Topic: Life bars

[KDR_11k]

(Since there's no "gaming in general" forum I'm putting this into GC)

Is it just me or is the good old tradition of losing a life when you are hit so rare as to be counted as exctinct these days? I mean, doesn't EVERY game that isn't directly based on an old game or arcade genre have a life bar these days and even games that are based on traditional one-hit-death genres use lifebars now? Are there even ANY full 3d games that don't let your character take a number of hits before dying?

Hell, even Mario has a lifebar in his 3d games.

[Kairon]

Until they can perfect 3rd person cameras so player's have full control over their movement and near-perfect knowledge of their environment, expect life bars.

Also, Bushido Blade?

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[UltimatePartyBear]

I may misremember, but I think Sly Cooper could only take one hit until you found a lucky horseshoe that gave him an extra hit.  I think you could get one by collecting enough of whatever you collected in that game, too, and I know the game took pity and gave you one if you kept dying, so it's not like they were rare.

I think life bars came about because they allowed games to increase in intensity without increasing in difficulty.  In other words, more enemies and bullets could fly at the player's character, but the player could handle the increase because the life bar allowed him to make some mistakes.

[Ian Sane]

One hit deaths are typcally pretty sh!tty.  Aside from SHMUPS even most classic NES games had life bars.  Even Mario has a lifebar even though there is literally no bar.  You find a mushroom and you get two hits.  Go back and play an old one-hit death game from the past and unless it was pre-crash odds are it isn't that good.  Games like Bubsy are one-hit death.  You want more Bubsy?

I think the bigger loss is meaningful Game Overs.  Because of saving Game Overs don't mean much anymore.  That makes sense for longer games but who says every game has to be so long?  Ikaruga is one of the best Cube games and it doesn't save.  You get a Game Over and you have to start over which is okay because the game only had five levels.  But it takes skill to beat the game so the game length extends because you always have to start over.  But the game is fun and is designed in such a way that usually you do better the more you play so starting over is no big deal.  While I don't care for one-hit kills I would like to see more shorter, harder games without saves.  Well they can have a quick save that acts like an extended pause (like on the VC) but nothing more.

[UltimatePartyBear]

That Game Over nonsense really bugged me in the Rogue Squadron series.  It was functionally no different than simply failing the mission, except you got kicked out to the main menu.  I think they did it just to tick me off.

[KDR_11k]

One hit kills doesn't mean no bonuses that allow you to take another hit (while often losing some extra power in the process, e.g. no more breaking blocks or shooting fireballs). But I mean why does e.g. Contra or Bomberman need a life bar in 3d? Why aren't we seeing games made that actually use one hit kills even if it was just the arcade rule (respawn in place with all powerups gone)? Noone's even trying that anymore, even 2d sidescrollers use lifebars. Weapons you pick up through bonuses and lose just as quickly seem to be a thing of the past, too, now every hero has an inventory to keep each and every weapon he finds.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Cuz today's gamers are weak.

WEAK.

They're spoiled with all sorts of gimmicks like self-recharging life bars and use-anywhere-save-states in action games.

WEAK.

[JonLeung]

I pride myself on being what I consider an accomplished gamer, but the other day I found Secret Agent, an old Apogee shareware platform game, where the character dies from taking a single hit.

I may have more notches on my belt now (or whatever the expression is) but I survived those one-hit games years ago, so why can't I do it now?  Well, I probably could if I put in the time and effort again but life bars have certainly made me careless.  I also tried Ikaruga when my brother bought that Dreamcast and I could not get very far at all.

It makes more sense in arcade games where they milk you for money by allowing as many continues as you can afford.  When using MAME, though, how often do you think I mash the "Insert Coin" button?  Some games, I won't start until I have the maximum (usually 99) credits.

[Ian Sane]

"I pride myself on being what I consider an accomplished gamer, but the other day I found Secret Agent, an old Apogee shareware platform game, where the character dies from taking a single hit."

I used to have that game and I'm pretty certain it allowed three hits.  Part of the strategy involved risking a hit and gambling that you wouldn't need one later.

"But I mean why does e.g. Contra or Bomberman need a life bar in 3d?"

I think the real question is why are Contra and Bomberman being made in 3D in the first place?  The only Contra game to come out since the 16-bit era that anyone gives a damn about is Shattered Soldier which is also the only Contra game since then to use the gameplay of a 2D sidescroller.  That is not a coincedence.

[Ceric]

 Strider.

[Amodaus1]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
Cuz today's gamers are weak.

WEAK.

They're spoiled with all sorts of gimmicks like self-recharging life bars and use-anywhere-save-states in action games.

WEAK.

All facts, no lies.

Games are weak today, the only compensation is a hard mode, or a ranking system, in where usually you have to do ridiculously well to score well.

My hat is off to Metal Gear, Getting Big Boss or FoxHound ranks are a b*tch. Esspecially when your favorite thing to do is kill gaurds Damn you the sorrow.

[King of Twitch]

I look forward to the day when we can unshackle ourselves from bars cluttering up the screen, and powerups "hidden" in wooden crates.

[KDR_11k]

Even GTA had one-hit-kills, GTA2 gave you five hearts which equal ten hits and GTA3 gives you 100 health. WEAK!

[ThePerm]

heres my idea....its not on the screen, its not attached to the controller, its an led screen that communicates with your system wirelessly that gives you all sorts of stats

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: ThePerm
heres my idea....its not on the screen, its not attached to the controller, its an led screen that communicates with your system wirelessly that gives you all sorts of stats

Or you could use the Game Boy Advance as a screen with certain GameCube games and a cable!  What an awesome idea!  >_>

Well, actually, it was, it just didn't sell too well.  Perhaps DS-Wii connectivity will be better, considering the wireless ease of both of them.  And that horror game, Sadness (assuming it's not vaporware) is hoping to avoid all HUD stuff and even an "invisible saving feature".

Quote
Originally posted by: MJRx9000
I look forward to the day when we can unshackle ourselves from bars cluttering up the screen, and powerups "hidden" in wooden crates.

Do you mean a game that's realistic, not just in looks but in presentation?  Like I mentioned, Sadness might do just that...though it's in black and white (not a bad thing, but certainly a choice meant for artistry than realism).  I always thought it would be funny to read a Nintendo Power magazine from the future where a Classified Information cheat (assuming anyone reads that anymore) is one where you're in a very realistic, first-person VR game, where instead of pressing "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start" for thirty lives it'd be something like "While this character is speaking, run up to him and kick him in the nads.  When the nearby NPCs turn against you, present an obscene gesture.  Grab the toupee off of a particular character that should then appear and eat it.  Sing the first line of the theme song and then do a backflip in place.  Take off your pants and put them in the mailbox and congratulations, you now have 30 lives!"...okay, that was dumb.  But it would be amusing if someone mistook real life for a game and did that.  o_0

[vudu]

Quote
Originally posted by: MJRx9000
I look forward to the day when we can unshackle ourselves from bars cluttering up the screen, and powerups "hidden" in wooden crates.

Didn't King Kong already do that?

[nitsu niflheim]

I wish I had a life bar, I would totally go running around town doing things, then go home to rest up in an instant overnight then hit the town again.  To wreck havoc.

[JonLeung]

It would be interesting once games are able to have real physics and real biology so that your health is based on a lot more than just a single overall health meter.  You can be like Phineas Gage (I think that's his name), you know, the guy who lived through having a railroad spike shot through his head, but a smaller shot in just the right place could be fatal.

Of course, people might get bored of realistic games by the time we have the processing power to calculate the interaction of every molecule in every object.  Or even individual blood cells.

[Smash_Brother]

I forget who did the editorial (it might have been IGN, not sure), but they raised the pertinent point...

The reason why games all had one-hit deaths in those days is because the games were so heinously short that failure was a vital necessity in the game to ensure you didn't beat it in a matter of minutes. Remember SMB speed runs? I think someone has it down to 11 minutes now. If it wasn't so easy to die, SMB would be over and done with in no time at all and you would have been feeling gypped for having purchased it.

The editorial used OoT as an example of how things have changed: in OoT, it was nearly impossible to die, but that was alright because you had assloads of things to do which greatly extended the play time of the game. You didn't need Link to die easily because failure was no longer necessary to ensure that you got your money's worth in terms of time put into the game.

One-hit deaths are a hold-over from the old days when games needed to cause the player to fail repeatedly so as to artificially extend play time. Turn-based RPGs are yet another hold-over from that era: you could have seen the entire story in FF one in less than a half hour but the game lasts many more hours than that because of unnecessary battles needed to inflate stats so you could beat bosses. In this way, turn-based RPGs are just a way of telling a (comparatively) short story over a very long period of time by holding the story hostage until you put more time into the game.

Both methods are outdated when it comes to gameplay, and I expect that turn-based RPGs will likewise die out in due time.

However, I must also agree with Kairon in that another possible reason is that controlling a character/ship in 2D is vastly easier than doing so in 3D and to date I've yet to see a 3D engine perfectly capable of giving the player 100% control over the game and the damage they'll take.

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Remember SMB speed runs? I think someone has it down to 11 minutes now. If it wasn't so easy to die, SMB would be over and done with in no time at all and you would have been feeling gypped for having purchased it.

Funny, I was just reading the Wikipedia article about speedruns.  And though I didn't read about the specific times just then, I'm pretty sure Super Mario Bros. is actually about FIVE minutes (and people call this one of the greatest games of all time? ), Super Mario Bros. 3 is about 11 minutes, Super Mario World is over 10 minutes, and Super Mario 64 is something like 17 minutes.  In SMB and SMB3, it was not about death or the avoidance of it, but rather Warp Zones.  Similarly, SMW made use of the most direct path, involving the Star World.  Super Mario 64 used a glitch to bypass the Endless Stairway, but that's something else altogether.

But you had to know about the Warp Zones beforehand (when the kid in The Wizard found the Warp Whistle, that didn't make sense to me), and assuming you had to rely on the accidental finding of it, or word of mouth, it may have been a long while before you could pull off such a quick run.  Now with the Internet and well-known sites like GameFAQs, if a new game like SMB were released today with Warp Zones that could reduce the game's playtime to fewer minutes than you have fingers, no one would buy it.

Also, if it's not been mentioned yet, early video games were mere diversions - there wasn't much to them.  The people who did want to spend a lot of time on arcade-style games wanted to get the highest scores or reach the highest level (in arcade games, they would tend to repeat after a while).  So the easy deaths increased play time there.  Plus, dying a lot meant more quarters were pumped into the machine to gain more lives and/or to continue.  Even when games became more story-based, the quick deaths were still there for a little while as a carryover from arcade games.

[KDR_11k]

One part of one-hit-deaths was that you'd lose powerups when hit. These days few games have powerups that are lost at one hit and you always have loads of safety nets.

[Djunknown]

Quote
In this way, turn-based RPGs are just a way of telling a (comparatively) short story over a very long period of time by holding the story hostage until you put more time into the game.

Part of the appeal of RPG's in general is starting out as a complete wimp, then turning into a complete badass. Final Fantasy VI was long enough as is, even if you didn't do any power leveling. If your characters are even half decent at the start then turn into unstoppable war gods by the time you get at the middle, wouldn't it lose some of its appeal?

Skies of Arcadia took this idea to the extreme, but its the exception to the rule, which proves the rule.

I doubt that turn based RPG's won't go extinct, they'll just evolve. Mist Walker's Blue Dragon is still predomintantly turn-based, but does have a few 'live' actions to keep you involved. "For instance, you can choose to charge most magic spells before casting them. Depending on long you charge, the caster might fall back several slots in the action queue (Clearly indicated by the on-screen menu.)" That was taken from Game Informer's Feburary issue.

If you're talking about random battles, yeah that's something that is fading away. The turn based genre however, isn't something that's going to die easily.

[MarioAllStar]

Quote
Originally posted by: JonLeungNow with the Internet and well-known sites like GameFAQs, if a new game like SMB were released today with Warp Zones that could reduce the game's playtime to fewer minutes than you have fingers, no one would buy it.

I don't think that is true. I have known about the Warp Zones for as long as I have been playing the game (10+ years) and it has never stood in the way of me having fun. I recently sat down and played SMB from start to finish (no warping) and had a good time doing so. The point is, people would discover the Warp Zones, say "oh cool", and then proceed to play through the rest of the game because they want to see it all. At least that's what I would do...

[Ceric]

I personally still think that Minigame Turn Base RPG is the future.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: Djunknown
Part of the appeal of RPG's in general is starting out as a complete wimp, then turning into a complete badass. Final Fantasy VI was long enough as is, even if you didn't do any power leveling. If your characters are even half decent at the start then turn into unstoppable war gods by the time you get at the middle, wouldn't it lose some of its appeal?

The game gives you this sense of accomplishment not because of personal skill but because of the amount of time put into the game.

When you're an unstoppable war god at the end of a turn-based RPG, it's because you put enough time into the game. No other reason.

When you're an unstoppable war god when you reach skill level 2500 in Wii Boxing, it's because you actually learned how to play better until you could overcome the challenges presented to you.

Turn-based RPGs have no skill involved. They are, to date, the genre which is least deserving of the title "game" because all you do is make decisions and allow the random number generator to decide the outcome based on values. Turn-based RPGs are a poorly-implemented combat simulation with a (usually) weak storyline tacked on.

I have more respect for games like Tales of Symphonia which have live combat, actually allowing the skill of the player to improve in combat so it has an effect on the game. However, turn-based RPGs which have no player inputs beyond menu selections are NOT games: they're sim-stories.

The only thing separating you from having the highest level in a turn-based RPG is time. Not skill, time. Ergo, it's not a "game" at all. It's a time-release story which may or may not suck with a thin veil of player interaction thrown in so they could put it on a gaming console instead of having to release it in another format where it would have to compete with REAL story-driven media.

Games which you start out as a complete wimp but then become better because you learn to play better are and always will be vastly superior experiences to turn-based RPGs.

TBRPGs are the gaming equivalent of hunting quail with their wings clipped in fenced-in areas: even the most stubborn of participants are forced to admit that there's no challenge in what they're doing.