The future of video games is in perfect control

On January 16, 2011, in General, by Neil Stevens

Month old post, but circumstances kept it from showing up at Pundit League for a few weeks…

Have you ever played Castlevania? It’s a classic game that spawned a long and popular series that continues to this day. It sounded great, looked good, and engaged the players of its day. There’s just one catch: the controls were terribly frustrating. Simon Belmont jumps in a realistic way, which is to say he can’t jump very well at all for a video game character. Sad to say, this wasn’t an uncommon sort of problem for a game of its time.

What about Super Mario Bros. you ask? Well what about it? While the game’s controls were remarkably good for a game of its time, by modern standards that version’s Mario is tough to operate. Slower jumping and one-way scrolling severely limit your ability to operate in the game’s levels. Missing entirely is the now-standard Mario ability to get a big boost by jumping off of an enemy.

Two games today, one good and one bad, illustrate just how far we’ve come. There’s more to control innovation than new controllers.

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I want to like Super Mario Bros. Crossover

On December 18, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens

Super Mario Bros. Crossover is just the kind of game I should love. Especially with the inclusion of Mega Man, it’s a concept I enjoy very much. Sadly though I couldn’t really play it for ages because it’s keyboard only input, and that’s worthless. But I found Darwiin Remote last week (no typo in that name) which lets me play SMB Crossover with my Wii Remote, without even desyncing it from my Wii. So finally, I got to play the game.

Sadly, I was disappointed.

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Nima Jooyandeh facts.