Hi Dark, Sure. I do understand your point of view as it is rather distressing to know how many V.I. gamers assume that something like Q9 is the be all and end all to side-scrollers when guys like you and I know better.
Fact of the matter is that for better than a decade side-scrollers were the primary style of games for Nintendo, Sega, and PC and it gave rise to such popular series as Megaman, Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Castlevania, and so on. Since I figure the majority of blind PC users were unable to fully enjoy the original side-scrollers they are lacking some huge conceptual differences between a simple side-scroller like Q9 and say Mario Brothers. There are a whole bunch of conceptual differences that just haven't been fully realized by the blind gaming community. For far too long a lot of games have you push the up arrow key and the left or right arrow key x time to jump a pit etc. This is not only very unrealistic, but lacks the skill and grace of games with a traditional analog jump system in place. Games where how high and far you jumped were based on a number of factors like if you were running before you jumped, weather or not you were jumping off a ledge,and how long you held down the jump button while using the directional cross to control the characters movement. Even when you landed you would occasionally bounce or slide which made it difficult for a precision pinpoint landing. Such things haven't been the norm in audio games, and I suspect it is because a true analog jump system requires good hand and eye coordination so yes we could use a few good side-scrollers of that type to at least introduce the V.I. community to what they are missing. At the same time I am personally equally conscious of the fact we haven't had many FPS games that lives up to mainstream standards. Yes, Shades of Doom is good, and yes Swamp introduces us to the online FPS type affair, but I've seen a lot of features that have never been introduced in any audio game for one reason or another. Let's take a Third Person Shooter like the infamous tomb Raider for example. In that series you can get Lara Croft to perform a wide range of acrobatic maneuvers above and beyond just jumps. She can do summersaults, flips, rolls, and swan dive off a ledge into a lake. She can safety drop from ledges, swing from ropes and vines, army crawl under swirling blades, as well as run up to a ledge etc and vault over it. In Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary Lara carries a grappling hook which she uses to swing over traps and to climb up to areas of the tomb inaccessible through any other means. Point being that there are a lot of aspects to a full on 3d game that no 2d side-scroller can quite compare to. Regarding nav systems I have to agree here. Monkey Business was imprecise, and I'm not quite sure why that was. However, I do know of the issue you speak of where you would here the beep, beep, beep of the object locator only to walk past the item, or walk around it several times before picking up the coin, sword, or whatever it was you were trying to pik up. Oh, that use to bug the heck out of me. Cheers! On 3/26/13, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > Well this is again why I'd like to see side scrollers introduced to audio > gamers, since the amount of fun I've had with turrican, metroid, mega man > and such games over the years is just staggering, and it's a shame that > there are so many people who believe a 1D game like q9 is the be all and end > > all. > > That being said, something full 3D would be good too, provided the nav > system was there. Personally, what I found irritating in monkey business > wasn't so much that the navigation system was lacking, but that it was > simply imprecise. You'd hear something in front of you, walk forward and > then walk straight past it, or be told something was to your right, turn > right and then miss it. Shades, and the gma engine generally, ---- not to > mention technoshock which was heavily based on it, uses a very precise > system in it's audio to identify where objects are, so that if you turn so > that something is centered in the sterrio field, you are! facing it, which > to me is as much a contributing factor to shades success as it's various > tools. > > i might also add though that on this front, swamp is pretty awsome too, > letting you explore very large maps with things appearing at random and even > > collection missions too. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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