Capturing Gaming Feel Not All About Complexity?

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."

Comments

for example

[standsolid]

One might enjoy a game like Super Off Road because of it's simple, yet addictive gameplay.

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.

N to the ethack

[MilenCent]

Yes, it's time for the mandatory Slashdot mentioning of Nethack, brought to you courtesy of ThinkGeek and Invisible Lallapalooza....

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....

A little too complex...

[jammac]

I had been anticipating the release of Morrowind for quite a while before it finally released. The complexity and non-linear style of gameplay seemed to be exactly what I thought I wanted. However, after purchasing and playing it for several hours, I realized that despite the apparent complexity of the game, it was in fact TOO open-ended, so much that I felt lost and overwhelmed at times.

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...

[gl4ss]

the trick to playing morrowind is to not care about that.

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).

Ikaruga had an intended audience... not over-rated

[blahplusplus]

Ikaruga was not just about the polarity. Polarity forces you to make choices, thats is whats so fun about polarity is skill factor involved in conjunction to how the levels are designed. (Level 4 anyone?) hardly a gimmick when you need to use it skillfully to survive! Knowing when to absorb enemy shots and knowing when to release them to kill enemies in the correct order to obtain the maximum score is what ikaruga is about. If you have any doubt check the demos on different screen widths/options on horizontal it will show you advanced chaining techniques in the levels in conquest mode.

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