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| Still unsure if Ezio is a flagrant homosexual or just Italian. |
The Good
1. Animations are getting almost indistinguishable from the real thing. With motion capture technology advancing and powerful graphical engines we're beginning to see some really lifelike performances from our virtual pals. The facial expressions in Halo 4 had some of the subtlest movements I've seen since LA Noire, and from what I've seen in the Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes trailer Kojima is ratcheting up in-game dynamic animations even higher. It's not just character animations in third person that are improving either. Reloading a weapon in a first person shooter shows you all the mechanical parts moving in great detail adding just that much more to the immersion. Feet tilt when standing on an uneven surface, animations change when moving uphill or down - all the things I'd question when playing games in years past have been rectified.
2. Some people dislike sandbox games and I can understand why. It's difficult to imagine a sandbox style game with the same kind of immersive gravitas like Half-Life but we're starting to head that way and I'm excited. Sandbox gameplay offers infinite possibility for those little 'moments'. Those times where you manage to do something so insane, so inspired that you can't believe you just pulled it off within a game. Any game that promotes the possibility of creating these moments has my highly sought after tick of approval. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes has announced that it will have a sandbox style narrative and I nearly passed out from all my blood surging towards my throbbing boner.
3. Cooperative games. I'm a huge fan of cooperative games which probably grew from a desire to play with siblings when we only had one computer and couldn't. It was surreal to see another player character in the game world and now it's becoming common. The laid back shooty fun of Borderlands, the chaotic teamkilling in Magicka, episodic content like Halo 4's Spartan Ops and dozens more are setting the tone that adding cooperative play to your game is a good thing. Actually creating a compelling cooperative experience is still in its infancy, as fun as it is to shoot stuff with a buddy I'm yearning for more refined cooperative games like Portal 2 and Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker. It's becoming a trend and I believe only great things are going to come of it.
4. Sound fidelity has been on the rise for a while but now recordings of the genuine article are becoming the norm. Rifle shots, helicopters approaching from a distance, wind rustling through a dense canopy lend a lot to a scene and are all captured from the real world. I found my self taking a break and listening when playing Far Cry 2 because the weather had suddenly changed and created a unique and interesting moment. The work that went into Battlefield 3's audio helped set the benchmark for player's expectations of sound effects. It's not just gun shots and wind, it's the foley as well. When you're running around and you hear the clink of chainmail, the crunch of snow or the rustle of cloth I get all tingly.
5. Being able to look down and see your legs. This doesn't seem like much, it's been around since Halo 2, but this was a concept I had when I was playing Quake. When I heard that you could literally see your legs in Halo 2 I was elated. Seeing your legs as you climb a hill or lower yourself down a ladder really hits home that it's you. Playing Arma 2 and being able to look around while moving independently was one of the greatest innovations to never make it mainstream but I hope it does. It really is a great time to be alive.
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| LOOK AT THEM! It's off the fucking chain! |
1. Regenerating health is a mechanic that has overstayed its welcome. It's great from a designer's perspective because you no longer need to plan where to put health packs and that sort of thing because the player's health comes back by itself. Apart from the utter suspension of disbelief required when you're basically Wolverine soaking up mortars, it spoils those aforementioned 'moments'. Playing Half-Life and finding yourself with no suit power and only 35 health and knowing you're a long way off a health kit you have to change your style of play. Having a health bar introduces a random mechanic that influences your play style, health becomes a resource and each encounter you spend some. When your health magically comes back as you sit behind a rock and contemplate what you're doing for dinner every fight becomes the same because each encounter your resources are reset. I'm not saying health bars are perfect and I would like to see another approach I'm more in favour of bars than troll¹ physics.
2. Respawning enemies. I don't like hating on Call of Duty because at this point it's like pistol whipping a blind kid but it's the biggest offender. If I have exhausted thousands of rounds of ammunition and killed more people than Stalin did in the gulags and there are still more coming it's not suspension of disbelief it's just frustration. The intent, as I see it, is to keep you on the offensive and force you to push forward under fire otherwise you'll be stuck in a sandy shit hole come the equinox. What makes a questionable mechanic more egregious is when the enemy respawns it's done so mechanically you can actually time with precision how long it takes for them to appear at the exact spot you capped them last. It's lazy and I dun' like it.
3. Iron sights or aiming down the sight. You're probably sensing a theme here that a certain hugely popular franchise is an offender of all the listed shitty mechanics and I swear to Shiva that it was not my intention when I started this. Maybe it's my subconscious revolting. Having 'Aim Down Sight' or ADS, as it shall henceforth be referred to, is just adding another button the player has to press in order to shoot someone. I mean, why? It's not optional either, if you don't peek down the top of the gun you'll be lucky to hit a lake if you're standing on the bottom. We could just assume the player is always aiming, and just do away with it or just save it for a weapon that has a scope. It's totally lame and I dun' like it.
4. QTfuckingEs. Quicktime Events. This mechanic is so broken, so unfun that I don't know how I didn't lead with this. When a developer hinges your fate on a single button press during a cutscene so that the (usually really long and unskippable) cutscene constantly replays until you get it right I tend to take a break from the game that spans, how do you say, indefinitely. QTEs are the antidote to a good time. I liken them to 3D movies: they're there because they are. They serve no practical purpose, add nothing to the story or gameplay and serve only to place some sudden element of danger to an event that could have been handled automatically. Ask yourself this, have you ever known anyone who genuinely thinks they're fun?
5. Online only features that oughtn't be online only. Spartan Ops in Halo 4 requires you to be connected to Xbox Live which is ad supported but also a paid for subscription service. No connection, no Spartan Ops. This is probably because you can rank up your multiplayer character and they don't want you doing shady things but there could have been a workaround. The cooperative side of Far Cry 3 also requires you to be online. Some games don't even offer LAN anymore. Diablo 3 stands out in my mind for the worst game I've ever had the misfortune to be convinced to buy. Because it's online only you can be banned from playing the game you've bought should you breach the EULA and this really pisses me off. This is the internet being used for evil and it shouldn't sit well with anyone. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but the absence of any local play capability is one of the most saddening trends happening and no one seems to be making much of a fuss.
The Ambivalent
1. Downloadable content or DLC is a force that can be used for good but oft used for evil. Supporting your game post release with fresh content is a downright saintly idea and the highly attractive people over at CD Projekt Red are like bastions of purity in this regard. The problem is that DLC is a tempting way for developers to simply cut stuff out of the game and charge you more for it like day one DLC. Another shitty side effect is just poor quality DLC like map packs or weapons or skins. An example of the good kind of paid DLC are the expansions to Borderlands and its sequel. $10 or so nets you another 4-6 hours of gameplay that you can come back to whenever you want. An example of bad DLC are the missions for Mass Effect 2. You're paying $15-20 each and they last about an hour and once you've finished it that's it until another playthrough. At the moment, DLC is getting better but it stands upon a precipice.
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| Manuals are now on the Critically Endangered list. |
2. The endangered species known as 'manuals'. There are a couple of reasons why the manual is joining the dodo: manuals are becoming digital, the game explains what you need to know as you play, conservation group's worries about trees, it only contains warranty information and so on. If you want to get what you used to pay for you have to fork out for the Collector's Edition for another $20 or so. I understand the decision to cut the manual but it's not one I can forgive. The manual used to give you something to read as you impatiently watched the game install or if the excitement was too much it was something to read while on the toilet squeezing out excitement plops. When a high profile game like Halo 4 neglects to have a manual you know it's nearly game over. I'll miss you manual. Requieste de pace, mon ami².
3. The fires from the rage sparked by oppressive Digital Rights Management have mostly subsided and we stride forth from the Dark Age of PC games. From around 2006 to 2010 just about every game on PC was abysmal. They were poorly optimised, included harsh DRM with activation limits and all in all made us all sad. Now it seems publishers have received the message that they were only pissing off the people who were trying to do the right thing and forced them to go down the very path they were trying to crush and have started to either abandon DRM or just put their game on Steam. Although I loathed it at first my Steam account is now worth almost $3000 and even though it has become our friend I'm still wary. We're all investing a lot of money in the games we purchase on the service but Steam is still a form of DRM and has every right to simply cut you off. DRM is a tetchy issue and it's in the ambivalent pile because it can be good, but it has a dark and bloody past to shrug off.
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| Steam. Wut're you doin'? Steam? Stahp. |
¹Get it? Because in Dungeons and Dragons trolls regenerate health! Hah!
²That's right I used two languages in the one sentence. Come at me.
i hope no blind kid reads this and gets offended
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