Friday, May 14, 2004
Odama
I apologize for not updating much in the past few days - school has somehow taken over my free time - but I am back with the vengeance of 350 radioactive donkeys. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into detail about every game shown at E3 like Nick did in a wonderful post a few days ago. I don't have the time or patience for that; just know that I love the games that are going to kick ass, and hope the lame games get cancelled and the developers are forced to work for 989 Studios until they shape up.
In response to Nick: Conker looks too tongue in cheek? Is that possible? Don’t like humor in your games, eh? And if anyone else out there shares Dan's boredom of WWII, here is a scenario from the original Conker that shows you what a cliche war can be like in the hands of a good developer - you play as the evil Tediz who reside in a tower of evil fantasies. You have a sniper rifle, gattling gun and bazooka at your disposal. Your enemy? A bunch of unarmed French refugees. Your goal is to mow them down with your weapons of death while they jump and run wildly trying to escape to freedom. Pure gold.
It is time now to move away from Rare and the other big name titles. Everyone does that, and it's much more fun to write about the smaller ones. What I will single out is a quirky Gamecube title known as Odama. Obviously, as the title clearly illustrates, the game is a cross between old school pinball goodness and a Real Time Strategy game. Before I go into detail about how the game actually plays, I’m going to tell you how I imagined it would work when I first heard the idea.
I imagined a perfect blending of the pinball and RTS genres. In the beginning, you would play like it was a normal pinball game. There would be various bumpers and ramps strewn about the board, and you would be given a minute or two to score as many points as possible. Then, using those points, you would build an army. So, instead of forging for gold or harvesting spice like in other RTS games, you would play pinball. Controlling your troops you be a different matter entirely. You would select a group of troops by shooting a ball in their direction. Then, using the buttons on the pad, you would either make them attack, defend, or do some other military action. While your troops are engaged in battle you play more pinball, trying to score more points to build even more troops. It would be a tricky game to successfully pull off, but sounded amazingly fun in my mind.
Unfortunately, what actually happens is much, much different. There are two troops on the battlefield: good guys and bad guys. Your ball is the world’s most powerful weapon. Anything it touches dies. So you have to kill the bad guys, while not killing the good guys. It could still be pretty fun, but certainly isn’t as involved as the scenario I envisioned.
I’m disappointed the game isn’t going to play like I imagined, but it could still be fun. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the title will launch at a $30 price that should make it worthwhile. If they add a multiplayer mode of some kind I’m there for sure, but for now it’s just another great idea that may not make for a great game.
In response to Nick: Conker looks too tongue in cheek? Is that possible? Don’t like humor in your games, eh? And if anyone else out there shares Dan's boredom of WWII, here is a scenario from the original Conker that shows you what a cliche war can be like in the hands of a good developer - you play as the evil Tediz who reside in a tower of evil fantasies. You have a sniper rifle, gattling gun and bazooka at your disposal. Your enemy? A bunch of unarmed French refugees. Your goal is to mow them down with your weapons of death while they jump and run wildly trying to escape to freedom. Pure gold.
It is time now to move away from Rare and the other big name titles. Everyone does that, and it's much more fun to write about the smaller ones. What I will single out is a quirky Gamecube title known as Odama. Obviously, as the title clearly illustrates, the game is a cross between old school pinball goodness and a Real Time Strategy game. Before I go into detail about how the game actually plays, I’m going to tell you how I imagined it would work when I first heard the idea.
I imagined a perfect blending of the pinball and RTS genres. In the beginning, you would play like it was a normal pinball game. There would be various bumpers and ramps strewn about the board, and you would be given a minute or two to score as many points as possible. Then, using those points, you would build an army. So, instead of forging for gold or harvesting spice like in other RTS games, you would play pinball. Controlling your troops you be a different matter entirely. You would select a group of troops by shooting a ball in their direction. Then, using the buttons on the pad, you would either make them attack, defend, or do some other military action. While your troops are engaged in battle you play more pinball, trying to score more points to build even more troops. It would be a tricky game to successfully pull off, but sounded amazingly fun in my mind.
Unfortunately, what actually happens is much, much different. There are two troops on the battlefield: good guys and bad guys. Your ball is the world’s most powerful weapon. Anything it touches dies. So you have to kill the bad guys, while not killing the good guys. It could still be pretty fun, but certainly isn’t as involved as the scenario I envisioned.
I’m disappointed the game isn’t going to play like I imagined, but it could still be fun. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the title will launch at a $30 price that should make it worthwhile. If they add a multiplayer mode of some kind I’m there for sure, but for now it’s just another great idea that may not make for a great game.
// posted by Tom @ 1:17 PM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]