Die Platforming, Die!

[pragmatic insanester]

i'm so tired of platformers and platforming elements in non-platforming games. this isn't 1990 anymore, and we live in an age when videogames are approaching the depth of complex movies and novels. why do i still have to hunt for stupid collectables, leap from lousy platforms, and avoid crap like health-sucking lava and spawning enemies? i notice in games like Ninja Gaiden (xbox) that its not a hard boss or difficult array of enemies that keep me stuck for hours at a time - NO - its a fucking multi-angled jump with a timer ticking down! it seems that game developers are too uncreative to make a fun but understably hard battle or though provoking puzzle! no, in order to pump up the rental fees and your power bills, they stick in inane and pointless platforming elements!

when you buy a FPS, you want a first person shooter. not a "find platforms slippery" which turns in to "fucking punched (my) system". yet 3/4ths of FPS these days have poor cameras "guiding" you to hop across a bottomless pit with your save point 10 minutes back and a 3 minute cut-scene you can't skip!

even some of my favorite games have some of these issues (deus ex).

/rant

[chicnstu]

I enjoy the platforming parts. It keeps it interesting to me.

[s1lence]

Im not sick of Platforming, I'm sick of 3d games. Everything is 3d now. The only escape from NEW 3d games is basically on the DS, not including XBLA. 3d games still mean poor camera angles, some are getting better, but there are so many that are SO fucking bad it isnt funny.

Developers MAKE some new 2d games, PLEASE......

[chicnstu]

Seriously. Bring back Klonoa on consoles, make Sonic 2D again. CastleVania in 3D? Ugh...

[s1lence]

Seriously. Bring back Klonoa on consoles, make Sonic 2D again. CastleVania in 3D? Ugh...

Exactly, every Castlevania that is 3d has been mediocre at best.

[stargate]

Im not sick of Platforming, I'm sick of 3d games. Everything is 3d now. The only escape from NEW 3d games is basically on the DS, not including XBLA. 3d games still mean poor camera angles, some are getting better, but there are so many that are SO fucking bad it isnt funny.

Developers MAKE some new 2d games, PLEASE......

amen brother...

[Ed Oscuro]

That "this isn't 1990" phrase is particularly hateful because I could well say the same about many of the stupid, brainless conventions that cropped up in the last two generations.

Resident Evil was reinvented and that worked really well. You've just got to get rid of what's crap and add elements that use the extent of your format's capabilities.

I just played Delta Force 2 and the sequel Land Warrior over GameTap, and they're very rudimentary shooters by today's standards (DF2 more than LW, though). Shooters are a slightly different story than platformers, though, because it's relatively easy to make a simple shooter that's still fun regardless of its age (Serious Sam, DOOM) - just add lots of monsters.

I enjoyed the N64 CVs, but those don't hold up so well in terms of gameplay because movement is relatively sluggish and the weapon system is rudimentary. Secondary weapons (Reinhardt's sword, Carrie's bracelets, the Cornell's werewolf form) don't effectively complement any character's main attack by providing alternative options in certain circumstances, just weaker or stronger attacks. Finally, the game has no implementation of blocking - Carrie's slide tackle comes the closest, but again that isn't terribly useful.

On the other hand, Ninja Gaiden proved that you can do an action platformer well in 3D while keeping an atmosphere of mystery and exploration.

The interesting thing is that if you were to try to analyze the differences between the N64 CVs and Ninja Gaiden, you'd have to look somewhat deeply. Both games set up zones for fighting, and zones purely for exploration, so that's out. There's more similarities than differences - but those differences (mostly the combo system and weapons) make the game. I question whether the N64 really would have been capable of a set of animations as complete as those available in Ninja Gaiden, but on the other hand the N64 Zeldas had a well-thought out blocking system.

It's even arguable whether the N64 CVs needed (given the hardware) to do anything terribly differently. I can't think of many games that did no-combo combat in 3D as well. The challenge was in dodging and not timed button presses.

I'm all for CV in 3D, myself, but the CV team seems to need to throw away some of their preconcieved notions about what an action game should be in order to create a timeless classic. Lament of Innocence may not have ripped off Ninja Gaiden (they probably had the essentials of the combat system worked out before NG hit shelves, although there was a long stretch of development on LoI after that point - the release dates were early March and late September of 2004, respectively), but simply following its lead is not what most fans seem to want.

As an aside, I've also been playing Prince of Persia via GameTap. It's fun, but that's mostly due to the interesting platforming and the time system. Things have progressed enough that I'm actually finding myself peeved at the limited number of moves available.

[Graham Mitchell]

I agree that 3D platforming blows. It will take a lot to get me to play another 3D Mario game. I'm so damn sick of the collection tasks. It'd be one thing if I could see what I was supposed to get, but all these things are hidden, and exploring is a pain in the ass due to camera angle issues.

After 20 years, I'm pretty good at games. When I go back and play older games, the reasons I die tend to be due to technical issues with the game that make it unfair. For example, I was playing Gumshoe with the Zapper today. I can do that game flawlessly, except that there are times when Stevenson gets towards the bottom of the screen and the gunshots won't register down there for some reason, so he falls instead of jumps.

With newer games, I invariably die 70% of the time because of shitty camera-work. Last week I played PS2 Shinobi for the last goddamn time. Guys come out of nowhere and kill you constantly due the slow camera-angle changes. If you could see them, you could prepare and make short work of them, but you can't see them until they're striking you. Shadow of the Colossus had me swearing at the TV last night too. The 14th colossus knocks you around quite a bit, and every time he does, the camera goes aboslutely apeshit. By the time the camera gets itself out from being stuck inside a pillar or rock, you've got about 1 second to figure out where to run. Chances are it's a moot point becuase here he comes to head butt the crap out of you and you didn't even get a second to prepare for it because the camera was looking at the fine detail in the ceiling tiles, despite any attempts to re-aim it.

I miss in-depth 2D games. Thank God for the DS, eh?

[Synergy]

I do have quite a bit of 3D games I love, but I must say...

Developers MAKE some new 2d games, PLEASE......

..QFT!

As far as platformers go, I don't really have a problem with them. It's just that most games today suffer from "sequelatis" and you don't see that many original games anymore.

Enough with the Sims expansions. I want more original stuff. Thanks in advance.

[boatofcar]

I've never been a big fan of the 3d platformer on the whole, but I think a well-executed 2d platformer in the same vein of Symphony of the Night would be a breath of fresh air to the industry.

[jajaja]

Im not sick of Platforming, I'm sick of 3d games. Everything is 3d now. The only escape from NEW 3d games is basically on the DS, not including XBLA. 3d games still mean poor camera angles, some are getting better, but there are so many that are SO fucking bad it isnt funny.

Developers MAKE some new 2d games, PLEASE......

So true, every fucking game is 3d now. Bring back old games with 2d gfx. I also enjoy platformers alot

[cyberfluxor]

One major reason to buy a DS: Great 2D platformers and puzzlers.

The only 3D platformers I really enjoy are the ones that take place from a side view in a 2D space but 3D characters and environments.

[mailman187666]

I like both 3d and 2d. But I go nuts when a new DS castlevania comes out, and look how well New Super Mario Brothers sold, that should say something too. Valkyrie Profile 2 was a pretty good hybrid platformer/rpg. I want more 2d though.

[WanganRunner]

I enjoy the platforming parts. It keeps it interesting to me.

+1

Without them, it's just Wolfenstein 3D, lol.

[pragmatic insanester]

the whole 1990 thing was about how most games were just that, games. if they even had a story is was like two paragraphs at the most. in those days you weren't quite as pissed off at getting "congrats! you've beaten so and so!" and the credits rolling as your ending. i'm not bashing older games. some of my favorite games are from 1990-ish. i'm saying that they were still created for the most part as entertaining time wasters, and not interactive works of art. when someone said "video games" people mostly pictured an 8 year old beeping along to super mario brothers.

also, there are still a lot of lazy, unimaginative developers today.

and wolfenstein 3d was a great game. it had more heart and soul and all these modern ww2 shooters and such.

[rbudrick]

3d and FPSs suck balls anyway 95% of the time. Hail platforming and 2d! Long live platforming and 2d!

-Rob

[eightbitonline]

i notice in games like Ninja Gaiden (xbox) that its not a hard boss or difficult array of enemies that keep me stuck for hours at a time - NO - its a fucking multi-angled jump with a timer ticking down! it seems that game developers are too uncreative to make a fun but understably hard battle or though provoking puzzle! no, in order to pump up the rental fees and your power bills, they stick in inane and pointless platforming elements!

I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment, but this part makes me laugh out loud. did you ever play ninja gaiden (1, 2, or 3) for the NES? Despite being a platformer it has the exact same problem: the challenge lies in timing your jumps/strikes because of the platfrom positioning combined with enemy placement. Save for the final bosses the boss battles are rather pedestrian. Ninja Gaiden has always had that problem, long before it went 3D.

To hear anyone saying they want no-frills FPS action with no adventure-game elements is really weird, considering I thought the genre went stale more than a decade ago.

I think it's not so much a matter of what elements of what genre are added, but how well they're integrated. It sounds like your original complaint is that platforming elements are most annoying when they're poorly integrated, and inserted awkwardly with the otherwise balls-to-the-wall action. i think Metroid Prime is a (pardon the pun) prime example of a terrific integration of everything that's good about a lot of different genres (FPS and platforming most heavily included) if you've played Metroid Prime or Echoes you'll see that platforming in FPS games can be done, and done well.

[jcalder8]

I don't mind 3D platforming as long as its called for. Tomb Raider for example needs this because she is going through ruins and some of the stairs should have collapsed by now. But if it is just added to make the game last longer or if it isn't implemented well I can't stand it.

[RegSNES]

Some of my fav platformers have been in 3D: Super Mario 64, Ape Escape.

As for all tthe collecting, I blae Banjo-Kazooie. I did enjoy the bear and bird's first adventure but when I played Donkey Kong 64 where it was "collect all this crap times 10" I had more than enough. Why should anyone have to collect 50 different freaking things as 5 seperate characters just to pass a world? Screw that garbage.

I love me some 2D games but unfortunatly, the hardcore crowd is in the minority and the casual gamer is in the majority. Developers tend to make more 3D games because these are more likely to get the attention of the casual player.

That being said, 2D > 3D. I applaud developers that are still keeping two demensions alive.

[Xizer]

Donkey Kong 64 still ranks up there as one of the best platformers of all time.

It was massive! There were so many places to explore, and things to do. The collecting wasn't tedious either, it simply gave you a reason to actually scope out the levels. It had 50+ hours of gameplay; very impressive.

Psychonauts is another great 3D platformer. Conker's Bad Fur Day is also very memorable. I think 3D platformers are just as good as their 2D counterparts, if not better.