Anyway, I still maintain that 5 seconds of orb manipulation vs. 5 seconds of bombing are pretty insignificant uses for a button.
Bombs, when implemented properly, have a lot to do with strategy in a shooter. Play through Super Raiden and tell me that bombs only occupied five seconds' worth of your decisions. The brief orb manipulation in SSS is entirely irrelevant; even the few seconds you have "control" of them mean nothing as to whether you ultimately win or lose (read my previous post again for explanation why). And for the third time, bombs were just one possible alternative; I'd prefer plenty of other possibilities too since the "use" of the I button they decided on is completely worthless. By the way, the orbs spin faster when you pick up additional orb power-ups.
My friend! I apologize, because I was being facetious in my last post! Those damn smiley faces were a clue
. Can't I have some fun with the conventions of the shooter genre (button a = shoot main gun, button b = bomb / large scale attack)?
Conventions? Who am I kidding?
"A = shoot + B = bomb" is the Bible of the shooter genre.
I've beaten Super Raiden
. It took me a long time just to beat Raiden, though. Years upon years. But you don't even have to use Raiden as an example. Bombs are crucial for Tiger Heli (NES) at certain points, especially after the second loop (see below*)...
Anyway, despite the conventions, we should still be able to poke fun at them. I really would like to have a button that plays a jingle (or triggers some other trivial event) in a game. I would like the jingle/event to change constantly, depending upon certain conditions of the game, thus giving the player a reason to constantly hit the "B button" throughout the entire game. It's for fun, for extra points, for unlocking stuff, etc. It is a trivial function, but it is constantly being used, so it warrants a REAL button.
Since bombs are important, but are only used at a few strategic points in any decent shooter, we can use some other, lesser button (let's say the "RUN" button).
This, my friends, would be a worthwhile use of Button A and Button B. Conventions be damned.**
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*Tangent: Our discussion about SSS got me to thinking about other things. Forgive me...
We should discuss the "auto-bomb" feature in Tiger Heli -- that was a pretty awesome idea and I can't think of another game that used it -- can you? Basically, instead of dying from an enemy bullet, your ship would automatically bomb (of you had a bomb in reserve) to extend your lease on life. Plus, the Little Helis doubled as barriers that could take one shot when they were destroyed. These two elements are pretty kool, as far as I am concerned. Our discussion here on SSS got me to thinking about the neat (sublte) game mechanics in games like Tiger Heli.
Basically, Tiger Heli was telling the player: "Your reflexes suck, but that's OK, we'll give you another chance." I think that is pretty kool.
Another neat thing that I just thought of: I liked how you could perform evasive maneuvers in 1943 (doing a loop). That's another neat game mechanic that more shooters could have incorporated, IMO (or something similar, at least).
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** Note: This post may contain facetious remarks. You may or may not find them amusing.
