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TranceJunkie's Super Mario 64 (N64)
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| [February 22, 2007 09:36:10 PM]
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As I was playing through several of the levels on Super Mario 64 I found myself getting bored with them fairly quickly. There were some bouts of fun game play, but they are interspersed with long periods of walking, running, and swimming. I realized that this was why many videos of players online show the player jumping frantically around the screen, in addition of it being faster to moving around, they are trying to add some excitement to the game as they move between different dull parts of the game. I was trying to figure out a reason what causes these periods of unexciting game play in games and I came up with the idea of “Null Space.”
In my view, Null Space occurs when the player is not being challenged, at any level, by the game or is doing a task repeatedly unsuccessfully. Examples of Null Space would be having Mario cross a large open field, such as in the first level, without encountering any kind of obstacle, scenery change, or variation in movement. An example of the first part of my definition is when Mario is simply walking from one place to another without encountering anything or doing anything. From the players prospective, the avatar in the game has stopped progressing through the game and the game no longer is fun. The second part of the definition stipulates that games such as Shadow of the Colossus, where the player rides for long distances over open plains, are not considered, by my definition, to have Null Space. The reason for this is because the player uses their sword to catch the suns rays to point them towards the Colossi. The player is actually doing something to progress the game forward. In addition, the backgrounds and foregrounds are lush in detail, rocks, cliffs, bushes, and animals populate the open space and provide plenty of changing and interactive things to do, creating a fun environment.
Mario fail to provide fun in several places on the game because of Null Space. If the player is unfamiliar with the game, they may start out with a high energy start, as the animations in the game are quite good, but this will quickly dissipate as it is unclear what the player is to do much of the time. They is a lot of run up and down hills looking for tiny red coins and walking to the beginning of a level and encountering absolutely no enemies. If the developers had tightened up the game play a bit more, I think I could have had a lot more fun with this game than I did.
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| [February 22, 2007 08:37:09 PM]
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I vaguely remember playing this game back in the late nineties when it first came out. However, I never really got into the game and do not remember getting very far in the game. After coming back and playing Super Mario 64 again close to 10 years later, I can see why I did not get very far. The game itself is a great set forward from the 2D platformers that came before it, but the controls are just awful, and this contributes to the game not being much fun for me.
Firstly, the Analog Nub of the N64 controller has possibly the worst control of any controller I have ever played with. It stands tall and proud from the awkwardly placed middle handle of the N64 controller. This has several consequences for the player experience. In order to play Mario 64 the player must hold the controller by the side and at an angle. I found this uncomfortable to say the least. The analog nub also has little to no control as to how far it it pushed forward. This leads to many delicately timed jumps turning into Mario running full speed off of a cliff.
Secondly, if the actual controller was not bad enough, Mario seems to have become much more slippery since last we left him. For example in the first level, the player must jump onto a wood pole and butt-smash it into the ground. Simple, I will just run up to the pole and jump then stop moving forward, just like in every other platformer I have played. Mario arrives at the pole, I stop, and he begins to slip away from where I want him. Meanwhile, goombas are attacking and I am running around in circles trying to get on a wooden pole. This happens to me a lot in the game I find it very frustrating.
The final nail in the control coffin is the camera. I realize that this is one of the first games to actually have a camera, but the camera controls are so bad that it affects gameplay. I have found myself falling off ledges because the camera turns unexpectedly, and Mario veers off in a different direction because of the change in his orientation to the world. The developers have tried to alleviate this problem by giving the player control of the camera via the C Buttons. However, the player can only rotate the camera 270 degrees and then they must rotate it back.
All together, these three elements of Super Mario 64 make even the simplest moves, such as jumping from moving platforms, intensely difficult. This leads me to say that I could see good players having a fun time with the game, because they are used to the controls, but beginners just picking up the game having a not so fun time.
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TranceJunkie's Super Mario 64 (N64)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 22 February, 2007
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