by Lysander » Thu Feb 05, 2004 6:08 pm
Edited by ICJ -- mix in a line break, goddammit.
Ahem.
Allow me to field this one.
As a person who grew up doing very little but playing games like Overkill, Galactica, Galaxia, Defender, Kilo Blaster, Major Striker, Raptor, Galla-galla-ding-dong, Soul Feese, and probably a bunch others that I can't remember, I have come to a conclusion. Namely, that there were a fuckload more vertical scrollers than horrizontal ones.
(Kilo Blaster really doesn't count; its the standard "clear the screen of baddies"--except that the screen doesn't *move*. You're stuck there until you murder everything. Its still, technically, a verticle scroller--as is Gallactica and Gallaxia--because you shoot up at the ships near the top.)
I cannot understand *why*, as I have always found games where the game moves around you to be incredibly frustrating; whatever you're doing is undershot by the urgency of "Okay, I'd better get to this one quick, otherwise the next ones'll show up and the screen'll get too crowded. Oh, shit, did I get that powerup?" Hell, even Soul Feese--the one game that I have ever played where you are always moving towards the end of the level but *sideways*--was terrible about this, and knew it; some of the most common enemies were huge triangle barriers that would kill you on contact, and the only way to get through them was mash the fire button fast enough to blow up the "power generator" in the center. The designer of that feendish deathtrap should be dragged out of his house and beaten. A lot. With sticks.
I mean, shit, even Overkill -- while they did force you to maneuver through two-centimeter-fucking-wide areas while shooting at things -- didn't block the thing completely and make you shoot the barrier up to continue. But I'm rambling.
Overall, I like horrizontal sidescrollers -- specifically, my ideal game of the scrolling sort is Defender, where nothing at all moves unless you want it to, except that you damn well want it to, because if you aren't very, very watchful, the little basteeches're gonna pick up a human somewhere.
Games where the scenery moves around the player are disorientating, frustrating, and pretty much completely pointless; why *can't* you just hit reverse? Or, to get technical, turn around and go forward to slow down? Its the thing that always killed me about Rebel Assault; why the fuck can't you just maneuver yourself so that you can just sit there motionless and shoot the shit out of those fucking Star Destroyer shield generators where there is nothing shooting at you and finish that level in thirty seconds?
Because the game designers had to get finnicky.
Bastards.
[b][i][u]Edited by ICJ -- mix in a line break, goddammit.[/b][/i][/u]
Ahem.
Allow me to field this one.
As a person who grew up doing very little but playing games like Overkill, Galactica, Galaxia, Defender, Kilo Blaster, Major Striker, Raptor, Galla-galla-ding-dong, Soul Feese, and probably a bunch others that I can't remember, I have come to a conclusion. Namely, that there were a fuckload more vertical scrollers than horrizontal ones.
(Kilo Blaster really doesn't count; its the standard "clear the screen of baddies"--except that the screen doesn't *move*. You're stuck there until you murder everything. Its still, technically, a verticle scroller--as is Gallactica and Gallaxia--because you shoot up at the ships near the top.)
I cannot understand *why*, as I have always found games where the game moves around you to be incredibly frustrating; whatever you're doing is undershot by the urgency of "Okay, I'd better get to this one quick, otherwise the next ones'll show up and the screen'll get too crowded. Oh, shit, did I get that powerup?" Hell, even Soul Feese--the one game that I have ever played where you are always moving towards the end of the level but *sideways*--was terrible about this, and knew it; some of the most common enemies were huge triangle barriers that would kill you on contact, and the only way to get through them was mash the fire button fast enough to blow up the "power generator" in the center. The designer of that feendish deathtrap should be dragged out of his house and beaten. A lot. With sticks.
I mean, shit, even Overkill -- while they did force you to maneuver through two-centimeter-fucking-wide areas while shooting at things -- didn't block the thing completely and make you shoot the barrier up to continue. But I'm rambling.
Overall, I like horrizontal sidescrollers -- specifically, my ideal game of the scrolling sort is Defender, where nothing at all moves unless you want it to, except that you damn well want it to, because if you aren't very, very watchful, the little basteeches're gonna pick up a human somewhere.
Games where the scenery moves around the player are disorientating, frustrating, and pretty much completely pointless; why *can't* you just hit reverse? Or, to get technical, turn around and go forward to slow down? Its the thing that always killed me about Rebel Assault; why the fuck can't you just maneuver yourself so that you can just sit there motionless and shoot the shit out of those fucking Star Destroyer shield generators where there is nothing shooting at you and finish that level in thirty seconds?
Because the game designers had to get finnicky.
Bastards.