Nintendo on mobile? They should, but not as you may be thinking.

There has been a lot of comments going on about the Nintendo executives and investors throwing tantrums over if the company should enter the mobile market or not. First of all let me get this out of the way. No, Nintendo should never let their franchises to go mobile because that would be the equivalent of creating a black hole in the middle of the company and it will consume it from the inside bringing a slow and painful death. As they are right now Nintendo is one of the few companies that is still (almost) pristine in their ways and unsullied from any business dirt that comes from selling out... Well, maybe except for the Mercedes-Benz thing in Mario Kart 8, but that's just one separate incident as Nintendo runs most of their business by themselves most of the time and this uniqueness is what keeps them afloat, even on tough times.

A mock picture of how a Nintendo "master app" could look like.

The thing is that Nintendo could make cool stuff for mobile without selling out their souls to mobile platforms just for a couple of extra bucks. Something like this should be no problem for the big N because mobile app development doesn't require big development teams or high budgets as it would only take a handful of resources and a relatively small development cycle. The best thing about this is that with content creators are brilliant as the ones they have, a great deal of interesting mobile applications can be created and unleashed to the public, giving Nintendo products some extra value without losing themselves in the process.

So a fan had to come and do what Nintendon't.

There are many possibilities about the mobile software they could make in order to support their consoles instead of attempting to replace them. For example, they could develop a support app for Mario Kart 8, sort of like the one someone actually made and was featured in Kotaku a couple days ago. They could also make official apps that give help in some games with mini guides and/or tips or even some sort of Nintendo World App (or something like that) that syncs with the Wii U and lets the user do all sorts of things like buying games, enter the Miiverse, add friends and that kind of stuff while on the go.

Imagine yourself using a smart phone to help a friend in the upcoming Star Fox game for the Wii U.

Other way of seen this is to go a little farther than plain game support apps. Good imaginative things like apps that lets you help or attack somebody within a game (sort of like the Watchdogs app) could make up for really fun situations if they do it with the right games. They could also make an app that features augmented reality games for the Amiibos that can generate coins or some kind of reward to be used on games or even the e-shop itself. The possibilities are endless if they take mobile approach from the sidelines and come up with interesting and fun materials that add up to the overall experience.

If they are planning to go "pay to win", they better reconsider before they spoil the whole thing.

Even though all this mobile approach looks interesting, there are many ways it can backfire if they do the wrong things. For example if they get too greedy with their services it will not work. If they turn their mobile environment into a "pay to win" they also run the risk of botching the whole operation. They would have to be quite sensible about the users because this is something they had never tried before so it can go bad if they give the wrong impression. This is especially true on this day and age, where the simplest of complaints spreads like wildfire through the net and can have devastating consequences for a product (ask Microsoft).

Relax Mario, you don't have to jump to mobile devices to be good.

Wrapping it up

Nintendo can definitely go mobile, but they have to do it in a way that adds up to what they already have without having to replace anything. What they have been doing in these past months have been great and there should be no reason to make any drastic decisions, so all they need to do is to keep on building up until they reach a point where they can convince the non-believers and become an industry powerhouse once again. If that is what their higher ups are thinking then the mobile environment is a great untapped place for them to continue their efforts.

Cosplay goodness - Comic Fest Aguada Con

Today we are going to give a rest to video games and go for something different, It had been a long time since I last attended a comic convention. So I joined forces with one of my buddies from GamerXpression and went to the Comic Fest Aguada Con which happened in the town of Aguada on my country Puerto Rico, on July 13. First of all I have to congratulate the people who made this event a reality, because they outdid themselves as the event was a big success (to the point that even as we left, there where still people waiting in line to enter). It was all nice with all the mini stores, the comics, the music and surprises, but now, let's see some of the video game themed cosplays that got my attention.

Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening just hanging around one of the mini stores. Just as a side note, this Fire Emblem game was the one that saved the franchise when it was about to be canned.

You remember when this Mortal Kombat character first came out? Yep it's Cyrax. It would have been cool to have seen a Sektor too and take a picture of both of them sort of like the versus screen before the beginning of a fight.

The Ice Climbers were there too. First thing I thought when I saw them was to look around and see if there were other characters like Link, Princess Zelda and make a Super Smash Brothers fight scene picture.

This Mewtwo sure was a big deal. The level of detail on this one makes it one of the best Pokemon cosplays I have seen so far. It also brought up a lot of memories about the times when this pokemon was new.

It's Cammy from Street Fighter. She made her first appearance on the Street Fighter games on Super Street Fighter II, along with Dee Jay, Fei Long and T. Hawk.

Baby Mario and Luigi. I wasn't expecting to see this one, but it was cool. Notice on how baby Luigi is looking at the camera. First thought that came to my head was Luigi's death stare.

The Zant Mask from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It was amazing to see how well they did the patterns on the clothing and the detail worked into the shoulder pads and the Zant mask itself.

For all of you who are fans of the game and are still eagerly awaiting its rumored remake, here's the Skull Kid from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Just as we were leaving, this little guy got our attention with his Mega Man costume. His parents were so kind to let us take picture of him basically out of the blue, so here you go folks, the mini blue bomber.

Wrapping it up

The convention was good and the cosplays were awesome, so this has awakened a new found interest for the world of character representations in cosplay for me. Now I'll be up to date of the next conventions to come and who knows? Maybe I'll end up making my own costume in a near future.

These were just some of the pictures, but the rest of them can be found on The Gamertologist Zone Facebook Fan Page. 

5 Mario Kart 8 tips to keep you in the race

Mario Kart 8 is here and boy did the game caused an impression. Not only got good reviews and very solid reception, but it also boosted Wii U sales and got it some momentum prior to the E3 event. The game is excellent and competitive so you can imagine how hectic a race can be (specially online). So today, I will give some pointers about how stay in the race (a.k.a from 1st to 3rd place). I am no "pro" Mario Kart racer, but at least I hold my own against anybody so here are some things that could help you people out. Be aware, there are NO miraculous techniques or game changing skills in this game, only things that can make your race a little easier.

1) Cut those curves, not matter what.

It seems very simple and obvious, but the grip and handling of tires on this Mario Kart has been refined from other games, giving it a more precise feeling and this will allow you to "cut" curves more easily. I've seen a lot of people online that let their kart or bike slide away from a curve when exiting and that's when it is easiest to pass them. Sliding off and exiting a curve on the outside may be true to real life physics, but in Mario Kart it will not only slow you down, but make you a sitting duck for items thrown at you. When you cut a curve and drift boost at the exit, you are taking the shorter path and this will put you at an advantage in speed and will serve as a vantage point for shooting items to those who took the wider path.

2) Dodge red shells when you have nothing to protect yourself (yes, it is possible).

This doesn't work 100% of the time, but could prevent a red shell of hitting you at a very inconvenient moment. If you have observed one of your own red shells as it searches for a target, you can see that it swerves side to side while moving forward, this wacky movement can make it very easy for the shell to just hit a wall or obstacle rendering it useless. So if you see the little pop up thing with a red shell image on it, you can try to dodge the incoming disaster by driving very close to a wall (meaning the the shell will move so close to the wall that it may hit it because of its swerving movement and be neutralized), driving in front of a banana/obstacle at the last moment so it can serve as unintended protection or get half a kart/bike in front of an opponent to have a chance that the red shell switches target and your opponent gets hit instead of you.

3) Quick hoping on simple low altitude jump boost spots.

This one is kind of hard to pull off, but if you get good at it, you can cut some drag when taking a jump boost and make a better use of it instead of jumping higher and risking somebody to pass you off from below. To do this, you must jump at the very tip of the ledge. There is a risk of you missing the jump boost, but when done correctly the character will do its jumping gesture, but will not get very high, meaning that you get the boost a little faster which means less drag and more control of your next move.

4) Taking the scenic route when needed.

Sometimes during a race, a route just gets too crowded and it becomes a hazard waiting to happen (ever taken the green shell followed by a red shell and finished with a bo-bomb combo? Well, I have), so when you see a good route getting a little too tight, just take the opposite even if every fiber of you tells you otherwise. By doing this, not only you will be safer while most of the others shell themselves to death, but you can get your own items ready to attack the instant that the fork ends and everybody ends on the same lane again.

5) Get off the butchering zone as quickly as you can.

This is the most important tip I can give you people, I can't stress it enough, get out of the butchering zone! The butchering zone is the name I gave to the hell on earth that forms from 4th to 9th place. Racing in Mario Kart 8 is really dependent on items this time around (even more than MK Wii and MK 7) and knowing that people on the last places get the better items one has to expect that the people in the middle will get the worst of it and be on their way to be the new last place. If you get stuck on the butchering zone at the middle of the race, this could pretty much mean that unless you get really lucky, you are going to finish on 4th place at best, because the 3rd, 2nd and 1st place will be too far ahead when you finally recover.

So you need to escape that zone early on the race. Use your drifting skills (and any of the tips on this list), throw some items and position yourself at least at a comfortable 3rd place at the beginning of the second lap before worrying about overtaking the others above you. You need to create as much distance as possible from the 4th place and worse, because he/she will try to knock you in the butchering zone and that will pretty much be a death sentence for your chances of winning if the race is almost at its end. The thing about been 3rd place at the right time is that there is a higher chance for you to get turbo mushrooms than the 2nd and 1st place so you can basically steal the race pretty easily if you know the stage well enough to take those awesome shortcuts and just imagine the reaction that the former 1st place will have when you come screaming down the track and finishing as pack leader.

Wrapping it up

These are not game changing things (sort of like snaking did on MKDS), but they will definitely help you to have a stronger sense of what to do in order to keep yourself on the best places. Mario Kart has always been a battle of reflexes and multi-tasking so you need to keep things like these in mind at all times in order for them to be effective, sometimes even mixing techniques at the blink of an eye in order prevent disaster.

Btw, if anybody wants to race anytime my NintendoID is AlucardPR, hope to see you people there.

What was old is new again, but for the wrong reasons.

Old school and new school gaming, two terms that since the end of 32-64 bit era have been at war. One of them roots for perfection while the other goes for change and the broader market. Almost every time a discussion is started about this topic, sparks fly and we hear or read words like casuals, hardcore gamers, people "stuck in the past", whiners, non-gamers, new gaming industry crash and so on. Today on The Gamertologist we will see how old school really came back, but not in the way must of us expected. We are going to look into the ideas and design of games of previous eras and compare them to these times so we can see how we have been slowly going back without us even noticing. Old school did came back, but as a mummy rather than a full revival and here are the reasons why.

Watch a speed run and you will see how short these levels really were.

1) Shorter games

Taking rpgs and the eternal "go for the high score" atari games out of the equation, most old school games were short at nature. We have from the classic 8 worlds to as minimum as 3. There were some exceptions, but the vast majority of old school games balanced length with difficulty. If you were really good, you could basically finish that 50 dollar game in a day, a thing that would be even easier if you went at it with a friend on multi-player (except for Battletoads), but the average gamer just had to take their time figuring out how to beat the stages and defeat the bosses. A little later on, games from the 90's to the early 00's were longer and shared the difficulty of their predecessors making them feel even longer while also having a lot of secrets and a level design based on exploration which made those secrets to be pretty hard to find. If you remember a time where you spent more than an hour searching the same room over and over you know what I mean.

Then came modern games which began emulating the short duration of the games of old, but severely toned down the difficulty and implemented level designs based on action and short thrills (cinematics, quick time events) rather than exploration. This happened because publishers began demanding games to be developed faster than before, while also getting the mistaken idea that gamers wanted shorter/easier games. Nowadays, many of the big AAA franchises are been forcefully taken into the "A game per year" cycle, which sacrifices a lot of things in order to make it up to the deadline.

It was reddish purple Friday on the Shadow Warrior's schedule...

2) Recycling of resources

On old school games, this was something that we basically accepted. We saw characters walk, run and jump through stages that featured the same buildings and objects over and over. At the time, we just didn't care, because the graphics of that era were so simple that we just filled the blank spots with our own imagination. One of those repeated buildings could pretty much be anything we wanted as long as we were using our heads to offset the lack of material coming from the recycled sprites, textures and color palettes that filled the levels.

On the case of modern games we can see this, but not often at the graphical level. The recycling of resources on modern games comes in the form of user interaction. Its the moment when you feel that you have done the same deed many times before and little by little it becomes monotonous. At this point we try to use our imagination to keep us interested, but because the graphics are so good, our ability to make stuff up and "imagine monotony away" becomes very limited so our interest for the game begins to fade away fast. Some of these modern games manage to carry us from the beginning to the end credits on the shoulders of a good story, but many of them don't have that and that is where they completely fail. Of course this doesn't apply to games that ARE supposed to be repetitive like competitive first person shooters, mmorpgs and some action rpg/adventure and dungeon crawlers which are based on character growth rather than passing through the storyline.

Yep as simple as that (well not really, but you get the point).

3) Simplistic game design

When we talk about game design on old school games we talk about levels that consisted of a one direction progress, meaning go left to right, going up to a certain point if the game has a top down or isometric view, screens that automatically moved, forcing the player to go with it or even games that moved "on rails" like some famous shooters like Virtua Cop or Time Crisis. Also we knew that most of the stuff that was put in a level was either put there to further our advancement (platforms, switches) or just as part of the scenery. Later on in the middle of the 90's, game design became more complex with game worlds full of places to explore, secrets to find while rewarding our curiosity with story elements. This advancement in game design lasted until halfway through the 00's when game companies decided to go back to the simple style of the 80's.

So modern games went down a couple notches in game design and began having levels that look beautiful, but lack the stuff that made games famous in the mid 90's. They took the action and simplicity of the 80's, but left behind the deep environments of the middle of  90's to mid 00's time span. This doesn't mean that all modern games are like that, but too many of them go for the cheap design path and that is kind of going backwards don't you think?

Gaming is a business, but that doesn't mean that it has to be one sided.

To wrap things up

In summary the mainstream aspect of modern games revived some of the old school game characteristics, but only on its cheapest aspects like shorter gameplay, recycling of resources and simplistic game design. So if you are an old schooler that says that old school gameplay must come back, think again because it is already there, just not what you expected to see.

If you want a real old school styled modern FPS, try Wolfestein: The New Order.

There is still hope:

Even though the last generation (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii) spent almost their entire lifespans using the cheapest stuff they found about old school gameplay in order to save money and develop fast and pretty looking games, they began fixing things up in these last two years and the trend has continued on the new generation with games that feature the nice graphics and effects of today with the GOOD parts of the old school style minus the cheap stuff with the indie scene serving them as an example of how to do things right. So let's hope that this trend continues to live on and we get to experience those super advanced games many of us had dreamed of, with the modern advances of today and the fun and interesting styles of old.

Bonus stage!

If you are one of those old schoolers, looking for some recent (as of May 30, 2014) modern (but old school) good experiences you can check out these games:

Wolfestein: The New Order 

Child of Light

Transistor

Killer is Dead (Re-released on Steam)

Mario Kart 8

                               

Has the gaming industry forgotten about millennials?

Some weird topic that just popped into my head and I thought was good enough to start the blog. it begins with a simple question, Has the gaming industry forgotten about  the so called millennials? Take into account that this comes from a "millennial" point of view since I was born in 1984, so let's go ahead and dig deep into this idea.

One of the great rpg franchises that deserve to come back.

The end of the millennial:

First of all, it would be a good thing to define what a "millennial" is. As they say, a millennial (or generation Y) is a person born in the time span from 1980 to the early 2000's. It is the generation that ranges from the styles of the 80's, the easy going abundance of the 90's and the shock of the early 2000's. From a gaming perspective, millennials have been there from the very beginning of gaming as an industry up to the point where everything changed. As a generation we are criticized for many things, most of that criticism coming without any facts, but if there is one thing in which we never faltered it is our taste for gaming.

It is not as exaggerated as path-cutscene-path, but it doesn't even come close to the designs of old.

Change for the sake of change:

When we talk about change, we mean the ways in which the industry has managed to change from one business model to another. At one point, some people used to say that the video game industry was immune to the effects of the economical crisis and we as gamers were totally believing it, because quality standards were still high regardless of the monetary turmoil. So imagine what a shock it was to see it all change and basically leave hanging a whole generation that grew accustomed to a gaming style that nowadays is called "niche", "core" or worst of all "not feasible". It can't be denied that great games have been released in these newer generations, but the change in style is very noticeable. Let's start by comparing these two styles as past and present and see which characteristics make them differ.

Past:

• Complex game design based on exploration.
• Vast use of various types of resources (graphic, sound and user interaction).
• Strong emphasis on story line.
• Gameplay over graphics.
• Games made to make you think hard in order to progress or develop skills over time.
• Medium to high learning curve.
• Product was almost every time a full game.
• Development cycles ranging from 2-4 years at minimum.
• Fiction topped reality in game content.

Present:

• Simple game design based on presentation.
• Recycling of game resources.
• Strong emphasis on making the player addicted to the game.
• Graphics over gameplay.
• Games made in a way that it doesn't annoy or frustrate gamers in any way (a.k.a easier difficulties).
• Low learning curve.
• Semi-complete product followed by tons of updates and downloadable content.
• Development trend of making games in 1 year.
• Reality tops fiction as visual artists make visual material closer to real life.

Every gaming company has their own Warios, screwing things up for the rest of us.

Change for the sake of money:

Each of the reasons why these two styles are complete opposites come from the same principle which is cheap production costs and maximum profits. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that gaming in within itself is a business, but if we had to describe these two styles with a phrase, the past one would be "Make a kickass game so it sells well" while in the present it would be something like "Make a game that sells and somehow convince people that it is badass".

This is where millennials exit the scene as the ones who were dropped out as the prime customers of the gaming industry. Millennials lived through the many gaming eras that came to pass starting from the early Atari days and if one thing is to be expected from seen how gaming evolved through time is for games to get better; meaning longer, more challenging and more engaging. Millenials are a generation of gamers that have big expectations about gaming productions and will never forget the growth that the industry had, taking big leaps into better gaming experiences. This kind of thinking did not sounded so well to publishers and company investors because it meant more expenses and high risks.

This is when the people in business suits made the change and took power out of the artists hands and gave it to their "market analysts" or "mechandising people". The result of all this is the refusal to evolve and the embrace of a system that began simplifying games to a point that they mostly resemble a bad game from the 8 bit era, but with nice graphics. All this just because it is cheaper, faster and low risk. It is quite ironic for them to keep treating games like simple toys while at the same time saying that gaming has become a full fledged entertainment media with something for everyone. It just doesn't make sense.

Broken down Zero = how our gaming intelligence is treated.

This way of thinking prevented millennials from passing the torch to the newer generation as the new kids were lead to believe that the game development style from the past was too long, boring and passé while the one of the present was cutting edge and cool. People who still prefer the gaming style of the past are labelled as "hipsters" or called "people who still dwell on the past". Companies became rigid, most of the time ignoring what gamers want and using "modern gaming" as an excuse to give us less for our buck. Then as an excuse to get millennials even farther from having any influence, they began to release HD Remakes of famous games of the past just so they don't sell well and use that as an excuse to say "You see? Those games don't sell well any more. There is no reason to make new ones or follow that style of gameplay..."

The stale paradigm theory:

I have the little theory about how things should had been compared to how they are now. If we look into how the gaming industry was evolving, it would seem that people born in the mid 80's would have the industry at their feet from a content perspective. People who became gamers at that time would grow at the same pace as the industry does. So when they were kids the content of games would be mostly directed toward kids, then when going through their pre-teenage and teenage years the content would still be directed at them, then in early adulthood they would still be the poster children of the industry because now they would be the ones with money to spend and have the bigger enthusiasm toward games.

I apologize for the crappy style point chart he he. Just wanted to show the theory in some visual way.

If you see the small chart above, you can see that the emphasis in gaming content grew as people grew if you were a gamer in the 80's. Proof of this come in the games that were smashing successes at the time for each point on the time spans. In the 80's you could picture Mario, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, Loony Tunes games, etc. As soon as the 90's came, more serious and beat them up/fighting/violent games became the norm, and at that time it captivated pre-teens and teens quite nicely. After that it all turned into a cinematic experience with a ton of JRPGs, survival horror and action games, now directed towards the teen-early adults age range. After that when the new millennium came, games became even more serious and adults were able to experience great experiences while still giving good stuff to the teens. 

Now after that, as gaming became entertainment media, it should had kept on the early adults/adults zone but instead it went back to the teens and got stuck there (with the occasional treat to adults over 40 which are points off the chart). Why did this happen? Because those age ranges meant cheaper development and lower risk. Please have in mind that this is just a theory.

Where could all the good stuff be? (btw Child of Light IS good stuff)

To wrap things up:

My conclusion is that millennials were taken out of the gaming scene as the biggest gaming market, because we grew accustomed to excellence and excellence costs more money, money they do not want to spend. So they trained newer generations to love watered down experiences and phased out everything that would resemble the gaming industry standard that lived up for almost 30 years. Don't get me wrong, I am not implying that we should still have games that look and feel exactly like in the past. What would be healthy for the industry is to mix up both old and new, past and present styles of development and come up with games that can show how much we have technically evolved, but without degrading the overall experience.

Currently, that mix between old and new is something that is mostly been done by indie developers, but big time companies are taking the hint like Square Enix, that have learned their lesson with Bravely Default, the people at Capcom who already promised that Resident Evil 7 will return to its "survival horror roots", after seen the franchise's value plunge drastically after Operation Racoon City and Resident Evil 6 or even games like Call of Duty or Titan Fall with new gameplay interactions that resemble the crazy first person shooter experiences of the past. The millennials may be out of the scene, but big chunks of our gaming taste are washing ashore and it is a matter of time until game companies are forced to do something about it.  

There is still hope my friends...