Three Great Game Design Evils

[EvilMog]

I'll agree that fucking escort missions need to go in every game. I fucking HATE having to protect stuff. I even hated it in RE 4. In fact that was the 1 thing I didnt like about that game.


I also have to go with rubberband AI also. There is nothing like playing a racing game and racing a perfect race only to have the AI right behind you no matter what. Its not thrilling at all, its fucking bullshit. If I fucking own a race the AI should be left in the dust. Being able to race well and be #1 is far more exciting than having an AI car ride your ass from start to finish.

[kingoffighters]

Maybe camera's angle are harder than everyone thinks they are.

Agreed. If Miyamoto can't come up with the perfect camera for his games, then you know it is not the easiest thing to do. The problem with camera is that it is really dependent on the type of game you play. For a stealth game like Splinter Cell, having the manual camera with the right analog was perfect.

[Opaque]

I find most of these complaints to be unfocused. Stealth for example is not something that should be done away with, it just needs to be used properly. It should be an option (like in Oblivion and MGS) not a neccesity.

Don't even get me started on the Cut Scene bullshit. When I play RPGs I want beautiful cut scenes to advance the story, not mindless chit chat between myself and NPCs who only have one line of dialogue (FABLE).

[avatar]

My only problem with cut scenes is how publishers use them to sell games.(E3) Besides that i don't see any problem. Most of the complaints with Cut Scenes are complete Shit. They are not that long and they advance the plot.They are like the 5 minute blocks of text in previous RPGs, just now visually appealing to watch. The only game that truly irked me concerning cutscenes were the xeno games becuase they dragged.

[AaronChance]

Rubberband AI is the biggest one for me, and the reason why 99% of racing games are completely worthless to me. It's the only design choice I find myself actually hating. Everything else can work as long as it's handled well, and in the case of something like save points, the need varies from game to game, and I don't think there should be some kind of hard and fast rule. I don't want games to be too easy, but I don't want to repeat the same 15 minutes of a game over and over because there's some evil boss bitch right at the end right before the next save.

[Cowutopia]

Every action game should be like Half-Life 2 or Call of Duty where shit happens and you're still in control of your character. Scripted in-game events that play out differently or even cutscenes that allow you to retain your control of the character (teleporter shit in HL2) are much better than removing you from control of the character.

You can still have a cutscene every now and then but too many games have too many long cutscenes in awkward places. And making them unskippable on repeated playthroughs, or having to sit through a long, unskippable scene before a hard encounter that you'll likely have to replay several times...it's just poor design.

I think God of War did a good job with cutscenes. In fact, I think it could have used a few more. They're skippable, in the right places so it doesn't yank you out of an intense sequence, and really feel like rewards. The cutscenes in the Halo series are similar, they're used primarily to bookmark levels.

Speaking of it not being 1993 anymore, why doesn't every game have a save wherever feature like PC games have for the last 15 years?

I think God of War did this right as well. The behind-the-scenes checkpoints are after every challenging area so if you fuck up a jump you don't have to fight your way through ten minutes of shit you just cleared, and the save points are frequent enough that you can sit down for ten minutes and play a chunk. I like having to complete a section of a game before reaching a point where I can turn off the console and walk away, but in RPG's especially a save anywhere feature is necessary.

[Tommy Tallarico]

As long as they aren't stupid, I like cutscenes. Even absurdly gratuitous ones like in Xenosaga. The criticism of cutscenes has always struck me as bizarre; people like movies, people like television shows. The idea that these things suddenly become unenjoyable because they're within the context of a game is nonsense. There's alot to be said for the way Half Life presents its plot, but it doesn't have to be to the exclusion of any other approach.

Turn that around: what if you're watching a movie and have to pick up a controller to beat a section of a game to see the next part?

Now that I think about it, I just described Metal Gear Solid.

[sethsez]

I generally don't like it when a game decides to toss in a required minigame from a different genre. If I'm playing a platformer, I don't suddenly want to have to race. If it's an action game, don't cram a strategy section in there. These parts are never ever ever as polished as they should be and come off as the half-finished toss-offs that they are.

And yeah, stealth can fit in with this.

[AaronChance]

Every action game should be like Half-Life 2 or Call of Duty where shit happens and you're still in control of your character. Scripted in-game events that play out differently or even cutscenes that allow you to retain your control of the character (teleporter shit in HL2) are much better than removing you from control of the character.

I wish the HL2 teleporter scene had been a scripted cut-scene because then maybe I could have skipped it, since it was painfully predictable and ran way too long. I really don't want control during cut-scenes, directing my POV towards the character speaking and shit. It's not immersive. It's dull. Just get them over with.

[James]

I'm in the anti-cut-scene camp. I'm here to do stuff, not watch. A little story here and there to keep things moving is fine, but anything outside the ending cinema longer than a minute needs to go.

James