I liked the fish catching minigame! It was reminiscent of Kaboom! by Activision, which was a really fun game. Or, I suppose you could compare it to the obscure 1978 Atari arcade game Avalanche. Here's something interesting: Kaboom! was originally started as a 2600 conversion of Avalanche, before Larry Kaplan left Atari and became one of the original Activision crew.Quote:
Originally posted by Andrew
I didn't think so. I thought the story and levels were better in R&C and Jak and Daxter had alot of flat minigames such as the fish catching.
My only complaint about that--and most of J&D's minigames--was that once you completed the challenge, you couldn't go back to replay the minigame "just for fun." You would have to start over from the beginning, or be fortunate enough to have a save of another session where that minigame hadn't already been completed.
Of Sony's "big three" PS2 platform games, I think Sly Cooper had the best minigames. To be fair, I still haven't finished Ratchet & Clank.
Yeah. I see it a bit differently, as do a lot of people here apparently, but unfortunately that's not representative of a lot of people.Quote:
Originally posted by Andrew
Cell shaded games don't sell well... hmm. I think it's because photo realism is what most North Americans in general want. Cel shading is seen more as a step back to the 2D era which, of course, is only supposed to be in pocket gaming, according to the general public.
When I first played the demo of Sly Cooper, I was simply blown away! That was the first cel-shaded game that I got into. Later, after I got the game and was showing it to a friend, I remarked that we now have the technology to make a cartoon-style game that looks as good as Dragon's Lair did in 1983, but has the freedom of movement and depth of gameplay that's expected of most contemporary video games. My friend agreed with me.
Sadly, the cel-shading technique is already starting to become trite. Now that developers know how to implement it, we're seeing games that employ cel-shading simply for the sake of having cel-shading, rather than giving the game the full artistic attention it deserves. Most cel-shaded games are somewhat ugly; games like JGR/JSRF, Sly Cooper, or The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker are quickly becoming the exception rather than the rule.
BTW, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker seems to be doing very well in presales, despite some initial protest to the shift in art style. This might be the game that finally convinces the mainstream audience to accept cel-shaded polygon graphics.
