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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?"
Why do blogs still have inane topics?
Um...both Half-Life 2 AND Portal never leave the first-person view unless you are loading the game...in Half-Life 2 the next "level" is reached when the small bit semi-transparent text shows up in the center of the screen...in Portal, you ride an elevator (again, entirely in first person, not even a loading screen) and when the doors open...there you are at the next level (or in this case, test) Again, both games NEVER leave the first-person view while playing them...not a load-screen in sight. Come on. Do at least SOME simple research before you start mouthing stupid crap.
Living With a Nerd
I don't want to play a marching game.