Donating my Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Donating my Xbox

#101

Post by peejaybee » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 7:53 PM UTC

tseabrooks wrote: post #64

unalone wrote: post #15

When I was a kid I hated the Xbox, hated Halo, and hated how it seemed to create a new model for playing games. It was released when I was in middle school, and I remember there being a sudden and abrupt shift in what kind of gaming mentality there was. Prior to the Xbox, console games were largely focused on lush, whimsical landscapes with mechanics that required some puzzling to figure out. At least, the games that…

I think the way to really sum all of this up is this: "Halo brought PC FPS culture to consoles and into every living room" Before Halo the same level of vitriolic competitiveness existed, it was just exclusive to the PC gamers playing FPSs. These gamers who were in desperate need of having someone to let out some agression and play "Alph-male" a role many of them didn't get to dabble with during their daily lives.

And that's the thing a lot of people who grew up under this new regime don't realize -- that machismo was pervasive. Among Quake's multiplayer kill messages (found in client.qc) were statements about Player A riding Player B's rocket, Player A being [nailed|brutalized|smeared] by Player B, Player A accepting Player B's [discharge|shaft], etc.

Re: Donating my Xbox

#102

Post by bmalicoat » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 7:58 PM UTC

The author is making some pretty big generalizations IMO. While I agree there is a culture of gratuitously violent games -- which the market responds positively to -- there are also many incredible games that feature no realistic violence. Fez, Minecraft, LIMBO, and Braid come to mind. I work on the Xbox Platform Team and I feel like we have an accurate representation of the interests of the gaming world (and in fact the non-gaming world -- many people simply don't play games). Maybe things were/are different on the teams actually making games, but my team is very well-rounded. We play FIFA, Spelunky, and Trials Evolution in our down time...obviously the bro-est of games.

Re: Donating my Xbox

#103

Post by lolcraft » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #23

thomholwerda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When Halo came out"? As opposed to the endless steam of first person shooters that came before it that were even more straightforward, simplistic, and violence-driven? Blaming Microsoft for this is insane. There is virtually no difference between Wolfenstein and Doom on the one hand, and Halo and Gears of War on the other - except for better graphics. If you think this is a trend of the past decade, then you either…

Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful. Even as game devices became more powerful, there was a playfulness to FPSes that you can see in titles like Perfect Dark and the Unreal series. One of Halo's major innovations was that it removed the health bar. In a shooter like Doom or Goldeneye, you have let's say 100 HP, and different weapons deal a different amount of damage. It's just like any fighting game w…

If you think FPS's with shields Halo-style are slow, you've never played a modern Call of Duty. If anything, this unrealistic choice made it much faster and funnier, since no one needed to hunt for medkits again; it also gave players a realistic choice for hiding in cover, or doing anything else at all. With health bars, it's shoot back or die.

If you think Halo was gritty and serious, you've never played Halo. Grunts are some funny bastards. Multiplayer with vehicles and rocket launchers is damn silly.

Also, complaining about the "excessive competitiveness" of Halo (of all games), compared to that of, say, Counter Strike or damn fucking Quake 3, is pretty fucking disingenuous. Harvest Moon is more suitable to competitive play than Halo.

Re: Donating my Xbox

#104

Post by aaronbrethorst » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:02 PM UTC

I hear what he's saying, but I find it ironic that his current gig is making freemium games for mobile, which I believe is a far more damaging trend than FPS games like Halo ever could be.

Knock Bioshock Infinite for delivering dollops of voice-acted plot progression along with explosions, headshots, and the like, but at least it doesn't require me to pay a buck-ninety-nine to buy the coins to buy the lockpick to unlock a door. (or wait 12 hours for my city to produce enough coins to buy the lockpick. Whatever.)

Re: Donating my Xbox

#105

Post by minitrollster » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

johncarpinelli wrote: post #96

iam wrote: post #66

Has it ever occurred to the OP that maybe the Xbox 360 was such a huge success precisely because of the culture of the employees there?

Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone. I think the next generation of consoles are going to struggle against cheaper systems like OUYA and tablets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_fi... Wii – 99.38 m…

> Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone.

Yes it was a huge success. Even though it didn't sell as many consoles as others, its tie ratio flat-out beats[1] both the Wii and the PS3, and that's quite an important metric that's almost never taken into account, but that contributes a great deal to the success of a platform.

[1]. http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/G...

Re: Donating my Xbox

#106

Post by nivla » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

johncarpinelli wrote: post #96

iam wrote: post #66

Has it ever occurred to the OP that maybe the Xbox 360 was such a huge success precisely because of the culture of the employees there?

Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone. I think the next generation of consoles are going to struggle against cheaper systems like OUYA and tablets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_fi... Wii – 99.38 m…

Why are you comparing consoles to mobile devices? Its apples to oranges. This is like comparing Netflix subscription to Xbox/PS3 consoles sold. People buy mobile devices and get the added benefit of playing games. I don't think there is a majority of people who prioritize games when looking to buy a phone (But I could be wrong).

Re: Donating my Xbox

#107

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #23

thomholwerda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When Halo came out"? As opposed to the endless steam of first person shooters that came before it that were even more straightforward, simplistic, and violence-driven? Blaming Microsoft for this is insane. There is virtually no difference between Wolfenstein and Doom on the one hand, and Halo and Gears of War on the other - except for better graphics. If you think this is a trend of the past decade, then you either…

Wolfenstein and Doom were simple, playful, colorful. Even as game devices became more powerful, there was a playfulness to FPSes that you can see in titles like Perfect Dark and the Unreal series. One of Halo's major innovations was that it removed the health bar. In a shooter like Doom or Goldeneye, you have let's say 100 HP, and different weapons deal a different amount of damage. It's just like any fighting game w…

I think you've got some serious nostalgia going on there. I agre with the other posters - Wolfenstein and Doom were considered shockingly violent at the time of their release. Before Wolfenstein there were no high-speed 3d shooters; 3d was mostly the preserve of adventure and maze-solving games, or required settling for vector graphics. It looks silly and fun now because it's so primitivebut at the time it was startling.

Doom was also fun, but I don't think of it as playful or silly. it was horrific and scary, because it set the standard for realism back in its day - of course the monsters were unreal, but nobody had ever seen such a detailed or fluid-feeling environment before. And gameplay-wise, both Wolfenstein and Doom were largely blast-and-hope type games, because the AI wasn't very sophisticated and sniping/stealthing your way through was generally not an option.

When I think of playful and silly from that era, I think of early Duke Nukem and Rise of the Triad, which started out as a serious game but rapidly went into silly territory with unlikely weapons, wildly unrealistic platform mechanics (giant trampolines) and wacky pickups (magic mushrooms that caused on-screen 'hallucinations'), and practically encouraged the player to cheat (god mode etc.) for the giggle value. Incidentally, there's a ROTT reissue in the works: http://riseofthetriad.net/web/app.php/features/

Re: Donating my Xbox

#108

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:55 PM UTC

nhebb wrote: post #72

antoko wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I read this too, those whimsical (childish?) games are still around now (don't ask me to list any ... i'm all growed up!). My son's 17 so let me look through some of his old PS2 games... Kingdom Hearts, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Rayman, Tak - I think those all epitomize the type of game you are referencing, you just stopped playing that type of game because you grew out of them. Also, if you'd tried t…

My son is almost 17, and I could have made the same list of games I'm nostalgic for. I could be wrong here - I'm not a huge gamer, but I just don't see those types of games available for the Xbox. PS3 and Wii strike me as the platform for whimsical games, and Xbox as the platform for rote FPS's.

I guess there are fewer of those games on Xbox, but I bought my wife a Katamari game on that platform.

Re: Donating my Xbox

#109

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

adamc wrote: post #95

icebraining wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're ignored by the hardcore gamers; the same that used to play DOOM and Quake back in the 90s, but there's still plenty of people playing them. LittleBigPlanet, for example, sold more on the PS3 than multiple Call of Duty editions, GTA IV and others. And lets not forget mobile games, where Angry Birds rules.

Mobile games are a very different niche, as are flash games. LittleBigPlanet is defintely a counter-example (for PS3), but there aren't too many others.

Katamari, Lego anything, narrative-type games like LA Noire or Heavy Rain, strategy-shooters like Metal Gear, Flow...I could go on. I don't feel like there's a shortage of options; I am not that great at multiplayer shootouts and as I've got older I've become really sick of horror/gore gameplay, so I play very few FPS games any more.

Re: Donating my Xbox

#110

Post by vitesse » Sun, Apr 07, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

realo wrote: post #14

IMHO his article was a good read. I even fell for the Spry Fox thing and actually visited his website. Judging by the colorful first page of the site, his games seem cool and fun... Want to see them... I click PLAY, with a Sunday morning expectation of something interesting coming up. BLAM! A f *ing Facebook login screen. I am not a Facebook user. Never will be. Too bad. I look again at his web page with a sense of l…

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