The Strange Case of 32-bit Gaming

What's in a Bit?

Ever notice that when people talk about classic video gaming, they inevitably hearken back to the days of the NES, Super NES, or Sega Genesis? Isn't that strange, considering that there were far more games released in the PlayStation/Saturn/N64 days of gaming? Don't get me wrong: There are a lot of utterly crap games in the 8-bit/16-bit era that aren't worth your time or money to play. But I personally find it strange that we don't celebrate those 32-bit pioneers in the same way.

Or maybe I don't. I feel that there's probably a reason why we don't treat them with the same reverence that we put on the "good ol' days," and that reason is... C'mon, look at the friggin' ugly things!

Source.

So very ugly

Okay, so the 16-bit era gave us machines that were finally able to draw reasonably artistically impressive and large sprites onscreen, plus added a few sprite manipulating special effects (scaling, rotation, and other tricks not found in much of 8-bit software). It was a step up, and it looked decent. The 16-bit games built on what came before, but the next generation was the messy first step into a future filled with polygons. And when you don't have a lot of polygons to work with, things quickly get grotesque.

Now, hold your bile for a second and listen to me: Games like Panzer Dragoon, Ridge Racer, and Warhawk looked amazing for their time, but take off your nostalgia goggles and look at them now. Look at the jagged edges. Look at every single object on the screen tearing at the seams. Look at those horrible flat trees and flat semi-transparent polygons pretending to be railings up walkways. Look at Lara Croft's boobs. These things are the barest, most low-res representations of real life you can imagine. At the time, they were simply groundbreaking, but nowadays can you really stand looking at that over the smooth shaded meshes of modern games, even as early as the Dreamcast?

Let's not forget the frame rates at the time, either. Most games of this era were lucky to break 30 frames per second on the original PlayStation (I know that there are exceptions so please don't bother pointing them out; we're concentrating on the majority of these games released at this time), and while a lot of titles seemed smoother on the Saturn, frame rate issues were still a problem. Combine this with the problem of drawing distance, and you have a whole generation of stuttering games that are pointy, grainy, foggy, and just unpleasant to look at.

Out of control

But looks aren't everything, right? Please remember that in the beginning of this generation there was no such thing as analog controllers (at least in the way we know them now). Sure, there were weird steering wheel devices like Namco's NGCon, and Sony's own original dual-analog flight stick controllers, but having a comfortable accurate device with those familiar twin thumbsticks was almost three years away from when the PlayStation debuted (and a year after the release of the N64). Before that, all our first-person shooters, driving games, and 3D adventure games were controlled with what were essentially just fancy Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis controllers, which were designed for 2D games and little else.

Because the Dual Analog (and later Dual Shock) controllers weren't standard when they were released, very few developers bothered to put that much stock into developing games that made the most of them. I recall that very few PlayStation games made any use of the right thumbstick, and both Nintendo and Sega seemed to be confused as to what that second stick could be used for, so they left it out completely. And though there were games that pioneered dual-stick controls in first and third -person shooters (MDK2 and ONI for the PS2 come to mind), dual-stick controls weren't really the standard or popularized until Halo was released for the original Xbox an entire generation later.

In conclusion

I could also throw in a few words about loading times, but that was a problem as late as the Xbox 360 so it's kind of unfair to harp on it with the 32-bit generations (but man, they were terrible).

So, what we're left with is an entire generation of games that are by present day standards hideous to look at and are (for the most part) no fun to control. Outside of a few remakes these games have seen very little in terms of re-release or online presence (although a super-limited selection of titles is available on the PlayStation Network), and with certain exceptions they have become all but forgotten. And when developers make those retro games on Steam, Xbox Live, or the PlayStation Network to cash in on your nostalgia, they're more likely cutesy 8 or 16-bit sprites than lumpy, poorly rendered polygons (and sorry, Unity games on Steam Greenlight don't count).

Metal Slugfest

I purchased Metal Slug Anthology for my Nintendo Wii, which collects all of the Metal Slug games from 1 to 6 including X. It's not as if I had never played a Metal Slug game before, there were the arcades, the version that I had on my NeoGeo Pocket Color (a hand-held video game system that was made to compete with the GameBoy), and there were the downloadables on Xbox Live Arcade that I never bothered with. It seemed like a good deal for $15, and on any other video game system, it might have been.

The NeoGeo Home was an impressive system for it's time, with arcade-perfect home ports (because the home system was architecturally identical to its stand-up counterpart), with games so packed with chips that they could weigh upwards of 3 lbs!

You wouldn't think that a game this old could be undone by a modern video game system, but Nintendo has gone out of its way to make sure that it does! Well, to be fair, this collection's failings aren't all Nintendo's fault, but they're certainly not helped by it!

Okay, so my setup is pretty straightforward: I have my systems (including my Wii) connected to a 22 inch 1080p television, because I don't have much room and because the TV was cheap. The Wii offers no HDMI connectivity, so I am forced to use the best that it can: component video cables. With this little $3 eBay number in place, I can make use of the Wii's HD capabilities... That is to say, 480p instead of the standard 480i. Sigh. Well, this collection doesn't even use that! When the game starts it will go into 480i mode right away, and I can only guess that this is because the arcade games weren't released during the HD age, and whoever put this collection together couldn't be bothered to optimize them. That's fine, really, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game at all.

What does affect my enjoyment of this game? Control. Right away things are problematic, at best. Like most side-scrolling games on the Wii, you hold the Wii Remote sideways in order to mimic an old arcade controller. "But ARCWuLF," you'd say, "that seems completely reasonable and sensible in every way imaginable." Well, you'd be mostly right, except that a standard NeoGeo controller (the kind used in the arcade and NeoGeo home systems) has four action buttons. "But ARCWuLF," you'd say again, whining, "Even if you don't count the "+" the "-" and "home" buttons, the Wii Remote has four buttons to use." "Ah," I'd reply, "then you're already SMARTER THAN THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS GAME!"

If you've never played any of the Metal Slug games, they could be best described as tough-as-nails side-scrolling platform shooters. That is to say, you control a soldier from a profile view and advance to the right of the screen while shooting enemy combatants and dodging bullets. Now when I say that Metal Slug is "tough-as-nails" what I am referring to is the fact that it only takes one enemy bullet, knife, missile, background object, or a slight breeze to kill your character. What this means for the player is that tight, responsive controls and a good button layout is important, and this is what the game fails to provide.

You see, I have tried all of the button layouts, controllers, and combinations that this game supports, and here is what you have to remember:

1. Analog control sticks are slow and imprecise when playing side-scrollers that have no need of speed control.
2. It is really hard to use buttons and a digital pad while shaking a motion controller.
3. In Metal Slug, you NEED to use your bombs.

In this compilation, even though you have perfectly serviceable "A" and "B" buttons on the controller, you cannot (while using the Wii Remote) assign them to use bombs. You MUST shake the controller in order to throw bombs. What does this mean? It means that you will throw bombs when you don't mean to (wasting them), throw too many bombs at a time (you have a limited supply), or get hit by incoming fire because while shaking the controller hard enough to throw bombs using the D-pad is difficult, if not impossible. Not only that, but navigating the menus with the Wii Remote is a chore because the programmed the menus to work with the Wii Remote held vertically, while the game uses it horizontally. Why they bothered at all is the bigger question, because the game makes no use of the Wii Sensor Bar, only the accelerometer.

So, profoundly frustrated by this, I turned my attention to the GameCube controllers that I have plugged into my Wii at all times (hey, the Nintendo Wavebird was the first good and is still a really good wireless controller, deal with it). This failed to solve the problem, however. You see, when using the GC controller, with it's perfectly-good-even-if-it's-a-bit-too-small-that's-what-she-said D-pad, the game forces you to use the analog stick, which is... let's just say "interesting." Not in any way good or accurate or fun, but "interesting."

Having recently acquired a "Classic Controller Pro" for my Wii, I decided to connect it and see. SURPRISE! You can't use it if there's a GC controller connected to your Wii. So, after unplugging my 4 Wavebird receivers from their awkward position on my Wii, which is inconveniently behind my television set, I find out that it doesn't support the D-pad on that either. These are not things that you can change in the settings, mind you, but we'll get to that.

So, looks like I'm stuck with the Wii Remote if I want any semblence of accuracy. Fine, because the game gives you infinite continues.

I have taken heat before for complaining about hard games, and it seems as though the Metal Slug Anthology people realized these games were too hard because they have broken it. Free Play is unlocked from the beginning, and by a play-through of any of these games you will soon see why. History lesson time, children! Gather 'round! 'Cept for you, Billy, get back in the corner and put your nose to the chalkboard!:

Once upon a time, there were places called "arcades" that existed in magical places called "malls." In these arcades there were "magic boxes" that could take you anywhere and let you do anything that you desired, all for the price of a magic token. Eventually, one magic box that let people beat up other people mano-a-mano became so popular, that it was the only magic box getting magic tokens. The people who made the magic boxes began making magic boxes of only this new popular type, and very soon began to find out that only a few people were still coming to the arcade to play these games. Desperate, the people who presided over the arcades began to increase the number of magic tokens that it took to play even the most unoriginal magic boxes, which caused even fewer people to visit the arcades. Then, one wise maker of magic boxes said, "No more! We will make a magic box like unto the magic boxes of yore, and it will cost only one magic token or two to play." The people rejoiced, never realizing that simply by the power of variety, the magic box maker had tricked them into playing a game that cost them ten times the amount of magic tokens as the others. Soon, all of the people were out of magic tokens, and the arcades closed their doors and were lost forever. THE END.

Wasn't that a great story kids? The lesson here is, of course, that this game is really, really hard. The player starts with 3 lives, and those will be gone in the first two minutes if they're lucky. There is so much going on on-screen that there are times that a player simply has no time to avoid enemy attacks. While playing, you save prisoners of war, which is how you're judged by the end of the stage, but if you die you lose all of them -- not just lose all of your lives either, JUST ONE. My play-through of the first game forced me to continue 37 times. Metal Slug X (actually the 3rd game in the series, but not to be confused with Metal Slug 3) was a little harder, coming in at 48 times.

Why is this important? With unlimited continues, the game is just a time-consuming cakewalk, with literally no challenge at all. It does let you turn on "limited continues" if you're a hardcore crazy-person, but with just 3 continues you will see practically NONE of the game.

The graphics are some of the best sprites ever made, and lots of 'em, but this is also a double-edged sword, as you never know what is a hazard and what is a harmless background object. There are spots in the game where it looks like you can stand on platforms, only to fall to your death because they are just part of the background, Even though most bullets are flashing white and red dots, there are missiles and other weapons that are the same gray-brown as many of the stages, leading to further confusion; It's when you're on your game, feeling good and invincible that something random will do you in.

The Wii's loading times hurt the game's flow slightly too, as once-seamless arcade transitions are now broken with loading screens (something alleviated slightly on better video game systems), but remains a stark reminder that you are playing a less-than-perfect port.

I don't hate this game, per se, but it does leave me wanting more, and it's not quite the bargain I thought it would be. Ah, well. Maybe the new Contra Hard Corps game will calm my nerves.

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DAMMIT!

E-F#$%ing-3

Yes, my four readers, I am still alive, but only just barely. Having a boring, tiring, trying, and soul-crushing job tends to take the wind out of one's sails, but I've been exercising a bit more lately and have been feeling better. Since I've neglected this so long, I have some catching up to do:

Duke Nukem Forever: Hooray! Let's all break into a chorus of "Ding-dong, the Witch is Dead!" I know that one should not take solace in the passing of an industry giant, but with this train wreck finally buried maybe the public can focus on more original, better games.

Project Natal: Microsoft's attempt to wrest market share away from Nintendo's iron grip on housewives, senior citizens, and other culturally challenged individuals looks amazing... for a mock-up. If this thing works even half - even half - as good as they say it will, I will finally be freed from that nasty, putrid, stinking game controller I've spent half of my life mastering! Aside from making impressions that the project will never be able to live up to, Microsoft will presumably sell a living room add-on kit to cover the extra twenty square feet of floor space one will need to use it. Even if it does what they say it will without slowing your Xbox 360 to a snail's crawl, using Steven "I've-never-read-a-book-in-my-life" Spielberg to pitch for it just seems like an act of sad desperation.

Sony: Pffft. It seems that the general public is becoming acutely aware of what I have maintained since 1998: Sony doesn't know what the hell it is doing. Aside from their gay magic wand, they have also announced what is basically a pre-broken PSP for $100 more than a regular one!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii: Considering how little I've come to expect from Nintendo, New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS wasn't all that bad (if you ignore Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World). While I'm curious to see how it turns out on the Wii, my expectations that Nintendo will be able to craft even a halfway decent big screen Mario platforming game post Mario 64 are almost nil.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Oh snap! Miyamoto didn't attend the press conference? The man single-handedly responsible for Nintendo's brand recognition to the point where he has been elevated to the status of a pagan god wasn't carted out to shill the Big-N's crap at the p.c.? Could it be that the one-trick pony is finally too old to pull the cart?

Seriously, I used to admire Miyamoto - his games (in the beginning) weren't like anything else out there, head and shoulders above the rest in terms of quality and playability. When the technology evolved so too did the graphics, but the gameplay seemed left behind. Now when he talks smack about other companies (see above) creating game ideas before the technology is ready, I just have to look back on my pile of broken N64 "Mario Party" controllers, the huge scratches the stylus leaves on my DS, and the repetitive stress injuries and property damage caused by haphazardly waggling the Wii-mote around to see that Nintendo doesn't consider whether a technology works when they build a game around it. In my opinion, Miyamoto, it's far better to build technology around a game concept than to build a game around a somewhat-working gimmick.

Oooh, the next Zelda game will have four players? BIG STINKING DEAL! Four Swords was okay, and only okay, because it lacked an inventory and the co-op elements were overshadowed by constantly fighting over gems, bringing the gameplay to a halt. WARNING: RACIST COMMENT COMING UP IN 3... 2... 1... RACIST COMMENT GO!: Besides, the Japanese are about as good at four-player co-op as the Chinese are at mine safety (read: not so much). Four Swords aside, licensed Nintendo games that could have been excellent multiplayer games are always brought down by some mind-boggling technical or design decisions - Crystal Chronicles, Children of Mana, etc. (okay those are all square games but they are usually my basis for comparison).

To sum up:

Microsoft: Put up or shut up.
Sony: Price down or stay down (in third).
Nintendo: Shut up.