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Denver, 3:30 PM
Fri Nov 27
30 posts in the last 24 hours
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12:10 PM
I also like games that drop the fascade and basically just present the game straight up, but then assume that you know the mechanics well and apply the mechanics at a higher level. My current obsession is the Touhou Project series - and in the Windows games, you can pretty much bet that:
- There are at least 2 core hero characters you can play as. Sometimes there are guests from other games in the series or "team" options to mix it up further.
- Most or all levels have at least a token midboss. All levels have a boss.
- Level 1-3 is for warmup
- Level 4 is where it gets serious
- Level 5 is HARD
- Level 6 is a ton of ambushes and cheap attacks to kill you off quickly because the boss is at the end of level 6.
- You can unlock an EX stage by beating the game, but if you can't beat the game, this stage will tear you apart in seconds. Don't even try fighting the bosses there if you ever somehow meet them.
You play mostly by doding millions of small colored bullets, but there are easily recognized classes of bullets, in different size ranges, usually highlighted in primary or secondary colors for visibility - they're not trying to sneak past you - the challenge is seeing AND avoiding them (except game 10 that has red bullets on red backdrop, or game 12 that hides a thousand bullets behind ten thousand redundant powerups and point items while egging you on to play a metagame at your own peril.)
Anyway, that was farther off on tangent than I'd planned - ultimately I think that until games are truly seamless, we are going to naturally analyze the seams and break the illusion in order to interact with the games on their own level, and sometimes that will spoil them for us as we see clearly which tropes the games are playing into. It only gets worse as the cost of developing big games increases, and to play it safer and safer, the studios begin making sure their game follows all the tropes athat are expected of them in order to not disappoint anyone.
01:37 AM
04:41 AM
11/26/09
11/26/09
I most recently ran into this experience while playing Dragon Age: Origins, twice in a row.
(Spoilers here.)
In the city of Redcliffe, after defending the villagers outside the main castle from undead hordes, you and your party take to the main keep itself. Inside you confront more zombies and demons, and eventually find the source of the troubles, the possessed son of the nobles who rule the city.
Up until this point I was dead on with my expectations: save the village, find out that the secrecy and paranoia of the monarchy is the cause of their ills, take them down. That's a standard plot line - in games and out (See: Resident Evil 4, The Two Towers, The Castle.)
There were two ways to solve the quest that I expected: Kill the boy, or sacrifice the child's mother in order to perform an exorcism and get rid of the demon inside of him. But further prodding revealed a third that would extend this already ample quest further - visit the circle of the Mage Tower and request aid to exorcise the child without need for blood sacrifice. Okay, that's the good guy answer. Let's go do that.
Except, the Mage Tower is itself one of the key quest lines in the game. The tower is host to all sorts of creatures, released by a faction of the mages who were trying to change the council's ties to the religious center of the world's civilization, the Chantry.
"Okay, well, maybe they figured this would happen. I'll fight my way up the tower, find the bad guy, kill/save him, get my request solved, then go save the kid."
In the tower, though, there are two plot lines. One ends up being a feint, leading you to an optional (and thus difficult) side boss. The other to a floor filled with high level demons. Again I was sure I knew what I'd do: reason with them or fight them. Be done in fifteen minutes.
But when one of the demons, which represented Sloth, put the party to sleep and sent the PC into the magical realm of the Fade, I was shocked. The four floored tower was only the introduction to the real dungeon. Of course the mage quest wouldn't just be standard beat-up-the-bad-guys. It would incorporate in play what was happening in the story.
By utilizing a setting change, BioWare was able to also switch up game mechanics, creating play around a newly gained ability of shapechanging , and around a board-game style organization of areas.
Why didn't I see this coming? Maybe because up until that point my character had no interaction with the most high-fantasy aspects of Dragon Age's world. Maybe because I had been playing him as a skeptic - yes there was magic, but clearly the scripture of the world's religion was politically (and ethnocentrically) charged propaganda. But I'm keen to think that it's because BioWare knows that I've played games by BioWare before. They know that I know their structure, and in an act of well balanced give and take are able to both satiate my desire to play exactly that and experience something new.
Anyway, very nice write up. It really resonated with me.
Happy thanksgiving!
11/26/09
11/26/09
The Zelda games in particular have always used inventory as a "progress bar", but some developers use that expectation to "fool" the gamer by filling in your inventory/abilities very quickly... then giving you another 20 hours of play. Other games go in the opposite direction, and withold the last "ability icons" until the very end of the game. That's cheap!
It's like the progress bar of a loading application. Sometimes they program the bar to fill 95% in ten seconds, then three minutes later the last 5% is closed... so it's B.S., in other words, but it gives you something to look at, the illusion of progress.
I want games to fool me. I don't want to know ahead of time how much is in store for me... just like I don't want to go into a movie knowing the characters or the plot twists.
The thing is, I know people who are the exact opposite. They want to know exactly what's going to happen before they can enjoy anything. To me, it would be like skipping to the last chapter of a mystery.
I understand people having family and kids and so forth, but movies are harder to stop & stop... video games are meant to be saved & savored, not rushed through in an afternoon (unless you test or review games for a living).
Live's too short; if I'm not enjoying a very long game, I feel no obligation to complete it. (Hi, Atlus turn-based strategy games!)
Little King's Story fooled me with the scope of the game, though I would have been more surprised if I hadn't read anything about it before it came out (then again, without advance press it may have missed my radar completely). But the chalkboard map scenes (after some of the boss battles) are very nicely done, especially if you don't know they're coming.
Count me in as a fan of the "hub world" - particularly when it takes a while to arrive there (and then when you do...!). Majora's Mask is a great example. It's especially gratifying when the "linear" training level before the hub world is a complete little game in itself. The first fifteen minutes of MM are pretty neat; it feels like a different game, because you never see those areas again.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
10/20/09
10/21/09
10/21/09
10/20/09
wow ty so much for making sure your console version is tip top then release the pos afterbirth of what the pc version was then do your customers the favor of gettin'r patched up a month later so we can actually finish this pile of steaming shit...Doosh Bags.
I love being a pc gamer.. #wolfenstein
10/20/09
10/20/09
10/14/09
The only thing I didn't like were the horrendous cutscenes. I felt like I was watching something from a PS1 game and they just learned how to use 3d programs.
09/13/09
09/12/09
There is no hook to it anymore. Re-hash Wolfenstein into something more realistic, not supernatural over-technology wherever you look.
Yes, original had undead cyborgs and robotic suits and ghosts, but they didn't hijack the game.
09/13/09
09/12/09
i think this will describe the situation.
09/12/09
09/12/09
09/13/09
09/12/09
WHO CARES?
09/12/09
09/12/09
Thanks for not flaming ^_^
09/12/09
09/13/09
09/11/09
09/11/09
If you couldn't tell I'm not being serious, get off your video game high horse.
09/12/09
09/12/09
Also, I don't think people with Nubs could play video games very well, in general. It is possible, but much more difficult for people without fingers. So, if I was playing against someone with Nubs, that had been playing for a while, I may think twice about their suckitude.