Mechanics That Changed Gameplay Forever

grammar fascist writes "A feature at 1up.com explores the various gameplay devices that revolutionized videogaming, and you might not believe how simple they are: life bars, power-ups, bosses, and combos make the list. From the article: 'As good as these ideas may sound on paper, they don't always work in execution. Sometimes they don't even make sense. But every once in a while, a game designer comes up with a fantastic concept that engages the player -- and influences the work of other designers.'"

Comments

Saving beats all of that....

[MagicDude]

I'll tell you what changed games - Saving

Lets face it, nobody would have ever finished the original Zelda if you had to start from the beginning everytime. Saving is what made games evolve from 3-6 hours of maximum gameplay to the massive sprawling indepth masterpieces we know today. Playing a game over and over and over so that you're perfectly adept at every nook and cranny is for the kids who have hours to spend on it, and is frustrating as hell (Ninja Gaiden I through III, I'm looking in your direction). The older crowd doesn't have the patience or the time for that kind of thing. Saving has made replayability an option, rather than a requirement.

The same argument also applies the natural extension of saving, which is unlimited continues.

Re:Saving beats all of that....

[Ankou]

Game saving also got rid of all those uber players. If you met a guy who finished all of those Ninja Gaiden games in one sitting he was one BAD dude at video games. I think the most frustrating was Contra III. Even WITH the 99 men cheat it was ficken impossible.

Re:Saving beats all of that....

[RsG]

Eh, not really. I got my start on the Sega Genesis and arcade machines back in the day, and have since gone over into PC gaming exclusively. I've had it both ways.

Not saving typically meant either A) you spent alot of quarters in the arcade or B) you learned to make the most of your lives/continues/whatever. It didn't really make you "uber".

Nowadays, games have more depth and skill involved. They're longer and typically harder to finish. Yes, you can reload save games to keep your progress, but the tradeoff is that reloading is neccesary. Beating an old side scroller without saving was difficult, but not impossible, for an average player; beating a modern FPS of any respectable length without saving is damn near impossible for even an expert player. There are no extra lives, no continues, and no slot to put in more quarters - you either save or start over all the way from the beginning. And the time it takes to get to the end is so much longer as well.

And the games that do let you respawn are often the ones in which dying is taken for granted, and thus the game is corrospandingly more frustrating. MMOs like WoW are a good example of this - you might die a dozen times in a dungeon instance, but actually beating the fights is hard. Multiplayer FPS games are another example - you spawn, you're fragged, you respawn, you hope to god you'll get a kill - nope, fragged again. This is somehow easier than falling into a spike pit in Sonic the Hedgehog?

Disappointing

[Dr. Eggman]

No Free-cam?
No "sandbox mode" ala Simcity/Grand Theft Auto?
Sniper Shots made it but "target locking?"

This list may all be great mechanics, but many of them are far from the best.

up down up down left right left right b a start

[grapeape]

What about cheat codes?

Nethack.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Nethack is a good example of no save cheating(well, not built in anyways.)

You can save and quit, but you can't save without quitting. When you load you can resume your savegame or delete. Outside of these two option, you can't do anything else. This way you arn't stuck playing continuously, but you also can't replay anything before your savegame. Either you're playing and 'live', or you're saved and taking a break.

Of course as a result, the vast majority of the game never gets more than half way through it, but that just makes it worth replaying. Most games today are just stuck on rails trying to tell you a story. Theres no way to fail, only fail to do what they want you to do forcing you to try again. You are not playing the game, the game is playing you.

Weak article

[Anonymous Coward]

A seriously weak article. It had it spot on with a few of the entries, but come on, dog side-kicks transformed gaming???

How about:
Run and jump?
Scrolling backgrounds? (It changed shooters forever and then changed platform games forever).
Analog controls? Mario 64 introduced "push the stick a little to tip toe", "medium to walk" and "all the way to run". This feature is in 90% of character based 3D games now!

There are plenty more, but this article obviously didn't want to get too technical.