Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: walkingdead2 on April 29, 2008, 05:39:13 PM
Title: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on April 29, 2008, 05:39:13 PM
i would have posted this in general but the number 1 commandment is practically about Nintendo and i couldn't agree with it more. but this article is pretty funny and a good read if you haven't scene it yet.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: vudu on April 29, 2008, 05:42:25 PM
I saw that this morning. Pretty good read.
For those who don't want to bother with the link (and the excessively long write-up) here's the short version.
7. Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends. Online-only Multiplayer sucks.
6. Thou shalt not pad the length of your games. Don't put huge stretches of land between objectives. Don't add pointless, mandatory fetch quests.
5. Thou shalt not force repetition on the player. Don't force players to replay levels due to limited save points. Don't force players to watch cutscenes repeatedly. Don't use instant failure quicktime events.
4. Thou shalt make killing fun. Don't make players start with a bullshit weapon. Don't fill the game with tiny rodent enemies. Don't make bullets that have no visible effect. Don't fill the game with hordes of cookie-cutter bad guys.
3. Thou shalt admit when enough is enough. Don't include escort missions. Don't include CPU-controlled squad teammates. Don't include first-person jumping puzzles. Stop making World War II games. Don't make your hero a grizzled space marine.
2. Thou shalt make sure your game actually works. Don't port games after about five minutes of beta testing. Don't release games the console can't really run. Don't fill the game with excessive load times.
1. Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity. Wii is beating the pants off of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. DS is beating the pants off of everybody. Hire real writers ... ... then hire competent voice actors to say the lines. Put some work into the ending.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: NWR_pap64 on April 29, 2008, 07:01:39 PM
Heh, I love Cracked. Their lists are some of the best! :D
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: DAaaMan64 on April 29, 2008, 07:54:28 PM
Totally the truth about the escort missions :P
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Adrock on April 29, 2008, 09:14:40 PM
Usually these kinds of lists are utter fail, but this was pretty spot-on. You could tell a gamer wrote that.... unlike a certain GTAIV review that cited the elusive "Sony Wii."
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: EasyCure on April 29, 2008, 09:21:45 PM
Usually these kinds of lists are utter fail, but this was pretty spot-on. You could tell a gamer wrote that.... unlike a certain GTAIV review that cited the elusive "Sony Wii."
I was going to say the same thing about it being written by real gamers... but where is this review you speak of????
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: KDR_11k on April 30, 2008, 01:51:08 AM
I'd say many of those points are highly debatable.
Huge stretches of land aren't an issue. Huge EMPTY stretches of land are.
The golden bugs in Twilight Princess were not a stupid fetch quest, they required real thinking at times. "Go into dungeon X and get Y" is just a way of saying "beat dungeon X". Do you consider beating levels pointless? Sure, then games are uselessly padded. The rest of us only consider fetch quests stupid that consist of running around in areas you've beaten before (or that are harmless like, say, a city) or finding every single secret in a level before you can proceed (Turok anyone?).
Saving everywhere does not fit into every game. In some games you should deliver a good performance for a longer stretch of gameplay instead of retrying every enemy ten times individually but still progressing. It makes difficulty levels pointless as they only change the number of times you have to reload your save. While it is annoying to force the player to go through a long stretch of obstacles he can already beat flawlessly to get to the area where he has trouble it's not a good idea to just allow breaking every challenge into as many saves as you want. Would a jumping puzzle have as much itension if you could save after every jump and making each was just a matter of reloading often enough? Sometimes you don't want to allow trial and error as a means of progression. BTW, the listed example of an FPS is exactly the genre that suffers from saving all the time, the difficulty becomes basically zero.
Death during cutscenes adds a LOT to the game, you can't just sit back and be lazy while your character is in a life threatening situation, you must be alert at all times. Sure, it couldbe reduced to just damage but if you've got the infinite save thing from above as well wouldn't you just reload the cutscene until you've done it without taking damage?
Also, handguns can be some serious pwn in some games. Ever tried them in a game with instakill headshots? Hell, I've heard Halo MP's best weapon is the freaking handgun!
There are some places where slowdown on a console is acceptable, it's not always possible to limit the number of things that go on when you've got a player running around and causing more. Wouldn't it be more aggravating to have your gun stop shooting because too many bullets are in play? I've even seen games (mostly shmups) emulate slowdown when large numbers of bullets were in play so you have a better chance of dodging them.
Putting a lot of work into the ending should be done with moderation, while it's nice to get a reward for beating that final boss noone wants to know what every single insignificant piece of **** you saw in the game does now.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: blackfootsteps on April 30, 2008, 04:07:16 AM
Re: Save Points But why can't every game at least have temporary saves that are deleted after being loaded? This would stop gamers 'cheating' by saving before each jump and then loading every time they make a little mistake.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on April 30, 2008, 10:24:28 AM
I'd say many of those points are highly debatable.
and i'd say you missed the point. it was a humorous article.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on April 30, 2008, 12:09:18 PM
Funny stuff. Though I find the view on save points to be flawed. There's nothing wrong with a checkpoint method of progression. If you just pop up immediately after you die then there's no challenge. You might as well have god mode on. You need to have replay stuff after you die.
The problem is just when the save points are too far apart. If there's a series of bosses in a row for example I should be able to save in between them. I've given up on games where I've spent hours trying to beat a boss (ie: dying multiple times), barely beat him, and then as I've made my way to the next save point gotten killed by a routine cannon fodder enemy because I was in such low health, thus losing all my progress. That's dumb design. The game should "remember" that I beat the boss and not force me to do it again. But being able to save after every step isn't needed and actually ruins games.
I would like the ability to pause cutscenes though. My brother got all the Metal Gear Solid games recently and we were playing through them. Well quite often the cutscenes go on for quite a few minutes. Meanwhile the phone rings and now what do I do?
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: mantidor on April 30, 2008, 12:18:09 PM
I'd say many of those points are highly debatable.
and i'd say you missed the point. it was a humorous article.
It was written humorously but it was serious about the criticism, and save for some little nitpicks I could make I completely agree with the article.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on April 30, 2008, 12:46:32 PM
yea we can all nitpick every article. this was an op ed humor piece. i agree with it but it was a humorous opinion piece.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on April 30, 2008, 12:46:43 PM
I kind of agree with the notion that being able to save anywhere makes the game easier, but does that really matter? You can choose not to use it if you feel that way. I wouldn't have beaten most of the FPS games I've played on my PC without quick save/load keys. I've even saved during boss fights. I still have fun. In fact, I have more fun. In Jedi Outcast, I enjoyed the light saber combat so much that I would quick load after winning every fight regardless of how it turned out just to enjoy it again and try different techniques. I did the same sort of thing in Half-Life, Deus Ex, and many others. I'd try to find the baddest way to get past every obstacle.
Then there's Far Cry, which I still haven't finished because I got to a point where some monsters killed me easily over and over again, and it took me a few minutes to get there from the last checkpoint. The checkpoints in Far Cry aren't even very far apart, and up until that moment they hadn't bothered me. I actually kind of liked the Groundhog Day-ness of it when I screwed up and knew where the bad guys were on the next try. That didn't last. All it took was one badly-designed checkpoint to ruin everything. And that's a key point. It only takes one. You simply can't design a game that has no bad checkpoints because every player is different. Someone out there is going to run into a problem you didn't expect and get frustrated, and frustrated people don't buy sequels.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: KDR_11k on April 30, 2008, 02:08:21 PM
If you can save everywhere the testers will do so and the game will be made for that kind of behaviour. FPSes are already designed in a way that expects you to save regularly and will kill you pretty quickly on some mistakes, assuming your last save wasn't far back.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on April 30, 2008, 03:23:28 PM
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You simply can't design a game that has no bad checkpoints because every player is different. Someone out there is going to run into a problem you didn't expect and get frustrated, and frustrated people don't buy sequels.
Back in the 2D era this wasn't an issue. No one acted like it was their right to be able to beat a game. Although there was a fair amount of games with cheating bullsh!t difficulty, the assumption was that completing a game was an accomplishment and you required a certain amount of skill to do so.
I'm not even good at videogames. Never have been. I rarely beat any videogame. Yet even I think that a lot of current gamers are big f*cking pussies. A typical videogame has to provide some challenge. There are user-friendly ways to do this that minimize frustration. The player should never feel cheated but should accept that some parts of a game aren't going to be completed in the first try and in some games you might get stuck, even if other people don't appear to. That's just the way things go.
Now they're not going to be able to suddenly brainwash people into thinking this way so I can see how it's an issue regarding people not buying sequels. I'm not sure how to fix that though the problem won't go away if you just keep giving in to the "wuss gamers".
What if a game had a few "get unstuck free" cards where if a player just could not get past an area they could use it and get to continue on with the story? But they only get very few of these. Sometimes I'll admit I just don't have the certain types of skills to beat one part in a game but after getting someone else to beat it can just continue to breeze through the rest with no problem.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Nick DiMola on April 30, 2008, 03:30:27 PM
I think games are for the better these days that they are more easily beaten. Gamers want value now, and value is not getting a game for $50 that is so hard that you'll never see half of the game if you are just ok at it.
Games that are hard as hell have become their own genre which I think is for the best. If you want a game to kick your ass around town, find one that was made with that in mind (Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Ikaruga)
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on April 30, 2008, 04:23:49 PM
You simply can't design a game that has no bad checkpoints because every player is different. Someone out there is going to run into a problem you didn't expect and get frustrated, and frustrated people don't buy sequels.
Back in the 2D era this wasn't an issue. No one acted like it was their right to be able to beat a game. Although there was a fair amount of games with cheating bullsh!t difficulty, the assumption was that completing a game was an accomplishment and you required a certain amount of skill to do so.
I've been a gamer since games couldn't even be beaten. You don't get to play that card with me.
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I'm not even good at videogames. Never have been. I rarely beat any videogame. Yet even I think that a lot of current gamers are big f*cking pussies. A typical videogame has to provide some challenge. There are user-friendly ways to do this that minimize frustration. The player should never feel cheated but should accept that some parts of a game aren't going to be completed in the first try and in some games you might get stuck, even if other people don't appear to. That's just the way things go.
I'm pretty good at video games, and I always have been. That has nothing to do with it. This isn't about not being able to do things on the first try, either. I can't even remember the last time I couldn't beat some boss on the first try in a first party Nintendo game, but I still have fun doing it. This isn't even about not being able to do something. I'm 100% sure that I could have eventually passed that part of Far Cry. This is about discouraging the player from trying again by making it needlessly bothersome or even painful.
It's not just checkpoints in FPS games, either. In a shooter, for example, you might die in a difficult boss fight and lose all your powerups, making your next several lives forfeit as well. There's no sense even continuing, because you'd have to go back to the beginning of the level to get all the powerups you need to survive back. I couldn't beat the boss with the UberMegaBeam, so as punishment I have to fail again with a peashooter and a quarter of the hit points? There's something wrong with that line of thinking.
Really, I want to try again when I fail. I'll try over and over again for hours sometimes, but the game needs to get out of my way when I do it. I recall going for platinum medals in Blast Corps and getting absolutely furious at Rare for making the game's pause menu totally unresponsive until its stupid little animation finished. It should have taken less than a second to restart the level when I didn't get the boost start, but instead it took what felt like years after just the first few tries. That was only wasting a couple seconds of my time on each attempt. If you waste a full minute or more, the frustration isn't going to just make me mad. It's going to completely drain me of the desire to play your game.
It really isn't a question of difficulty at all, but one of game design.
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What if a game had a few "get unstuck free" cards where if a player just could not get past an area they could use it and get to continue on with the story? But they only get very few of these. Sometimes I'll admit I just don't have the certain types of skills to beat one part in a game but after getting someone else to beat it can just continue to breeze through the rest with no problem.
There are ways to do that right (the cloud item in Super Mario Bros. 3 was a good attempt), and ways to make me want to murder you and your entire family for patronizing me. It should be the player's choice every time. That is paramount.
While I'm at it, let me add one more commandment. Thou shalt not lock content behind goals that only part of your audience will be able to accomplish. F-Zero GX, I'm looking at you.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Dirk Temporo on April 30, 2008, 05:26:33 PM
That list is a pile of crap.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on April 30, 2008, 05:46:09 PM
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While I'm at it, let me add one more commandment. Thou shalt not lock content behind goals that only part of your audience will be able to accomplish. F-Zero GX, I'm looking at you.
Oh f*ck, I'll agree with that one. The only new vehicles and characters not available in F-Zero X required you to be a supreme expert at the game. Come on.
Unlockables in general actually are a little bit annoying. Obviously there's the old "to get to the next level beat the previous one" stuff that is expected and perfectly normal. A couple really secret stuff is okay too I guess. But when multiplayer modes and whole game options are completely hidden it's kind of a pain. The worst I've seen is Driver which requires you to complete an annoying driving test before you can do ANYTHING at all. So you have to be good at the game before you can even start playing it. Huh?
Something else that if I could make illegal I would is game design where you can be saved in such a state that you're completely f*cked unless you start the whole game from scratch or reload from a backup save you somehow had the wherewithal to create in the first place for such an occasion. This is common in games where your current health or ammo or something like that is saved and you cannot replenish it from where you last saved. But you ALSO have too little health or ammo to get any further. F*cking Splinter Cell did this sh!t. Whatever mission I got stuck in is a three part mission and the games saves at each part. However by the time I got to the third part I had run low on ammo and there was no way to replenish it. Meanwhile I pretty much had to kill three guys and I had like only five bullets. Miss a headshot or a guy takes too many hits (and headshots were very iffy in this game as many times shooting a guy in the face merely "wakes him up" and alerts him to my presence) or if they make too much noise and call for back up and I'm screwed. I can't do it but it took me a fair amount of time to complete the first two parts of the mission and I don't want to have to do that part over again. So I said "f*ck it" and never played the game again.
I guess that's similar to the checkpoint thing but in this case the checkpoint saved me in a condition where I had no realistic chance of getting further and I would have had to go several "checkmarks back" to try again. If this was a game where there were no clear levels I would have had to start over completely.
Yeah I guess it is all just down to good game design. How about this rule: continuing and loading from the last save are different. So many games treat them as the same thing and that's when you get stuck between save points or have to repeat a whole bunch of annoying stuff or get permanently stuck with low resources. In Metroid Prime if I die I shouldn't have to scan all the stuff I got from my last save over again unless I turn the console off. It should remember that I already did that and thus let me quickly get back to fighting the boss without having to stop and scan him yet again in order to get my 100% scans.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Chozo Ghost on May 01, 2008, 02:53:06 AM
Funny stuff. Though I find the view on save points to be flawed. There's nothing wrong with a checkpoint method of progression. If you just pop up immediately after you die then there's no challenge. You might as well have god mode on. You need to have replay stuff after you die.
Save points also prevent something extremely funny and/or frustrating from occurring... Let's say someone fell off a cliff and was heading into lava, so while they're falling they quickly save the game before they die. Then every time they reload the save they'll relive their character falling into the lava ad infinitem. That would be funny to others, but terribly frustrating for the player. Save points help prevent this. They give you a safe place where you can be sure you won't be instantly killed every time you load the save.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: DAaaMan64 on May 01, 2008, 03:11:10 AM
Funny stuff. Though I find the view on save points to be flawed. There's nothing wrong with a checkpoint method of progression. If you just pop up immediately after you die then there's no challenge. You might as well have god mode on. You need to have replay stuff after you die.
Save points also prevent something extremely funny and/or frustrating from occurring... Let's say someone fell off a cliff and was heading into lava, so while they're falling they quickly save the game before they die. Then every time they reload the save they'll relive their character falling into the lava ad infinitem. That would be funny to others, but terribly frustrating for the player. Save points help prevent this. They give you a safe place where you can be sure you won't be instantly killed every time you load the save.
That actually happened to me in the original Half Life Demo :P
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: NWR_insanolord on May 01, 2008, 03:12:05 AM
If someone is dumb enough to save the game mid-plummet they deserve whatever happens to them.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: DAaaMan64 on May 01, 2008, 03:14:02 AM
If someone is dumb enough to save the game mid-plummet they deserve whatever happens to them.
Nah thats the programmer being lazy, they should never allow that kinda stuff.
I just didn't care cause it was Half Life and it was the demo. Don't like either of those things.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: NWR_insanolord on May 01, 2008, 03:45:29 AM
The best way to handle it would be to include both ways, allow a quick save anywhere but if the player screws that up they can fall back to the last checkpoint they passed.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: IceCold on May 01, 2008, 03:57:59 AM
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Thou shalt not lock content behind goals that only part of your audience will be able to accomplish. F-Zero GX, I'm looking at you.
F-Zero GX? Come on.. Maybe I disagree because it's the one hard game that I'm really good at, but the difficulty in F-Zero GX is perfect. It's the ultimate example of a difficult game that, with practice, is possible to beat. And what's more, you have fun the whole way, even if you're losing, and you can actually see that you're improving as you carry on playing.
It took me a long time to unlock the AX Cup, but I did it, and I wouldn't want the game to be any easier. The satisfaction I got from unlocking that cup is far greater than anything I've experienced in games, and it was largely because it was so hard to get there.
The game was difficult but never, ever unfair. You had a chance to win every track on any difficulty. It's easily in my top 10 games ever.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: KDR_11k on May 01, 2008, 07:53:05 AM
If someone is dumb enough to save the game mid-plummet they deserve whatever happens to them.
For a plummet, yes. You can tell you're falling into lava. There are often much less obvious errors you can make in a game that can make it impossible to beat without you knowing it (many old text adventures LOVED doing that). Saving in Tourian with only two E tanks, anyone?
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on May 01, 2008, 11:17:08 AM
It took me a long time to unlock the AX Cup, but I did it, and I wouldn't want the game to be any easier. The satisfaction I got from unlocking that cup is far greater than anything I've experienced in games, and it was largely because it was so hard to get there.
You got that satisfaction from accomplishing something difficult. You would have been just as satisfied if the game had simply congratulated you on a job well done.
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The game was difficult but never, ever unfair. You had a chance to win every track on any difficulty. It's easily in my top 10 games ever.
The game's difficulty wasn't unfair, and I rate it highly, too, but that doesn't change the fact that the requirements were unfair. I paid for the game, and parts of it were unavailable to me unless I made it my career. I don't have that kind of time. I gave it my best shot, but ultimately had to just walk away.
If someone is dumb enough to save the game mid-plummet they deserve whatever happens to them.
Sometimes it's not their fault. That happened to a friend of mine in one of the NES Castlevania games. The game respawned him over the same pit he died in.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Nick DiMola on May 01, 2008, 11:46:06 AM
In defense of F-Zero GX, if you bought it, you should've known what you were getting yourself into. The game is HARDCORE, no two ways about it. If you aren't into that kind of challenge you should've passed it up before even giving the time of day.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on May 01, 2008, 12:43:46 PM
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In defense of F-Zero GX, if you bought it, you should've known what you were getting yourself into. The game is HARDCORE, no two ways about it. If you aren't into that kind of challenge you should've passed it up before even giving the time of day.
But F-Zero is a series. I bought F-Zero GX because I loved F-Zero and F-Zero X. So I figured it would be comparable to that. Those aren't easy games but GX's story mode expects the player to do flawless runs on the second mission. And that's like the normal difficulty. That wasn't really expected in other F-Zero games.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on May 01, 2008, 12:47:10 PM
Why is this so difficult to understand? I like that it's a hard game. I'm not some weak-thumbed milquetoast or Nintendog-petting non-gamer. I understood that F-Zero GX would be a hard game because I've been a fan of F-Zero since the original. Even so, I eventually came to realize that I wasn't going to get any farther in the game than I already was unless I had the Ark of the Covenant going before me. Anyone who has managed to unlock the AX Cup without divine intervention has my congratulations. I'm very happy for you. I'm being so sincere right now.
Difficulty has never been the issue. It should be difficult to do whatever it is that unlocks the AX tracks (I don't remember anymore), but it should not be required. I hate the attitude that I somehow don't "deserve" part of the game I gave Nintendo my cash monies for.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Nick DiMola on May 01, 2008, 12:57:44 PM
Difficulty has never been the issue. It should be difficult to do whatever it is that unlocks the AX tracks (I don't remember anymore), but it should not be required. I hate the attitude that I somehow don't "deserve" part of the game I gave Nintendo my cash monies for.
Well, I can agree with that sentiment. It has always been my feeling that there should be some sort of master code in every game that will unlock everything. Players want to see it all, regardless of their skill level, because they made an investment and want the full value.
If the people who take on the true challenge are concerned about this cheapening their accomplishments, use of the master cheat code would taint the save file of the user, noting that they cheated to unlock everything.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on May 01, 2008, 04:26:58 PM
you know it really dosent matter if you agree with all seven or just 3 of these rules... video games are subjective and they all apply to some games some of the time and not nessesaraly to others. the main one that i wanted to bring up is #1 cause that is so so so true.
why is it last generation none of these company's wanted to push hardware. you saw a few games only on xbox but that was more to do with teams like team ninja who only liked developing for the x-box. it made sence from a business standpoint to put games on the ps2 then port them to the other systems due to the inferior hardware and the fact that there were just so many ps2's out there. but rather than making a good or great game on a system that has 2 or even 3 times the amount of hardware out there than the other system you just want to push hardware... stay in the pc realm if thats what you want to do.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: GoldenPhoenix on May 01, 2008, 04:34:29 PM
That is why I wish Action Replay wouldn't be shut out all the time by Nintendo. At least it provides an option for people.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: IceCold on May 02, 2008, 03:06:49 AM
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You got that satisfaction from accomplishing something difficult. You would have been just as satisfied if the game had simply congratulated you on a job well done.
No, I felt like all my effort was actually worth it. I was going for the tracks the whole time - if I spent all that time and just got a Congratulations screen, it would have felt exponentially worse.
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The game's difficulty wasn't unfair, and I rate it highly, too, but that doesn't change the fact that the requirements were unfair. I paid for the game, and parts of it were unavailable to me unless I made it my career. I don't have that kind of time. I gave it my best shot, but ultimately had to just walk away.
I spent less time to unlock the AX Cup than I did to finish Twilight Princess. Maybe it's just a preference thing, but I'd rather a reflex-based, pick up and play game like F-Zero GX than an epic 40 hour game.
EDIT: I agree with you that it's kind of unfair for so many people to not have access to the tracks. But on the other hand, videogames have always been about rewarding effort. Maybe a "master code" like someone said earlier would work, but then what would motivate them to play the game and become good at it?
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on May 02, 2008, 11:58:35 AM
what would motivate them to play the game and become good at it?
How about the game simply being good enough to play and become good at for its own sake? I think GX would be that type of game for me if it weren't so demotivating to have that content locked. It's the difference between a bully holding something of yours out of reach and laughing at you and you deciding to see how high you can jump just because. Both situations have the same physical demands, but the first one would motivate me more to kick the bully in the balls (i.e. use a cheat code) than to try to jump high.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on May 02, 2008, 12:10:32 PM
Considering the multiplayer focus on racing games I wonder how well a game would go over if all the tracks and cars were unlocked from the get-go. Then you just have fun racing the different tracks with your friends or against the computer.
Look at sports games. Imagine an NHL game where to begin with I only have the "original six" teams available and if I want to play as the Canucks I first have to win the Stanley Cup with the Maple Leafs. That would be sh!t on by everybody. In sports games typically I have everything at my disposal. The purpose of winning the season mode is entirely for fun.
So maybe a game like F-Zero should just be about winning the championship in all circuits and beating the best times. High scores used to be the whole point of damn near every game.
I have all three Fire Pro Wrestling games released in North America. The two GBA ones came out first and require you to unlock all the characters. I never could be bothered and always used a code. I just wanted to have all the wrestlers at my disposal right away so I could make full use of all the different game modes available. The devs obviously discovered that a lot of people had the same view as me as Fire Pro Wrestling Returns for the PS2 has all the characters available from the start. No unlockables. Everything is available to you and you decide what to do.
With non-games and open-ended stuff like GTA being so popular having to unlock everything seems like going against the grain.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Luigi Dude on May 02, 2008, 07:19:12 PM
But F-Zero is a series. I bought F-Zero GX because I loved F-Zero and F-Zero X. So I figured it would be comparable to that. Those aren't easy games but GX's story mode expects the player to do flawless runs on the second mission. And that's like the normal difficulty. That wasn't really expected in other F-Zero games.
I agree 100%. The biggest problem with GX story mode is the fact they require you to have to use Captain Falcon. If your someone who's isn't good with using Captain Falcon in the Grand Prix, then your pretty much f*cked.
The whole point of racing games is for people to use different racers that fit their style. When the game forces you to play as Captain Falcon when your not a Captain Falcon player, not to mention you have to be a PERFECT Captain Falcon player just to unlock a huge amount of content, that is extremely unfair.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: wandering on May 02, 2008, 08:41:00 PM
Re: escort missions. RE4 wouldn't have been nearly as good without Ashley. Being alone with someone who needed protection made enemies scarier, and killing more satisfying.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on May 04, 2008, 05:13:37 PM
Re: escort missions. RE4 wouldn't have been nearly as good without Ashley. Being alone with someone who needed protection made enemies scarier, and killing more satisfying.
well im sure that was just used as an example. you have to admit that in the vast majority of escort missions its actually a drag to have to save someone like that.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Ian Sane on May 05, 2008, 01:09:23 PM
One thing I wonder is if developers actually make sure that their game is fun. Most games, even good ones, have at least one part where you're just wondering who the hell would ever enjoy this. Are developers even capable of truly being able to tell if their game is fun or do they just have to go by theory? If you're a tester you're going to play through a game so much and you're not going to play like a real player. You have to go into every nook and cranny to make sure the game doesn't crash. While under a deadline and with a priority to just make sure the game works correctly you probably don't really take into account how enjoyable the game is. Hell, since the whole thing is work for you, maybe you can't even if you try.
I'm a programmer and sometimes some questionable design choices make it into our software because we're just thinking about making sure it works correctly and not always thinking about how the user will use the software. That has to be part of game design as well. Everyone is going to make sure that the escort mission works correctly. If the escort dies it should be game over. If the mission is complete it should recognize that. That's routine software testing. But they're probably not always going to take into account if this bug-free escort mission is actually enjoyable.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: Smoke39 on May 05, 2008, 01:49:32 PM
That's what focus testing is for (as opposed to bug testing). Get a bunch of ordinary people to come play your game and just watch them to see which parts they enjoy and which parts they don't. I'm sure different devs do different amounts of this (Valve, for example, does oodles of it).
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: EasyCure on May 05, 2008, 04:09:45 PM
Re: escort missions. RE4 wouldn't have been nearly as good without Ashley. Being alone with someone who needed protection made enemies scarier, and killing more satisfying.
well im sure that was just used as an example. you have to admit that in the vast majority of escort missions its actually a drag to have to save someone like that.
I agree with both of you. Ashley was actually pretty good to escort but that might of been because of how much could be done in the game. You could leave here in the second floor of a building and kick out ladders so no one can get to her, have her hide in dumpsters and because of how zombies reacted differently depending on where they were hit, it made saving her easy (especially with Godly Wii Aiming).
Then there's something like Goldeneye 007... ugh thost missions with Natasha were such a pain, especially once you get to Janus' underground complex and you had to cover her while she's on that f*cking computer in the middle of the room. That was just plain tear your head out frustrating if you weren't good at it. If you were patient enough you became good at it because you had to re-try that level so many times.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: KDR_11k on May 06, 2008, 05:28:06 AM
One thing I wonder is if developers actually make sure that their game is fun. Most games, even good ones, have at least one part where you're just wondering who the hell would ever enjoy this. Are developers even capable of truly being able to tell if their game is fun or do they just have to go by theory?
] When you're working on something you become unable to spot its flaws after a while, flaws you'd see immediately otherwise.
I can't think of something right now that would be an example of a completely un-fun gameplay decision, anyone got good examples? Collectathons and mandatory secrets are stupid but it's easy to see how a developer can miss that as the dev already knows where everything is.
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: NinGurl69 *huggles on May 06, 2008, 12:06:29 PM
SSE
Title: Re: 7 commandments of videogames
Post by: walkingdead2 on May 06, 2008, 05:37:19 PM
Re: escort missions. RE4 wouldn't have been nearly as good without Ashley. Being alone with someone who needed protection made enemies scarier, and killing more satisfying.
well im sure that was just used as an example. you have to admit that in the vast majority of escort missions its actually a drag to have to save someone like that.
I agree with both of you. Ashley was actually pretty good to escort but that might of been because of how much could be done in the game. You could leave here in the second floor of a building and kick out ladders so no one can get to her, have her hide in dumpsters and because of how zombies reacted differently depending on where they were hit, it made saving her easy (especially with Godly Wii Aiming).
Then there's something like Goldeneye 007... ugh thost missions with Natasha were such a pain, especially once you get to Janus' underground complex and you had to cover her while she's on that f*cking computer in the middle of the room. That was just plain tear your head out frustrating if you weren't good at it. If you were patient enough you became good at it because you had to re-try that level so many times.
but yea escort missions due suck most of the time. im playing bioshock and im near the end. this game was really fun until the escort mission. its not hard it just isnt fun.
