Capturing Gaming Feel Not All About Complexity? 40
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' column discussing the largely indefinable 'feel' of a videogame, suggesting: " I'd much rather play a very simple game with a great feel to it than a highly complex, sweeping game consisting of a huge variety of different elements, none of which are terribly good in and of themselves." The writes goes on to compare the "polar-opposite types of game design philosophies" displayed in Ikaruga ("I think of [the game] essentially a flawless masterpiece") versus Morrowind ("I think of [it] as being great mostly through the sum of its many parts"), before concluding: "Games shouldn't take on extra features for the sake of it... Quality of gameplay is ultimately what matters most to people who avidly play games, and high-quality gameplay comes from having the right feel, rather than the other way around."
for example (Score:5, Interesting)
When you see hte sequel, Super off road baja, you wonder WTF happened
On the other hand, tho, You have a game like Zelda: Link to the Past, which is a FANTASTIC game -- Then you compare it to Ocrina of Time... and you can see how "Features" can improve a product.
Re:for example (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:for example (Score:2)
An excellent example, as it also illustrates how new "features" can ruin the feel for certain people, since "feel" is a very very subjective thing. I know at least a few people who think Link to the Past is better than Ocarina of Time, and usually they just say that in 3D "it isn't the same."
Re:for example (Score:2)
Count me up. While I think that Ocarina/WindWaker are great (I have not played Majora's yet), I think the game lost a lot in the 3D transition. The 2D games (TLOZ and ALttP, I'm not talking about AoL here) were more f
Riddick (Score:4, Interesting)
Its a film license, how did it not suck!
N to the ethack (Score:5, Interesting)
Nethack is an example of a game that rides its complexity to greatness. It makes it hard to learn, but once you learn it, it's wonderful.
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about it lately....
N to the ethack, and Crawl (Score:2, Informative)
Those frustrated trying to learn Nethack's large library of instant-kill one-trick jokes may try Crawl, and struggle instead against its large library of instant-kill out-of-depth monsters.
Seriously, from the point of view of the original article, although Crawl is a turn-based roguelike game it gives a convincingly frenetic fast-action feel. You have time to think between moves, but mistakes are punished harshly. The game's principal flaw is that, until you become VERY good, only about 10% of your chara
Re:N to the ethack, and Crawl (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually....
Lately I've had opportunity to do a lot of thinking, and a lot of reading, on Nethack. And I've come to the conclusion that it's not nearly as deadly as new players believe.
These are the things that kill most new players:
Those are the biggies, but they aren't really that many of these. No one ever dies by "an imperious order," or "fell hundreds of feet to his death," in normal play. The vast majority of deaths come from getting killed by a monster, getting poisoned by one, or by cockatrice or other monster with a method of instadeath (and there are not a large number of them).
In particular, new players are best served by being wary of soldier ants. Check it out. [alt.org]
My stupidest deaths (Score:1)
Re:My stupidest deaths (Score:1)
Re:My stupidest deaths (Score:2)
But that *is* really bad luck with the rock traps, heh. My condolences.
I once made it to the Wizard before knowing how essential it was to have magic resistance at that stage, and died to a finger of death spell. I did ascend eventually, though.
Re:N to the ethack, A to the DOM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:N to the ethack, A to the DOM (Score:2)
Another thing about ADOM is the sense I get that it cheats. It biases item generation depending on player cla
A little too complex... (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm trying to get at is that for myself I would rather see a simple, yet potent game (Ikaruga is a great example) than a more complex do-whatever-the-hell-you-feel-like style game. A complex game like one of the Baldur's Gate games is much better than Morrowind, as the latter's complexity is better suited as a MMORPG.
Re:A little too complex... (Score:5, Interesting)
of course it's kind of hard if you expect it to be like all the other games that come now that give you very direct orders on where to go with little choice.
and then when there's no choice they still say that it's a 'free world where you can go anywhere' - yet in farcry, where that's mentioned often(in reviews, they make a big deal out of it that you can walk around the 'open' levels), has limits on the levels you can't pass, so it's NOT up to you to choose the route(you can't use the waterways like one would want for example, and there's no plantation on areas you werent meant to reach)..
though, even in morrowind it's good to have certain goals you're pursuing - but the game doesn't force you to that(since most of the time you have couple of alternative goals you might wish to reach).
Re:A little too complex... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A little too complex... (Score:3, Interesting)
but that's what kept me playing morrowind for weeks, instead of the usual DAY it takes to finish games these days.
morrowind has a general plot, but you can put more time into the various optional quests than what you could put into digging through for example KOTOR completely(and I mean _really_ completely). with morrowind you also tend to always have some kind of objective from somebody. in this sense morrowind is a lot like fallout's, one 'master plot' and a shitload of ot
Re:A little too complex... (Score:3, Insightful)
The two big trends in American gaming now, as far as I can see, are retrogaming and MMORPGs/"sandbox"-type games. I wonder if most
Re:A little too complex... (Score:2)
if you just want simplicity there's dozen or so mediocre first person shooters or action jumper wanabe games released every year.. thing is these lack replayability even
Re:A little too complex... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A little too complex... (Score:4, Interesting)
Briefly, on the retro game subject, I love retro games also. I've been doing little but playing Doom lately and before that I was playing emulated games (NES, SNES, Arcade, C64) constantly. So I can appreciate a good simple, rigid, and linear, but fun game also.
I also love Simcity because there are no definate goals defined by the game designer. I wish other Strategy/Sim games were like this instead of having the "missions". Most have sandbox mode, but it's often kind of boring with nothing at all going on.
BTW, I just got Arena from the TES site and got it to run under DOSBox, so now I can play the first Elder Scrolls game too.
In short, what I often look for is a simulation of another world (or this world, but doing something I wouldn't be able to do), not really a "game" as such.
Too much complexity (Score:2)
When it was released, TA enjoyed great p
Re:Too much complexity (Score:3, Interesting)
Best Example (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Best Example (Score:2)
Being lost and overwhelmed is a great show stopper (Score:1)
Re:Being lost and overwhelmed is a great show stop (Score:2)
A game like Morrowind, while not a perfect game, held my interest for a lot longer. A complex game like ATITD held my interest for a lot longer than a very well-done but very
Games are complex nowadays (Score:2, Insightful)
If someone showed me wolfenstein enemy territory in 2000, I'd think it's no complex than any other game in the market.
What does that say? Alot about the complexity of games in general in the market going up and up.
Too many games offer hours of boring gameplay (Score:3, Insightful)
Feel me (Score:2)
I have stayed very true to the feel of Risk, and it has been quite successful!
Ikaruga had an intended audience... not over-rated (Score:4, Interesting)
Ikaruga was mainly about chaining and getting a high score. It is a twitch skill based game. The game while short and somewhat uninspired had deep puzzles for chainers in level design. Just watch some of the best ikaruga players The goal of any serious ikaruga player is to chain enemies and rack up the highest score possible which is a tremendous feat in and of itself. Thats the Ikaruga's main draw, is the challenge of mastering the levels and chaining perfectly, not to finish the game on easy just shooting guys blindly or dying until you get infinite continues to finish the game.
Check out some of the replays here... this is what ikaruga is really about.
http://kiken.sirkain.net/Ikareplay.html
Re:Ikaruga had an intended audience... not over-ra (Score:1)
well duh (Score:2, Insightful)
VGA Planets (Score:1)
Also look at the Civilizaion line of games. Civilization is a classic, civ2 for me hit the sweetspot, not much more complex than the original, but a few helpful tweaks. Then Civ3 added more resources and culture, and is much more complex and less fun to play. Then t