zidentia

zidentia

Author and game programmer

Comments 1,291

Re: Atari Acquires IP Rights To Five Ubisoft Games, Including 2011's 'Child Of Eden'

zidentia

@Toastmaster
This is somewhat true. The original incarnation actually changed many times through restructuring and acquisitions. At least they still exist and appear to be focused on the original format while expanding their product line. Many software/hardware companies did not survive in any form and multiple attempts have been made to resurrect them resulting in spectacular disasters, such as Intellivision. I was involved with the early Atari for a brief time but these days it’s difficult for me to play a good portion of these games but there is a rabid community for these and the retro scene is really strong. I personally have devolved into retro games again, revisiting games I used to love and games I may have missed at either super cheap entry points or for free. I find the current crop of AAA games from almost all the publishers to be overly produced, missing good gameplay features and focused only on how much income they can make while forgoing quality and customer service.

Re: Beat 'Em Up Classic Double Dragon Gets A Modern Revival On Switch This October

zidentia

@russell-marlow
The base issue, in my opinion, with most category defining entries are that they are defined by point in time memories and comparisons to previous and current graphical and gameplay iterations. Double Dragon and then Street's Of Rage were logical iterations int he Genre with differing feature sets. As you mention, gameplay is the key, and graphics are really secondary particularly in fighting games. Where most developers get is wrong is the emphasis on graphics and environments without considering if they truly add gameplay value to the fighting gamer:

I find most of the current remakes lose sight how older games got the feel of the controls suitable for most players which game them incentive to work on button combinations and mastering deadlier moves. Graphics were important but secondary to the understanding of the game mechanics. I did like Double Dragon but eventually Streets Of Rage became my go to fighting game even to this day. I find the original style a bit cheesy but charming as well. After all I am here to fight not gaze at the scenery.

Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Trailer Highlights New Minigames & Tech Demos

zidentia

It is interesting that the evolution of operators guides has gone from full color detailed books that can be referenced during and away from gaming to a sub par Mii style “tech” demo that seeks to showcase the power of the Switch 2. This is strangely not like Nintendo and is what happens when you lack a marketing person like Reggie that sees potential for a win that benefits the end user as well as the corporation.

If Nintendo wants to sell this as a legitimate software title then it is their call. I feel this launch has been communicated so poorly, even considering the tariff situation, with too many add on spiels and lack of pricing uniformity. People can certainly spend their money as they deem appropriate. I am not even sure I want to get the console at this point. There really has not been any software titles that I see coming that justify the $450 dollars. Maybe in the holiday season something will come out.

Re: Ex-PlayStation Boss Comments On Switch 2's "Hefty" Price Hikes

zidentia

As far as perspective it certain seems high and is so when you rationalize the economic climate of stagnant wages, higher prices for staples and basic necessities. Video games are a mature market as well so we have been spoiled by relatively stable pricing of games. The reality is that game companies have been turned into strictly corporate affairs with stock holders and P&Ls ranking higher than worker input and customer satisfaction. Aside from independent developers there are no true gamer run companies so they churn out widgets, not passion projects. Pricing though is actually cyclical based on many factors. In the 1980s pricing was much higher with most games in $69.99 range, with cheaper games from Sunsoft or the like, closer to $19.99 to $29.99. If you compare actual purchase power the disparity was much worse then compared to now in our cheap foreign labor market.

We have become spoiled and it was bound to happen. I am personally on the fence though about a new Switch. It seems nice but I think they overpriced it because they had a Wii U flashback and wanted to make sure they made money with hardware and software sales. I will not pay $80 for Mario Cart because I feel the uniqueness of the development is really just a lazy attempt at redefining the series without any true new ideas.
They have also lost their minds with the tour software being a paid digital release especially with how amateurish it seems. I believe they hit a line drive instead of a home run. It will sell but I think they will have to make adjustments down the road after economic conditions stabilize. It feels like the 3DS again but missing the really big swing for design. A mouse feature is fine but they removed content, still have a stale and uninspired system OS and the game chat feature seems like it will be difficult to maintain based on Nintendos ability to manage on line services.

I would rather have a better OS, better eshop, HALL effect joysticks and ditch the cheesy gamechat. An improved street pass would have been a better use of the system resources.

Re: Xbox's Phil Spencer Reiterates Plan To Put "More Of Our Games On More Platforms"

zidentia

Even though I knew it was going to happen the mass layoffs and studio closings still over power the Xbox for everyone marketing drivel. Microsoft, while still a huge market for developers, has personally lost its appeal starting with Win10. While I still keep machines for assembly interpolation development I am mostly using VM’s on Linux and Mac now. I do not see going back as an option based on this current cycle.

Re: My Nintendo Store Adds 'Classic Games Postcard Set' (North America)

zidentia

My Nintendo is such a pale imitation of Club Nintendo and while I have “redeemed” a few things the majority of these premiums are just lame and phoned in by the Nintendo marketing team. As was previously mentioned, paying for shipping for a “free” item that can be sent via a padded envelope with a cost about a third of the charge reeks of a really misguided profit strategy when your customers end up paying over and over again for remasters of an existing IP.

As a result of this nebulous practice I end up losing most of my points and additionally it also seems disingenuous to not give points for a purchase of a game that’s new to you but not a new release for Nintendo.

Nintendo you may have the knack for gameplay but you are lacking when it comes to truly appreciating your loyal base.

Re: Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Will Restore Missing Posters In Patch 3

zidentia

The original game was fairly janky, in my opinion, so a remake did not grab my attention much. The missing graphics, removed inadvertently or not, speak to a larger problem in today’s rice crispies society. The rush by inflamed personalities to judge everything solves nothing. Erasing history neither teaches us empathy or moves society forward in a meaningful manner. Obviously we can always learn to do better in how we treat each other but you cannot use blind discipline and punishment to force people to change.

Re: Metroid For NES Could Be Inducted Into The Video Game Hall Of Fame

zidentia

In order to judge the value of a video game and its play through you need to be in the moment. There are many games that did not “age well” but backwards perspectives are skewed by present knowledge. Many of these original games seem clunky and rote now but “in the moment” they were good games and sometimes great games. Some of these were influential enough to change the industry in some form.

It can be very difficult to play older games now because so many aspects of design have changed including save states, graphics, story and hand holding for some people. Again, in the moment, they were all that we had and people will have nostalgic ties to some of these that others hated. It is just the nature of the business.

The first Metroid was innovative in many ways but had issues that many games had then. The creation of a genre merits inclusion on its own.

Re: 505 Games Shuts Multiple Offices As Remedy Acquires Rights To Control IP

zidentia

These layoffs are an unfortunate correction caused by multiple things. The pandemic caused a huge ripple but the attempt to minimize crunch and poor management decisions are the larger part of this. At the end of the day it is has always played a part of the industry from the earliest days but one huge difference is now most companies have less tech people in management roles and more interchangeable corporate types that only know strap plans and ROI as opposed to understanding the actual development process.

Re: Nintendo Is Currently The Richest Company In Japan

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@HeadPirate
I can certainly disagree because that is not the consensus among all traders only shorters. The rest of your response is not really relevant. The presence of larger amounts of cash does not indicate a problem with product cycles. The most likely answer is they feel that not everything is in play yet and the cash may be for other reasons. I traded for many years and it is much simpler than you acknowledge.

Re: Nintendo Shares Drop Following Latest Reports Of Switch 2 'Delay'

zidentia

It is interesting to see the variety of comments being reduced once again to those saying what is best for Nintendo and the resulting calamities that will follow and the others that are upset with the lack of new product. I understand the latter certainly but the former argument falls hollow when you consider that running a corporation is much more complicated and nuanced than people really understand.

Re: Nintendo Is Currently The Richest Company In Japan

zidentia

@HeadPirate
I disagree with your assessment of the health of a cash on hand situation. Long term investors want cash on hand to fund growth in product development, meet financial obligations, retain key contributors to strategic growth and weather downturns in the market place. The lack of debt is an even more compelling reason to view Nintendo as a healthy growth oriented company. This is even more obvious when you consider that Sony, who has a larger market share diversifying portfolio is pulling back in several markets including video games, entertainment and new product development. Microsoft, an enormous company by market capitalization, has changed strategies as well but they derive most of their income from cloud markets. The US market has been over run with short sellers and the recent trend is to do IPO in other markets or grow organically.

Re: Talking Point: As A Nintendo Fan, Do You Really Need To Play The Virtual Boy?

zidentia

The virtual boy was like many of Nintendos attempts to leverage their philosophy within a burgeoning technology trend. It could have been a more successful console if they fleshed out the early failures. The games are ok and why they didn’t push these to the 3DS is probably a result of them wanting to not focus on the problems they had with it. The 3DS is nice and an ok 3D illusion but it does not match a true immersion.

I would love to see them do something more than a Labo perhaps create an accessory for the Switch 2 that mimics the Virtual Boy.

Re: Atari Goes Celestial In New 'Lunar Lander Beyond' Narrative Trailer

zidentia

It is nice to see Atari making some smarter moves and not relying totally on reissues of old games. The OG games have their place but the gameplay was not great on all of them. I would love to see Joust available again. I used to play this all of the time on my 5200. I am also looking at the Retrogames mini 800.

Re: Square Enix To Be "Aggressive In Applying" AI Going Forwards

zidentia

One thing has to be cleared up in regards to the term “AI”. What is being presented here is not actual intelligence. It is an algorithm designed to run as a large scale parallel use case to process large volumes of pre existing data. The “intelligence” aspect is nothing more than an advanced programming routine designed to use predictive sub routines to anticipate words, phrases and sentence structures. It’s entire basis for the responses it gives are based on large amounts of Internet scraped data banks both public domain and copyrighted works. It is unable to create independent and creative ideas without plagiarism and access to the cloud.

It is useful for repetitive tasks such as automating programming, chat bots and the like but it is not actually intelligent. There will be some significant changes to the industry as lawsuit challenges reshape the legality of the data access without the copyright holders permission.

Re: My Nintendo Store Adds Holiday And New Year Rewards (North America)

zidentia

The Nintendo store has really become a monument to capitalism. I was interested in the calendar and went in there with my measly points they give for spending hundreds of dollars for games. I check and I have more than enough points and I go to checkout and with tax(?), which is not supposed to be taxed, on shipping it is $7.48. Flat media like this is at most $2.00 in postage based on the weight. I am not falling for the free now, let’s profit on the shipping scam. This is not a good thing Nintendo and Club Nintendo was a much better offering for your loyal customers.

Re: E3 Has Been Cancelled, Permanently

zidentia

It is bittersweet but not unexpected. E3 served in a valuable way and at a crucial point in video game history. It is and will be difficult to replicate the impact that E3 had in regards to game announcements and advancements in gameplay. The TGA is not a replacement, in my opinion, in any sense especially in representing the industry. The PAX shows and Gamesconn are better representations of the industry.

It is not likely we will see the likes of an E3 ever again so tip your Blue Milk of Tatooine and squint as it heads off in its speeder towards its two suns for the last time.

Re: Geoff Keighley Agrees Music Was Played "Too Fast" For TGA Winners This Year

zidentia

E3 was of the time in which it was created, namely the early creative years of the Video Game industry. The shows were, at times, glorious and groundbreaking with the spectacle and the game reveals that happened. It was a special time that unfortunately the E3 planners failed to see were fleeting and they did not plan accordingly to adapt to the changes coming. So in the absence of a platform that the industry can use unilaterally we are left with this farcical example of what is passed off as industry representation.

Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Wins Best Action/Adventure Game At TGA 2023

zidentia

@Reztobi As someone already pointed out your theory on the game engine was incorrect. The programmers did a lot of hard work to clean up this code and also to create the feeling of a similar world but in a different point in time. Isn’t that what most games do, in particular Zelda games? They normally have more than one game set in a similar storyline or art style. You can argue the DLC point but that all comes down to preference and in reality there are three worlds now to explore and the Ultrahand physics are quite good considering how they were able to swap objects in and out of the screen and use the art style to trick the brain especially considering the age of the hardware.

Re: Random: The Game Awards Urged Eiji Aonuma To 'Wrap Up' Zelda Acceptance Speech

zidentia

@Frailbay30
It’s all perspective and you are entitled to yours of course. I disagree but such is life. Where did I put down western developers? I designed and programmed games with plenty of talented people. I just provided perspective on what I experienced with Japanese peers, nothing more. It’s not really that important in the overall scheme of things because publishers count dollars not awards and that keeps people in jobs.