zerooftheday wrote:
Looking back on my favorite games, here's the attributes I like the most.
1: Make the main storyline the only set storyline. For any other quest, no matter how big or small, let me solve it in different ways, both good and bad, and perhaps with results that end up working better or worse than others. Fallout 1+2 set this bar really high. After the game-winning cinematic, you'd get a little recap of the various towns, it was far more challenging to rescue all the towns than it was to battle through the last stronghold of baddies.
2: Make the graphics good, but under no circumstances should you ever even think about overtaxing the system. There's no excuse for this, absurdly long load times and choppy graphics destroy my motivation to buy another expensive game from the same company. And please go back to exquisitely pre-rendered cutscenes. You have the technology, abuse it. The spaceship battle at the end of Mass Effect was utterly disappointing when I realized that they were using the same graphics engine as the gameplay. Even more so when I realized that some of the other cutscenes appeared to be pre-rendered.
3: Bring back split-screen MP options. There's a reason Goldeneye 007 is still the best shooter ever. I can't count the number of hours my friends and I spent in my basement staring at 1/4 of a small screen, blowing each other up. Or trying to get 20 kills before someone got 20 suicides, or any of the bizarre game types we came up with.
Halo took that to the next level, since system link made it possible to put 16 people in one house, eat a large amount of pizza, and alternate between talking face to face with your opponents and shooting them in the face.
4: Quick-time events should involve button sequences, not button speed-mashing. This is for Mercs 2, which had some great QTEs, but messed them up or made them tactically unwise by making the button-mashing hard. God of War did this right, since the buttons changed each time the QTE was used.
5: If it is an RPG, I want the ability to play as a total a**hole. Fallout 1+2 were spectacular in this regard. I could help out a side quest town, or show up and slaughter the people simply to watch the blood.
6: Hide loot in hard-to-reach places, and make it worth it. And make it possible (and crazy hard) to sneak into a town normally accessible only mid-late game right at the beginning to get a sweeter weapon.
7: Come up with a new idea. Honestly, the standard RPG is past overdone, it's now a pile of ash on the BBQ. Mass Effect was set in space, and threw in some shooter elements, while the Fallout series was set in the post-apocalyptic future. Come up with something we've never seen done, or at least never seen done well. The Prince of Persia series that had time-reversal put a new spin on puzzle/adventure games.
8: No more sewer levels, ever. Not one more. I do not want to ever sneak down a narrow pipe waiting for the guys at the end to spray bullets my direction when I can't dodge again. If it's too small to use a rocket launcher or grenades, it's too small.
9: Just make it *fun*. If the game needs a bit of blood, cool. If it needs a bit of gore, cool. Language, sex, comedy, whatever it needs works, but don't overdo it. Never go for shock value in a $60 video game if the shock value is the only thing that makes it a good game.
10: Perhaps the most important part, hire serious professionals for the script and voice acting.
1. Good point.
2. Excellent point. Some games should advertise the loading screen as their main point. I think out of the big three, Nintendo has it figured out best in their first and second party games.
3. Then how is the same company supposed to make X amount more if four can play on the same screen? :p
4. Actually, quick time events have left a bad impression after watching. My mind has also happened to associate these events with Apple Quicktime, also leaving a negative crater like impression. I simply don't like having to beat that one boss indirectly.
5. Ah, Video Game Cruelty potential, classic feature, but I think it should be balanced with Video Game Caring potential too.
6. But I selected Kleptomania for my thief! :p. Also, what about punishments of being caught?
7. You must have read the The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés, too then. I think if we translated it into Japanese not using Bablefish, but actual translation, and sent it to the big RPG companies, we might possibly get some results.
8. This also applies to the absurdly spacious sewer too, I would believe. Do septic tank dungeons count?
9. Yes. Rule of fun is good. Need more fun. Break rules of Physics if necessary.
10. I might admit, I tend not to be found playing games with voice acting, but I have to admit, sometimes the localizations are darn nutty too. This is a problem.
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Yes? What is it? Ok. Now that is good.
26 Mar 2009, 3:52 pm
