Last Time on Video Games!: December 2015

Friday, December 25, 2015

Yule

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Last Rant on Video Games: Woomy! [Splatoon]

If you've somehow not heard about Splatoon, despite listening to this podcast, then you should at least go check it out. It's surprisingly fun and has remarkably deep gameplay for a title intended for children. If you haven't been following, I play quite a bit and really enjoy the game, not to mention kicking around the subreddit. If you've come to read my praise of the game, though, you'll be a bit disappointed.

An idea occurred to me a couple days ago, largely influenced by one of the more enlightening episodes of Extra Credits. I've posted it a couple times because I think it's a really important concept, but I'll quickly break it down for the benefit of the video disinclined.

Basically, the idea is that many games have first order optimal (FOO) strategies. These are options available to the player that have a high result to skill ratio. Saying this another way, they're things you can do that are really easy, but make you feel like you're doing something useful. A well-designed game will usually have at least one of these readily apparent to the player, and then other strategies that require more skill, but yield higher benefit. The problem is when the higher level techniques require much more skill than mastering them yields. This will cause many players to abandon attempting to learn the next level strategies and, therefore, to never progress through the game.

A great example of a FOO strat that's relevant to this discussion is grenade launchers in CoD. While I hesitate to praise the series much (it's a lot of fun, but the constant churn has staled it a lot), I think these are great. They allow low skill players to feel engaged against higher skilled players because of the instant kill, but, due to low ammo capacity and low fire rate, are clearly not the best option available. New players feel like they're participating and, hopefully, don't drop out of the community in the face of others using more effective strategies.

Splatoon doesn't have the problem of an overpowered FOO, however. This was a problem that, until yesterday, I didn't even realize existed. I then played a couple matches with Zach and Ed; my suspicions were confirmed. Splatoon lacks a clear FOO strat, and, to my knowledge, one at all. Some weapons are agreed to be worse, but the "better" weapons all have pretty balanced traits.

Additionally, there's the motion control scheme which feels super awkward to veteran gamers. It certainly took me a long time to get used to it, but I agree with the majority of the community that it's the superior control scheme. There's the novel movement mechanic to master. There are tactical tricks at ledges, and a lot of maps to learn. All of this equates to a pretty large learning curve to climb to compete with moderately skilled players.

What I'm leading up to with this is that, while a fun game, and while ranked matches do a pretty good job sifting you to players of roughly your skill level, you must reach level 10 before you can play in ranked matches. A year ago, this didn't matter, since everyone was new. Playing with Zach yesterday, though, made me really wish that unranked matches at least tried to create level-balanced lobbies. He was constantly being destroyed (maybe not actually constantly; he did pretty well in a few matches) by people that have a year of experience on him. Compared to other newbies, he was dominating. The overall effect, though, seemed to instill a feeling of disenfranchisment because there was no clear way to compete with people who have had so much time to work on their game.

Now, I fear, we might be causing new players to leave the game simply because they can't keep up. Especially with the holidays and a potential flood of new players, we're likely to see a huge number of people pick up a new game, only to put it right back down for something else. This problem is generally applicable to competitive games (it was a large factor in me never really getting into SF IV), but Splatoon is supposed to be kid friendly, and I weep for their poor lost souls.

So, for the sake of the community, try to go easy on new players, and avoid driving them away from a great game.

Or, do as Reddit suggests, and initiate a trial by fire. ^_^

Episode 129: Metal Slug Solid [Metal Slug]

Join us on the most festive of activities this winter solstice as we storm an enemy base and rescue POWs! "That's not festive" you say? Well, nothing says winter holidays to us like blazing through a jungle. Get ready to tank!

Our download has better guns.

Show Notes

(01:20) Why, Krampus?

(03:00) Mandela Effect. It's not how physics works, kids.

(04:30) Chimps have good memories and generally outperform humans at abstract logic/pure math games.

(12:00) SKELL! Just learned that's also slang for a homeless person, so... yeah. Anywho, Zach talks about Xenoblade.

(24:30) Geremy talks about some of the improvements made in ORAS.

(27:30) Otakon? Metal Sluuuuuug. It looks good, there's nice hit feedback, and it's got a good sense of humor. Double plus fun.

(29:00) Correction about "Ninja Spirits". No idea what that was. It should be Samurai Shodown , which rocks.

(38:15) Ranked!

(46:00) Geremy got us Persona 3. I'm super excited!

Next time on Last Time, Blades of Steel!

Trick shots for free!

Geremy@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
Tyler@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
Zach@lasttimeonvideogames.com,
or LTOVG@lasttimeonvideogames.com.
You can also go to the show page at plus.google.com/+LastTimeOnVideogames or comment on the site at www.lasttimeonvideogames.com.
Also, you can follow our tweets @LTOVG.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Episode 128: A Long Time Ago On the XBox [Knights of the Old Republic]

Journey back to a galaxy far, far away, and even further back in time than normal. Here, we can find the Jedi derping about as usual, and the Sith (who are apparently a whole species) just stepping in to muck things up. Will our plucky hero and their band of misfits be able to stop the impending Sith invasion? At least the lightsaber noises are cool.

You can craft a purple download here.

Next time on Last Time, Metal Slug!

Disucss whether this game is Contra with us at

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Episode 127: Gudo Gamu- GO! [Gley Lancer]

We're back from a long hiatus to save our collective father with a prototype spaceship! Despite having no pilot's training, we're sure we're up to the task, especially with all these options... for shooting things! Hopefully none of us become too distracted with the scenery on the way. Onward, Red Tridenter!

Scatter Download!

Show Notes

(02:00) Last Time on Sitcoms.

(07:00) Cloudbuilt! It's super fun and crazy hard to get high ranks on a lot of missions. No mistakes!

(08:30) Poor Raticate. Still haven't finished Undertale, so here's this.

(15:30) Zach played Overwatch, which sounds great.

(16:15) COD: BlOps3: Revenge of the Mannequins.

(23:00) Zach's initial thoughts about Splatoon. Turf can have the WORST matchmaking.

(27:10) Zach, Kevin (who has yet to be on an episode), and Tyler played some 7 Days to Die. And by play, we mean experienced some of the best server problems ever.

(30:00) Geremy's making some Gundams.

(34:00) More MGS V. There have been some complaints of tonal dissonance.

(38:30) Gley Lancer, GO! It looks pretty great.

(39:45) Separating the background from the foreground is a problem on some levels, most prominently the first. Choosing your control scheme is mostly just novelty; you'll find your favorite (Search) and just always use it.

(47:00) Ranking!

Next time on Last Time, KOTOR!

*Lightsaber noise*

Subscribe to: Posts (RSS)