Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

I keep hearing that we’re playing next generation games on next generation consoles. I see the graphics, and they’re amazing. I hear the Dolby 5.1, 7.1, or whatever we’re up to now, and am amazed at the things this generation of consoles can do. I hear about innovations in the industry to bring an amazing amount of convenience to gamers. I don’t even have to leave the house to get a new demo, trailer, movie, or even a full game. I can get it all while sitting on my couch. Every developer, platform holder, and magazine says that gaming is on the cutting edge of technology. Why, if consoles are so advanced, don’t they all come with hard drives? Why can’t I save my game when I want to? Why then, when I want to play at a friend’s house, does it feel like we’ve taken a huge generational leap back?

It seems that the obsession with graphics and gameplay have left the essentials in the dust. Developers are forgetting the fundamentals, simple things that, when they go right, go unnoticed. It may seem like nothing, but a bad save system can truly break a game.

Having not played a new Japanese RPG since Final Fantasy X I’ve been quite pleased with the experience so far in Lost Odyssey. The game is well made, the characters well crafted and even funny, and the combat system adds a little something new to the mix. Best of all though, when I die in battle, I don’t have to start from my last save. Checkpoints are nothing new to gaming, but for a JRPG to utilize such a system is amazing.

Of course, checkpoint systems don’t always work as well. Kane & Lynch is a perfect example of an incredibly poorly placed checkpoint. There is a fight in a construction yard, which involves the player controlling Lynch needing to run into a small pit or be crushed by a truck. The fight is just after a pair of cut scenes, only one of which is skippable. After sitting through the scene, the player then has about three seconds (this is not an exaggeration) to get into a hole that’s about three seconds away or die and have to watch it again. I repeated this sequence about twenty times before I managed to properly get into the hole.

If we’re truly in the next generation of gaming, then developers need to realize that we’re no longer in the age of arcade games with unfair difficulties to eat quarters. Though most things have been monetized in games, I still don’t have to spend Microsoft Magic Money for continues, so why make games that flat out end when I die?

Bioshock, arguably the best game of 2007, features Vita-Chambers which restore players to life after falling in combat. The game is still quite challenging, and the limited ammo throughout most of the game makes a run and gun approach quite painful. Sure, anyone can get through the game using only the wrench and respawning constantly, but is that really a big deal? They won’t have the same quality of experience that I had, trying my damnedest to stay alive.

A recent playthrough of Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 really brought this to light. As an Xbox LIVE Arcade game, it seems more akin to those of a real arcade. Not allowing level select until the game is beaten and not allowing for enough continues for casual players to complete the game on normal difficulty just screams quarter eater.

The biggest problem comes not from the games however - it comes directly from the 360 itself and the Xbox LIVE service. Let’s set the scene. My friend and I play a few hours of Gears of War cooperatively at my place, go out to eat, and then decide to head over to his apartment to finish up the campaign. So, what’s the process?

Step 1 – Run to Best Buy, pick up a memory unit.

Step 2 – Go back to my house, plug in memory unit

Step 3 – Transfer both gamer profiles and saved games

Step 4 – Go to his apartment, plug in memory unit

Step 5 – Transfer all files to his Xbox.

Of course, if I don’t take the memory unit with me when I go home, I’ve got to recover my Gamertag before I’m able to play again. For some reason, even though the process seems to be as easy as downloading a 5-10 MB file, it takes a few minutes. And heaven forbid I try and delete a Gamertag off of the memory card, I’ll also lose the Gamertag currently on my 360 and all my saved data with it. Odd, I don’t remember my PSX and Nintendo 64 being this much of a hassle.

This could all be dealt with quite easily, the same way it’s been dealt with in MMORPGs and even email services for years. Microsoft could give us a little bang for the five bucks a month we’re paying them and host our saves online. Microsoft offers five gigs of free space to anyone signing up for Hotmail, why can’t they give us paying Xbox 360 users just one?

For a company trying to forge into the brave new world of digital distribution, this seems like the least they could do. Imagine logging on to Xbox live from any 360 across the country and having access to game saves. This isn’t new or revolutionary, but for some reason, this simple and elegant solution goes ignored.

Until simple issues like saves or the ability to play my game at someone else’s house are taken care of, I find it impossible to consider the 360 to be next gen. It’s a great system, has some amazing games and boy do they look pretty, and the advancements of Xbox LIVE (and Bungie.net) cannot be discounted, but it takes a process that was simple on every system to come before it and makes it difficult and frustrating.

When game and system developers get these simple problems solved, I’ll gladly bow down to the next generation of systems. Until then, I see a graphical advancement, basic online functionality, a new controller, and not much else.