it better. You want to use motion/voice controls with Kinect? No? Well, you don't have to, but if ever you want to try it out, it's always available to you.

Nintendo loves to abandon ideas and I con't understand why? There's nothing wrong with innovation, in fact it's the life blood of the industry. It keeps things fresh and it keeps things moving, but we've already reached our destination. If you keep moving, you're just missing your stop. It's not our controllers that need innovating, it's our architectures. We need to be able to make games deeper, bigger, better. 

I hope the Wii U doesn't end up like the Dreamcast, but it's certainly not looking good. 

BioShock Infinite: Downloadable Content Done RIGHT

I talked a lot about why I loved BioShock Infinite when I compared it with The Last of Us, but I wanted to delve more into the developers of the game and how they treat the franchise and it's fans, and why it makes the game that much better.

What mystery lies beyond these words?

When BioShock Infinite shipped, buyers had the option (and still do) to buy a Season Pass which would give you all future DLC for the game. When I got about 10 minutes into the game, I knew I was going to buy this sucker. My favorite game in recent memory expanded? How could I say no? 

Here's what makes Irrational Games awesome. Today, July 30th 2013, they announced all future DLC for BioShock Infinite, with one simple DLC releasing TODAY and the other more complicated ones being released at a later date. No "day-one-DLC" crap, no DLC after a week of release bullshit, these are expansions that have been crafted after the game's release. This is what DLC should be. It's unfortunate, but we've grown accustomed to buying games in fragments. We buy 50% of the game at launch and we eventually buy the rest as downloadable content. What Irrational Games is doing here is giving us more of the game, while so many other studios are comfortable giving us the rest of the game.

So, what exactly are the DLCs?

It's the Horde mode I've wanted for ages.

The first DLC is Clash in the Clouds, and it's essentially Horde mode. Waves of enemies are unleashed upon the player and you have to survive as long as you possibly can under the ever increasing weight of your challenge. This expansion is available today for download at the low price of $5.00.

There were many people who felt that the combat in BioShock Infinite was weak and inferior to the original, but I really didn't feel that way. In fact, outside of story and plot, I felt the combat in BioShock Infinite was one of it's greatest assets. It's nuanced, complicated, and intricate and it allowed to for some really interesting combinations. The game, albeit, is not easy to play for casual players, but for the core gamer, the combat is just awesome. This DLC is exactly what I've been looking for. I've played through BioShock Infinite nine times, and if there's anything I can tell you, it's that the last six times I played through it wasn't for the story. The story is fantastic and it's one of my favorite video game narratives of all time, but the reason you play a game again is because it's fun to play. So being able to play nothing but combat, no story, no nothing, that's really cool to me.

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea returns players to Rapture. 

I will sell my organs for this.

BioShock Infinite's next expansion, Burial at Sea, will be a story driven installment that puts Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth in Rapture before the fall. This expansion however will take place over two episodes. Episode One focusing on Booker and Episode Two allowing players to play as Elizabeth. The game will be more focused on survival horror and more on story than anything else. This is another example of Ken Levine's ability to know exactly what his fans want. There are those who cared only for the story in BioShock Infinite and there are those who loved the gameplay. Now, there are options for each of these groups to enjoy what they love without having to buy the stuff they don't want. Players who don't want the Horde mode and simply want the story expansions, and vice versa can buy each separately. This is the way it's done. 

But what's more important about these DLCs, is that they're done right. These aren't tacked on expansions or stuff that was cut from the original game that we're now paying to access. This is new content. Content we specifically asked for. Content we wanted that the developers at Irrational are now working to give us. Hats off to you, Ken Levine. I'd love to shake your hand.

This is Ken Levine. He is awesome.

He is also a genius. 

That is all.

Revisiting Games: Is it Best to Leave Nostalgia Alone?

Recently, I've been revisiting a vast majority of my old games. I'm talking the original PlayStation and GameBoy. I've read many accounts of people revisiting their old games and realizing that games they once loved were actually flawed in major ways, especially since a majority of old games existed before game design was an established 'design' method. Developers back then didn't have a handbook of rules like they do now. It was open season for ideas, and that's partially why we remember them so fondly. They didn't fit with the mold that we've become accustomed to in recent years.

While reading these accounts of disappointment in classic favorites I decided to figure out wether it was best to look back at my childhood favorites without my rose tinted glasses. These are my thoughts on a few select games that I visited that I feel still hold up. Three champions.

THE THREE CHAMPIONS WHO STOOD THE TEST OF TIME

POKÉMON YELLOW

Yes, I popped in good old Pokémon Yellow. Now, I'm not blind, the game still has problems, pretty major ones too. EXP management is a bit of a nuisance, the dialogue is atrociously bad, and the battle system doesn't quite understand what 'turn based' actually means. That being said, the game has still aged rather well. It's very playable, which is more than I can say for a vast majority of the PS1 and N64 library. The battles are fun and satisfying, and the atrocious dialogue provides some nice humor for an older audience.

This will never not be funny.

The game is old, so it doesn't benefit from big budgets and tons of flash, but it's a charming game, and I wasn't disappointed when I revisited it. In fact, I think I appreciate it even more now.

SPIDER-MAN

The graphics are terrible, the loading screens are all over the place, the camera is frustrating, and the combat is awkward. I love it. I remember a simpler time, when games were worlds to explore and stories to experience. One of the benefits of revisiting games like these in the modern era is being able to look up everything you missed when you played it as a child. Games used to be riddled with secrets, and this game is from that time. I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that there was a 'what if' mode that would alter the game for a second play through. In todays climate, the developers want you to know everything about their games and they'll market the crap out of them to show you. Spider-Man for PS1 hasn't aged well, but again, I wasn't disappointed, in fact I was blown away by just how many things I missed when I played it all those years ago.

CRASH TEAM RACING

The graphics are terrible ... that's literally all that's changed for me. If this game was remastered Halo Anniversary style, this game would hold up as a monumentally amazing cart racer. The controls are tight, which is quite the feat for a game as old as this one. The music is fun, the tracks are fun, the controls are great and nuanced. Of all the games that I revisited, this one is definitely the best and it's the only one that holds a candle up to even the most recent games in it's genre out of the three champions.  

HONORABLE MENTION

This game has aged very badly, but for whatever 

reason, I loved playing it, and I'll probably play it again

very soon.

I played a ton of games. I played Strider, Spyro, Halo CE, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Grinch, Ape Escape, etc. I love them all, and now that I've revisited them with no rose tinted glasses, what do I think of them? Are they as pristine as I remember them? No. Of course not. The person I am now is a vastly more intelligent person that the person I was when I played these games the first time. I understand design, I understand video games as a medium. I know that there's nothing beyond the border of the game because they are no longer worlds, they are entertainment. Does that disappoint me like it does so many others?

I don't understand why it would? Yeah, some games are better in your mind, but I liked visiting the classics. Some games are worse than I remember them, like Medievil and Spyro, and some games are better than I remember them, like Spider-Man and Ape Escape, and some are just as pristine as I remember them, like Crash Team Racing. It's interesting to see what games actually stand the test of time, not disappointing. The games we loved as children, we'll always love. They were the first and they'll hold special places in our memory. Hell, I revisited Medievil and Spyro and even though I remembered them being better games, I still love them. Because I had fun with them as a kid, and no amount of age or criticism is going to prevent myself from enjoying them in the past. That ship's sailed. 

It's important to be critical, but it's also important to appreciate as well. As bad as a game might seem ten years from now, all that matters is that it's fun now. So do yourself a favor. Revisit your classics. You might be surprised at how accurate or inaccurate your memory is. 

SkyRoads. This takes me back.

Final Fantasy vs Halo: The Most Milked Franchises on Planet Earth?

Go ahead. Show this picture to someone who knows nothing about 

FInal Fantasy and ask them what gender this is.

There are plenty of milked franchises in the gaming industry. Call of Duty and Mario come to mind almost immediately, but I have a particular vendetta against Final Fantasy. Something about the cliched attitude about the story-lines, the gender neutral character designs, the stereotypical character archetypes, the lack of gameplay versatility; I can go on for years.

But as I was making my argument about how over saturated and milked the FInal Fantasy franchise is, I've been met time and time again with the counterpoint: Well, you're a Halo fan. I've already written an article about why I love Halo, and I'll get back to it at the end of this article. The immediate argument being made against me here is that Halo is as milked or even more so than Final Fantasy.

Okay, here we go.

Let's divide the games up by year and then attribute them to developers.

Halo: Combat Evolved - 2001
Halo 2 - 2004
Halo 3 - 2007
Halo Wars - 2008
Halo 3: ODST - 2009
Halo Reach - 2010
Halo Anniversary - 2011
Halo 4 - 2012
Halo: Spartan Assault - 2013


Bungie, the studio that created Halo only released 4 Halo games in 9 years. Halo Wars (Ensemble Studios) was released in 2008 and Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (Remake by 343) was released in 2011. Halo 4 (343) was released in 2012. So overall in the last 12 years there have been a total of 9 Halo games all spread among different developers including remakes (Anniversary) and expansions (ODST.) Also Spartan Assault, a game for tablet computers.

Now let's take a look at Final Fantasy divided by year and developers.

After the research I've done, this looks like an exercise in restraint.

Final Fantasy - 1987
Final Fantasy II - 1988
Final Fantasy III - 1990
FInal Fantasy IV - 1991
Final Fantasy V - 1992
Final Fantasy VI - 1994
FInal Fantasy VII - 1997
Final Fantasy Tactics - 1997
- Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon - 1997
- Chocobo's Dungeon 2 - 1999
- Chocobo Racing - 1999
Final Fantasy VIII - 1999
Final Fantasy IX - 2000
Final Fantasy X - 2001
Final Fantasy XI Online - 2002
- Chocobo Land: A Game of Dice - 2002
Final Fantasy X-2 -2003
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 2003
- Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII - 2004
Final Fantasy XII - 2006
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales - 2006
- Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII - 2006
Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings - 2007
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII - 2007
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift - 2007
- Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon - 2007
Final Fantasy IV The After Years - 2008
- Dissidia FInal Fantasy - 2008
Cid and Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: The Labyrinth of Forgotten Time - 2008
- Chocobo and the Magic Picture Book - 2008
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light - 2009
-Final Fantasy XIII - 2009
FInal Fantasy XIV - 2010
-Chocobo Panic - 2010
Chocobo Crystal Tower - 2010
- Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy - 2011
Final Fantasy: Type O - 2011
-Final Fantasy XIII-2 - 2011
Chocobo's Chocotto Farm - 2012
-Final Fantasy Tactics S - 2013
Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn - 2013
- Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - 2013

Keep in mind, I left out PLENTY of FF games like the Crystal Chronicle series

because I was starting to feel mean.

There have been 42 Final Fantasy games MINIMUM in the last 26 years. While I was listing them I was literally in disbelief. I already had the idea that they had released a ton of games, but I was in the ball park of 15 or 18. I was under the impression that I would have some serious trouble making a case for Halo because I thought that maybe I was wrong and that FInal Fantasy just seems like it's a frequent series, but WOW. What really takes the cake here is that each and every one of these games were developed in house by Square Enix. So, not only has the same developer been making the same game for 26 years, they've done so at an alarming rate.

In the last 12 years Square Enix has created 30 games. In the same amount of time, there have only been 9 Halo games, and those are separated between developers. From an original dev standpoint, that's  one Halo game for every 11 Final Fantasies. Even Call of Duty releases annually, but even they switch projects with different developers.

I'm honestly surprised ... I'm not sure what to say. I didn't even count all of them, just because I was starting to feel bad about it. Is Final Fantasy the most milked Franchise in the game industry? Mario might have him beat, but in comparison to Halo? Please. It's not even remotely close.

No, no. We're a game developer, not a marketing department. 

"Well, you're a Halo fan. I've already written an article about why I love Halo, and I'll get back to it at the end of this article."

The reason I can stick with Halo for as long as I have is because the story actually continues. It's a story in a universe I love with character's I know and with each game, the characters grow as do the events and relationships in the universe. Imagine if the Star Wars sequels had nothing to do with eachother aside from the fact that they took place in space. From what I've heard from avid Final Fantasy fans, the games don't actually mend together. Apparently it's a different game every time and only certain elements from previous games continue to the next. The stories are self contained within each game, which is why there are sequels to numbered titles like 13-2. Well, that's great. If they're new stories every damn time, then why keep the Final Fantasy label. You could have made 42 new IPs instead of 42 not-sequels? What bothers me here is that it's lazy. They can't possibly still want to make Final Fantasy anymore, it's just a game that is guaranteed to sell.

Halo has elements of Marathon in it, but the two are separate universes and have nothing to do with each other. I'm sure even Destiny will have some Halo style elements, but it's the risk of taking what you've learned and moving on to new things that makes a good developer great.

And this game still has yet to be continued. WHY?

It should be noted, I don't have a problem with Final Fantasy. I'd prefer if they slowed down a bit with production, but if the fans want it, have at it. I just want people to realize the difference between a franchise being milked and a franchise being sustained. Also, Square Enix is also a publisher where Bungie is not. Regardless, no one can deny, Final Fantasy should slow down a bit.

Motion Controls: Do We Really Need Them?

The Nintendo Wii was the first home console ever released to have a primary focus on motion control gaming and it also turned out to be a HUGE success for Nintendo, making a ton of money. As of March 31st 2013, the Nintendo Wii has sold over 869.06 million units. For anyone wondering, that's an absurdly high amount of sales. Little did Nintendo know, they had initiated a trend in the gaming industry that would plague us for years to come.

This box, as awesome as it was, is technically responsible for Kinectimals.

Sony was already toying with the idea of motion control with the PS2 Eye Toy and the PlayStation 3 sixaxis controller, but neither really took off. They were cool ideas for idie developers to tinker with, but ultimately they just never worked to enhance the way we play games, they simply offered us a novelty. You simply won't get the same enjoyment out of Kingdom Hearts if the game required you to jump around and wave a stick through the air to play the game.

The reason controllers work as well as they do is because they allow for kinesthetic projection. The controller doesn't act as a way for us to control the characters on screen, the controls allow us to become the characters on screen. It's kinda like a car. They're designed so that humans can easily use them and because of that design we are able to become the vehicle in our minds. The ability to use tools as an extension of ourselves is part of what makes us human. When we're driving our cars we don't think, "I'm going to turn the steering wheel which will allow the car to turn in that direction," we think, "I'm going that way." The same is true for controller inputs. We don't think, "I'm going to press A and make my avatar jump," we think, "I'm going to jump." Without that inherently human connection between the mind and the tool, we ultimately end up with a control input that's awkward and inhuman. 

As impressive as Kinect 2.0 is, it's still the uncanny valley of controllers.

What's awkward about motion controls with Wii or PS Move and even voice controls with the Kinect is that we no longer have that conscious disconnect between input and experience. If we give a voice command, we are consciously wondering wether or not the input will pick it up correctly and the game becomes more about using the controller than about playing the game. Even with our current innovations with controllers, we still fall back to the controller. The controller works and we shouldn't be looking to replace it. We should be looking to enhance what we already have and what already works perfectly.

Kinect 2.0 aside, I think Microsoft has the right idea with their controller.

They fixed all the problems and enhanced the mechanics behind what already worked.

Am I saying that motion control will never be a viable way to play games? Well, perhaps not. The technology still has a long way to go, but we'll never advance that technology unless we invest in trying what we can. Though the Kinect and PS move may not be reliable now, I wouldn't be surprised to see technology improve enough in the future that they become good alternatives. The thing is, buttons have been around forever, so they're pretty reliable. Motion controls however, have not. Perhaps one day motion controls will be as reliable as buttons and if computer processing capabilities increase in the way they are expected to, it might even happen soon but until then, the controller will remain my input of choice. 

You just can't beat this.