Take the blue puff

This week has been puffer experiment week.  The blue puffer - that's a salbutamol inhaler - works just fine to take the last of my wheezies out, but I was still getting annoyed at the wheezies manifesting before deploying the blue puffer to nix them.  It stands to reason, if you're going to get a wheeze attack, maybe taking the dose as a prophylactic would work.  Did it?

Oh, you bet it did.  Turns out that the 'reliever' (not 'receiver' you mucky sods) is good for about two hours.  Lovely clear pipes and no thinking "ooer, will I need the puffer after this hill or can I leave it until I get to work?".  It's marvellous.

I can see why it's banned!  And I can see why every athlete seems to have exercise-induce asthma and needs a prescription for one (!).Time to get a permit myself, methinks.

Game controllers and complexity

Nice article in Newsweek's Level Up gaming blog today, tracking the growth of game controller complexity from the old Atari joystick to the PS3's outrageously button-studded piece of mil-spec hardware.  It blames Streetfighter II - the first of the many-button combo-tastic arcade games - for changing the game from the old, pure waggling experience to that ubernerdy one where the elite weren't hopped up on speed but on memory drugs.  Could you remember all of Dhalsim's combos?  Nor could I.  spike150, this is your curtain call.

N'gai goes on to declare the Wii controller a second big change, away from the zillion-button pads and by extension, dragging games away from that sort of experience.  Looking at the pick-up-and-play goodness in boxing, bowling and surgery over the weekend, I have to agree.  Looking also at the cumbersome and frankly ugly controls for the Wii version of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I agree even more: the arbitrary combos make no sense when you have a physical control metaphor, but they're just fine on the Playstation version. 

The physical metaphor has its own rules, and games which break them are no fun.  And so the Wii remote as a space-mouse or glove is immediately obvious and elegant, even to kids and grannies.  N'gai is right: games which get it wrong will tank even if they're as lavish as Marvel:UA - I still feel cheated that Spidey's web isn't activated with a thwip action, but even if it was, I'm thwipping at the screen and Spidey can face any which way.  With a D-pad that's okay, but with a physical metaphor, it's jarring.  The Wii's first year has revealed this with the huge success of frankly dumb titles like Cooking Mama and Trauma Center and the really meh performance of the traditional shooters - it's all in the controls.

Clubbing a Playmobil opponent in the side of the head with friends yelling behind you is fun, pure and simple. 

Games like Okami - based around Japanese brush painting - are getting me excited for the second wave of titles, when developers get their engines optimised and start really creating.  [/wiifanboy]