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Comments
What kind of genre is "target".
also, gotta love how this is apparently a serious exhibit. All the quality shmups and rail shooters the Saturn has, and they pick that.
And how the hell does Flower qualify as it
Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful, artsy game. But...TARGET?
Entire exhibit validated, screw you haters.
Could've included the Neverhood, though...
> lack of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (co-founder of metroidvania genre; demonstrator of continued popularity of 2D games, soundtrack fame)
> lack of Super Metroid (co-founder of metroidvania genre; co-codifier of sequence breaking)
> lack of Recettear: an Item Shop's Tale (proof that word-of-mouth popularity and digital distribution can produce widespread success of a niche game)
> lack of Cave Story (the most famous and successful indie game)
> lack of Team Fortress 2 (extreme cross-medium/memetic success)
> lack of Touhou (extreme cross-medium/memetic success)
> lack of Action 52 (iconic evidence of shoddy games attempting to cash in on short-term success)
> lack of Telefang (the most famous example of a "pirate" hack)
> lack of Spore (the most famous example of backlash against DRM)
> lack of Chrono Trigger (notoreity for fan arguments and for C&D notices on derivative fan-works)
> no Jedi Outcast
> no Jedi Academy
Oh, I also forgot:
> Custer's Revenge (the most famous porn game)
But seriously, both are well-remembered and loved by PC gamers as long as they were gaming in an early-mid 2000ish context. They're part of the Dark Forces series of games, which were mostly notable for being awesome. Jedi Outcast is the end of that particular storyline, whereas Jedi Academy was a pointless sequel that capitalised on Jedi Outcast's excellent gameplay, in turn being a game that was excellent fun to play but had limited narrative draw.
Both of those games have the best real-time close combat mechanics I've experienced in games. Note that I thought this before I ever took up swordsmanship, but the knowledge I've since gained has only sweetened my appreciation for those games.
Even if you're not a spathologist, the combat system has three notable features that allow for a deep combat experience without making it too complex:
- Access to the strike compass of eight directions.
- Free footwork, meaning that attacks do not force movement.
- Lightsabers are physical objects in the game, so two attacks made at a similar time from non-parallel angles will never go through -- they'll cancel, but without breaking the flow of combat.
Games like Monster Hunter, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls have combat systems I consider to be equally good, but from a different design perspective. Where those games focus on abstraction and the tactics involved in dealing with the limitations of one's weapons, Jedi Outcast and Academy use a combat system that restricts as little as possible and provides as much "realism" as any Star Wars game ever could with a lightsaber fighting system -- all without putting too much demand on the player.
To this day, Jedi Outcast, for all of its Nintendo Hard bullshit, is well-remembered as an arguable pinnacle of licensed action games. Jedi Academy was an excellent sequel in gameplay terms, but since then, no game has followed their example quite so well in terms of providing an excellent, realistic combat system. Mount and Blade had a good try at it, but fell short. MaB only gave access to vertical and horiztonal strikes (no diagonals!), which were highly telegraphed. Parrying was equally limited, and there was no weapon contact when both combatants were striking.
I'm not saying all these things are necessary for a good combat system, but Jedi Outcast/Academy did those things and did them well, ultimately providing a system with very few limitations and a great degree of depth.
Finally, someone who can express the way I feel about video games! Someone who words good, and feelings doesn't screw up speech!
In regards to the exhibit, I'd like to see the justification for the choices being art, since when I think "art", I don't think Pitfall or Pac-Man. Though Boom Blox is interesting.
But why no Arkanoid? It's one of the few old games that hasn't evolved much because it doesn't need to.
> lack of Farmville (social networking gaming)
GRAWWWW HOW DARE THIS MUSEUM ATTEMPT TO FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGE VIDEO GAMES AS ART WHEN THEY HAVEN'T A DETAILED UNDERSTANDING OF GAMING GENRES LIKE I DO
I just can't get to the Smithsonian from where I am. And it's more fun to complain, as usual.