So the puzzles are also boring? I could probably forgive everything else otherwise.
theyâre the most interesting part on paper but too bound to the narrative to come off as imaginative
weâre in a landscape where a lot of US filmmakers will make Sundance-bait mostly so they can get a shot at directing some big Disney project in the future, which is definitely part of that trend. i do think a lot of the people who make âprestige 'em upâ games want to end up working on whatever the US/European version of Breath of the Wild is⌠except there isnât really anything that is that, so i guess theyâre hoping their studio will grow enough so that they can be the one to make it? i will say the IGF functions more effectively as a kind of resume builder to me than it functions as anything else at this point. iâve had people tell me some award or nomination has helped them get jobs before. though if youâre at the point where Annapurna is a publisher for your game youâre already above the level of someone who would submit to IGF.
i can envision a future where everyone is just trying to work on the next big Disney project for games, though for right now it seems more about establishing yourself as âlegitimateâ so that you can secure more future funding from some part of the tech world.
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Today I have played around with Super Mario 64. I loved it back then, but I cannot play it anymore! I am spoiled with todayâs cameras, and the way camera moves in Mario 64 is infuriating for me, to the point that I think I will drop it.
Did anybody else have a similar experience, recently?
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And itâs not very good at this, either. Big studio hiring managers canât see anything besides two boxes: established big-studio background or associate small degree and the expected string of legal-skirting 9-month temp contracts that follow. Portfolio or festival circuit count as dressing at best.
Gosh, I hear, itâs so hard to find diverse candidates
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I played a bit of it recently on the 3D All-Stars collection. I too was annoyed by the camera but mostly because of the controller mapping. That camera feels weird on the the right thumbstick. They should have mapped rotation to the L and R buttons when not looking around in first person.
Anyhow, Iâve played so much Mario 64 in my life that Iâm unable to look at it objectively or even get much enjoyment out of it anymore. It feels like a comfortable game to play (except for the camera issues) and not much else.
The source ports have added in a more contemporary free-look right-stick camera that is worth checking out.
In some ways Super Mario 64 is worse for the limited camera control it gives you; you really need to give up and let the game set the camera most of the time. They have enough camera limitations that youâll get more frustrated trying to control the camera than playing inside of the angle they give you.
So much of the game is tests of fine analog control at off-center angles in ways games donât ask for any more, and you gotta play inside it.
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I do find a lot of Nintendo design is this way when new hardware releases. They feel a need to emphasize the aspects of the hardware that are unique compared to previous hardware, but by mid-cycle theyâre back to ignoring it again.
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Yeah, and itâs compunded by how front-heavy Nintendo releases are. Theyâre so good at exploring it with all of their big franchises in the first year and a half, then they go underground and start prepping to launch their next hardware. If a core franchise gets a second entry on a system, we get, what, a b-team effort, or a conservative content expansion, or a subversive take that can define its own perspective? Either way, they seem to drop the mandate to explore the hardware.
I was shocked that late-period 3DS titles direct from Nintendo even dropped 3D. Even after the new 3DS made it much better! Implementing it should have been pretty cheap, mostly checking how layers are sorted; Iâm not sure if they had really expensive QA cert that they wanted to bypass.
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Those games didnât receive a lot of complaints that I saw for not supporting 3D either. The playerbase moved on from caring about stereoscopic 3d (if they ever did) and nintendo followed.
no kidding, I should have squealed more
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I actually really like playing 3DS games at the lowest 3D setting because it helps a lot with my depth perception while not being exhausting to process visually over time, especially on New Nintendo 3DS hardware. Games that donât support 3D feel like theyâre broken when Iâm playing on 3DS because itâs just not what I expect from the experience of a 3DS game.
I realize Iâm probably in the minority though.
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I think the best showcase for the original DS stylus concept was from a third-party developer: Trauma Center. I would put the DS flat on a table and peer over my patient while holding one stylus in each hand.
More generally Nintendoâs focus in the early 2000s was all about physically literalizing game action, but the biggest successes didnât come from them (Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution come to mind as well).
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the experience of playing 13 sentinels lately was definitely reminiscent of trauma center in terms of cautiously dipping into this shonen thing and then realizing gradually that they have a pretty strong vision for what theyâre doing
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If you have a hankering for SM64 and the camera is the biggest thing holding you back, the PC port with full analog camera movement is worth tracking down (I think itâs still up on archive.org). Iâve been watching some streams of people playing the All-Stars version and itâs been illuminating seeing it through fresh eyes having known it inside and out for so long (and it still inspires a kind of conspiracy theory mindset, like people looking for secrets in every corner because of the enigmatic quality throughout (these are adults in the year 2021 and Iâm watching them wonder âHey that flame on the wall is blue, the others are red, maybe I have to burn myself with it?â which is a special thing imo (and usually theyâre wrong butâŚcould that be an overall better more evocative feeling than the newer Marios where Nintendo packs every little nook and cranny with âsurprisesâ that you are 99% sure are there before you poke at them?)). The conceit of a camera being a second character youâre controlling along with Mario is significant and back in the day you just wrestled with it because it was the only game in town. Becoming one with the camera is a reward unto itself and you eventually go from wrestling to dancing but itâs totally understandable to feel like itâs not worth it 25 years after the game came out!
Loosely related bottom-line review: Crackdown is proof that Super Mario Sunshine was not the sequel to Super Mario 64 that we deserved.
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Is there also a hacked port for the Nintendo Switch with full camera support? I downloaded one (which has also widescreen support) but it does not have full camera movement 
Anyway, playing Mario 64 now, itâs amazing how many of mario movements are still used in Odyssey, for example. It reminds us how ground breaking it was
No idea about how to play on Switch but I just realised my version of the PC port doesnât have the updated camera, that was in a patched ROM Iâve used with widescreen etc. Looking online there are loads of mods for the PC port via GitHub and idk when I might get around to figuring that out but if I get a version of the PC port with analog camera movement I can drop in the appropriate thread.
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Thanks, that would be great!
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