31st July 2003, 12:40 PM
Quote:Mario Golf is not to Tiger Woods as Mario Kart is to Gran Turismo. Mario Golf did nothing innovative (in fact it's pretty much just Hot Shots Golf with Mario--developed by the same people), while MK completely revolutionized the racing genre.
I didn't mean innovation-wise, I meant arcadey vs simlike...
Quote:You said "But it didn't virtually create or totally change a genre like Super Mario Brothers or Wing Commander", which is complete bullshit as Mario Kart was a hundred times more innovative than Wing Commander. All Wing Commander introduced was a crappy story and better graphics than Elite. Your definition of "innovation" is laughable.
Okay, that was wrong. Elite was first. But Wing Commander did create a subgenre of simpler ones... Elite and Wing Commander have quite different focuses. :)
Quote:Yes, Mario Kart is as much different from the racing games that came before it as something like the original 2D Wolfenstein (or Contra) is to Doom. MK changed the genre in many more ways than Doom did to shooters, but there was no drastic perspective change so people like you just shrug it off. And while Mario Kart did create its own sub-genre (a massive sub-genre), it had an influence on just about every single racing game that came after it, including Wipeout.
I just can't agree there. Contra to Doom is a bigger change than, say, Outrun to Mario Kart... at least to me... Contra to Doom has a whole perspective and gameplay control shift, while Outrun to Mario Kart doesn't! You say that it had a huge impact one many other things (not perspective), and yes, in some it did... but still... while there are huge differences between it and games before it, for sure, they just aren't on the level of early FPSes vs. sidescrolling action games. Sorry... I just don't think that it was that dramatic.
Quote:Exactly, they differ in implementation, just as drastically as Mario Kart does with Gran Turismo. Your inability to make these simple distinction is because of the fact that in your mind the only real difference that matters is perspective, which is so inane that words cannot describe it.
They differ drastically, but not nearly as drastically as Gradius and Wing Commander.
Quote:ALL shooters belong to the same genre. Contra, Gradius, Doom, and Wing Commander. They are all seperated by distinct sub-genres. WC isn't nearly enough "sim-like" to truley belong in the sim genre, and you know that.
Let me follow your rules by comparing Gradius to Wing Commander. All shooter share a few basic traits: shooting, flying, and dodging enemy fire. You stripped down racing games to similar basic qualities, and now I'm doing the same thing for space shooters. If Wing Commander didn't have that very simple perspective change and was played from a top-down angle like Gradius (with all of that shield management, etc. retained) would you still call it drastically different from the likes of Gradius? No, you wouldn't. So the only major difference you can find is a paper-thin perspective difference.
Okay, okay, Wing Commander is a simplistic space sim. I know.
Now... if you took TIE Fighter and put it topdown, I'd still argue that its much more a sim than an action game. But Wing Commander admittedly is a simpler game.
Honestly, I never really liked Wing Commander's 'kill group of enemies, warp to next group, kill them, warp to next group, kill them, end mission' gameplay... so simple, compared to better space sims...
Try this arguement with X-Wing, TIE Fighter, I-War, Battlecruiser, Freespace, X, or a dozen other games and you'd lose. Because those just AREN'T ACTION GAMES!
You only have any kind of case because Wing Commander is just about the least simlike space sim there is.
Its just absurd that I have to spend time defending the obvious fact that space sims are sims and not mindless action games...
Quote:I didn't bring up the scores to show that you shouldn't like the games, I brought them up because you were trying to objectively state which racing games are good, even though you like so many critically-panned ones.
"So many"? Like what?
Other than Cruis'n.
Hmm... lets see. Racing games I like a lot.
F-Zero X, Wipeout 64, Rush 2, Rush 2049, Micro Machines, Pod, Moto Racer 2, Rollcage Stage II, Death Rally, Hydro Thunder, Excitebike 64... except for Hydro Thunder and Pod, which got many midrange scores, those all got fairly good numbers...
Quote:You think I like doing this?? I don't, but I can't just let him get away with saying these ridiculous things.
No, I can't. :p