by Ice Cream Jonsey » Wed May 06, 2009 2:58 pm
Gretzky did not have superhuman speed or strength, though he was so far beyond anyone who has ever played his sport, it's ridiculous to try to find his peers. (There is an Australian who played cricket better than other cricketrs, but it's fucking cricket.)
What Gretzky was able to do is anticipate where the puck was going to be, where everyone on the ice was going to be, and what the rink would look like in the next four or five seconds, and plan accordingly. He was also good behind the net, which is impossible to depict in a hockey game because of the orientation of the camera. Meanwhile, who ends up being the best, or most useful, player in video game hockey? Either a really fast guy, or someone who cannot be checked onto his ass.
So there's two issues here:
GRETZKY AS A COMPUTER-CONTROLLED TEAMMATE
This is retarded to model because there would need to be separate methods, functions and AI for this one guy that doesn't exist for the other players. He won't be valuable because he got down the ice faster than anyone else (he's not fast) and let's say you're gonna play in a mode where your character doesn't change: if Gretzky is perfectly programmed and you get the puck right where you need it, you still have to not be a retard and hit "shoot" at the right moment. But nobody plays that way, everyone plays with the game giving you control of the guy with the puck.
"BEING" GRETZKY
You're Wayne Gretzky! You're playing a guy with 70 speed, 40 strength, 20 defense 99 passing... fuckin' great! Big deal! You, the player, are still handling the decision making. Maybe you play enough of the game where you start to learn the computer's tendencies, right? So you know this particular video game inside and out? Well, one, Gretzky the human still did it better, and with REAL PEOPLE who are trying to knock him the fuck out, and two, you no longer need a special player if you've memorized the game. You can take any random dude and make him the Gretzky of your video game season.
Of course, you're viewing the game from a bird-eye camera, which real humans can't, although Gretzky's eyes are kind of fucked up and too far apart, which I have seen as an attempt to explain why his peripheral vision was superior to the average human's, but I am not sure if I buy it.
There's one other factor at play here with Gretzky in a video game, which is so into the consciousness of America, it made it into a movie:
BARAKA
Not the MK character, but:
Barakah (Arabic: بركة : also Baraka‎) is an Arabic term meaning blessing, particularly, spiritual gifts or protection transmitted from God. Baraka is used in contemporary French as a synonym of "luck". A person who has "baraka" is said to be able to emerge unscathed from dangerous situations. This use of the term derives from the time of French colonization in Algeria (1830-1962). When asked why he did not fear being killed by his enemies, Charles de Gaulle is said to have replied, "I have baraka."
In real life, you didn't try to knock Gretzky out of the game. First off, you couldn't, he was too agile, secondly, Jesus fuck, show some respect, it's Wayne fucking Gretzky. Not only would you get murdered by Marty McSorely (doesn't translate in a video game, which is pain-free on the part of the human players) you were simply a piece of shit if you "tried to make Gretzky's head bleed." I don't think I need to go into any sort of drawn-out diatribe regarding gamers and their general understanding of the concept of respect. And as for programmers and designers: the average video game programmer cannot, I repeat, cannot successfully dump variables to a state file, saving the particular game in progress anywhere. Let's not get crazy here, asking one of them to model the fucking concept of baraka.
It's much easier to simply make a guy with 99 in everything, from speed to stick-handling, to endurance to everything else. And if I recall correctly, that's what they did. Doesn't describe Gretz even remotely, but it made him the best player on the ice, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED on the part of EA and others.
Gretzky did not have superhuman speed or strength, though he was so far beyond anyone who has ever played his sport, it's ridiculous to try to find his peers. (There is an Australian who played cricket better than other cricketrs, but it's fucking cricket.)
What Gretzky was able to do is anticipate where the puck was going to be, where everyone on the ice was going to be, and what the rink would look like in the next four or five seconds, and plan accordingly. He was also good behind the net, which is impossible to depict in a hockey game because of the orientation of the camera. Meanwhile, who ends up being the best, or most useful, player in video game hockey? Either a really fast guy, or someone who cannot be checked onto his ass.
So there's two issues here:
[b]GRETZKY AS A COMPUTER-CONTROLLED TEAMMATE[/b]
This is retarded to model because there would need to be separate methods, functions and AI for this one guy that doesn't exist for the other players. He won't be valuable because he got down the ice faster than anyone else (he's not fast) and let's say you're gonna play in a mode where your character doesn't change: if Gretzky is perfectly programmed and you get the puck right where you need it, you still have to not be a retard and hit "shoot" at the right moment. But nobody plays that way, everyone plays with the game giving you control of the guy with the puck.
[b]"BEING" GRETZKY[/b]
You're Wayne Gretzky! You're playing a guy with 70 speed, 40 strength, 20 defense 99 passing... fuckin' great! Big deal! You, the player, are still handling the decision making. Maybe you play enough of the game where you start to learn the computer's tendencies, right? So you know this particular video game inside and out? Well, one, Gretzky the human still did it better, and with REAL PEOPLE who are trying to knock him the fuck out, and two, you no longer need a special player if you've memorized the game. You can take any random dude and make him the Gretzky of your video game season.
Of course, you're viewing the game from a bird-eye camera, which real humans can't, although Gretzky's eyes are kind of fucked up and too far apart, which I have seen as an attempt to explain why his peripheral vision was superior to the average human's, but I am not sure if I buy it.
There's one other factor at play here with Gretzky in a video game, which is so into the consciousness of America, it made it into a movie:
[b]BARAKA[/b]
Not the MK character, but:
Barakah (Arabic: بركة : also Baraka‎) is an Arabic term meaning blessing, particularly, spiritual gifts or protection transmitted from God. Baraka is used in contemporary French as a synonym of "luck". A person who has "baraka" is said to be able to emerge unscathed from dangerous situations. This use of the term derives from the time of French colonization in Algeria (1830-1962). When asked why he did not fear being killed by his enemies, Charles de Gaulle is said to have replied, "I have baraka."
In real life, you didn't try to knock Gretzky out of the game. First off, you couldn't, he was too agile, secondly, Jesus fuck, show some respect, it's Wayne fucking Gretzky. Not only would you get murdered by Marty McSorely (doesn't translate in a video game, which is pain-free on the part of the human players) you were simply a piece of shit if you "tried to make Gretzky's head bleed." I don't think I need to go into any sort of drawn-out diatribe regarding gamers and their general understanding of the concept of respect. And as for programmers and designers: the average video game programmer cannot, I repeat, cannot successfully dump variables to a state file, saving the particular game in progress [i]anywhere.[/i] Let's not get crazy here, asking one of them to model the fucking concept of baraka.
It's much easier to simply make a guy with 99 in everything, from speed to stick-handling, to endurance to everything else. And if I recall correctly, that's what they did. Doesn't describe Gretz even remotely, but it made him the best player on the ice, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED on the part of EA and others.