Pokemon: Five Ideas For The Future

...Gotta catch em'all....when I find the time.

Pokemon is pretty much the most successful RPG around. Fifteen years after we first meet Pikachu, Charizard and company the game is still selling millions upon millions of copies around the world. The most recent entries in the main series, Black and White, have breathed new life into the franchise with a better story, more interesting characters, and a new land modeled after a major metropolitan city outside of Japan (New York City.) Some are even saying that they might be the best pair of games since the originals.

But even though Pokemon has stayed relevant and maintained a rabid fan base, there are also plenty of people calling for even more change. And really, it;s hard to argue with them. Despite the fact that the main series of games spans five 'generations', each with two or three titles in it, the game has largely been the same since Red and Blue. Thats not a bad thing because Pokemon has a formula that just works, but in order to avoid alienating even more people, and to really bring the franchise to the next decade, some more changes are necessary. Here are a few good places to start.



Honorable Mention - Enough Legendary's

This is one that put here simply because I think it needs to be said. There are too many legendary pokemon. The term used to apply to pokemon that were extremely hard to obtain, or were the best of the best. Now there are some that are about as easy to obtain as normal ones, and some are even given away. In my eyes, that diminishes their importance, and just clogs the games up with too many superpowerful monsters. Refocus the importance of these pokemon, or make them harder to get, that way getting them means much more than it currently does.



#5. Some Character Creation

I'm not necessarily a fan of this idea, but I recognize that it's an idea that would certainly make quite a few people happy. Pokemon has always forced you to play as a child. While initially you could only play as a boy, Game Freak did bring the option to play as a girl in Gold and Silver. Since then nothing has really changed character wise. In fact, that was one of the reasons I really enjoyed Black and White. The finally introduced playable characters who were teenagers. Now maybe it's because I am no longer ten, but playing as kid every single Pokemon game just gets a little old. It'd be nice to let you truly step into the world of Pokemon as yourself. Everyone likes to see themselves in their favourite games, and might even make your adventure a little more memorable.



#4. Let Us Visit Every Region 

I'll admit, this is one I personally want to see quite a bit. There are now five regions in the Pokemon world, and other than Gold, Silver, And Crystal (and their remakes) we've never been able to visit other regions of the Pokemon world in the same game. It's not like it's impossible to do so either, characters from other regions frequently show up in different games. It'd make for one monstrous game, certainly something that would require a long term commitment. Sadly, that is one of the many pitfalls of trying to pull this off however. There's lots of other problems and questions, some with easy answers, many where outside the box thinking is probably necessary. Still, it would be nice to be in Goldenrod, and then go visit Castelia City without changing which game I'm playing.

#3. Even More Online Options

This is one we all can benefit from. The online options have gotten much better with Black and White than the previous versions, now with the ability to simply challenge anyone online instead of needing to be in the same general area, or have a friend code. Previous games have also had some kind of fun diversions, and have even started allowing players to team up in the game in certain areas. Yet, as nice as it's gotten, it could be even better. Ash pals around with two people in the anime. Always does. So why not let us roam around the Pokeworld with our own friends? It'd make for even more fun for everyone when you can pal around with your buddies, and could even open up new options for gameplay options and challenges. It'd also be nice to have some more options when facing another person online. The way it is now, your getting luck of the draw, and sometimes you'll be facing people with some pretty tough pokemon. There should be more of a system in place for who you get matched up with. Also, item trading. Get on it Game Freak. Like, now.

#2. Even More Story Improvements 

Black and White made some big steps in the right direction with this, but it still needs to go even further. Every game is set up much the same story wise. X bad guy group wants to achieve Y objective while you face eight gyms spread through a region and then challenge the elite four to become the Pokemon Champion. Even Black and White stick somewhat to that formula, and it's starting to get a little stale. Change the gyms, give us a true Pokemon League Tournament. Make it be one bad guy instead of a group, make the objectives of said bad person more interesting, have more characters in the game play into the whole story. There are so many ways the story could get better. I know some people are seeing this and saying "How could he think such thoughts! This is part of what makes Pokemon Pokemon!" While that is true to a certain point, I think Game Freak could make a game that doesn't stick to those rules and still have it feel like a pokemon game. After all, the Pokemon Ranger games have done a good job of telling different stories, and while Ash is usually chasing gym badge, he still finds time for some pretty lengthy side stories. Let us experience some of that too.

#1. Graphics Upgrade

This is the one just about everyone is calling for at this point. The graphics style is one of the most recognizable parts of the Pokemon games. It is also showing it's also showing it's age and despite the attempts to slap new coats of paint over the framework, it is just about time to ditch the 2D sprites all together. There might be some people who won't be happy about it but with the power of the 3DS' graphics, there is no longer any excuse to keep the game stuck in even partial 2D. We have seen plenty of Pokemon games outside the main series that have featured 3D and some have looked pretty good at their launch. It seems like such a trivial thing, and yet it could really bring a fresh feeling to the next game. They don't have to change perspectives, and they do not need to change the battle style. They just need to break free from the sprites.


That's all I got for now. Given this list is just a few of the things they could do, this is certainly a good place to start. Future Pokemainiacs will appreciate this changes as much as current ones do, and most of these can come about without sacrificing the feel of the game at all, which is an important key to any change to a long running franchise.


To wrap this up, I just want to say Extra Life 2011 went very well. If you didn't donate, but still want to and think it's too late, there is a small window of time to get late donations in, but do it ASAP please. I appreciate it all the same.

And with that, I bid thee farewell for now.

Unlimited Detail - The Facts, The Myths, and The Future

...makes sense that the company is called Euclidean.


WARNING!
This blog post is going to be about an experimental technology that is essentially untested in gaming. There are no games made from this tech yet, and there are questions about how real it even is for gaming right now. However, this is all real technology that you can get into right now. 


Alright, to kick things off I'm going to show you a screenshot.

A little small I know, but you can tell that's a gorgeous screenshot. The game that this is taken from is Crysis 2, perhaps the best looking video game out to date.

Now imagine that this screenshot, that is so beautifully detailed, could in a few years be considered 'far below average'.

That is not a pipe dream. There is a very real technology being developed and it has finally begun to take shape, and the initial results look very promising to bring games so close to looking realistic most companies that pride themselves on "photo realistic graphics" are going to look like the biggest liars in the industry. Or at least that's according to Euclidean founder and CEO Bruce Dell.

Now for a technology lesson. Everything that you see in a game, from the sky, to the ground, to the characters, to the weapons is made up of polygons. The reason games continue to look better and better is because of the arms race between the two big graphics card companies, Nvidia and ATI, to find ways to increase the number polygons that can be used to make up objects. The more polygons, the 'rounder' an object can be. The 'rounder' it can be the more realistic it looks. As games are built, the simply slap textures over the polygons. Textures are not standing objects, they're more like a coat of paint. If you've ever played Dragon Age II and seen the citizens of Kirkwall appear as shiny white models because of a glitch in the games design, then you know what character models look like without their textures.

There is another method to making object called point cloud. Point cloud works in an entirely different way from polygons. Instead of making the objects out of flat polygon shapes, you make them out of points. Thousands of little dots that allow designers to make incredibly complex models that look realistic. An example of why this is so much superior is designing the ground of a level. With polygons, you have to put down a basic surface of shapes, and then slap a texture on top of it. No matter how detailed that texture is, it is a flat object. In many games, the ground looks incredibly detailed and life-like. But if you zoom in, you can see that everything is flat. All that dirt is just a flat painting or picture. With point cloud, instead of making a floor out of polygons and then putting a texture on it, you can design the ground, the grass, the flowers, all right there. By using the points you can construct complex shapes. So instead of making a tree out of a bunch of polygons, you can design the tree with points and actually make it round, and add in all the details while designing the object. The result is a tree that looks like a tree. You can see if you zoomed in on a tree made in point cloud that the wood's textures and qualities as far as shape and appearance are concerned are nearly photo-identical.

If the above confused you greatly, let me put it simply: Instead of making objects out of polygon shapes and then adding a texture to it, you can essentially build the object itself.

Now point cloud is something people use all the time when designing objects, the problem with it's application for something on the scale of gaming is the amount of processing power required to animate the world would be unreal. It would, according to the tech demo, "take the same amount of time to process one frame, as it took the Egyptians to build the Pyramids."

Now there are other ways of making graphics, such as voxels and ray rendering. Voxels have some very restrictive problems that make them almost useless in graphics animation. You can only have so many, and the require a lot of processing power to utilize.

Now, Mr. Dell is dead on up to this point. This is the problem with point cloud, is that the amount of processing time is so large, it's impossible to make a game with this technology, and really, it should be at least a decade or two away from even being an experimental option, much less a realistic one. But Dell claims he has developed a complex algorithm that he compares to a search engine, like Google. He claims this algorithm drastically reduces processing power by searching for and then using only the points necessary at a given time.  Thats about the point where, in his tech demo, he gets little bit...dodgy. He explains some of the problems with something like this, such as how big or small an object is, what perspective it's being seen from etc. He simply says "we've found ways around that." No explanation, no nothing.

And then it gets even more hard to believe him. He essentially disappeared for the past year since he announced this technology. He has reappeared recently and has reasserted that this is real tech and that it could be available for developer use in the next two years.

This all sounds amazing right? What could possibly be wrong with it then?

Well what indeed, is the question seeing as how Dell has never once stated any problems or limitations or specifications of unlimited detail technology. Thats a problem because every tech has it;s limitations and it's issues. The fact he has not even mentioned any, and has simply danced around obvious questions with answers like "we can't show you that yet" or "we've found ways around this."

Anyone else smell that?

I've seen a lot of people going nuts about this, and I did too when I first saw the tech demos. But once you sit down and look at it for a bit, you can see a lot of pitfalls and problems with this. Some people are even saying this is all a big hoax. Now I don;t know about that, but there are some obvious questions that need to be answered, and we also need to see more of the things that really make unlimited detail tick instead of just having Dell explain what he's doing without really explaining what is making work the way it does.

For now, it's best for everyone if we just push this to the back corner of our minds and get back to our polygon count battles between ATI and Nvidia. Eventually we will see how much merit is in Robert Dell and his technology.


The rest of this week is going to be lighthearted blog posts about games that are important to me, because this one was REALLY over the top and I need a break after writing this. In the meantime I am sad to say I still haven't raised single cent for Extra Life up to this point. I will put my own money towards this around the day of the event but I seriously would be eternally grateful to those of you who donate to the cause. I know I've got some UK readers out there, and you guys count too! Send me a an e-mail if you want to donate but your not sure how you want to do it, and if you've got paypal, just head over to the donation link on the side of the blog and donate whatever you can. We can make a difference, but I can't do it alone.

Alright that last bit got a little depressing/angry so here's a picture of  a funny sign to wrap things up.

Later.

Originality and the Sequel

...the follow-up post to one of the most critically acclaimed blog posts of the past month!

A heads up, your going to see Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls come up a lot in this one.

It's been a few weeks. Life, and my own struggle to find something I want to talk about have kept me away recently. Recently I played the demo of Catherine and was blown away by how different it was to anything I had played recently, perhaps even ever. It got me thinking about how many uniquely different games I had played recently, and I found myself rather stunned that pretty much every game I was playing or was looking at acquiring had a number in it somewhere.

So why is that weird?

Because I always talk about how there isn't enough originality in gaming these days and how I wish there were more varied experiences to be had.

And yet, here I am playing Elder Scrolls IV, Halo: Reach, and Fable III.

My current time sink. And what a time sink it is...

I understand the need for sequels, I also enjoy them when they are done well (See: Mass Effect 2) and not obvious attempts to capitalize on a games popularity (See: Bioshock 2). And there is room for both the unique and interesting, and for the sequel's in gaming.

The first obvious reason sequels exist is for the same reason books and movies get sequels and trilogy's. The developer is telling a story and needs to spread it out over two or three installments (or more). Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, and Assassins Creed are all examples of this. They are also the franchise's that I would give as the best examples of how to do it right. Bioware and Ubisoft both took fan reaction and criticism into account when making future installments of their games to not only fix missteps and problems, but to keep the experience fresh, and Bethesda is always pushing the limits of how big open world RPG's can get.

The second reason they exist is because they are an easy way for a developer to get a steady stream of cash coming in. Games are a business at this scale, and the first thing a developer or publisher needs to consider is how much money they are making and how much future projects could make. A lot of people out there consistently bash gaming developers and publishers for releasing sequels of games they deem "terrible" or "garbage". Unfortunately as much as I'd like to be on their side in some cases, franchise's like Call of Duty and  Battlefield and EA's yearly sports titles rake in millions of dollars for developers. That money goes three places (and a few others but for our purpose we'll stick with three...), to the people working for these companies, to make more of the games in these franchises, and towards brand new IP's. Without these games raking in millions, developers and publishers can't take chances on anything brilliant or different because there are so many uncertainties.

Of course there is a whole other part to his sequel-original problem. A lot of people also get upset at new games that are released and seem very similar to other games they've played. There are two big reasons for this in my mind. First, there have been so many stories written in across many mediums that at this point, everyone is copying something from somewhere or someone at some point in the game (also known as inspiration most of the time). Second, developers adapt already in use game engine's and interfaces and designs for their own projects. Bethesda has a good thing going with the Elder Scrolls game design. So much so that they adapted the play style and game design for Fallout 3 when they acquired the game's rights from Interplay. People don't often realize how much work goes into a game, and to do everything from the ground up takes a lot of hard work and time. Very often a design team is given a certain amount of time to complete a game, so for many developer's it is simply a matter of how much time they want to spend in what area's of a game's development. Few games have the luxury of being lovingly crafted by a team given as much time as they need to work with it, and it isn't hard to spot games that fall into that category because they are often very detailed, very deep, and very good.

I will say though, there has to be other concept art and cover art ideas out there other than "faded background guy".

It;s very easy to play a game and say, "Oh this game isn't original, this dev team just didn't care." If you spend all your time looking only for the truly unique and interesting games, like Catherine, your going to miss a lot of really good games, just because the resemble something you already played. Of course if the game is lacking originality in the sense that it is very average, then I can understand a bit more, but to miss a games like Mass Effect or Battlefield just because you've played something similar is a shame.

Before I end this, I just want to once again mention Extra Life. My donation page as well as my team's page, are now live and ready for your spare change and dollars to go towards a great cause. Anything you can contribute will be greatly appreciated, and it will help some children who really need it. I know there's a lot of things you'd rather put money towards, or maybe the economy crunch has you saving as much as you can. But even the smallest contribution is going to make a difference. If you can only send a few dollars, then that's more than fine.

http://www.extra-life.org/participant/polaris


And so with that out of the way,  I must be on my way. I need some sleep at some point today after all.

Take it easy.

A Very Special Notice

...

You may notice that there as no message after the dots. You may have also noticed that this is a notice, not an actual blog update. Well let me explain why...

Video games are one of the things I am most passionate about in the entire universe. I am also very passionate about helping those in need. Some people who need help the most are children with life-threatening diseases. In 2008 the Sarcastic Gamer Community started Extra Life to help raise money for children with life threatening illnesses. You can read the whole story and find out more about Extra Life at the website link below, but to sum it up, Extra Life is a 24 hour marathon where we have a blast playing games, while helping children around the world when they need it most.

This is a very important event to me, so I want everyone reading this to pitch in in one of three ways:

#1. Once my fundraising page is up, donate as much as you can spare to the cause. I'll take pennies if you've got 'em.
#2. Become a participant yourself, I could use the company on the Marshmellow Fluff Team!
#3. Spread the word to EVERYONE you know. Even your pets!

If you want to donate, head to my page here: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=501&participantID=4394. If you want to play go here: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.home and sign-up and select the hospital closest to you (or which ever one you want to have your money go to if you have one in mind outside of your area.)

The day to play is October 15th, so there's plenty of time, but the sooner the word is out, the more we can do to contribute to this worthwhile cause. As I said, this is a very important event to me, and every thing you guys do to help will mean the world to me, and to these kids who really need the support.

Together, we can make a big difference. So let's do just that.

Nolan.

P.S. Oh you can also check out my team and donate to the others participating with me here http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&eventID=501&teamID=5029