Game Pacing Pitfalls Discussed

Thanks to GameSpot for their editorial discussing the problems in pacing a videogame correctly, as the author theorizes: "It's almost always the same sorts of things that make us get sick of them in a hurry", and goes on to pinpoint game facets that affect pacing adversely. He suggests: "Loading times are quite possibly the single worst thing about today's games", and also points out "...providing the player with easy access to often-used features" as a pacing-killer, referencing Vagrant Story's "unwieldy menu system." Finally, he argues that "the ideal game should never require pausing or fast-forwarding", mentioning that Star Wars: KOTOR had "...combat [that] was paced seemingly just right so that I'd be able to react to what was happening as it happened, not in between desperately toggling the pause button."

Comments

Unskippable Cutsequences

[jdonnis]

How about cutsequences you cannot escape.

It is easy to say a game has 40+ hours of gameplay when they KNOW that you have to watch all cutsequences at least twice and you cannot skip them.

Latest example: The Jedi Academy demo - why some developers don't get that they will face eternal damnation for a thing like this is beyond me.

No pausing?

[AtariAmarok]

""the ideal game should never require pausing or fast-forwarding","

You mean the game is so addictive that you never pause play until you are through? How long before the Sony "PotStation" toilet-equiped recliner is sold as a popular game accessory.

Re:No pausing?

[johndoejersey]

potstation

Now officially a stoners choice of console!

And about loading times

[AtariAmarok]

"He suggests: "Loading times are quite possibly the single worst thing about today's games"

Is this a result of everything using DVD or similar media? You do not have to go very far back in the generations of videogames to find fast-loading games: look at the N-64. It used cartridges.

Re:And about loading times

[Skier4Life]

The N64 was the first thing I thought about when I read the load time complaint. I loved and still love my N64, I remember either going to a friends house to play some new PS or PS2 game or borrowing their systems for the weekend. The thing that always annoyed me the most was the load times, I think that was the best feature of my N64. I could pop in a cartridge and play the game without watching the stupid loading screen.

I expect when I play games on a gaming console to not have to wait, it is a dedicated gaming system. The hardware and software should be designed so they work together in a way that load times cannot be noticed by the user. When playing PC games I can understand and forgive load times since my PC is not primarily designed or used for gaming (although I know people who think that is what PCs are for). What is the point of better graphics if it means I have to spend time looking at a load screen everytime I start a level, or enter into a different part of the game.

I think this article helps to show that some game developers focus too much on things like graphics and not enough on gameplay. I love great graphics as much as the next person but if I had to choose between a game that looked good to a game that was fun to play, I would obviously choose the game that was fun to play. For example, I still own my old NES and I often find myself playing Punchout, Excitebike or one of the SMB series. I know that some of the reason for this is nostalgia but those games are still a lot of fun to play, even after I have finished some of them several times.

Don't think I am making a blanket statement that games these days are all show with no substance, there are those games that have both killer graphics with excellent gameplay. I am always glad to see those games come out on market.

I know this is just a rant and contains no real substance but I felt like ranting, so I did.

What the author forgets...

[KDan]

is that different people like the game to be paced differently. I have friends who like to play Starcraft on infinite resource maps where clicking speed is a major factor in who wins the battle. Others like to take their time. Different people not only have different abilities in terms of what pace they can keep up with, but also different preferences.

Pacing may be an issue, sure - but it's not an issue that can be fixed in any way, because whatever you do, you'll still only hit just right one small portion of the gaming audience.

Daniel

Re:What the author forgets...

[Incoherent07]

And Starcraft, like a few other games, realizes this and allows you to change the speed of the game from agonizingly slow to a nice fast clip, not to mention the variety in maps you mentioned. And, unlike some of the complaints mentioned in the article, you can skip almost all of the cinematics in Starcraft if you so desire.

I think you can, in fact, fix pacing; it just takes a bit more effort to make varying game speeds. (For example, FF6 allowed you to vary the pace of the battles.) That, and the ability to cancel out of the increasingly-long cinematics, would do a world of good.

And don't change the pace...

[Sentry21]

I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for a while. What a great game, it kept going, it was fun, innovative, imaginative, and, well, more fun. The wandering around in the ocean thing got old fast, but then I got the Melody of Control or whatever, and that solved that.

And then that goddamn Triforce quest.

The whole game proceeds with action until this quest, when it suddenly turns into Errands Online. You have to find eight Triforce Charts that are scattered around the world. Then you have to get them decoded, which means getting a crapload of money. Then you have to go actually GET the triforce shards. Ugh.

Yes, I could have done it. I could have finished it in a day. But god, what a fucking boring way to spend a day off. No thanks. I traded it in and got Skies of Arcadia instead. Way to drop the fucking ball, Nintendo.

Metroid was the same way. For the first half of the game, you're getting powerups left and right. Morph ball, bombs, varia suit, everything. Then it just fucking stops. You have to wander around and get a bunch of artifacts. It's easy enough to do, except you have to cross the fucking planet like four times. Ugh. No thanks. The map system didn't make life much easier either. Boooring.

Both of these games were paced very well until those spots, at which point the developers dropped tbe ball and fucked it up. If you're going to develop a game (or a movie or TV show), then there's one thing people have to do, and that's pick a pace and stick with it. SWAT did this well, Jedi Academy did this well too (er, not that I'd know of course, wink wink nudge nudge), but very few other games do.

Of course, there are notable exceptions (Final Fantasy 6 had a nice blend of action, relaxation, panic, and butterflies-in-the-breeze), but that's hard to do right.

--Dan