Thursday, November 09, 2006
Classic Tom - I love rhythm games!
I actually wrote this way back in the beginning of 2006, though I never posted it on this site. After ripping through some tracks in Guitar Hero 2 I can feel my love affair with rhythm games sparking up again. Can't wait to play that Elite Beat Agents next week.
Have you ever watched someone try to play a video game for the first time? It doesn't matter how simple the controller is they will invariably hold it wrong. Once you get it situated in their hands properly, they will hold it like it's a glass baby or a spider. People who aren't accustomed to controllers will always hold a controller as if it is covered in Ebola. You tell them to hit A to jump, and then they stare dumbly down at the controller as the hit the button. The character on screen jumps as they stare down, so they can never even see what's going on. After a minute of this, they'll usually get frustrated and walk away.
Video games are an abstract concept for those who were not lucky enough to grow up with them. However, while trying to explain to someone why they should want to jump can be very difficult, there is one genre out there that taps into an innate ability that all humans possess. Rhythm games are the most pure genre because they are the only ones that are actually connected to actions we, as humans, perform every day of our lives.
Think about how important music is to you for a second. It's something that comes naturally to most people, something that is performed without any thought. From little people whistling while they work to the impatient cashier tapping out a beat while they wait for your order, it is an act that is so deeply embedded in our brains that stopping entirely is out of the question. Rhythm games merely take this need to create music and give a little structure to it. Provide a beat to follow and shiny visual indicators to make it simple. And because of this, rhythm games can be played and enjoyed by anyone in the world.
One of the fundamental principles of gaming is how they dish out punishment and reward. Many games present you with new weapons or abilities after completing an especially hard task. While that's all well and good for gamers, most people in the world aren't willing to invest the time it takes to earn the Master Sword. More importantly, they just don't care.
Rhythm games are able to avoid this problem completely. There is a constant and obvious stream of progress. While hitting A to jump in a platformer accomplishes nothing by itself, hitting A in a rhythm game produces a note. It can be easily recognized if that note was played at the correct time or in the right key. Different games obviously approach this concept differently, but all of them offer music as a reward and that is something anyone can understand.
Rhythm games are also able to eschew those unwieldy controllers completely by offering peripherals that mimic objects everyone is familiar with. Guitar Hero comes packed with a guitar. Everyone knows what that is. Donkey Konga has a bongo drum. Heck, there are even games where you don't have to hit a controller at all. Karaoke Revolution has a microphone and Dance Dance Revolution has a dance pad. These are all games that are bought and enjoyed by people who don't even know who Solid Snake is.
The genre is so wide open that many titles in it hardly even qualify as games. Electroplankton just came out on the Nintendo DS and is getting average reviews because journalists are trying to comparing it to other games. This isn't fair because it isn't a game at all. Not to sound like a marketing tool, but it's an organic music experience. There is no goal. No right or wrong. No punishment even. You simply manipulate objects on screen to form your own unique sounds. This is a concept that reaches even farther than the previous games I mentioned. Without any sort of goal other than pleasing your ears, Electroplankton offers the ability to create music to those who may not have the coordination to play a real life instrument or video game facsimile.
The beauty of these games is how far they are able to reach. My focus has been on how accessible these are to non-gamers, but they are fantastic games that will push even hardcore gamers to their very limits. Have you ever played Amplitude for the PS2? This is my favorite rhythm game around, and one of the hardest games I have ever played. It starts out easy enough - notes come slow and sporadically - but the harder difficulty levels seem impossible without being able to slow down time. This game is immensely pleasing. You juggle playing six different instruments at once. If you mess up, one of the instruments will cut out completely until you get it going again. It's like a musical version of everyone's favorite pastime - spinning plates. While judging success in some games can be hard, it's obvious you're struggling if there aren't any drums or vocals in the song.
I know this may seem like an odd column, but I recently discovered this genre and cannot believe how rewarding it is. I have never been able to play an instrument in real life, so being able to hold a plastic guitar while I strum along to Iron Man is an experience I never thought I could have. For those of you who have ignored this genre for whatever reason, please give it a shot. If anyone is reading this who doesn't play games at all, these may tap into something buried within that has been waiting for years to burst out.
Have you ever watched someone try to play a video game for the first time? It doesn't matter how simple the controller is they will invariably hold it wrong. Once you get it situated in their hands properly, they will hold it like it's a glass baby or a spider. People who aren't accustomed to controllers will always hold a controller as if it is covered in Ebola. You tell them to hit A to jump, and then they stare dumbly down at the controller as the hit the button. The character on screen jumps as they stare down, so they can never even see what's going on. After a minute of this, they'll usually get frustrated and walk away.
Video games are an abstract concept for those who were not lucky enough to grow up with them. However, while trying to explain to someone why they should want to jump can be very difficult, there is one genre out there that taps into an innate ability that all humans possess. Rhythm games are the most pure genre because they are the only ones that are actually connected to actions we, as humans, perform every day of our lives.
Think about how important music is to you for a second. It's something that comes naturally to most people, something that is performed without any thought. From little people whistling while they work to the impatient cashier tapping out a beat while they wait for your order, it is an act that is so deeply embedded in our brains that stopping entirely is out of the question. Rhythm games merely take this need to create music and give a little structure to it. Provide a beat to follow and shiny visual indicators to make it simple. And because of this, rhythm games can be played and enjoyed by anyone in the world.
One of the fundamental principles of gaming is how they dish out punishment and reward. Many games present you with new weapons or abilities after completing an especially hard task. While that's all well and good for gamers, most people in the world aren't willing to invest the time it takes to earn the Master Sword. More importantly, they just don't care.
Rhythm games are able to avoid this problem completely. There is a constant and obvious stream of progress. While hitting A to jump in a platformer accomplishes nothing by itself, hitting A in a rhythm game produces a note. It can be easily recognized if that note was played at the correct time or in the right key. Different games obviously approach this concept differently, but all of them offer music as a reward and that is something anyone can understand.
Rhythm games are also able to eschew those unwieldy controllers completely by offering peripherals that mimic objects everyone is familiar with. Guitar Hero comes packed with a guitar. Everyone knows what that is. Donkey Konga has a bongo drum. Heck, there are even games where you don't have to hit a controller at all. Karaoke Revolution has a microphone and Dance Dance Revolution has a dance pad. These are all games that are bought and enjoyed by people who don't even know who Solid Snake is.
The genre is so wide open that many titles in it hardly even qualify as games. Electroplankton just came out on the Nintendo DS and is getting average reviews because journalists are trying to comparing it to other games. This isn't fair because it isn't a game at all. Not to sound like a marketing tool, but it's an organic music experience. There is no goal. No right or wrong. No punishment even. You simply manipulate objects on screen to form your own unique sounds. This is a concept that reaches even farther than the previous games I mentioned. Without any sort of goal other than pleasing your ears, Electroplankton offers the ability to create music to those who may not have the coordination to play a real life instrument or video game facsimile.
The beauty of these games is how far they are able to reach. My focus has been on how accessible these are to non-gamers, but they are fantastic games that will push even hardcore gamers to their very limits. Have you ever played Amplitude for the PS2? This is my favorite rhythm game around, and one of the hardest games I have ever played. It starts out easy enough - notes come slow and sporadically - but the harder difficulty levels seem impossible without being able to slow down time. This game is immensely pleasing. You juggle playing six different instruments at once. If you mess up, one of the instruments will cut out completely until you get it going again. It's like a musical version of everyone's favorite pastime - spinning plates. While judging success in some games can be hard, it's obvious you're struggling if there aren't any drums or vocals in the song.
I know this may seem like an odd column, but I recently discovered this genre and cannot believe how rewarding it is. I have never been able to play an instrument in real life, so being able to hold a plastic guitar while I strum along to Iron Man is an experience I never thought I could have. For those of you who have ignored this genre for whatever reason, please give it a shot. If anyone is reading this who doesn't play games at all, these may tap into something buried within that has been waiting for years to burst out.
// posted by Tom @ 4:56 PM 
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