Controlling The Future With New Game Styles
I keep returning to the positively baleful-looking Nayan Ramachandran's blog HDR Lying, and his latest excellent editorial, from the Japanese-based school teacher and gaming acolyte, is called 'Controlling the Future: Touching the Game Space in the Coming Generation'.
The introduction explains: "The fight to create the new innovative control method for the future of video games has never been so heated as it is right now. With Nintendo introducing the DS in 2005 [EDIT: As noted by JVM in the comments, Holiday 2004 in most territories], and then the Wii in last year’s final months, developers are starting to wrap their heads around new ways to control and interact with the games they create."
However, as Nayan goes on to note: "The dangerous future we face is one that’s already starting the rear its ugly head. Companies see the success of the Wii, and port Playstation 2 and PSP games to the console, slap on gimmicky gestural control, and push it into the market. Others make games for the DS, and instead of designing the game with the DS’ capabilities in mind, add useless second screen functionality, or touch screen control that either does not fully work, or is completely unnecessary."
A fair comment indeed - anyone got good examples of hideously stuck-on gestural/stylus controls for Nintendo format games?
Comments
Failure of facts: The Nintendo DS was hinted at in 2003, introduced in January 2004, and first sold in November 2004.
Not 2005.
Loading original article difficult because I'm on dial-up currently, but I take issue with the bit quoted.
Posted by: jvm | July 21, 2007 9:20 AM
You're right, JVM, only minor territories got it in 2005 - I added that to the post. I don't think it changes the overall argument, though.
Posted by: simonc | July 21, 2007 9:24 AM
One of the best games for the DS has a rather tacked on stylus feature: Castlevania: DS. Apart from the "use the stylus to break blocks" power-up that was used, oh, once in the whole game there was that annoying "memorize the gesture and do it correctly" *feature* after you beat a boss.
Nothing more irritating than killing a really hard boss only to get a gesture wrong and have that creature revived to kill you. So lame.
Posted by: nowak | July 21, 2007 12:55 PM
Well, I only have your comments to go on, but by making it "2005, 2006, and then 2007" it sounds like he's making a case that new control schemes are a consistent trend since 2005. Moving it to "2004, 2006, 2007" makes it sounds less consistent.
I'm not saying he's not right -- that focus on new control schemes is hot right now -- but that the timing isn't as compact as 2005-2007 would have you believe.
Posted by: jvm | July 21, 2007 2:31 PM
Nintendo certainly hasn't helped matters by supposedly requiring some companies to use their "unique" features. That is apparently the cause of the useless secondary screen or unnecessary/unwieldy touch controls in at least some DS games, as well as why some games spent (or wasted) resources on weak GBA/GC connectivity.
Posted by: Baines | July 21, 2007 7:35 PM
Er, yea, sorry about the date inconsistency on the DS release. That is wholly erroneous. I'll change that right now...
Posted by: Nayan Ramachandran | July 22, 2007 4:27 PM
Hey simon, wanted to quickly bring to your attention that an aggregate site has completely stolen your post concerning my article: http://fattony69.com/archives/controlling-the-future-with-new-game-styles/3824
I know how much you hate blog aggregates, so I thought I'd let you know.
Cheers,
Nayan
Posted by: Nayan Ramachandran | July 22, 2007 4:32 PM