Why Zelda's Delay Doesn't Matter

Zelda takes aim at the haters

It's just been announced that the Zelda that was being developed for the WiiU has been delayed, and will be released on the NX and WiiU in March 2017.  A lot of people have a problem with this, but is it as much of an issue as they think?

One reason some people are annoyed is that they only really bought a WiiU to play the upcoming Zelda.  But this sounds a little hollow to me.  The WiiU has had some fantastic games for you to play on it. Smash Bros, Mario Kart, a couple of Marios, Pikmin 3, & Splatoon to name a few.  And that's just the first party games.  Even if your tastes are too specific for those, there are 2 HD Zelda remasters.  So the odds of you not having got your money's worth from the console are a little slim.

And even if it is literally the only game you got the console for, you can still get it.  Some people seem to think that the NX version will be the definitive version, and that people who get a WiiU copy will be getting screwed over.  But let's remember what happened with Twilight Princess.  TP was originally being developed as a GameCube title, but ended up being release on both GC and Wii.  And both versions were great.  Some people loved the targeting and motion controls of the Wii, some people preferred the better camera controls on the GC.  In the end, it all turned out fine, and we ended up with one of the best Zeldas ever made.  So it seems highly unlikely that anyone who buys the new Zelda on WiiU will be getting an objectively inferior experience.

Another concern people raise is that this looks like Nintendo abandoning the good ship WiiU, and leaving their customers to sink with it.  It's no secret that the WiiU is tanking, so it's just good business to let it die and use Zelda to bolster the NX lineup.  But there's no guarantee that's the sole reason for the delay.  This is Nintendo we're talking about.  They don't rush their games.  If they feel that a game needs more development time, that's what they'll do.  So it wouldn't surprise me at all if the main reason for the delay was that they felt the game needed more time in the oven.

But none of these concerns are completely without merit, so what can Nintendo do in penance?  Their best bet would be to use a multi-buy system.  Now that digital distribution is common, it would be easy to allow people to buy the WiiU version and get a free/heavily discounted copy on the NX.  People who got a WiiU to play Zelda still get their game, and get the NX copy if they decide to upgrade.

Ultimately, I think people are being a bit too hard on Nintendo.  The WiiU wasn't great, but it's not like they've lost their way.  Innovation requires risk.  Sometimes you get a Wii or DS, and they sell amazingly.  Sometimes you get a virtual boy or power glove, and sales tank.  What's important is perseverance.  As long as Nintendo don't just start pumping out safe, simple high-powered consoles, and keep trying to innovate, they will always have my support.

Speedrunners: An Early Access Success

SpeedRunner.  He runs speeds.

SpeedRunners began life in 2011 as a lowly single-player flash game by the name of SpeedRunner.  Later that year, it was released on Xbox Live Arcade as SpeedRunner HD, with a host of upgrades including fixes and offline multiplayer.  On 26/08/13, SpeedRunners was released into Steam Early Access with online multiplayer, and was fully released on 19/04/16.

What makes it so impressive as an early access game is that that first steam release wasn't some half baked engine with a broken testing map.  It was a fully formed game, with 3 functional maps and 5 characters.  It received regular updates, with the addition of bots and another 3 maps within only a month of first release.  Now, the base game has 16 maps, 24 characters with at least 4 skins each, community maps, ranked play, and a single-player story mode.

And this is exactly how paid early access should be done.  It's an odd mix of alpha (development), beta (bug-fixing), and full release: A fully playable game with no major bugs to begin with, and development and bug-fixing throughout.  People are paying for it, so developers have no excuse to use it as a testing ground for a game that's bug-ridden or still in alpha.

So how does the final game hold up, disregarding the build up? Pretty damn well.  The years of development and polish have resulted in a tight, responsive platform racer.  The item system, reminiscent of Mario Kart's, can be left on for party-game shenanigans, or turned off to give a heavily skill based, rewarding experience.  The DLC is all cosmetic, with 2 Youtuber character packs of 4 and a variety of speed trails.

As a local multiplayer, it's pretty much perfect.  My only real grievance with the game is the online networking.  Due to how fast paced the game is, it only takes one person with high latency to screw everything up, since attacks you could normally normally react to and dodge after they launch them can become undodgeable even if you know they're coming and react in advance.  This is because it uses a peer-to-peer network, which is far cheaper than a server based network.  The latter would protect those with low ping, but make the game pretty much unplayable for those with high ping.  So unfortunately, the problem's here to stay.

Overall, I think DoubleDutch and TinyBuild have done a fantastic job.  SpeedRunners is an amazing game with incredible local play and great online play, that leaves the rest of early access in its dust.

VR: Can Consoles Compete?

PlayStation VR

There have always been some things accepted as doable by PC, but not consoles: Ultra high definition graphics, extensive modding, the ability to feel smugly superior to the peasants.  In a few years time, will virtual reality be on this list?

VR is a power-hungry technology.  With the proximity of the screen, every jagged edge, every framerate drop, every tiny imperfection is magnified a thousand times more than on a TV or traditional monitor.  To encompass these needs, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have a 2160x1200, 90Hz screen.  Including the fact that there's a different image going to each eye, rather than a single image going across the screen, you're looking at about 3 times the raw rendering requirement compared to 1920x1080 60Hz.  If you add on the other challenges presented by VR, such as head tracking and low latency so you don't throw up, you get a recommended spec of at least an NVIDIA GTX 970, and an Intel i5-4590.

This recommended specs are far and away more powerful than the PS4, so you may have some misgivings.  However, Sony have a few tricks up their sleeves.  Firstly, the PSVR specs are lower.  1920x1080 120Hz, as of the last prototype.  120Hz looks like a lot, but realistically it means the most things will be at 60Hz, with the option of an in-between frame that is the same render as the previous frame, but shifted based on the head-tracker's new position.

Sony have also announced the PlayStation Neo (The console formerly know as PS4K/PS4.5).  This will have the exact same game library as the PS4, be significantly more powerful, and is believed to cost the same as the PS4 did at launch.  This means it should have no trouble handling VR, but this calls into question the PS4's abilities.  Why would they make a new console for VR if the old one could handle it?  PS4 owners may end up with a substandard experience.

So, do I think the Sony can compete in this new market?  For the time being, yes, as even a PS Neo and the PSVR headset are significantly cheaper than a Rift or Vive PC setup.  However, as the market matures and costs go down, Sony may lose the advantage of being the budget option, and PC's better hardware price/performance may render Sony's market virtually non-existant.

Titanfall's Redemption

SWORD HYPE

With the release of Titanfall 2's first teaser trailer, veterans of its predecessor couldn't be happier, and not just because because we've wanted swords since the original was first announced.  Believe it or not, T2 represents something more important than swords: A second chance.  Despite Titanfall releasing to critical acclaim, including a record-breaking 6 E3 Critics Awards, the player base had all but collapsed within a few months of release.  What could've caused such a mechanically sound, innovative game to crash and burn so hard?

The first nail in the coffin was lack of private games on launch.  Although you could form parties to play with, you would always be fighting randoms.  The private game function wasn't even brought into beta until a month after launch, at which point the damage had already been done: people wanting to play against their friends had lost interest, and the functionality needed to kickstart a competitive scene wasn't there.  This was the beginning of the positive feedback loop that plagues declining multiplayer games: people stop playing, so getting a well matched fight is harder, so more people stop playing, and so on until only the truly dedicated remain.

Another issue was the map packs.  The first was released 2 months after launch, and split the players in twain.  Some people were more than happy to shell out for more maps, since the original maps were so great.  However, a lot of people didn't want to sink more money into a dying game, and understandably so.  Why pay for content when you're happy with what you've already got, and don't think you'd even be able to use it for much longer.  This schism shrank the potential matchmaking pool for both sides, accelerating the player haemorrhage feedback loop.  On Titanfall's first birthday all 3 map packs were made free forever, but at this point, it was far too late to rectify the damage.

Matchmaking was a problem too.  Or rather, a whole slew of problems.  Who you were matched against seemed to be level-based, rather than skill-based, leading to matches turning into complete steamrolls that satisfy neither side.  And post match, there was no functional rebalancing, so you were better off finding a new lobby and trying your luck to find a more balanced match.  And sometimes, the matchmaking just wouldn't find you a match.  At one point, the origin patching broke and it was almost impossible to find a match unless you manually hit the search for update button.

There is one thing that can help bring life to dying games: custom servers.  Having community servers where things can be banned, and map rotations can be chosen leads to a better experience for everyone.  And having named servers were regulars play together helps bring together and reinforce the community.  Unfortunately, Titanfall was developed in such a way that this was impossible to implement, so people who wanted to play without polarising features such as the smart pistol had no choice but to suck it up or leave.

People  are throwing around a lot of ideas they think could save T2 from the fate of its predecessor, such as removing the smart pistol, or adding more visual customisation to pilots and titans.  But gameplay mechanics and features were never really the problem.  If Respawn Entertainment want their game to be long-lived, they need to fix the non-gameplay aspects and learn from their mistakes, or they will be doomed.

The bullet-sponge conundrum

One way in which game devs make bosses more difficult than the average enemy, especially in games trying to stay 'realistic', is by giving them huge amounts of health.  And this isn't inherently a problem.  You don't want a boss to kick the bucket as quickly as a grunt.
The problem some games face is that this is the only defining attribute of a boss.  In my whipping boy for this post, The Division, bosses are just named enemies that can eat more bullets, hit you harder, and drop shinier loot.  This leads to pretty uninteresting battles, since the boss has been made to take longer, rather than made to be more challenging.  Fortunately, I know a few ways they can fix this issue.

Battle damage

In Monster Hunter, when enough damage is done to a certain part of the monster, that part can be broken, or even completely severed from the body.  As well as providing a visual indication that you're hurting it, it affects the monster's ability to fight.  On the Barioth (a fearsome beastie) damaging the claws causes it to lose its grip on the ice, giving you crucial extra time between its attacks, and severing its tail reduces the range of its tail swipe attack.  This system rewards for actions throughout the fight, rather than just for finishing it.  In The Division, this could be done by giving the bosses destructible heavy duty body armour, and nerfing their accuracy and movement speed when you damage their arms and legs.

External objectives

A boss fight needn't be spent only fighting the boss.  The monotony can be disturbed by fulfilling other objectives, such as cutting the power to bring down the boss's impenetrable shield, or breaking into an armoury to acquire extra firepower.  This breaks the fight up a bit, and holds your attention since you know you're not just going to be doing the same thing from start to finish.  In The Division, this could be applied through optional objectives such as acquiring explosives and demolishing a wall to allow flanking, or grabbing flashbangs to stun them for a bit.

Behavior and attack variety

In Monster Hunter, (guess what my favourite series is), monsters can become tired or enraged for a short time.  When tired, a monster may lose the ability to breathe fire, or fall over when charging at you.  When enraged, they move faster, and use new attacks.  This makes it feel almost like a series of smaller fights, or a different form of a boss.  And having a wide variety of attacks keeps you on your toes, since you need to keep an eye out for telegraphs, and position yourself so that you'll be prepared for whatever they throw at you next.  Obviously an enemy that's shooting at you can't do this in the same way as an enemy with teeth and talons.  But they could change weapons periodically, such as switching to a shotgun and bearing down upon you, forcing you to back away before you get shredded, or whipping out a marksman's rifle and backing away, forcing you to press forward to maintain accuracy.

These are just a few ways a boss battle can be made interesting in a 'realistic' setting, and it's a little disappointing that The Division took the lazy route.  Then again, it's Ubisoft, so let's just be grateful the bosses weren't all just quick time events.