DrRandle

Points - Gotta catch 'em all  

Craig Harris of IGN seems quite adamant that Nintendo needs an achievement system, and there's little reason to believe otherwise. Maybe the Wii and DS don't need an achievement system, but to say it wouldn't be cool to have one seems a little small-minded. Achievements are big, and while achievement whoring is unsightly, there really is something gratifying about S-Ranking your favorite game. I decided to think how a Nintendo game with achievements would effect me. Naturally, this lead to thinking about what would happen if Pokemon had achievements.
 
Pokemon, for the record, happens to be one of my favorite games. I'm not trying to say it's brilliant, but I think there is a genius and joy to the simple pleasure of raising your favorite pet monsters. And the series is surprisingly complex, with a mountain of content and activities to keep you more busy than most games. The only reason I bother mentioning this is because if Pokemon DID have achievements tied to it, I would likely be on that S-Rank list. I thought it prudent to share my thoughts on some ideas for good and bad achievements, designed roughly to accommodate the sort of do's and don'ts associated with the 360's own system.
 
First, they're called a Poke-chievements. Deal with that. 
 
Now, your typical 360 game has 1,000 achievement points spread across roughly 50 unlocks. You can probably approximate your own values here; I'm just to lazy to assign the points. Also, I'll be using Pokemon Platinum as an example because it's more recent and it gives me a lot to work with. Here's how they look: 
 
   Achievement Name - Achievement description - Personal commentary.
  

1. I Choose You!  - Select your starting Pokemon. - Who doesn't love a starter achievement.
2. One down... -  Catch your first Pokemon. - It's a long way to go from here.
3. Gem of a Town - Reach Sandgem. - Exploration achievements are also awesome.
4. This is the Life - Reach Jubilife. - More exploration!
5. Gear Up - Obtain the Poketch. - It's great for telling the time.
6. Rocky Road - Reach Oreburgh. - Alternatively: "Ore Not to Be"
7. Badge Coal-ector - Obtain the Coal Badge. - Yes, I also like puns.
8. This is the Life - Reach Jubilife City. - Exploration is key.
9. The Solution - Evolve a Pokemon for the first time. - If you're gonna win...
10. Two for the Route - Win your first Double Trainer Battle - You're a 1 man tag-team.
11. Smell's nice... - Reach Floaroma Town - Use flower power.
12. Mars Attacks! - Defeat Team Galactic Commander Mars - Gotta fight for your right to move ahead in the story.
13. Is that... Cheryl?! - Accompany Cheryl to the end of the forest - Yes, that was a Silent Hill reference.
14. Gotta See 'em All - 50 - See all of the pokemon (excludes special event Pokemon). - Nobody should expect you to see Mew for an achievement.
15. Eternally Yours - Reach Eterna City - Do it, now.
16. Trim the Hedges - Obtain the Forest Badge.
17. They're Heeeeeere - Encounter Rotom - I still love that he gets boss music.
18. Jupiter Attacks! - Defeat Team Galactic Commander Jupiter. - Alternatively: "He's Jupiter than You"
19. Senior Explorer - Complete the Underground tutorial. - Down in the Underground~
20. Mira, This Way! - Accompany Mira to the end of the Cave. - Mira also means "look," in Spanish!
21. That Hairstyle is a Relic - Obtain the Relic Badge - Her fashion statement says "Yep, that's purple"
22. Home Away from Home - Reach Solaceon Town. - As an avid fan of breeding, I spend way too much time in Solaceon.
23. The Next Generation - Hatch a Pokemon Egg that your Pokemon made. - Knockin' those Poke-boots together.
24. That Ol' Cobble Road - Obtain the Cobble Badge - Maybe she's born with it... Maybe it's Maylene.
25. On Safari - Catch more than 5 Pokemon in the Great Marsh
26. What's Past is Pastoria - Reach Pastoria - Are these exploration achievements getting too frequent?
27. Fen for Yourself - Obtain the Fen badge - Give Crasher an elbow drop.
28. Maid of Honor - Defeat the young Master or Mistress of Pokemon Mansion - Because there's 5 maids before that, you see.
29. An Ancient Place... - Reach Celestic Town - It's where the old people live.
30. The Eerie Canal - Reach Canalave City. - That hotel still creeps me out.
31. Riley's Ranger - Accompany Riley to the end of the cave. - Kids sure do love that Lucario.
32. What's Yours is Mine - Obtain the Mine Badge - If he isn't voiced by Steve Blum in the anime, somebody dropped the ball.
33. Icicle, You-cicle - Obtain the Icicle Badge. - I hate the cold.
34. Saturn Attacks! - Defeat Team Galactic Commander Saturn - Alternatively "Your Turn, Saturn!"
35. Done with Cyrus - Defeat Cyrus. - He's kind of a big deal.
36. Giratina, I Choose You! - Capture Giratina - A legendary feat, no?
37. A Beacon of Light - Obtain the Beacon Badge - Please shut Volkner's whiny self up.
38. League Champion! - Defeat the Elite Four and Cynthia! - You had to have seen this coming, right?
39. Even More to Go - Obtain the National Pokedex - No, really, gotta catch them all.
40. Master of Time and Space - Capture Dialga and Palkia - Remember when Heroes was good?
41. By the Fullmoon's Light - Capture Cresselia - And then never care about her again.
42. Fight! Survive! Battle - Reach Fight Area. - What a terrible name for a town.
43. The Magnificent Villa - Obtain all the furniture for your villa in the Resort Area. - That's expensive, if you didn't know.
44. Ribbon Master - Obtain the Luxury Royal Ribbon - Because I'm a dick.
45. Hot in Here - Capture Heatran - And then stop caring about him.
46. The Secret Undersea Master - Fish up a Level 100 Magikarp - I did it. Now you have to. For the points.
47. Champion isn't Enough - Defeat the 5 Battle Frontier Leaders - You know, I still haven't done this.
48. Dig, Dug - Dig up 100 items in The Underground. - with David Bowie.
49. Fashionable - Win the highest rank in a Contest. - Do it with a Purugly for maximum win.
50. Triple 7's - Get a jackpot in the Veilstone Game Corner.

 
 
Gotta Trade 'em All - Perform X trades with your friends - It always kind of bothers me when there's an achievement that requires that you have friends who all have the same schedule as you. It's not that I'm a social misanthrope, I just don't think it's necessarily proper to punish someone for not having friends as obsessed with the game as you are, or not having a the ability to play online, or in the case of some games, when the server goes down. Now of course some games, like Team Fortress 2, can't NOT have multi-player achievements, but Modern Warfare 2 did it right by having the online multi-player use it's own reward system. 
 
Gotta Really Catch 'em All - First of all, only kids with no time and people who are insane (I am of the latter) will spend the time to complete their Pokedex. It's not particularly fair because it requires having other games or friends with the other games to obtain. I don't really see the point of making someone buy other games to get the achievement in your game. Also, requiring that they find legendaries is kind of weak. Seeing other Pokemon helps keep the idea of the game's addictive nature, while requiring less-than-insane objectives. 
  
The new Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver are coming out tomorrow, so it's unlikely that they'll have achievements. But should the future series have them, what would you like to see? How do you feel about an achievement system in your Pokemon games? Do you already have that S-Rank? I would, as always, love to hear your thoughts below. 
 
Also, feel free to stalk me on Twitter.

In a recent article (though not recent enough; thanks new job! (no, really, thanks.)) I listed off a few titles that I would love to see released. Among them, I mentioned Dotstream. At the media summit on Wednesday, Nintendo announced the upcoming title Light Trax, a part of their Art Style banner that is clearly one of the original 6 Bit Generations stepping up to the plate.
 
The original Dotstream was about racing your colored light on a track against other lights, dodging obstacles along the way. It had a somewhat F-Zero, but simplified, style to the gameplay. I'm not sure if it ever had a multi-player, but that seems like it would have been a perfect fit for the GBA, where each player has their own screen.
 
Light Trax continues that tradition, but throws in some three-dimensional aspects, in what I assume to be another mode, with the original style of gameplay remaining intact. The goal is to drive around and hit boosts and avoid areas that drag you down, and to win the race. The new perspective of shifting into in new directions, dodging three-dimensional objects, and even doing a little Audiosurf-style tunnel-running is much more in the vain of F-Zero: GX.
 
I'm really glad to see this game, but I can't help but be a little disappointed in the back of my head that this won't be the original Dotstream on DSiWare, as I was sure that's where we would see it. The new 3D stuff is great, but I'm not sure how it will play, and if it will be enough to justify taking up my big screen. Also, being on DSiWare would have afforded the game some great local multi-player races, whereas the Wii version, I assume, will contain none of that.
 
So the overall lesson here is that it's good to see Nintendo continuing to localize and import some titles from it's overseas branch. Along similar lines they've also announced X-Scape, a remake of an old GameBoy title simply named X (which leaves me unable to decide whether or not the new name is clever). They've also announced that some exclusive Club.Nintendo merchandise will be coming soon, a previously japan-only title and another small Game and Watch Collection.
 
There's been a lot of other Nintendo news, but I think everybody will be soaking up the Mario and the Metroid stuff, so it's of no surprise. What do you think of these upcoming re-releases? Anything you're excited for, or still pining for? Love to hear from you in the comments section.
 
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Dear followers and anyone else who finds this, 
 
I apologize, but Giant Bomb is a problem with copying and pasting, and honestly, I just don't feel like working around it by reinstalling other browsers or retyping my article. So I link now to my blog on The Examiner and ask that you humbly forgive me. From here I out I will to take into account my technical difficulties and plan around them.
 
This does not change me wanting to hear what you think, be it in the comments below or the comments on my Examiner page. For full disclosure, my Examiner blog is a free-lance gig that does occasionally pay based on hits and comments and views. but I'm not in this for the money, I'm just here for the experience. I would greatly appreciate feedback and as always, you can follow me on Twitter @DocRandle.
 
Thanks, and have a great day.

For the health of it 

Health. Shields. General well-being. Size. Sanity. There's a lot of ways a game can tell you how well you're doing, and even more ways it can display it. Sometimes it's a health bar, sometimes it's a number of HP (Hit Points), and sometimes it's how your character looks. I think it's time we sat down and talked about what really works, and what doesn't in a game. Now of course, there is no real "Golden Rule." Some games can do things that others can't, but it should be safe to say that there are some good base rules that can be laid down. Regardless of what you call it (rings, health bars, hit points), we will refer to this general concept as "health" for the sake of this article.

Display your dismay 

If there's one thing that's more aggravating than losing health, it's not knowing why. Setting up a central hud element that points to the direction of your damage, especially in a first person shooter, is key. Imagine how frustrating Left 4 Dead would be if it didn't tell you there was a zombie right behind you. Most games have figured this out, and it's pretty common, but every now and again someone drops the ball. The original Mass Effect comes to mind, where the flashes of red were barely visible, very broad, and quick to disappear. 

It's not just about clearly showing the direction, though. A player should be able to tell where the projectiles are coming from, if they're in a position to know. Borderlands does a wonderful job of trailing each bullet with a long, white streak that is easily visible and points your enemies out clearly. This allows you to take cover in the proper direction, while helping you to locate your enemy which makes for better gun-play. Unless you're dealing with purposefully hidden snipers, a visual cue like trailing bullets or distant muzzle flash is key to a less frustrating experience. 

Health Utility Display 

What's the proper way to display health on the user interface? The classic is a health bar. Ideally, it should always be displayed somewhere on the screen in a place that's easy to find and not in the way. Typically a corner is the ideal location, although games like Metroid Prime have managed to move it to a more central location, without getting in the way. 

However, some games have proven a little more esoteric about displaying health. The earlier Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles, for instance, require a player to pause a game, and then read the color of a snapshot of their current situation to figure out "about" how hurt they are. Having to pause the game to understand the situation is a bad idea, because your player is required to leave the moment and break their immersion. 

The knowledge of a character's health should always be immediately available to the player. Not juts full health, or low health, but any health. Some games prefer to hide your health unless you're under immediate stress or even until you actually start taking damage. Theoretically, this is to minimize HUD elements, keeping a player more immersed, but it ends up being more frustrating and leading to a weaker design. A developer's best bet would be to follow in the examples of Dead Space and Borderlands: Integration through narrative. This may not work as well for more realistic games, but anyone willing to make a small stretch of the imagination can find plenty of HUD-less solutions. In a much less realistic, but incredibly useful move, the original Mario Bros. let you know whether or not you were allowed to take a hit by showing Mario as being twice as big, which also served as a unique game mechanic in physically traversing the two-dimensional world.

"Hero, your health is low" 

Now that we've discussed the where and how a health bar should be displayed, let's talk about the tricky solution on what to do when that bar starts to sink as the danger sets in. The new super-popular trend is to have red start creeping in from the sides to alert you that you're in trouble, and I would like to dicuss why this is the worst idae to have found it's way into video games since the tailing mission. At best, the encroaching red display is mostly distant and relatively calm. At it's worst, this style of danger- warning covers almost everything on the screen and deafens the sound (save for a slow-pounding heartbeat for some reason). Thanks to this new visual and audio barrier it will be harder to find cover, harder to locate your enemies, and more difficult to defend yourself outside of firing blindly ahead. The end result? Frustration in the player. If the developer's intent is to aggrivate the player as a punishment for getting hit with a bullet, I suppose it's "Mission Accomplished," but if you're trying to display health issues during a fire fight, might I recommend something less game-ruining? Turning the entire world black and white is a popular variation to this mechanic. While not as damaging, it can still be a great hinderance to the player who is already struggling to survive.

For the record, nobody violates this worst than Modern Warfare 2, who finds it necessary to splatter your screen with rasberry preserves every time you take a bullet to the shin. How it gets there, and why, I have no idea, but enjoy the blindness, I guess. 

The alternative to this is an audio cue, which in the older days wasn't well implemented, either. I think everyone can relate to tearing the garden apart in Zelda to find one more heart that will end the insufferable beeping sound. While a completely different than your standard health mechanic, Yoshi's Island had a similar irritating quality: whenever you were hit by anything, Baby Mario would become suddeny enveloped in a bubble and would drift around screaming at the top of his lungs for you to rescue him before a timer hit 0 and you officially lost.

However, in this day and age, since regenerating health and shields are all the rage, a beeping or buzzing would serve a much better purpose. It needs to go away as soon as you're out of trouble (or at least behind cover). It's just as immediate, if not more so, without being as intrusive as the encroaching redness. Kirby games tend to do something similar, giving you a loud beep as soon as you enter low-health teritory, but leaving it to the player to remember that they were low afterwards.

How's your health? 

Overall, I think the games that have tackled this matter best are Borderlands, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, and Super Mario Bros. They're clear, concise, sometimes part of the actual fiction, and very intuitive. 

On the side of needing improvement, we have Mass Effect 2 (What's the point of a regenerating health bar and shields? Just have one long bar that regenerates. Also, displaying your health and the health of your teammates needs to be consistent and more clear), Modern Warfare 2 (getting shot in the knee does not splatter jelly all over my eyes, and it's unclear how much more damage I can take before death), and Pokemon (Sure it's clear, but in a game that isn't even action based, a constant beeping is ridiculous and irritating, especially when a healing item takes you out of the red). 

So what do you think? Any other pros or cons to health readings you think should be mentioned? Maybe something you think I'm incorrect about? Perhaps you can explain to me the fascination with regenerating shields/health, which I personally believe most games implement in a more harmful manner that constantly stops the action. Also feel free to list games you think have performed well or poorly below. 

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Crafty Japanophiles have uncovered new information regarding two new Pokemon from the next generation of games, a project that was announced earlier this month. Supposedly they're going to be upgrading the mechanics and trying to give the series a more fresh set of improvements, but whatever. Let's talk new faces. Here they are:

   
Part of me wants to believe these aren't even real based on two things: the first is that they kind of don't really even look like Pokemon. Maybe the one on the right (clearly the unevolved form), but that thing on the left... I don't know, maybe. The other reason I don't think they're real leads back to the misinformation I remember finding about the last generation of Pokemon games. IGN says they're supposed to be dark types, which only further leads my suspicion. Seeing as how dark types are generally regarded as being "cool" by the older crowd (likely because they're dark and gritty), if someone WERE to make up fake Pokemon, dark would be the first type I would expect them to do.
 
In any case, I don't suppose it looks too terrible. I would expect some fire in there, if it's not strictly dark, just because of the little flame tuft of hair on the tiny guy's head. It's not the worst designed Pokemon (*Cough*Claydol*Cough*). I hope this is not a symbol of some crazy direction they're taking with the next generation designs. I don't need them trying to give my Pokemans an edge. I'm not one of those people who thinks there hasn't been a cool Pokemon since the original 150... not by a long shot. I love Loudred and Bastiodon and whatever that crazy Metroid Prime looking thing Shellos evolves into....I'm just worried that we don't really need more monsters. Allthough I should have known they would never stop. They will never stop. Even if the series does evolve into a completely new type of game, there will always be new monsters piled on top.
 
I'll save my discussion on how to make a better Pokemon for closer to the release of HeartGold and SoulSilver, so for now, let's just talk about our thoughts on this Pokemon, shall we?