Monday, November 01, 2004
The unmentionable mentioned
Brace yourself, I am about to write about a topic I have, for the most part, steered completely clear of throughout G-Pinions 9 month existence. While I have trudged up my favorite argument - EA is evil - on at least 2 occasions, there are two huge segments of the gaming world that I have completed ignored. This isn't by design mind you - these two particular segments just don't make their way into my collective thoughts very often. The time for that has changed.
Behold! A column about PC Gaming and Arcades! What is this, 1993? Am I still playing Dune II every weekday of my life? Am I still bugging my mother to drive me 30 minutes to the closest arcade that has my beloved Mortal Kombat waiting to be played? Is Nintendo still the king of the gaming world? Is Sony still pushing Beta? More importantly, why was Sony pushing Beta in 1993?
The answer to all those questions, except the last, is a resounding no. For you see, there is actual news to be laid forth in regards to PC gaming and coin operated machines. Curious to know what it is? Desperate for me to get to the point after wading through more than 200 words? Exhausted by pointless question after pointless question?
Half Life 2 is coming to an arcade near you.
I really have no right talking about this at all as I am the only "Hardcore" (HNKaG? Nope...) Gamer in the world who still hasn't played the original Half Life in any form, but I am talking about it anyway. This is actually very exciting news to a gamer like me, who doesn't own the most powerful computer, and would really like to take part in the Half Life experience.
The most important question and one I'm sure you are all straining at your seat in anticipation of its eventual answer, is this: what sort of controlling mechanism will a PC shooter use in an arcade environment? Unfortunately, I have no idea. Clearly, they will not simply build a cabinet with a built in keyboard and removable mouse. This is a bad idea for at least 52 reasons, mostly centering on someone switching the W and S keys.
I assume they'll make something similar to that, though. My first thought was a track ball, but I'm not sure how that would work. Most PC shooters use one mouse button for shooting and another for jumping. Using a track ball and hitting buttons with the same hand would be ridiculously hard. But, just throwing those two buttons on the left side of the console and force players to move their characters and shoot with the same hand would be difficult as well. So, I still have no idea how this will work.
Nevertheless, this is a reality. Next summer, you will be able to go to your local arcade and play one of 3 modes in Half Life 2 - story mode, co-op and deathmatch. The two modes closest to the period are done with network connections within the same arcade or across the country. There is no information on how the story mode will work, but I assume it will severely restrict the amount of health available and make you insert more coins whenever you die.
Anyway, I am very excited about this. I'm sure there will be a control scheme designed with console/arcade gamers in mind as adapting strictly PC controls is impossible in an arcade setting. I'll just have to hope they can design a system that works, as clearly that will be the most important aspect of this deal. I would like to say this will pave the way for other games to follow, but I honestly don't think we will see many situations like this in the future. If it's successful we may see Unreal 2K5, but don't expect World of Warcraft or Doom 3 to appear anytime soon.
Behold! A column about PC Gaming and Arcades! What is this, 1993? Am I still playing Dune II every weekday of my life? Am I still bugging my mother to drive me 30 minutes to the closest arcade that has my beloved Mortal Kombat waiting to be played? Is Nintendo still the king of the gaming world? Is Sony still pushing Beta? More importantly, why was Sony pushing Beta in 1993?
The answer to all those questions, except the last, is a resounding no. For you see, there is actual news to be laid forth in regards to PC gaming and coin operated machines. Curious to know what it is? Desperate for me to get to the point after wading through more than 200 words? Exhausted by pointless question after pointless question?
Half Life 2 is coming to an arcade near you.
I really have no right talking about this at all as I am the only "Hardcore" (HNKaG? Nope...) Gamer in the world who still hasn't played the original Half Life in any form, but I am talking about it anyway. This is actually very exciting news to a gamer like me, who doesn't own the most powerful computer, and would really like to take part in the Half Life experience.
The most important question and one I'm sure you are all straining at your seat in anticipation of its eventual answer, is this: what sort of controlling mechanism will a PC shooter use in an arcade environment? Unfortunately, I have no idea. Clearly, they will not simply build a cabinet with a built in keyboard and removable mouse. This is a bad idea for at least 52 reasons, mostly centering on someone switching the W and S keys.
I assume they'll make something similar to that, though. My first thought was a track ball, but I'm not sure how that would work. Most PC shooters use one mouse button for shooting and another for jumping. Using a track ball and hitting buttons with the same hand would be ridiculously hard. But, just throwing those two buttons on the left side of the console and force players to move their characters and shoot with the same hand would be difficult as well. So, I still have no idea how this will work.
Nevertheless, this is a reality. Next summer, you will be able to go to your local arcade and play one of 3 modes in Half Life 2 - story mode, co-op and deathmatch. The two modes closest to the period are done with network connections within the same arcade or across the country. There is no information on how the story mode will work, but I assume it will severely restrict the amount of health available and make you insert more coins whenever you die.
Anyway, I am very excited about this. I'm sure there will be a control scheme designed with console/arcade gamers in mind as adapting strictly PC controls is impossible in an arcade setting. I'll just have to hope they can design a system that works, as clearly that will be the most important aspect of this deal. I would like to say this will pave the way for other games to follow, but I honestly don't think we will see many situations like this in the future. If it's successful we may see Unreal 2K5, but don't expect World of Warcraft or Doom 3 to appear anytime soon.
// posted by Tom @ 11:28 AM 
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