Where Are the Good 3rd-Party DS Games?

[fearsomepirate]

I don't get it. The NDS has sold like gangbusters, and the well-made games on the console sell well. But almost all of the 3rd-party games are utter crap. For instance, how hard can it be to make a decent Worms title on the system? Is it really that hard to make a casino game? I'd expect 3rd parties to be all over the DS, but we haven't seen so much as a decent platformer from them in the last 6 months. I can only think of a few explanations:

1. It's painful to develop on the DS for some reason (terrible tools?). Working on a DS project is like going to the dentist, so it's best to get it over with quickly. It's way more fun to work on a PSP title, so the sooner you can get back on that project, the better.

2. 3rd parties think that having a touch screen absolves them of the principles of good game design and interface. See Tao's Adventure for details.

3. Publishers are pretty sure that DS owners will buy any old crap, so they make titles like Elf Bowling or release them before they're done, like ATV Quad Frenzy.

 

[darkblu]

so i guess konami, capcom and shin'en don't count?

 

[Teasy]

There are numerous examples of good third party games. Though I know what you mean about there also being a lot of poor third party games. Personally I think most of that comes down to the teams they have making the games. A lot of publishers seem to get there mobile phone game studios to do the DS version of there games and they just aren't of the same quality as dedicated console/handheld developers. Also regarding decent platformers, technically Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow was released within the last 6 months In fact I think it was 6 months ago to the day

 

[fearsomepirate]

so i guess konami, capcom and shin'en don't count?

I was thinking primarily about the 3rd-party American games. The few good 3rd party games have mostly been Japanese (V Joe, Castlevania, although I hear AoE is pretty good). The Americans, though? I haven't seen a console with this kind of good-to-crap ratio since the Xbox launch!

 

[Blade]

There are a lot of good 3rd-party games for the system, just not the PS2 ports you've come to expect of PSP.

Lackluster PS2 ports, for the most part. I was actually thinking of picking up SC:Essentials until it got reamed by IGN.

 

[darkblu]

shin'en are german, iirc. as about the american contribution to the ds - you're right, i'm not touching that with a stick until the local ds developers prove their worth.

 

[Corwin_B]

Chronicles of Narnia was a decent game for its genre, although it feels a bit rushed. Ultimate Spiderman and Tony Hawk were also pretty good american games for the DS. With their new "Over the Hedge" game that gets a nice preview at IGN, it seems the developers at Vicarious Visions really mastered the DS hardware.

Apart from that, the big western developers have indeed considered the DS like a GBA+, ie a place to dump their shovelware by wagon with half-assed ports, shitty engines, and dumb touchscreen implementations (by the standards set by the japanese teams be it engine-wise (Mario Kart, Animal Crossing...) or gameplay-wise (Ooendan, Trauma Center...)). I would suggest your option #3 is correct here...

 

[Rolf N]

What Teasy said. There just aren't that many people right now who seriously develop for the system. It's the modern mutliplatform madness. Everything's a half-assed port from some other system.

My overall impression is that the DS is treated much like the PSP, i.e. the majority of the lineups for both is rather trashy, although in different ways. If you look at the ridiculous loading times for certain PSP games it's IMO not much of a stretch to say that they've not actually been developed for the PSP, but rather ported over from the PS2, or at least share the base technology with a PS2 game or PS2 engine.

The incremental problem with the DS is that there's no widespread platform to even draw a decent port from. The closest relative, hardware-wise, is the GBA, and I really don't see myself appreciating that kind of port.

edit: I'm not trying to say that the DS is close to the GBA in performance; but it's the same CPU family and some other hardware traits are similar, too.

 

[fearsomepirate]

With the DS, they basically throw together the worst 3D graphics engines in the world (since the industry collectively forgot how to 32-bit 3D graphics), the worst gameplay ideas they can think of, and combine it with the first touch-screen implementation that pops into their heads. The best American 3rd party titles have, except for a few exceptions, been things like Spongebob. I mean, they can't even put together something of the quality of Super Princess Peach, and that's pretty sad. The last 9 US-developed games had an average rating of 4.7 from IGN. How do you even make a game that bad?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Well, I've got the new Game Informer. No 3rd party DS games announced or reviewed, but they've got themselves all hot and bothered over the PSP. Not GI, the developers. Here's my other theory: Developers think that since PSP has the word "Playstation" in it, games will sell as massively as they do on the PS2. I don't get it. The DS has the install base, it has a pretty pathetic line-up of software (1st-party games and shovelware), so it seems like there's mint to be made.

Also, judging from the back of the magazine, RE4 doesn't even exist on the Gamecube. Does Capcom not want to sell copies of the Cube version or something? Or did Sony pay them to leave the Cube logo out of the ads and only put the Playstation logo?

 

[darkblu]

capcom bother me. a lot. and that's not because they don't release quality, innovative titles - on the contrary. capcom, IMO, now are the best overall gamedev house out there (the new okami is magnificent, the VJ series was a jewel across all paltforms, and RE4 was an industry landmark), but their management seems to be taking all the wrong decisions lately. i _dont_want_ to see such a talent wasted by bad management!

 

[see colon]

speaking of capcom and the DS, does anyone know who's developing the new zelda (phantom hourglass)?

back on topic, nintendo should start poaching tallent that developed some of the better ngage titles. games like ghost recon, pathway to glory, and elder scrolls: shadowkey would all be welcome additions to the DS library, especialy if they include online play (where appropriate, of course).

 

[Blade]

Pirate: I can understand the advertisements dropping the 'Cube logo.

For marketing purposes. They'd rather have you buy the $40 RE4 for the popular PS2, as opposed to the $20 RE4 for the 3rd-place GCN.

They could say "ALSO AVAILABLE ON GCN FROM A YEAR AGO" but I guess it's not worth their time.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Pirate: I can understand the advertisements dropping the 'Cube logo.

For marketing purposes. They'd rather have you buy the $40 RE4 for the popular PS2, as opposed to the $20 RE4 for the 3rd-place GCN.

They could say "ALSO AVAILABLE ON GCN FROM A YEAR AGO" but I guess it's not worth their time.

That would make sense if they'd advertised the Cube version a bit. But oh wait, we had to announce the port a few weeks before launch. Anyway, like someone else said before, I hate the Capcom suits. They just seem to love making bad decisions. They've practically killed the Viewtiful Joe franchise already.

 

[Corwin_B]

speaking of capcom and the DS, does anyone know who's developing the new zelda (phantom hourglass)?

After the "Capcom 5" which were supposed to be Cube-exclusive and either ended flawed (PN03), got canned (one of them) or were ported to PS2 (VJ, RE4, K7), and which were (IIRC) in exchange for Capcom getting some juicy franchises from Nintendo (GBC Zelda), I think Nintendo is doing DS Zelda in-house...

back on topic, nintendo should start poaching tallent that developed some of the better ngage titles. games like ghost recon, pathway to glory, and elder scrolls: shadowkey would all be welcome additions to the DS library, especialy if they include online play (where appropriate, of course).

I'm not sure 3d-party shovelware on the DS bothers Nintendo that much, sadly. After all, a bad game is still another line-item on a release list, brings royalties all the same when bought, but doesn't compete against Nintendo's own software for discerning gamers' money... I think that vision is a bit myopic, and that Nintendo would do well to encourage 3d party western developers to produce more quality content for the DS.

They should start by buying both Vicarious Visions and Gryptonite Studios, IMHO, if those studios were interested. Gryptonite especially could really use the cash to develop an ambitious hack&slash handheld game not based on a movie.

 

[see colon]

I'm not sure 3d-party shovelware on the DS bothers Nintendo that much, sadly. After all, a bad game is still another line-item on a release list, brings royalties all the same when bought, but doesn't compete against Nintendo's own software for discerning gamers' money... I think that vision is a bit myopic, and that Nintendo would do well to encourage 3d party western developers to produce more quality content for the DS.

i wouldn't really call the games i mentioned shovelware. up until Metroid Prime: Hunters was released i found Ghost Recon (NGage) to be the best portable FPS out there. Pathway to Glory holds it's own even against PC titles in the genre (Commandos), and Shadowkey is exacty what you'd expect a portable Elder Scrolls title to be (a bit slow, a bit clunky, but deep). Games like these are what nintendo should be shooting for. maybe not the exact titles, but ones with similar attributes.

 

[Corwin_B]

i wouldn't really call the games i mentioned shovelware. up until Metroid Prime: Hunters was released i found Ghost Recon (NGage) to be the best portable FPS out there. Pathway to Glory holds it's own even against PC titles in the genre (Commandos), and Shadowkey is exacty what you'd expect a portable Elder Scrolls title to be (a bit slow, a bit clunky, but deep). Games like these are what nintendo should be shooting for. maybe not the exact titles, but ones with similar attributes.

I wasn't clear, sorry. I didn't mean those games you mentioned were shovelware, but that the current state of affairs (Elf Bowling, Burnout DS, Bass Fishing...) was probably not a huge problem for Nintendo, and that as such they were (sadly) unlikely to invest a lot into getting many solid Western-centric games for the DS.

 

[sfried]

Let me see:
Most of EA's sport series seems to be descent, like the Fifa series
Capcom's Phoenix Wright
Atlus' Trauma Center
and of course there's tons of topdown Secret of Mana-esq games comming.

I'm sure there are alot I've missed.

 

[StefanS]

Let me see:
Most of EA's sport series seems to be descent, like the Fifa series
Capcom's Phoenix Wright
Atlus' Trauma Center
and of course there's tons of topdown Secret of Mana-esq games comming.

I'm sure there are alot I've missed.

Yeah, you sure missed a lot, like that fearsome was talking about Western 3rd party. There's plenty of good 3rd party titles from Japanese developers, but that's besides the point.

EA showing for the DS is pathetic at best. So far they've not released a single decent game for DS. Their entire sports line up is more or less a joke: Madden scores far below 70% at gamerankings, Fifa just 70%. Let's not talk about NFS which is utter crap.
Most of their DS software is either badly programmed (NFS engine, Burnout) or badly designed or both. IMO, they start adding DS only features at the very last stage of the dev-process. That's why usually they create such stinkers like the Burnout Legends. For good DS software you'll have to start with controls and design a good game-play revolving around that idea. Not bolt it on as a last resort.

As for good western titles: Majesco has so far released some good titles: Age of Empires and Nanostray which is especially recommendable if you really like old school shoot'em ups.
I really enjoyed AoE: It's not as good as Advance Wars but it is a really good title.

 

[sfried]

There was suppose to be that Vicarious Visions game based on a movie. Oh wait, here it is: Over the Hedge.

According to IGN, some of the game ideas being implemented in the game are pretty impressive.