Why Do Games Still Have Levels?

a.d.venturer writes "Elite, the Metroid series, Dungeon Siege, God of War I and II, Half-Life (but not Half-Life 2), Shadow of the Colossus, the Grand Theft Auto series; some of the best games ever (and Dungeon Siege) have done away with the level mechanic and created uninterrupted game spaces devoid of loading screens and artificial breaks between periods of play. Much like cut scenes, level loads are anathema to enjoyment of game play, and a throwback to the era of the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 - when games were stored on cassette tapes, and memory was measured in kilobytes. So in this era of multi-megabyte and gigabyte memory and fast access storage devices why do we continue to have games that are dominated by the level structure, be they commercial (Portal), independent (Darwinia) and amateur (Angband)? Why do games still have levels?"

Comments

Re:HL2 Has Levels?

[NickCatal]

You are correct... Both have 'levels' but they are seamless (when you go from level-to-level all you see is a white semi-transparent text saying the title of the 'level' you are on.)

Although there are 'loading' screens, but that is just because the game is programed that way.

Portal is similar, but much more distinct in the way of 'levels.' But that works into the gameplay quite a bit because each 'level' is a new test. Once you get into the behind-the-scenes area there is no real 'level' change. Just loading screens, which you have with all Valve single player games.

Re:Simple

[Pete Brubaker]

And because not every potential platform has the same specifications. Take the PS3 and the 360 for example. PS3 256mb main / 256mb video -- 360 512mb unified. PS3, constant linear velocity drive reading at something like 5mb/sec -- 360 constant angular velocity drive at like 24x. Throw PC into that mix and you have an infinite number of combinations. It's just very hard to do, not to say that it cant be done, but it's just really hard.

Re:HL2 Has Levels?

[PhireN]

I just played hl2 recently, There was only one fade to black moment in all of hl2 when you teleport out out of the prison back to the lab, and you find out that it actually took you a week to get there.
If you count halflife, hl2, ep1 and ep2 as one game, there are 6, one at the end of each game, where you get take out of time and space, or knocked unconscious, the teleport in hl2, and the when you get knocked unconscious in halflife and put in the trash compactor.
Even including these, from the time you get on the train at the start the game is a complete presentation of Gordon Freeman's life, with no gaps where he goes off and does something without you.

Re:HL2 Has Levels?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the loading mechanisms in HL1 and HL2 are identical. The game consists of a series of levels. In the cross-over point between levels, you have a couple of identical-looking corridors, and you stay in the same relative position.

Now, on a modern PC, the load times in Half Life are so short that you won't notice them - you'll get a really fast blip of text saying "now loading", and that's about it. But when Half Life was new, there was a good 20 seconds of wait time between levels.

Also, Portal's elevators are rarely actual loading screens. The first 18 test chambers take place on something like 6 separate levels, but there's still an elevator ride between each one. You're confusing a pause in the game with a loading screen.

While we're at it, it was rare for a C64 game to have in-game loading. The vast majority of C64 games ran on tapes, so didn't have access to the tape after it had finished loading. The entire game had to fit in that 64Kb of RAM (possibly less, depending on how the game set up the RAM).

Re:HL2 Has Levels?

[Wavicle]

Not quite, in hl1 you literally walked across black mesa, you experience ever bloody foot.

In HL2 you did have a few, fade to black then a few hours later, moments.

Yeah 'cuz in HL1 the military special forces don't ambush you after you fight a bunch of ninja guys, knock you out, carry you away and you wake up in a trash compactor some time later weaponless... Oh, wait...