There have been a lot of great features added this generation. Online multiplayer isn't new to this gen but it has exploded in popularity, revitalizing once-struggling genres like fighting games and added new dimensions to old ones like platformers or survival horror. Downloadable Content has kept gamers playing for dozens of hours past the ending of said game. Patches and updates have kept console games running smoothly in an era where games are gigantic and out of control. Friends lists and Achievements/Trophies have made gaming a social experience that you share with dozens of friends.
But the real gem of this generation is digital distribution. Xbox Live Arcade has been the trendsetter and for good reason: Microsoft made XBLA a priority from day one and has pushed it since before the console even launched. Every XBLA game comes with a demo. Every XBLA game has 12 achievements for 200 points. Every XBLA game has a size limit.
Or it did, anyway. The original intent of XBLA was to put forth products that would never be available on disc. When XBLA originally launched on Xbox 360, it had a 50mb size restriction. The idea was to create an arcade - bite-sized games that people could play easily. There would be your Pac-Mans and your Galagas and your Hexics and whatever else there, all with a low price point and a marketing push on the 360's dashboard. There would be an opportunity for some new content like Geometry Wars, but XBLA was meant to be a retro thing.
After the smashing success of Geometry Wars, Microsoft got smart and upped that size limit to 150 meg, and later 350 meg. There would still be room for retro stuff like Mega Man 9 or N+ but the new size limit would allow for more meaty, unique experiences. Braid came out in 2008 and put XBLA on the map as a legitimate service to pay attention to. Bionic Commando Rearmed was packed with content at the ridiculously low price of 10 dollars. Castle Crashers proved that the 2d beat-em-up genre was alive and well while rendering the remnants of the dead genre obsolete in the process. Thanks to the low price point and low development costs, people could make refreshingly unique games without destroying a studio if it failed.
Microsoft realized it had something big and removed that size restriction - after all, if somebody wanted to make a large game for their platform, why stop them? Battlefield 1943 showed that you could make a competent multiplayer shooter within the confines of the system, but why go small when you can add tons of features? Why make bite-sized games when you could have full-sized console experiences?
The result is what's plaguing XBLA today. Most notable releases have gone from $10 to $15. Download sizes have ballooned to 2gb. There are 15-20 second load times everywhere to make room for a massive engine. Even Shadow Complex, a game praised as a love letter to Super Metroid, suffers for its choice of engine. Unreal Engine 3 is a powerful piece of tech that has frame drops all over the place and can feel unstable during times where there's too much going on on-screen. Instead of being a tight 2d experience, we get a compromised 2d/3d hybrid that satisfies neither audience. The download size is twice as big as it should be. The visuals are ugly as shit instead of vibrant like a Super Metroid clone ought to be.
Shadow Complex is only the beginning. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a well-designed game that feels like a downsized console game. Splosion Man has unfathomable load times and repetitive level design, issues that would probably be fixed if they just made a straight-up 2d game. Shank is maybe the biggest offender: 15 second load times just to get into the game, a game that emphasizes style over substance. Hydrophobia's big draw was its awesome water physics. Somehow a service designed for retro hits is now about water physics.
What happened here? It could just be bad design but I think it's more than that. The old Xbox Live Arcade forced developers to stay within the confines of the system. Many of the drawbacks of modern gaming -- load times, glitches, frame drops -- are alleviated by the fact that modern games look pretty damn good. With XBLA it's become a downsized version of that - all the load times and none of the graphical awesome. We get all of the brown and grey without any of the setpieces. And it's not cool.
Now that's not to say that XBLA is dead - it obviously isn't. Limbo has a damn captivating artstyle while staying within the confines of the service. It may not have been the masterpiece people were expecting (or think that it is, but that's another story), but it absolutely delivers on what the spirit of XBLA should be. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX channels the spirit of Geometry Wars and turns Pac-Man into an amazing arcade experience. Super Meat Boy is not my favourite game in the world but its look and feel is exactly what you want from a downloadable title. There will be countless examples of intelligent design in 2011 and beyond.
But a lot of what's being churned out these days are downsized big-budget games and that's unfortunate. Once developers were given the go-ahead to do whatever they want, the service degraded in a big way. This will read like an anti-3d post but it's not; on the contrary, I want 3d games to be on disc and given the proper attention that they deserve. 3d games have a lot of moving parts that make it difficult to make a bite-sized version. Flower on PSN is a great example of the right way to do a game like this, as is Fat Princess. Both are games that are not limited by the service. Hydrophobia, on the other hand, is a console game being sold as a downloadable because it isn't good enough to warrant a retail release or a $60 price tag. They should go all-out and make it a full-scale game or not try to make it. Either go big or don't go at all.
