What is Warren Spector doing these days, anyways? Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex ... wasn't he working on something starring an American ninja? Some action game with notes from John Woo?
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
EWom on
Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Well, the Japanese did get BG II, so its all good.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
Rami on
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I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
You haven't been paying attention to the thread, because um, yeah, they were released there. HL2 is an arcade game in Japan.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Well, the Japanese did get BG II, so its all good.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
You haven't been paying attention to the thread, because um, yeah, they were released there. HL2 is an arcade game in Japan.
I know that, but guess who said it that I may have been responding too?
I don't give a shit whether they were or not, it's got nothing to do with the point I was making. My point was, that he is placing his own, heavily culturally influenced, opinion of greatness on an entirely different culture.
What he's doing is basically the equivalent of a bunch of Christians sitting around and discussing 'those poor Hindu bastards with all their Gods, if only they had the real one over there!'.
Rami on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
Lord JarJar's Belly killed Zelda for me.
But it's the best part
One of them, anyway.
Rami on
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I think all you have to do is look at american RPGs and J-RPGs. The difference in story, art style, and gameplay is very drastic. Just look at KOTOR or Oblivion versus say Persona or FFX.
I agree also I have noticed the Jappense seem to be no where near as dark as the american Rpgs. They also tend to be much more linear. Where as a lot of the american RPGs tend to have more choices. I love the anime art style but I love how dark the american RPGs can be. If only they could combine fallout with final fantasy.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
What? Oh sorry, I got distracted from reading your response as I was polishing my degree in 'Understanding Basic Concepts of a Cultural Difference.'
Anyways, a well-made game is a well-made game to anybody. Kidnapping a Japanese gamer, duct taping him or her to a chair and then forcing them to play Half-Life 2 to completion would have them admitting that while the genre isn't their cup of tea, it is still a well made game.
The Japanese just don't know they like Western games yet. I suspect it'd be a parallel of Major League Baseball taking root over there - if they gave Mass Effect or Max Payne a chance, they'd love the dickens out of them. We just need a lot of duct tape and time to make sure everyone in Japan plays No One Lives Forever ...
Anyways, a well-made game is a well-made game to anybody. Kidnapping a Japanese gamer, duct taping him or her to a chair and then forcing them to play Half-Life 2 to completion would have them admitting that while the genre isn't their cup of tea, it is still a well made game.
Or it would end with them possibly hating the game. Quality is subjective and what is considered well made varies a lot even within a culture. Take adventure games for example. I can play King's Quest and want to kill the designers for making a game with so many ways to accidentally kill yourself and stupid puzzles. This doesn't prevent it from being loved by a lot of people.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I shed a tear for all the Japanese gamers that will never play Half-Life 2, Company of Heroes, Deus Ex, and Quake Wars. If you compiled a list of great Western games never released in Japan and another list of great Japan-only games, I'd bet the former outnumbers the latter ten to one.
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
What? Oh sorry, I got distracted from reading your response as I was polishing my degree in 'Understanding Basic Concepts of a Cultural Difference.'
Anyways, a well-made game is a well-made game to anybody. Kidnapping a Japanese gamer, duct taping him or her to a chair and then forcing them to play Half-Life 2 to completion would have them admitting that while the genre isn't their cup of tea, it is still a well made game.
The Japanese just don't know they like Western games yet. I suspect it'd be a parallel of Major League Baseball taking root over there - if they gave Mass Effect or Max Payne a chance, they'd love the dickens out of them. We just need a lot of duct tape and time to make sure everyone in Japan plays No One Lives Forever ...
I don't like HL2. When I played it (to completion because people insisted I should) I noticed every flaw (glitches and texture quality issues and some other weirdness) and was incredibly bored with the lack of engagement the other characters gave me. There's the whole "you are Gordon Freeman" bit, but to me it just felt empty. I felt like no one was interested in ME, they were interested in Gordon Freeman, and that I wasn't playing the part of Gordon Freeman but instead just sitting inside his body, made to do things I wouldn't do if I were that character (which I can decide since the character has no distinct personality), and people reacting to me doing things that I (nor Gordon Freeman) actually did. Or it didn't feel like I did.
Maybe it works for some people, but it didn't for me.
Which brings me to the point that tastes can differ, and culturally speaking the majory of a population in one country's tastes could differ from that in another country. This means that what may be considered "a well made game" in one place may be considered a piece of crap in another.
I doubt that very much, mblackwell. While tastes differ, most of these are over superficial things. Style, setting, personality, etc. but a good core is a good core. Mechanics. Pacing. Intuitive controls and original puzzles. These kinds of things can't be argued since they're not all that subjective - if you can see a lot of love and polish went into development, you will say it's a well made game.
Not liking Half-Life 2 because you felt detached from the story is ridiculous. You should be busy throwing saw blades at zombies and not worrying about what Eli Vance said ten minutes prior. I can't wrap my head around this ... it's like saying you don't like Mario 64 because you don't feel like rescuing the Princess and feel detached in the body of a fat plumber from Brooklyn. The points of HL2 is shooting things and not getting shot and it does those things very well.
Does anyone have that finding from 2001 where some university showed a landscape to Asians and then to North Americans? It was a painting of a creek with some mountains in the background. When asked, the Americans commented on how they focused on the fish in the creek first and the Chinese said they saw the mountains first and the fish later.
Half-Life 2 is a qualiy production, with a different kind of narrative. The focus is on atmosphere, and understanding.
The entire world of HL2 is one crafted from NPC responses to Gordon, the enemy reactions to Gordon, and the player's own conclusions he/she's reached from playing the game. They rarely ever spell the story entirely out. Part of the game's entire basic foundation lies in subtly and subtext.
For the player to ask why? And for that to drive him foreward (through incredibly linear level design). The entire point is to create a world, and allow the player to judge it himself.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
This is like saying that because you don't like RTS's, Starcraft is a bad game. It may not be a game that you like, or that anyone you know likes, but you cannot deny that it is a well designed game. Cultural differences don't entirely determine quality.
Anyway, more on topic:
Japanese gamers seem to be more interested in a passive story, where you watch the events as they play out and the plot is very important and the only control exerted is during specific sequences that have no bearing on the plot. Western gamers prefer to be immersed in a fully fleshed out world but given more control over the actions of their character.
Standard anti-derailment disclaimers: This only applies to my specific observations of the general differences between Western and Japanese RPGs and is not a infallible declaration about the tastes of all Japanese or Western gamers.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
One of the biggest testaments to the Zelda series is that people argue constantly about which one is the best. And it's not just two groups of people either. Each and every Nintendo-developed entry into the series has its own fairly large camp of advocates. I'm in the Majora camp personally.
I doubt that very much, mblackwell. While tastes differ, most of these are over superficial things. Style, setting, personality, etc. but a good core is a good core. Mechanics. Pacing. Intuitive controls and original puzzles. These kinds of things can't be argued since they're not all that subjective - if you can see a lot of love and polish went into development, you will say it's a well made game.
Not liking Half-Life 2 because you felt detached from the story is ridiculous. You should be busy throwing saw blades at zombies and not worrying about what Eli Vance said ten minutes prior. I can't wrap my head around this ... it's like saying you don't like Mario 64 because you don't feel like rescuing the Princess and feel detached in the body of a fat plumber from Brooklyn. The points of HL2 is shooting things and not getting shot and it does those things very well.
Does anyone have that finding from 2001 where some university showed a landscape to Asians and then to North Americans? It was a painting of a creek with some mountains in the background. When asked, the Americans commented on how they focused on the fish in the creek first and the Chinese said they saw the mountains first and the fish later.
The gameplay beyond the story was boring and tedious and felt like it had no point. If the story had tied me into it better it would have worked, or if there had been no story maybe. Of course if there had been no story to me it still might have been boring. There was a lot of repetitive gimmicky stuff in there. To me at least.
Honestly if you simply dislike a genre enough you may consider even a well made game in that genre crap.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
One of the biggest testaments to the Zelda series is that people argue constantly about which one is the best. And it's not just two groups of people either. Each and every Nintendo-developed entry into the series has its own fairly large camp of advocates. I'm in the Majora camp personally.
well, East or West, I'm pretty sure the Zelda series is universally considered one of the best, if not the best, series in the industry. Each game is a jewel.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
Agreed, Wind Waker had fantastic art. I loved how much more alive everything was in that game, though it didn't beat Majora's Mask in terms of story. My current favorite is Twilight Princess, which brought in all of the awesome elements of Ocarina of Time, and created a story that actually made some fucking sense. It also has, as far as I'm concerned, the most Satisfying ending (and the most exciting final boss) of any Zelda thus far.
I would say Zelda hit it's peak in 1998 (OOT), not '92, and still brings us great games (WW/TP) so it's not like they are just mass producing douche buckets or anything.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
Agreed, Wind Waker had fantastic art. I loved how much more alive everything was in that game, though it didn't beat Majora's Mask in terms of story. My current favorite is Twilight Princess, which brought in all of the awesome elements of Ocarina of Time, and created a story that actually made some fucking sense. It also has, as far as I'm concerned, the most Satisfying ending (and the most exciting final boss) of any Zelda thus far.
I doubt that very much, mblackwell. While tastes differ, most of these are over superficial things. Style, setting, personality, etc. but a good core is a good core. Mechanics. Pacing. Intuitive controls and original puzzles. These kinds of things can't be argued since they're not all that subjective - if you can see a lot of love and polish went into development, you will say it's a well made game.
Not liking Half-Life 2 because you felt detached from the story is ridiculous. You should be busy throwing saw blades at zombies and not worrying about what Eli Vance said ten minutes prior. I can't wrap my head around this ... it's like saying you don't like Mario 64 because you don't feel like rescuing the Princess and feel detached in the body of a fat plumber from Brooklyn. The points of HL2 is shooting things and not getting shot and it does those things very well.
Does anyone have that finding from 2001 where some university showed a landscape to Asians and then to North Americans? It was a painting of a creek with some mountains in the background. When asked, the Americans commented on how they focused on the fish in the creek first and the Chinese said they saw the mountains first and the fish later.
No it doesn't; there's no tactical depth at all. The enemies are so feeble and weak even on the highest difficulty setting that they pose absolutely no threat to anyone with at least a moderate FPS skillset. The level design is so linear and cramped that the AI has no choice but to run straight into your bullets, single file, in every encounter. All of this makes every battle blend together - they might look different, but they play the same.
It was a design decision, though. I wouldn't say they deliberately made the gameplay bad, but it definitely suffered due to their heavy focus on presentation. They wanted you to marvel at every inch of their beautifully crafted levels, which you couldn't really do if you were focusing all of your attention on killing the bad guys. They expected you to be so caught up in the fact that an awesome looking helicopter was shooting at you in a canal that you wouldn't care that it wasn't doing any appreciable amount of damage. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing - Half-Life 2 was obviously a sublime experience for a lot of people. On the other hand, you should be able to see that if somebody, like, say, mblackwell, wasn't impressed by the presentation, they would've thought the game was crap.
Contrast that with a game like Halo, which favours gameplay depth over presentation. The level designers focused all of their attention on making every battle unique, rather than making them look unique. They expected you to be so engaged by the grenade that was forcing you out of cover and into the line of fire of five guys that you wouldn't care that the scenery around you was an exact copy of what you were looking at ten minutes ago. This worked for most people, but not everyone.
Both games do what they set out to do extremely well, but do different things. The difference between them is hardly superficial, but that doesn't stop people from assuming that they both have the same goals and disagreeing about which one is objectively better designed. Just look at how many people think that Halo is "Generic crap" or that Half-Life 2 is a "Pretentious snoozefest". And if there is such a huge divide in opinion within our own culture, imagine how much bigger it would be between two separate cultures with entirely different values.
The level designers [of Halo] focused all of their attention on making every battle unique, rather than making them look unique.
Haven't played Halo 1 recently, have you?
Joking aside, yeah, HL 2 is all about atmosphere, the shooting part isn't all that hot.
I will concede that the library is just the same shit over and over again. Other than that, however, every battle is a beautiful and unique snowflake. Even replaying the same battle over and over again will give you wildly different results.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Somebody else might not consider the specifics of each battle as important as I do, and would instead think "I'm fighting the same guys again? Booooring."
The level designers [of Halo] focused all of their attention on making every battle unique, rather than making them look unique.
Haven't played Halo 1 recently, have you?
Joking aside, yeah, HL 2 is all about atmosphere, the shooting part isn't all that hot.
I will concede that the library is just the same shit over and over again. Other than that, however, every battle is a beautiful and unique snowflake. Even replaying the same battle over and over again will give you wildly different results.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Somebody else might not consider the specifics of each battle as important as I do, and would instead think "I'm fighting the same guys again? Booooring."
I doubt that very much, mblackwell. While tastes differ, most of these are over superficial things. Style, setting, personality, etc. but a good core is a good core. Mechanics. Pacing. Intuitive controls and original puzzles. These kinds of things can't be argued since they're not all that subjective - if you can see a lot of love and polish went into development, you will say it's a well made game.
Not liking Half-Life 2 because you felt detached from the story is ridiculous. You should be busy throwing saw blades at zombies and not worrying about what Eli Vance said ten minutes prior. I can't wrap my head around this ... it's like saying you don't like Mario 64 because you don't feel like rescuing the Princess and feel detached in the body of a fat plumber from Brooklyn. The points of HL2 is shooting things and not getting shot and it does those things very well.
Does anyone have that finding from 2001 where some university showed a landscape to Asians and then to North Americans? It was a painting of a creek with some mountains in the background. When asked, the Americans commented on how they focused on the fish in the creek first and the Chinese said they saw the mountains first and the fish later.
did you like nintendogs?
how about final fantasy xii?
or what about yakuza?
wait, you're not going to tell me you've never played any of them are you? those are considered some of the most respected, best games to ever be made. in japan.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
I believe that a major factor in the difference between Japanese and American tastes has been skipped over: religion.
Most Americans are at least familiar with a lot of the tenents of Christianity and descend mostly from people who immigrated from countries with Christianity as a major part of their histories. The Bible has plenty of accounts of wars and murder and violence, but also places the onus of personal fate on individual choice and allows for the possibility of redemption under all sorts of circumstances.
Shinto, however, is by far the most widely followed religion in Japan, and is a wildly different phenomenon. Shinto places emphasis on seeking harmony with pretty much everything, which means placing greater importance on keeping things peaceful and smooth than standing out from the crowd and fighting to the death to do what someone believes is right.
Obviously there's a lot more involved in both religions, but this is what's relevant to what I want to say. An excellent comparison to show how stuff like this plays out is looking at (cliche comparison) Zelda vs the Elder Scrolls series. What happens at the end of a Zelda game? You defeat the bad guy, you save the world, and everything goes back to being like it should be. Peaceful. Harmonious. Elder Scrolls (at least the main storyline)? You train and fight and grow stronger and richer and better. You defeat the bad guy, you save the world, and the game continues pretty much like it did before you beat the guy, except now you're a famous hero and there's still plenty of choices to be made. There are still bad guys, monsters, etc., the world still isn't a perfect place, but your character has become a heroic (hopefully, for the sake of the people in the country) icon. But this guy is heroic (or evil) your way instead of being identical to the hero everyone else will play. The Zelda series has a guy fated to restore the world to order while the Elder Scrolls have somebody fated to show up, but not necessarily make everything nice and certainly not in a way etched in stone.
Another example are these party games the Japanese love (and plenty of Americans too). You play a party game, you win or lose, have some fun, then everything is back to the way it was. American FPS games have winning as the objective, then make getting to that part fun. Americans tend to want to be the best, and FPS games make them feel like they can be the best at something. Individually.
FYI, I'm not insinuating that the Japanese are mindless drones, just that their (unnoffical) state religion and it's influence on them makes them feel rewarded in different ways than the average American will likely feel.
Looking at things from this perspective also explains why American tend to like darker, more violent characters more. I won't even bother counting the number of Western games which feature an ex- or current bad guy who is on some path which will redeem them. Fairly obvious Christian overtone on that point since Christianity is supposed to be about redemption having to be an individual choice. People don't even have to be even remotely practicing Christians to be influenced by that since the so much of American culture is still influenced by Christianity. The Japanese have their own brooding characters, certainly, but they tend towards amorally chaotic (chaotic because of the trouble they cause, not necessarily because they are themselves random) individuals who want individual power (bad people) and people who had bad things done to them so they don't "fit in" with everybody else (heroes, obviously). Yes, there are heroes and bad guys of both types in each culture, but they tend to congregate in one culture or the other depending on the type.
Anyway, I could could probably go on and on about this, but I think that's enough for now. I also think it's important that people keep in mind the religious background of the cultures involved since the undercurrents can be fairly subtle but pretty neat. If anybody doesn't know anything about either faith, Wikipedia has a bunch of info. Even if you don't agree with me at all, it's good to know something about a major influence on one of the major sources of games in the world. Personally, it's helped turn at least a couple of Japanese games from "This is totally stupid" to "Oh, you just have to look at it this way" for me.
Edit: Fixed a couple grammatical errors (it's pretty late for me), just ask for clarification if something is obviously wrong and poorly worded.
actually, most japanese people dont give a crap about religion.
oni? spirits? satori? yeah, whatever. going to a buddhist temple or a shinto shrine once a year to celebrate the new year doesnt make you religious. i have never met a single japanese person who actually believed in shinto or buddhism and i have been living in japan for 6 years now.
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I bet Amazon feels really silly for selling Japanese versions of them then, and yes, Quake Wars has a Japanese version too.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/
Except those games you consider 'great' aren't at all popular in Japan, which is why they aren't released there in the first place.
Seriously, do you even understand the basic concept of a cultural difference?
You haven't been paying attention to the thread, because um, yeah, they were released there. HL2 is an arcade game in Japan.
I know that, but guess who said it that I may have been responding too?
I don't give a shit whether they were or not, it's got nothing to do with the point I was making. My point was, that he is placing his own, heavily culturally influenced, opinion of greatness on an entirely different culture.
What he's doing is basically the equivalent of a bunch of Christians sitting around and discussing 'those poor Hindu bastards with all their Gods, if only they had the real one over there!'.
I would say Zelda is continually getting better as it goes along. But that's just me (fanboy).
Lord JarJar's Belly killed Zelda for me.
But it's the best part
I agree also I have noticed the Jappense seem to be no where near as dark as the american Rpgs. They also tend to be much more linear. Where as a lot of the american RPGs tend to have more choices. I love the anime art style but I love how dark the american RPGs can be. If only they could combine fallout with final fantasy.
Try searching for デウスエクス.
What? Oh sorry, I got distracted from reading your response as I was polishing my degree in 'Understanding Basic Concepts of a Cultural Difference.'
Anyways, a well-made game is a well-made game to anybody. Kidnapping a Japanese gamer, duct taping him or her to a chair and then forcing them to play Half-Life 2 to completion would have them admitting that while the genre isn't their cup of tea, it is still a well made game.
The Japanese just don't know they like Western games yet. I suspect it'd be a parallel of Major League Baseball taking root over there - if they gave Mass Effect or Max Payne a chance, they'd love the dickens out of them. We just need a lot of duct tape and time to make sure everyone in Japan plays No One Lives Forever ...
EDIT:
You are wise. I was wrong to doubt you.
No, there's a game coming out for the Wii...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I think the peak was Link to The Past. Zelda just doesn't get any better.
I've always had a softer spot for Links Awakening.
I prefer to think of that as a being in the horror genre.
I don't like HL2. When I played it (to completion because people insisted I should) I noticed every flaw (glitches and texture quality issues and some other weirdness) and was incredibly bored with the lack of engagement the other characters gave me. There's the whole "you are Gordon Freeman" bit, but to me it just felt empty. I felt like no one was interested in ME, they were interested in Gordon Freeman, and that I wasn't playing the part of Gordon Freeman but instead just sitting inside his body, made to do things I wouldn't do if I were that character (which I can decide since the character has no distinct personality), and people reacting to me doing things that I (nor Gordon Freeman) actually did. Or it didn't feel like I did.
Maybe it works for some people, but it didn't for me.
Which brings me to the point that tastes can differ, and culturally speaking the majory of a population in one country's tastes could differ from that in another country. This means that what may be considered "a well made game" in one place may be considered a piece of crap in another.
Not liking Half-Life 2 because you felt detached from the story is ridiculous. You should be busy throwing saw blades at zombies and not worrying about what Eli Vance said ten minutes prior. I can't wrap my head around this ... it's like saying you don't like Mario 64 because you don't feel like rescuing the Princess and feel detached in the body of a fat plumber from Brooklyn. The points of HL2 is shooting things and not getting shot and it does those things very well.
Does anyone have that finding from 2001 where some university showed a landscape to Asians and then to North Americans? It was a painting of a creek with some mountains in the background. When asked, the Americans commented on how they focused on the fish in the creek first and the Chinese said they saw the mountains first and the fish later.
The entire world of HL2 is one crafted from NPC responses to Gordon, the enemy reactions to Gordon, and the player's own conclusions he/she's reached from playing the game. They rarely ever spell the story entirely out. Part of the game's entire basic foundation lies in subtly and subtext.
For the player to ask why? And for that to drive him foreward (through incredibly linear level design). The entire point is to create a world, and allow the player to judge it himself.
I know I'm alone on this one, but my favorite was windwaker. That dungeon where the water is coming out of the mouths on the walls is the most beutiful thing I have seen in a game outside perhaps SotC. I've played just about every zelda game except the new one.
skate, halo 3
Anyway, more on topic:
Japanese gamers seem to be more interested in a passive story, where you watch the events as they play out and the plot is very important and the only control exerted is during specific sequences that have no bearing on the plot. Western gamers prefer to be immersed in a fully fleshed out world but given more control over the actions of their character.
Standard anti-derailment disclaimers: This only applies to my specific observations of the general differences between Western and Japanese RPGs and is not a infallible declaration about the tastes of all Japanese or Western gamers.
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No, you're justified. Wind Waker was absolutely gorgeous.
Old men in power suit.
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One of the biggest testaments to the Zelda series is that people argue constantly about which one is the best. And it's not just two groups of people either. Each and every Nintendo-developed entry into the series has its own fairly large camp of advocates. I'm in the Majora camp personally.
The gameplay beyond the story was boring and tedious and felt like it had no point. If the story had tied me into it better it would have worked, or if there had been no story maybe. Of course if there had been no story to me it still might have been boring. There was a lot of repetitive gimmicky stuff in there. To me at least.
Honestly if you simply dislike a genre enough you may consider even a well made game in that genre crap.
well, East or West, I'm pretty sure the Zelda series is universally considered one of the best, if not the best, series in the industry. Each game is a jewel.
Agreed, Wind Waker had fantastic art. I loved how much more alive everything was in that game, though it didn't beat Majora's Mask in terms of story. My current favorite is Twilight Princess, which brought in all of the awesome elements of Ocarina of Time, and created a story that actually made some fucking sense. It also has, as far as I'm concerned, the most Satisfying ending (and the most exciting final boss) of any Zelda thus far.
Zelda chatters should probably go here then, as we're derailing a bit: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=33889&page=18 besides, some good discussions taking place in that one.
It was a design decision, though. I wouldn't say they deliberately made the gameplay bad, but it definitely suffered due to their heavy focus on presentation. They wanted you to marvel at every inch of their beautifully crafted levels, which you couldn't really do if you were focusing all of your attention on killing the bad guys. They expected you to be so caught up in the fact that an awesome looking helicopter was shooting at you in a canal that you wouldn't care that it wasn't doing any appreciable amount of damage. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing - Half-Life 2 was obviously a sublime experience for a lot of people. On the other hand, you should be able to see that if somebody, like, say, mblackwell, wasn't impressed by the presentation, they would've thought the game was crap.
Contrast that with a game like Halo, which favours gameplay depth over presentation. The level designers focused all of their attention on making every battle unique, rather than making them look unique. They expected you to be so engaged by the grenade that was forcing you out of cover and into the line of fire of five guys that you wouldn't care that the scenery around you was an exact copy of what you were looking at ten minutes ago. This worked for most people, but not everyone.
Both games do what they set out to do extremely well, but do different things. The difference between them is hardly superficial, but that doesn't stop people from assuming that they both have the same goals and disagreeing about which one is objectively better designed. Just look at how many people think that Halo is "Generic crap" or that Half-Life 2 is a "Pretentious snoozefest". And if there is such a huge divide in opinion within our own culture, imagine how much bigger it would be between two separate cultures with entirely different values.
Haven't played Halo 1 recently, have you?
Joking aside, yeah, HL 2 is all about atmosphere, the shooting part isn't all that hot.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Somebody else might not consider the specifics of each battle as important as I do, and would instead think "I'm fighting the same guys again? Booooring."
lol lol i bet u only own halo u newb lol
did you like nintendogs?
how about final fantasy xii?
or what about yakuza?
wait, you're not going to tell me you've never played any of them are you? those are considered some of the most respected, best games to ever be made. in japan.
Most Americans are at least familiar with a lot of the tenents of Christianity and descend mostly from people who immigrated from countries with Christianity as a major part of their histories. The Bible has plenty of accounts of wars and murder and violence, but also places the onus of personal fate on individual choice and allows for the possibility of redemption under all sorts of circumstances.
Shinto, however, is by far the most widely followed religion in Japan, and is a wildly different phenomenon. Shinto places emphasis on seeking harmony with pretty much everything, which means placing greater importance on keeping things peaceful and smooth than standing out from the crowd and fighting to the death to do what someone believes is right.
Obviously there's a lot more involved in both religions, but this is what's relevant to what I want to say. An excellent comparison to show how stuff like this plays out is looking at (cliche comparison) Zelda vs the Elder Scrolls series. What happens at the end of a Zelda game? You defeat the bad guy, you save the world, and everything goes back to being like it should be. Peaceful. Harmonious. Elder Scrolls (at least the main storyline)? You train and fight and grow stronger and richer and better. You defeat the bad guy, you save the world, and the game continues pretty much like it did before you beat the guy, except now you're a famous hero and there's still plenty of choices to be made. There are still bad guys, monsters, etc., the world still isn't a perfect place, but your character has become a heroic (hopefully, for the sake of the people in the country) icon. But this guy is heroic (or evil) your way instead of being identical to the hero everyone else will play. The Zelda series has a guy fated to restore the world to order while the Elder Scrolls have somebody fated to show up, but not necessarily make everything nice and certainly not in a way etched in stone.
Another example are these party games the Japanese love (and plenty of Americans too). You play a party game, you win or lose, have some fun, then everything is back to the way it was. American FPS games have winning as the objective, then make getting to that part fun. Americans tend to want to be the best, and FPS games make them feel like they can be the best at something. Individually.
FYI, I'm not insinuating that the Japanese are mindless drones, just that their (unnoffical) state religion and it's influence on them makes them feel rewarded in different ways than the average American will likely feel.
Looking at things from this perspective also explains why American tend to like darker, more violent characters more. I won't even bother counting the number of Western games which feature an ex- or current bad guy who is on some path which will redeem them. Fairly obvious Christian overtone on that point since Christianity is supposed to be about redemption having to be an individual choice. People don't even have to be even remotely practicing Christians to be influenced by that since the so much of American culture is still influenced by Christianity. The Japanese have their own brooding characters, certainly, but they tend towards amorally chaotic (chaotic because of the trouble they cause, not necessarily because they are themselves random) individuals who want individual power (bad people) and people who had bad things done to them so they don't "fit in" with everybody else (heroes, obviously). Yes, there are heroes and bad guys of both types in each culture, but they tend to congregate in one culture or the other depending on the type.
Anyway, I could could probably go on and on about this, but I think that's enough for now. I also think it's important that people keep in mind the religious background of the cultures involved since the undercurrents can be fairly subtle but pretty neat. If anybody doesn't know anything about either faith, Wikipedia has a bunch of info. Even if you don't agree with me at all, it's good to know something about a major influence on one of the major sources of games in the world. Personally, it's helped turn at least a couple of Japanese games from "This is totally stupid" to "Oh, you just have to look at it this way" for me.
Edit: Fixed a couple grammatical errors (it's pretty late for me), just ask for clarification if something is obviously wrong and poorly worded.
oni? spirits? satori? yeah, whatever. going to a buddhist temple or a shinto shrine once a year to celebrate the new year doesnt make you religious. i have never met a single japanese person who actually believed in shinto or buddhism and i have been living in japan for 6 years now.