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MAD's 10 Worst Things about Gaming
Deuce Magnum writes "GamePro's got up a story that was apparently designed by the guys at MAD magazine. It details the lows of video gaming, from big boobs to MMO patches. From the article: "8. Mind-numbingly dull 'cinema sequences' -- as if we really needed to interrupt the game with ten minutes of bad acting and cliche'd dialogue to explain the deep motives and back story of why Ratchet and Clank are running and jumping. 9. Choppy, second-rate video games designed for cell phones. Was text messaging not a useless enough way to drain battery power? "
A second controller is unnecessary for some people, but a memory card?! 95% of the games out there require saving, so there's just no excuse for not including a memory card with the system, since it is something you will almost certainly need. (Unless you have an xbox)
Unlockables suck.
Yes, they can prolong the game time. The "Why the hell do I finally get to..." way. They also horribly linearize the gameplay. (think key A to open door to find key to door B, to find keycard to door C, to get Attic Key D to Attic Door D...)
Sure, allow them, but in strictly limited number, avoid "streamlining" them and make them optional. There are many ways to do so. Kick-ass enemies in areas where you're not supposed to go yet. If you can beat them - good for you! You're good enough to be there! Big/HUGE world all open to explore without obligations. No guiding you by hand through levels. If you find yourself with 15 different quests open at the moment and can choose to pick any one of them, all the better! (and if you allow for a creative way of sneaking into the "illegal area", good if you include "unlock from inside", so if you jump over the gate on the bridge in GTA:VC, you're not stuck on an island with no quests to do and no way to get back.)
The best "unlockables" I found are the ones you get right in the beginning but learn how to handle (You, the player, not the character through game engine) hours later - Difficult to use properly but devastating when you master them.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
But.....
Choppy, second-rate video games designed for cell phones...
This is why I never understood the fascination with N-Gage. Whoo! I'm playing Tony Hawk and Splinter Cell on my game machine/cell phone/whatever! Even though it looks like ass! Damn, some of the commercials they used to run for that thing, showing shots of the actual gameplay......You had better graphics on a Nintendo.
The point of the article was not about unlockables, but specifically about way too many parts of a game having to be "unlocked".
On a similar point, I've always like games that avoid Undo/Saves (they save at certain times only or are limited at a small number...it's not up to the player).
It's much like applications (Linux mostly) that often avoid the 'undo' command. People/Players learn much more when they don't have a Save/Undo to rely on.
I use a map editor that didn't (purposely) used to have an Undo command. After a few mistakes, I learned to AVOID mistakes rather than sloppily designing and rely on UNDO to save my ass.
Another example: I wasn't very attentive to making backups of my file systems. Then, one dark day, I used rm -rf on a remote root directory.
Since then I've been a better person.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.