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What Could Video Games Do Without?
Evander
Disappointed FatherRegistered User regular
Disappointed FatherRegistered User regular
So, the thread on features every game should have, combined with my playing Kane & Lynch last night, got me thinking about just how much I have invisible walls.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind when a game has barriers in it preventing you from going somewhere, be it a stack of boxes, or a steep incline, or even the system that Assassin's Creed is currently implimenting, but the whole "there is absolutely nothing inyour way, but you can't move any further" thing drives me crazy, because it just breaks my immersion instantaniously. Honestly, I don't even like the "invisible guardrails" you often get on ledges and beams, because even though I hate falling, sometimes I want to jump down, and don't want to haveto walk all the way around to get there.
So, what other "standard elements" do you think video games could do without?
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind when a game has barriers in it preventing you from going somewhere, be it a stack of boxes, or a steep incline, or even the system that Assassin's Creed is currently implimenting, but the whole "there is absolutely nothing inyour way, but you can't move any further" thing drives me crazy, because it just breaks my immersion instantaniously. Honestly, I don't even like the "invisible guardrails" you often get on ledges and beams, because even though I hate falling, sometimes I want to jump down, and don't want to haveto walk all the way around to get there.
So, what other "standard elements" do you think video games could do without?
Evander on
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Non-customisable controls. I should be able to assign any button to any function i want.
Azrael : Yes! I play a lot of racing games, and man, FUCK auto catchup. Especially bad in multiplayer if theres no option to disable it.
Let's expand on that to include all cutscenes need to be able to be skipped and paused.
As an avid cutscene-skipper (even on the first playthrough! its a rare game i dont skip cutscenes) i heartily agree.
You have ADD?
No, i just find its extremely rare that games have interesting enough plots that the cutscenes are worth sitting through. I just want to play the game.
Having to press start at the load screen of almost any PS3 game because it reminds you that it saves info to the hard drive. Yes, dumbass, I know that. That's why I bought one.
Any sort of host ability to kick/ban players in ranked online games. No matter what you do it's going to get abused, so either make it automated or pay someone to do it via a report function.
:^:
You must be playing the wrong kinds of games then
The ability to pause would be great too.
360 does that though it can be a bit cumbersome to go through all those menues. Bungie made it so all you have to do is hold select, select the name of the person in question, press a button and they're muted.
Isn't that what we're defining here?
I have to say, I agree with him. Games don't have great plots... for great writing, you have to look to books or movies. Some cut-scenes (in good games!) are simply groan-inducing.
Some are, but a lot of times I think people way over-react to cutscenes in games. I know plenty of games where the voice acting was perfectly fine, for example, and yet if you go into a thread for that game there will be someone who acts like it was the original Resident Evil.
Fuck. Off.
Doesn't really have anything to do with the voice acting. A game can have awesome voice acting and still have an absolutely terrible plot I don't care about.
Half-demon bishounen with swords? Awesome. Don't need to hear your angst.
Ninja/assassin/wizard/soldier/princess/prince whose master/mentor/best friend/lover/father/mother/parents/dog was killed? Great. Let's kill shit.
You've found a magical object heavy with the weight of destiny? Faaaantastic. Get to the explosions.
It's demons from hell/the empire/some sadistic bastard attacking your town/research facility/world? Never would have guessed that one. I wonder when I get the rocket launcher?
Play less Japanese games.
This.
Also I hate the recharge shit in call of duty 4 because it doesn't make any god damn sense whatsoever. It makes sense in Halo but in a modern war game it just makes you go "what the fuck?"
Well, of course Japanese games are big offenders, but there are precious few Western games doing any better. I mean, Half-Life 2 probably has my favorite video game plot, and it's just a very well-presented "oh noes aliens" story that wouldn't have been out of place in a pulp magazine in 1950.
The games that do best, I think, are the ones that recognize that they don't have spectacular plots and make fun of themselves: the Ratchet & Clank series, for example.
The biggest difference between Japanese games and Western games is that there is the addition of the our troops are storming a heavily defended beachhead but will ultimately triumph recurring plot. World War II games are the obvious culprits here, but it occurs in some odd places...
And uh aiming with an analog stick. Its partially cause I'm just a tard but it feels like trying to hammer a nail with a frozen cabbage. Or something. Just gimme a mouse, a wiimote, auto aim, sumthin.
Was pretty much a staple of the 90s licensed Disney platformers.
Your attitude toward stories in video games is directly affecting your ability to see a good plot. Jesus fucking christ.
I've managed never to touch a WW2 game, baring Company of Heroes. I really have no interest in playing through the small part of the war the US was involved in over and over again.
And I LOVE FPS games, so that took some effort on my part.
But yeah, video games could use some actually good stories. Some, like HL2 have good story telling, but the actual story is pretty basic. Sadly, I don't see it happening. The plot will always be subsurviant to the rest of the games design.
"We can't get this level that's super integral to the plot finished in time."
"Ok, cut it out. We'll patch up the story with something about government conspiracies."
How about Blue Velvet, Jacob's Ladder, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Goodfellas, Apocalypse Now or Vertigo?
Video games just don't do plot very well right now. They do gameplay well. For plot, I turn to a novel or a movie, as I said; seeing a poorly-acted 3D version of a 1950s Heinlein juvie is not why I paid $50 for a game.
2) Shitty writing. What kind of retard rodeo do you go to if you need a video game writer, anyway?
3) Limited save points. Quicksave that deletes itself upon load should be available in every game. No other kind of entertainment has a bullshit 'you can be done when I fucking say so' mechanic like save points.
That's the problem, they don't have writers. They usually get some guy on the Dev team to do it, from what I've seen anyway.
Like, sit in a computer science class one day, and look around at the other people there. Imagine them writing a script. Then shiver in fear.
Well, most of the computer scientists and programmers I know (who still make up the vast majority of powerful people in the gaming world) have absolutely no regard for (or appreciation for) aesthetics. I know a guy who is a good programmer, works at a game company in the US, is in his late twenties and still reads Dungeon & Dragon novels and claims that they're every bit as good as any other novels--and that I'm a snob.
I weep.
/hug while patting on back
I know. It'll be ok. Drinking will make you forget.
That said, unskippable cutscenes are a huge problem, but more important is the lack of a pause button. So many times I've finished a game and had to go do something in the middle of the final movie.
Resident Evil 4 handled it the best I feel.
edit: Presto change-o!