Doom 3

[A Black Falcon]

It's not "close", it's easily far, far ahead. There is no great leap in PC gaming like Pitfall to Super Mario Sunshine. Pong to Mario Power Tennis. You can argue that consoles have time on their side and you'd be right, but we're not arguing difference relative to years. If you are then you can see things becoming more even. But if you look at the earliest console games and the newest ones, there is simply no comparison whatsoever.

This makes absolutely no sense. I know you know something about the history of computers and the history of videogames. You know that computers have existed for longer than home video game consoles. And that computer games have made just as much of a jump as video games have. There is nothing in the PC market like Pong to Mario Tennis or Pitfall to Mario Sunshine??? What the heck? But in the very thing you were replying to I stated some games that are equally big jumps! Adventure to Curse of Monkey Island? Empire to Civ III? Wizardry to Baldur's Gate II? Spacewar to Battlecruiser???

If you actually believe what I thought you said there you are being incredibly ignorant and you are smart enough to know that you should know better.

I'm obviously not going to change your mind so there is no point in further debating this. Think what you want!

That's pretty much what I said. :)

That is because you are a hypocrite who has double-standards. If you think that the Ratchet and Clank series, which is a platformer/shooter/RPG hybrid, is only a standard platformer with "minor innovations" then you are the poorest judge of this kind of thing and have no right to even begin to debate this subject.

R&C is so different from the standard platformer that it's almost in a completely separate genre. Though I'm sure you've never played the game (or most of the other ones I listed) and have no idea what you're talking about, but when has not knowing the facts stopped ABF before?

Haven't played Ratchet & Clank, know almost nothing about Ratchet & Clank, and wasn't directly referring to Ratchet & Clank, so I don't know what your problem is... I was just pointing out that many of those games are not ones I would consider to create new subgenres -- I would not say Sonic or Mario Bros. 3 created new subgenres, as I said (I'm not even sure about Super Mario Bros., actually... it was clearly revolutionary, but was it an actually new subgenre? I don't know, it's pretty similar in basic idea to Pitfall...). I obviously have a higher standard for what I'd call a subgenre than you do... Pitfall and Mario 64 definitely did create new subgenres. But anything beyond that? Not major categories, I'd think. Just new takes on what already exists. I consider that a different thing from a totally new game idea... every time a game adds some new idea into a game that mostly follows what has come before I would not say that a new subgenre has been created.

But where do Ratchet & Clank or Sly Cooper fit in? I won't say for sure because I've never played them.

Ok, well let's look at those games then. Thief is a shooter with sleath elements. That makes it a stealth shooter, no? That's what we call a sub genre. Sly Cooper is to the platformer what Thief is to the FPS, except that Sly is even further removed from the conventions of the platformer than Thief is to the FPS.

Yes, Theif is sufficiently different from a normal FPS that it is a new subgenre of the field. It plays very little like the rest of the games in the genre. And I haven't played any PS2 platformers, but based on the many I have played you just don't see that very often in platforming games... they mostly seem to be at their core based either on Mario for NES or Mario for N64... yes, with changes that make them somewhat different, but most platformers aren't too original. (Are the ones you mention more original? Quite possible... but without playing them I don't know how much. Like Theif compared to a normal FPS? That's a pretty big difference, if true...)

The RPG shooter platformer isn't a new subgenre?? How many other games of that type are out there?

Oops, I cited the same thing twice... :)

Anyway, there is one thing to say. It is not an effective counter-arguement to say "one game on my list is truly unique" when I questioned all but two. Fine, maybe one or two more are too, but is only talking about one of them really a good way to refute the point?

It shows that Nintendo does not have a very consistent game plan and are making up shit as they go along. It's very scary.

That's probably true. They seem to not so much act as react... and then either do something or willfully refuse to do anything and just go off in their own direction. That's not the way to win or even to succeed at all in the long run. Really, when you look at it a lot of their message just doesn't make sense... and they utterly refuse to admit that anything is wrong. Not good.

Really, well then why am I having such a difficult time remembering any risky titles that Nintendo brought over here that sold poorly? All I can think of are the examples I mentioned. If you can think of anything else, please let me know!

I was thinking of game publishers in general, and there are many examples of games brought over here from Japan that did not succeed... though yeah, there probably are enough success stories to make their extreme cautiousness in so many cases very strange.

Going by the sales you can deduce that the average "hardcore" PC Gamer buys around 5-10 FPSs a year and 2-4 RTSs a year. That certainly matters.

I don't know how you get those numbers, but they don't have much to do with reality. How does one buy 5-10 FPSes and 2-4 RTSes and end up with a ratio where the overall ratio is about 8 RTSes bought for every 10 FPSes bought? Yeah, you don't. You buy 4-8 RTS titles, not 2-4. I'm not quite sure why you said so few RTSes... because of the statements that there are fewer great RTSes? But when the sales of the genre are almost as high that is proof that hardcore gamers are buying the genre in close to the same volume... so the average hardcore gamer could not have four times more FPSes than RTSes if the overall average is three RTSes for every four FPSes. It's simply impossible. And anyway, there aren't that many fewer great AAA RTS titles than there are great AAA FPSes... there are just probably more lower-quality FPS titles.

I knew you were going to say that, and I was hoping that would happen since it would go further to prove my point about you never fully listening to what I say.

I said KEYBOARD AND MOUSE. Games that work well on KEYBOARD AND MOUSE. Joysticks, wheels, gamepad, are all peripherals! My point was that it's nearly impossible for a developer to come up with a new or different type of game for the PC because gamers don't want to have to buy a new peripheral, and most PC gamers do not have good peripherals unless they're really into a certain genre (like flight sims or racing games). So while it is certainly possible for someone to create a nice 3d platformer for the PC, they have to sacrafice a lot in order for it to work relatively well with a kb&m. Or sacrifice nothing and make the kb&m controls suck really hard (like BG&E). Some 3d platformers work better with the kb&m, like the 3d Rayman games which feature simple platforming and a camera that works on its own, but imagine if someone were to port Mario Sunshine to the PC, a game whose camera requires constant attention and features very difficult platforming. It would be possible to do with a good analog gamepad, but virtually impossible with a kb&m, which would cut down the potential audience by a significant percentage. That is the problem that I am talking about.

And I mostly talked about keyboard and mouse games, you know. I listed six genres which I then discussed in more depth. Five of those are keyboard/mouse genres. One requires peripherals. And yet your entire reply is about that last genre and you completely ignore 80% at least of what I said. How nice. Really makes for an effective reply to what I said.

About that subject, though... I'd say that most hardcore PC gamers have at least a basic joystick. Nice, more expensive joysticks (that are better for complex flight sims) are of course much more rare. A gamepad? Rarer than basic joysticks, but many probably do. Wheels? Much less common. Other add-ons? PC gamers are no more reluctant to buy them than console gamers are, OB1. Add-ons always have acceptance problems on both platforms. Complaining about that as if PC gamers are worse is silly. Your problem seems to be that you want to make console-style games and they are less popular on the PC than PC-style games are... so you get bitter about the whole PC industry for some reason. It's not right. I will never agree that PC games and the PC industry are, as you say, far less original and 'stuck with old ideas' than console games are. Sure, PC games don't generate new genres and stuff as often. But they add on stuff to existing genres all the time and that results in a great variety of titles! I know, your arguement is (or should be; I'll ignore the part earlier here where you seem to say something else) that consoles are equal on this matter. I'd like to think PCs are ahead. They're certainly not behind, anyway. Originality shows different ways in different games. Games don't necessarially have to be a totally unique gameplay experience and create new genres or subgenres to be original and innovative in some respects... and most of the time that's all that is really needed. (Of course, sometimes totally unique games are great, and it's nice that some people make them. But the point is that to be admirably unique games don't necessarially have to be a gameplay idea as different from everything else as, say, Wario Ware.

Anyway, controls... Rayman works fine on keyboard? I don't know, I have all three of the main Rayman games for PC and I'd never want to play them on keyboard... even for Rayman, using a gamepad makes a dramatic difference. You are right that keyboard/mouse only really works for simple action/platformer games. Side-scrolling or top-down titles that use only two or three buttons are definitely playable on keyboard... (I know, you disagree, but they are. Is control a bit worse? Probably, yes. But not so much that playing the game is impossible, especially if the game was originally designed for keyboards... (your arguement here, if I recall, was that that requires the designers to make the game a bit slower paced and/or easier. Perhaps. But if the games can still be great, and great fun, and challenging, that doesn't matter all that much...)) but 3d platformers? It's not easy. Only the simplest ones work and those are not nearly as good. The difference between keyboard and gamepad is a lot bigger for 3d titles than it was for 2d games... which is perhaps part of why while there were a lot of 2d platformers on the PC (especially shareware), there are a lot fewer 3d ones... while a bunch of people have gamepads, it's not as many as have keyboards. Tie that to how successful modern consoles are and the result is the fading of the once-strong platformer genre on the PC.

But you just said that there is as much innovation in the PC world as the console world. Why are you using excuses then? You just proved my point, yet you're trying to make it sound like you're supporting your argument.

Let me get this straight: You say that there is easily as much if not more innovation in PC gaming as console gaming.... yet there isn't as much innovation in PC gaming as console gaming because a) there aren't any Japanese PC devs, and b) the PC gaming market isn't as strong as the console market so devs have to make games that are "safe".

Pick one argument and stick to it!

I'm saying that PCs have innovation, but in somewhat different ways... but I think I've explained that in depth several times now in this thread.