Dcubed

Is the measure of how addictive a game is now also a measure of quality? I thought it was how enjoyable the actual experience was? Can you not see the difference between those new frontiers of design and the dawn of modern achivements? Not all forms of change are bad at all, but in this case where games are moving beyond simply providing a satisfying experience, towards being designed to fulfil OC tendencies (thank you for the correction Diageo!) I don't see that as a positive change at all. Perhaps it's best illustrated here: http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html Same goes for Free 2 Play/Freemium games, only they are 10 times worse! (but that's a different topic all together)

OMGOMGOMGOMG Paging @RedShell now... Redshell come in! About fucking time! So that's everything now! No more US regional exclusives! HA HA WE WIN! (and with one regional exclusive on our side, One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP, to boot!)

Noice! I guess this is B&W2's equivalent of the launch day Victiny event!

I wonder if Mario's movement speed will also increase alongside the faster scrolling? That would make things a lot more interesting!

There's your western Monster Hunter game!

I wonder how Boost Mode will differ from NSMB2's Cannon levels, sounds very similar in concept... The world map stuff sounds crazy, definitely taking a page out of Super Mario World's book. Me likey!

Surprise surprise! The Metroid game is Battle Mii! The Balloon Fight game sounds fun, but the Gamepad's use sounds a bit too similar to Donkey Kong's Crash Course for my liking... Will have to see footage...

There's a big difference between a naturally developed OCD tendency to gaming as a whole and a system that is specifically designed to pray upon OCD tendencies. A person can become addicted to anything, but certain things are designed to be as addictive as possible. Drugs, alcohol, nicotine, MMO games and yes these Achivement/Metagame systems are much more addictive by design than other substences/objects. But naturally, only people with addictive personalities/tendencies will fall pray to these substences to begin with (and indeed to differing extents, depending on how susceptible the subject is)

If the game never had external achievement rewards, they probably wouldn't buy the game in the first place if they weren't interested in it to begin with. Secondly, in game achievements, grinding and the OCD that drives completionists to work through an otherwise boring game have a finite end to it. Once a game has been completed, that's the end of the addiction. These meta game systems however, have no end and will seemingly continue forever, perpetually praying on these OCD tendencies for profit for as long as the service runs. Note the pre-requisites for endless playing as laid out by John Hopson http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131494/behavioral_game_design.php?page=2 Both the immediate variable reward schedule (Achivements) and the avoidance schedule (oneupsmanship via Gamerscore) are both in place in modern achievement systems... The fact that these metagame systems are public via the internet as well only serves to heighten the effect further. What would otherwise have limited impact is heightened greatly, to the point where it could well be dangerous.

With those old ingame challenges (like the ones you see in Goldeneye), the reward is intrinsic to the game itself and completely useless and undesirable to someone who does not like the game. Modern achievements however offer an external reward for completing a task. It's this change that makes all the difference, as it encourages those with OCD to complete tasks they otherwise wouldn't want to do by offering an external prize for completion. Suddenly someone who hates the game that they're playing might want to complete that task in order to win those Gamerscore points. Much like how people play slot machines in the hope of winning money. The reason for playing changes. You would never bother to complete Expert difficulty to get an Infinite Ammo Rocket Launcher if you didn't like the game to begin with, but if you were offered 40G for completing Expert and you hated the game, you might just well do it.

Whoops! Must be all that 3DS playing doing my eyes in (ZOMG!!! THE DAILY MAIL WAS RIGHT!!!) And you're absolutely right about this list being difficult to make. Just making the honourable mentions took forever, and that could've easily have been made much longer if I showed a shread of leniency! (I dare not speak of how long the top 10 took ). The Wii really did accumulate a great library (3rd party games and all!) I always love this part of a console cycle though. Always a nice warm feeling that you get, looking back at the final result. Always a very different perspective comes out when you look back without the frustrations of the staggered release lists and politics behind the generational cycle clouding your judgement, as you can just look back at what the console was, rather than what it was not It's like with the GCN, how we all got frustrated with the lack of certain multi platform releases and delays upon delays, but now we can just look back fondly on the games we did get in their final state. Always 2 sides to the coin there are!

I can see why you picked HOTDOverkill then! Brilliant writing in that game! Easily one of the funniest games I've ever played. If the gameplay was as good as the writing, I'd have gladly added it to my list! (sadly it doesn't come close to the mainline HOTD games in that respect ) I'm surprised that you didn't have No More Heroes in your list (not even an honourable mention!). Would've thought that would be right up your alley... (I loved it at least, sequel is nowhere near as good though...) Yeah me too. I would've thought it to be a lot more Nintendo heavy than it has turned out to be! (plus a good few of my choices were collab 1st/3rd party titles) Man I wish I could've played MHTri with you guys (DAMN YOU CAPCPOM FOR REGION LOCKING THE SERVERS!)

Fixed. Cheers! (Had to make up for RedShell's lack of Xenoblade representation!) : peace:

Ahh, it warms the cockles of my heart to see some real surprise choices (never would I have expected Rabbids Go Home!), nice to see some variety with some of the choices round here And with that said, here's my contribution...

OH MY GOD SUPER HEXAGON IS UTTERLY AMAZING!!! It's from the creator of VVVVVV and it's probably the most simple game in the whole world! (move left or right, that's it!) There's a Flash demo version available here (warning, do not play at work or you'll never get anything done!) http://distractionware.com/games/flash/hexagon/ If you got hooked on VVVVVV's Super Gravitron, this is the game for you!

AFAIK they're all new. There's no puzzle creator however (nor is there one in Picross e2 either - but there's an additional extra mode in that game that's never been seen in a Picross game before)

Direct feed shots and more info! http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/9/5/3293494/ace-attorney-5-project-leads-discuss-story-elements-new-characters

I got 8 Streetpasses yesterday here in London. I frequently get at least 2 a day on my daily commute My Streetpass tally currently stands at 557 :p

Ok, so they screw us out of Monster Hunter 3G, an already localised entry in a series that sells more in the west than Ace Attorney, but we get AA5? Fucking Capcpom logic...

Confirmed for a western release!!! http://kotaku.com/5940820/report-ace-attorney-5-is-coming-to-the-west REJOICE! Still, fuck you Capcpom for not releasing AAI2 and Monster Hunter 3G over here though

The Vita version of Remote play as is used with GOW Collection and Ico/SOTC Collection is very impressive! The video is still capped at 30FPS, the video is noticably compressed (though much better looking than the old PSP video), there's a little bit of audio skipping, but the latency is very good with very little lag at around 6 feet of distance! (It's a bit noticable, but I've felt HDTVs with worse input lag than this - GOW Collection is very playable! ) I've yet to try longer distances (where I'm sure it wont keep up - and I'm not gonna bother with it over the internet), but I reckon it's good enough to try for another play through of Ico in this manner. Should give me a nice taste of what's to come with the Wii U Edit: Just tried it from the other end of my house, no problems... except for button mashing QTEs in GOW - for some reason they seem to kill the video stream (at close range, they work though) Not bad all in all, just avoid playing anything too button mashy at long distances and it's mostly perfectly playable (If not perfectly perfect) Now, how's about getting more games working with it Sony?

True, but we don't know exactly what the final overworked map will be like. They could have visable events happen on there that hint at levels to come later on (or even level hints that turn out to be false as levels get swapped out for different ones in front of your eyes - that would be cool!)

It's not the achievements themselves that are the problem, it's the OS level Gamerscore/Level points metagame system that is the issue. Achivements are just behavioural modifiers that encourage a person to play a game in a specific way, but these metagame/gamification systems utilise the same staggered reward scheduling techniques as what MMOs and slot machines use to pray on people with OCD tendencies in order to install addiction. Combining the two together is very effective in encouraging people to buy and play through games they wouldn't otherwise enjoy in order to raise their gamerscore/trophy level (ask yourself how many people you've seen asking how many trophies a game has, or saying "no achievements/trophies, no buy!") The combination of the two changes the very game that vulnerable people play. Now they're no longer playing Gears of War or GTA, but instead they're playing the achievements game (where these games are reduced to being a barrier between an addict and their gamerscore) That's why I don't like the typical OS level achivement system (though per game achievements are fine, because there's no addictive element involved in them that would otherwise not be there in the game itself)

Just saw scans... Wow! Can't believe that's made with pologonal 3D, it looks almost identical to the 2D art!! Simply amazing!

The Gamerscore/Level system with PS360/Steam is designed to be as addictive as possible. It's there to provide a carrot for running on an endless treadmill and utilises the same techniques as used in MMOs and gambling machines in the aim to pray upon people with addictive tendencies. How is that not intrinsicly evil? And there's no way to avoid using them since they're mandatory. You have to use them in some fashion, be it a shitty treadmill running task (kill 100 pigeons in GTA4 or find all flags in Asscreed), a tutorial framing device (Minecraft 360), an incentive to beat each level (Gears of War and most other level based games) or an incentive to explore alternative forms of gameplay experimentation (Geometry Wars 2). The point is that devs have no choice, even when it doesn't suit their game (Ico & Shadow of the Collosus) and oftentimes, it influences the rest of the game's design to be built around them (GTA 4, most EA games etc) A game shouldn't require extrinsic rewards to be worth playing, publishers/platform holders shouldn't exploit vulnerable people and developers shouldn't be forced to design around a skinner box system.