Games for Everyone Else

[JuntMonkey]

I can't preach enough about how much I hate MGS and MGS2 for their cut-scenes and radio conversations. With both of them I enjoyed myself for most of the game, but towards the end just got totally worn down by the [censored] retarded story that the [censored] developers and [censored] idiot gamers think is somehow helping the evolution of games into higher forms of art.

However, I didn't mind Xenosaga. Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within was one of the only FMV games that was actually excellent. Both of these are slow-paced games (an RPG and an adventure game, respectively) so they're perhaps better suited to having more non-interactive sequences. However, they still have good and challenging gameplay - something that is missing from most FMV games.

[AceLuby]

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I can't preach enough about how much I hate MGS and MGS2 for their cut-scenes and radio conversations. With both of them I enjoyed myself for most of the game, but towards the end just got totally worn down by the [censored] retarded story that the [censored] developers and [censored] idiot gamers think is somehow helping the evolution of games into higher forms of art.


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I thought of them more as manditory bowl breaks [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

I'm glad to see I'm not alone on thinking story is often completely overblown in importance. Few stories aren't ones we've seen before and expect to see again. And few tellings are memorable. To me it's the gameplay. For instance, for games I intend to play online, I'll play enough to get a feel of the flavor of things and the commands down, but usually within a couple days of getting a game, at most, I will start playing it online. The bulk of the single-player game often goes ignored. I find it tends to build in bad habits, anyway. (Turtling, anyone?)

[littlekeed]

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Take a very cinematic game, MGS3 Snake Eater. Tons of people complained about the game forcing you to sit and watch for the first 2 hours.

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Honestly, this is the reason I like this game so much. I like the feeling of playing a movie. I actually wish more games would try this approach. Maybe not to the extent of MGS, but something near that would be great IMO.

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The problem I have with games like this, is that if the story is not excellent, it will piss me off whenever the action stops and the story starts. I could not play Final Fantasy X because the story was mindnumbingly awful.

Back in 1992, Sega tried using the strategy of making games out of video. It was called the Sega CD. You know what happened? It led to the complete downfall of Sega as a console manufacturer because no one wanted to play FMV games (of course, the 32x did not help matters later on). The most popular games of the time were Sonic on Genesis, Mario on SNES, and DOOM on computers. What do they all have in common? Each game is full of action. Has the market changed since 1992? Absolutely. Everything became more complicated because the average gamer got older. We could handle doing more than hold right and hit A to jump, such as in Sonic. Unfortunately, this meant the end for the casual gamer. My dad and I would play Tecmo Super Bowl and NBA Jam together because they are really easy games to just hop into. Just about every year we go on a golfing vacation to Myrtle Beach. By the hotel we usually stay at, there is a very oldschool arcade. At least once a trip we end up playing Ms. Pac Man and Galaga. He likes playing games, but he would have no interest in learning how to play a game such as Madden. There is too much of a learning curve involved in modern games to make them instantly accesible to the average person.

The video game player from 1992 has been alienated, at least until Nintendo decided to come back to them with the Wii. Anyone can have fun with Wii Sports. I think it's good that a company is trying to market to every single person in the world with their product.

As for this guy... unless he is trying to market to children, I am not a fan of his ideas.

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That's an interesting take on things, but a partial one, and so it falls short. The popularity of simulations argues against your point. They were huge back then, and one of the the identifying things people thought of when they thought of PC games, at least. Many of them were immensely difficult to get into, and still did very well. Falcon, Nascar, Apache Longbow, etc.

Those games have since pretty much exited the market. Many of today's games are actually simpler. Far simpler.

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Ok. In all honesty I do not know much about PC gaming history. I was and still am a console player. I don't think it can be argued that console games have become simpler over the past 15 years. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can make games far more engaging for those who are willing to put in the time, but the days of walking into an arcade and dropping in a quarter for 5 minutes of fun are over. This is a loss I lament.

[Blarg]

I've never played a console game, but definitely enjoy the occasional quick and easy game. I think as I get less time in my life, I'm gravitating to them more.

[Dire]

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This issue had an article written by Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games (google takes 0.14 seconds to get his result, do the leg work yourself) talking about what it is that makes games inaccessible to the same general public that has so much time to spend on movies, and tv, and books, and music.

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I do not agree that games are 'inaccessible' to the general public. I believe that the 'general public' are simply not 'accessing' them. As an anecdote from when my mom recently visited, she got hooked playing Galaga on the 360 (forced me to buy it so she could get further!), a game she played at the arcade 20 something years ago - but at the same time she effectively refused to even consider playing other games that provide a similar but 'different' experience such as Geometry Wars.

I don't really think it had anything to do with the accessibility of the games, or lack there of. I think it was instead her perception of the inaccessibility. She never really played games, and views them as something she just does not 'do' - in spite of the fact she spent hours playing Galaga.

I also think this is why you see the Wii right now selling incredibly well, but at the same time - its games are selling rather poorly. The Wii managed to break the common perception of inaccessibility, and is selling very well because of that - but at the same time people are stilling perceiving that the games are inaccessible for them. What else would they think when they walk by a gamestop and in all likelihood see nothing but 12-20 year old boys in the store.

It's a matter of perception of the games, not the games themselves.

[Phoenix1010]

I have a lot of thoughts on these kinds of things.

This kind of sounds like what Peter Molyneux is doing with Fable 2. You never die and all the combat is controlled with one button (Source). Does anyone think this kind of thing will be a trend? I've always thought deaths actually take away from the sense of immersion in a game, like everyone's treating you like a badass for beating a boss even though you know he killed you ten times before you got him.

I was thinking it would be cool to make a game where you can't really lose, but certain things change depending on how you perform, like Merryl dying or living depending on whether you pass the torture scene in MGS. Does anybody think this kind of thing could be a success, or will people be constantly resetting until they get the best outcome? And if I make it ambiguous enough that they can't do that, will it just bother them in some weird subconcious way?

[Blarg]

Having world-events dependent on your success is interesting, but problematic. And so is never dying.

First, if you have ever played a game in god mode, you know that it gets boring extremely fast. Good for a laugh, mostly, or to explore a map. But not good for playing. There needs to be something that lets you have a stake in things, for you to care whether you succeed or don't.

Death does that quickly and easily. It springs naturally out of the typical challenge in a game, which is a battle you have to win. It also gives shape to an encounter and makes it more natural. After all, if we are getting our arses kicked by some monster, how can that be done without killing us eventually, and how long does it really take to lose a fight? Dragging it out would be both unnatural and dull. Death just "feels" and works right.

Your alternative, of changing what happens in a game, calls for either there to be a huge ton of story branches, massively expanding the game and its environments, or branches that essentially go nowhere because they involve events that aren't important to the game. The first makes a game costly and greatly increases its development time, and the second makes winning feel pointless. If killing the monster changes something, you want that something to actually matter, right? Otherwise, what's your reward? Killing the monster isn't enough of a reward in itself, at least not in a game that has you go through hundreds or thousands of them. Further, if you succeed, it would feel less spectacular if you hadn't succeeded at the risk of your "life."

Finally, if changing world events for a positive outcome that really matters is embraced, what happens when you play through the story a few times, and learn its variations? Won't its replayability be lessened?