thebooboo
Still Fresh
Hello all,
The GP2X has been out for some months now, but I still feel it's missing a "killer app". Certainly there have been some great ports, emulators and original games for it, and some might say that the open nature of the system is in itself a killer app. But the bottom line is, I still play my DS and my PSP all the time, and hardly ever play on my GP2X. In my personal opinion this is because:
1. I personally only get limited enjoyment out of emulators. You can't (legally) enjoy them properly unless you have a big collection of old games, which then makes downloading the ROMs for them legal. If you don't own the originals, then you're effectively saying "GP2X is the best handheld for piracy" which is not the message I think we should be sending out.
2. A lot of the games are re-makes/clones of other games which are available in a more polished form as commercial games. Good examples of these are Vektar and Extender. These are both excellent and fun games, but you can't play them without thinking of Geometry Wars (360) and Every Extend Extra (forthcoming on PSP), which have a lot of extra sheen to them.
3. Most of the games are coded by lone coders, who don't have the time and resources to create games with the level of sophistication of a commercial PSP or DS release.
Whether or not you agree with me, these are all issues that a casual gamer would agree with on the GP2X (except 1. because most people, it seems, STILL don't have any moral qualms about piracy). But it doesn't have to be this way. Successful open source projects, such as GIMP, KDE etc. compare very favourably with their commercial, proprietary counterparts (Photoshop and Windows Desktop in this case) for usability, feature set and stability. It's in all our interests to prove that an open-source console CAN work, and to sustain this model for future generations of independent game developers.
So what am I proposing? I think we should introduce a "GP2X Deluxe" Brand that could be given to games deemed by a collective of GP2X scenesters to be of sufficiently high quality (a bit like the Nintendo seal of approval). A collection of these games could be bundled with new GP2Xs - making the console a far more attractive proposition. This would hopefully encourage more group efforts (perhaps via sourceforge etc?) and the emergence of games that can truly compete with commercial releases. This in turn would increase GP2X uptake and therefore increase the viability of commercial development for the system.
Here are my suggestions for criteria for the GP2X Deluxe brand:
1. Scene changes (such as changes between title screens/level screens) should be sone using fade effects or some other smooth transition rather than simply "chopping" between screens (99% of all commercial releases have this).
2. Games that are ports or re-makes should be self-contained (ie: not requiring users to locate shareware PC version of game etc.) and also be legal (not using protected IP eg: images of Sonic the Hedgehog). They should also have unique distinguishing features that seperate them from the original game, such as re-vamped graphics, extra levels, extra options, extra gameplay features.
3. They should be deemed to be as "substantial" in terms of lastability as an equivalent commercial release - obviously this is contraversial and subjective.
Please can you all let me know your thoughts on this - I am aware that some of the things I have said may offend some people, but I'm just trying to help move the scene forward.
The GP2X has been out for some months now, but I still feel it's missing a "killer app". Certainly there have been some great ports, emulators and original games for it, and some might say that the open nature of the system is in itself a killer app. But the bottom line is, I still play my DS and my PSP all the time, and hardly ever play on my GP2X. In my personal opinion this is because:
1. I personally only get limited enjoyment out of emulators. You can't (legally) enjoy them properly unless you have a big collection of old games, which then makes downloading the ROMs for them legal. If you don't own the originals, then you're effectively saying "GP2X is the best handheld for piracy" which is not the message I think we should be sending out.
2. A lot of the games are re-makes/clones of other games which are available in a more polished form as commercial games. Good examples of these are Vektar and Extender. These are both excellent and fun games, but you can't play them without thinking of Geometry Wars (360) and Every Extend Extra (forthcoming on PSP), which have a lot of extra sheen to them.
3. Most of the games are coded by lone coders, who don't have the time and resources to create games with the level of sophistication of a commercial PSP or DS release.
Whether or not you agree with me, these are all issues that a casual gamer would agree with on the GP2X (except 1. because most people, it seems, STILL don't have any moral qualms about piracy). But it doesn't have to be this way. Successful open source projects, such as GIMP, KDE etc. compare very favourably with their commercial, proprietary counterparts (Photoshop and Windows Desktop in this case) for usability, feature set and stability. It's in all our interests to prove that an open-source console CAN work, and to sustain this model for future generations of independent game developers.
So what am I proposing? I think we should introduce a "GP2X Deluxe" Brand that could be given to games deemed by a collective of GP2X scenesters to be of sufficiently high quality (a bit like the Nintendo seal of approval). A collection of these games could be bundled with new GP2Xs - making the console a far more attractive proposition. This would hopefully encourage more group efforts (perhaps via sourceforge etc?) and the emergence of games that can truly compete with commercial releases. This in turn would increase GP2X uptake and therefore increase the viability of commercial development for the system.
Here are my suggestions for criteria for the GP2X Deluxe brand:
1. Scene changes (such as changes between title screens/level screens) should be sone using fade effects or some other smooth transition rather than simply "chopping" between screens (99% of all commercial releases have this).
2. Games that are ports or re-makes should be self-contained (ie: not requiring users to locate shareware PC version of game etc.) and also be legal (not using protected IP eg: images of Sonic the Hedgehog). They should also have unique distinguishing features that seperate them from the original game, such as re-vamped graphics, extra levels, extra options, extra gameplay features.
3. They should be deemed to be as "substantial" in terms of lastability as an equivalent commercial release - obviously this is contraversial and subjective.
Please can you all let me know your thoughts on this - I am aware that some of the things I have said may offend some people, but I'm just trying to help move the scene forward.