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Avoiding Wasted Time With Prince of Persia
Zonk pointed out an interesting video presentation by Shamus Young on the importance of the new Prince of Persia, calling it the most innovative game of 2008. Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game — the current challenge they have to overcome. Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks.
that is the worst feature, puts the game on easy mode, plus PC games have had this forever, it's called the quick save button.
Don't buy it and don't play video games if you don't want to waste time.
Had to be said.
Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time
I hear the Playstation 4 implements dual electric shock controllers, for more direct punishment of failure.
Braid got rid of (most) of the save/load BS. Still had to occasionally reload a room when the level had tricked you thoroughly.
Braid is also better for casuals, imho. Fewer dimensions (har har har harh ahrharharhahrahrhar) and other graphical distractions. A little patience was the only requirement, something I've found older folks (esp. former(?) parents) have in spades.
I haven't played the game, but that said, how much of the heart of great games was the thrill of just squeaking by? If you know that there isn't any way to loose, what you're left with is a empty shell. Nice to look at, and shows you some neat tricks, but nothing else later. Putting training wheels on a game isn't the future, it's just a gimmick to try and make a bland game that offends no one, and doesn't really try to solve the problem of playability. My 2c.
In Monkey Island, you could never die either. But it was still a lot of fun to play!
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Isn't wasting time the whole point of playing a computer game? It's not a bad thing to waste time sometimes. If you don't want to waste time, I suggest to press "quit".
Would Mario be fun if every time you died, you would start at that same spot instead of the beginning of the level?
Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile.
But that's the whole point, learning "difficult" control is part of the challenge, it's what makes it worth playing, especially to youngsters. Those who can't deal with modern controllers can stick with Solitaire.
Prince of Persia uses basically the same retry mechanism as Assassin's Creed. Actually, I think Prince of Persia uses a LOT of the same stuff as Assassin's Creed. It's the same game engine isn't it?
Yeah, real revolutionary.
many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further.
Not to start a flame war, but this is one of the reasons I prefer PC games. They typically allow for quicksave and/or a sane autosave.
Other Console annoyances include:
They're acceptable once, but not every time I want to replay the game. And ANNOYING AS HELL when they occur after before a big fight and must be replayed after dieing.
Where you have die to advance the story. Especially when it's non-obious, so you replay the same peice over and over before you realize there's no way to win.
Press a button as fast as you can to save your character.
Any situation relying on the player being telepathic to survive (it's an old example, but still a formla devs use)
I didn't mind so much when these issues only affected console games, but now with all the ports that are being done, us poor PC gamers are forced to suffer through these issues as well (plus really bad controls).
I just finished this game and the lack of the death is fantastic. It makes it all about the awesome acrobatics and less about the stupid camera or dumb mini-boss killing me yet another time. Every time you fail is YOUR FAULT and not a big deal. I beat the original PoP games when they came out (and even harder games), so I can do hardcore ridiculous, but I no longer want to.
I estimate I spent about 10 hours on the game, and I would far rather have 10 AWESOME hours than 40 hours of padded frustrating crap. I'm old enough I don't want to waste my time on stupid sh@# just for the sake of being hardcore like an internet suicide.
The combat is eventually a bit tedious, yes. I'd prefer the game be even MORE stripped down. I'm perfectly willing to drop $40 for 8 hours of making you feel like a total badass.
Elika is amazing - she is never annoying (which is astounding for a companion) and the dialogue is interesting and funny. And the ending is just fantastic; it deserves a mention even separate from the lack of death. I can't say anything much without spoiling it, but I love how it asks you (and you likely comply gladly) to subvert everything you've done.
So yes, I've reached the age when I will gladly pay more money for less bullshit and more fun.
this has been done many times before;
games such as Prey and Planescape: Torment (from 1999!) used a similar system.
in Prey for example you enter a small mini-game upon death, in which you must kill flying spirits in order to regain health.
in Planescape: Torment you are immortal. every time you die you end up back in the Mortuary, ready for more action.
regarding the new PoP; sure, the "not being able to die" saves time, but the game still introduces other annoying and repetitive ways to sink time, such as collecting light seeds from a level you already cleared.
most innovative game of 2008? I don't think there is one. right now I'm playing old games and I'm having more fun enjoying them than when I play one of the newer ones, such as PoP (which is one of the most repetitive games I've ever played).
If you don't repeat the game's content, then how are you supposed to get good at the game? You get killed, you try again, and you get better. If you're not enjoying the challenges that the game is giving, and you spend all of your time composing poorly-thought-out diatribes against the game, then the technical term for your state is "burned out", and you're better off moving to different activities in life other than video games. Trust me, you'll be happier when you're not clicking on a Skinner box.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Takes a long time to make his point. I think it should have been a 5 minute video. Also seems to ignore the existence of casual games and talks as if ALL games have the punitive restart problem when it really applies to specific types of games.
It's funny, but a friend was telling me not half an hour ago how he picked up this game today, and he just hates it. It's impossible to die: "if you miss a jump, your magic friend saves you and brings you back to the previous piece of ground you were on. And if you're in combat and you lose, your magic friend pulls you out of harm's way"
That's not FUN. Why try hard if you never fail? Stupid design is stupid.
Is it just me, or was this a complete waste of electrons? Sure, PoP avoids "wasted time", but it doesn't say how, nor the fact that such "punishment" causes the player to evaluate risks, much like real life. If dying means nothing, then why do they even have dying in the game? Stupid article, and I think stupid idea to put into a game.
Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game - the current challenge they have to overcome.
Calling it a waste of time is quite subjective. For those whose idea of playing a game is simply to burn through it as quickly as possible, sure, it's a waste of time. But for some, it's not, especially if the game is a platformer. Could you imagine if every time you fell into a hole in a Mario game you simply respawned right next to it? There goes the joy of learning to skillfully navigate the levels.
Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile.
Uh, perhaps because many games simulate things as complicated as driving a car? If you ask me, leaping from wall to wall to triple backflip somersault, etc. should require at least some skill to perform. Don't get me wrong, I like it easy now and then (I do own a Wii, haha), but if all one looks for in games is cheap thrills, then yeah, all games should be beautiful walks in the park. I was surprised by PoP's direction in this game, and the amount of forgiveness it has for errors turns me off a bit. And it's not as if making your game easier and improving the controls is some new, unheard of "innovation."
The question as to whether time-punishing is a good part of the game is really posed very well here. But I imagine it's more a measure of the player than of the game. Two games come to mind, as radically diametrically opposed examples.
"The Curse of Monkey Island" (Monkey Island 3) is one of the old-school Lucas Arts adventure games where you can't die. The "puzzles" are simple combination-of-action puzzles. The game is extraordinary. Not because it's anything special, and not because it's particularly good in any capacity, but simply because it's very funny, and a smooth ride the whole way through. It's very much like a movie, and yo,u're never punished for anything.
"Left 4 Dead" is the big, huge, enormous time penalties. Die at the end of a thirty-minute attempt, and you get to start all over again -- with your three friends too. Play it on expert, and you'll likely be retrying levels dozens of times. Is it frustrating? Not in the least. You get the action of "ooooh, so close!" And it becomes a strategy game of how the next attempt could be done differently, what else can we try, and where else can we go.
It's important to note that the time-penalties discussed in the article, do more than simply force the player to redo things. It grants the player another opportunity to do something completely different. Now, when a game is completely linear -- as with super mario brothers the first -- then it's nohting more than a "do it again" concept, presented well by the article. However, when a game has many many many many freedoms provided to the player, and the player fails a challenge along the way, having the opportunity to change the past is a good thing. And being forced to do so gives the decision-making process some level of importance.
Is it a waste of time? That's the whole purpose of the game. Does it matter if you're wasting time at the beginning of the game doing the same thing over and over again, or wasting time at the end of the game going through the whole thing once? If it's different every time, then there's no difference -- except for the potential to have more game to play, which is a good thing.
The article uses a great example, that I felt was perfect. If people learned to drive the way they learn to play games, it wouldn't be by backing out of the driveway, it would be by driving a stick-shift in a rally race, and requiring many many humiliating failures before winning a single race.
I agreed with this example at the time. Now, I'm thinking it better serves my perspective. Sure, if you're learning to drive your grandmother's car to go to the movies, backing out of the driveway and not being time-punished for mistakes is the way to do it. But if you designed and built the rally car, and are trying to develop a car to win races, having the chance to make design changes between failed races is precisely what you want. What didn't work, what did work, what can be tuned to work better.
I'm thinkin', if you want to develop a car to win races, backing out of the driveway will get you no-where.
So, when I play a video game, am I developing a playing strategy of a grand quality to pass the level, or am I enjoying the progression of an in-line story? The answer is a fairly simple and direct mapping.
If the game is a comedy, then I want a straight story with no chance to fail. If the game is an action-adventure, then I want failure. Failure is a big part of action, challenge, and adventure -- it's all about the risk-taking. Failure is not a part of successful comedy. Actually, I guess that's slapstick. And I'm not a big fan of slapstick. But you know, if you could play a nice comedy, slip on a banana peel and die in a vat of goo, it could be funny.
The initial comparison is flawed:
Shooting hoops = tutorial
Playing a match = playing a video game.
In a basketbal game, when you miss a shot, there is no instant retry, you *do* need to do all the work to get another shot again and again. And that's what makes games interesting: actual consequences.
prince megahit
One of the things I like about Puzzle Quest and Castle Crashers is that failure doesn't have much penalty. Certainly, you have to restart a level or boss fight, but any XP/gold/etc you've acquired stays with you so the "time penalty" is minimized. You may have lost but you've bettered your character in the process and can make another try incrementally better.
You can still *fail*, it's just that the penalty of failing is only that you have to repeat the specific obstacle you failed at - not the two / five / ten / whatever minutes before it that you've already mastered and done over, and over, and over.
I came in here to mock the video too, except that I watched it - and couldn't help but find myself agreeing with it.
The video is insightful. The parent is not. I kind of get the feeling he/she came in to comment without actually watching it first.
Oddworld was one of the early console games that actually had "no lives" listed as a bullet-point feature. PoP just takes it one step further with an instant respawn.
PoP's incremental progression on this front is more about adding substance and immediacy to the concept.
And let's face it: the only reason characters can die in the first place is a holdover from the long-gone days of the arcade platform, where you have to give reasons to make players insert more quarters. On the home console there's really no point to it. So instead of killing the player over and over with highly-tuned hardcore difficulty, just make sure they are entertained for a good 10+ hours.
If you want to offer a way for the hardcore players to distinguish themselves, you can easily do so: the age-old High Score table (which inexplicably has disappeared), other forms of grading performance, and optional goals like unlockable extras.
This is the game that Ubisoft was like 'We are selling this game with no DRM on PC. Let's see if these people really will put their money where their mouth is', meaning that now more people will buy it simply because there is no DRM.
This is NOT the reason I buy games. I buy games if they are good. Ubisoft thinks they might even get those people who are thinking to support Ubisoft in their effort to set an industry example. As IF.
But regardless, I refuse to buy EA and Take2 games. EA because of SecuROM and activation limitations and Take2 after the GTA IV fiasco that affected both legitimate users greatly (the game was bugged to hell!) and pirated users (do we care? Well, if security of the Windows system gets screwed up and leads to viruses spreading in the Windows world, then MS cares).
You know, that thing at the start where you tune the difficulty to suit your level of ability? I tried the new PoP and was offended by the lack of challenge. The Sands of Time trilogy hit near-perfection with the timebending-mixed-with-checkpoints gameplay; all defense of the new mechanic can be boiled down to "I suck at gaming and wish all games to treat all players as though they suck too."
"and the lack of punitive time sinks."
You mean punishment for failure, right? Because that's what going back to the last checkpoint is. The game saying "No, you're an idiot, try again." If there was no punishment for your failure you wouldn't be concerned about not dying as much.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
by not playing it.
Is it a physical device or the mapping of keys to actions in the game?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
I have this but haven't opened it yet. I still got other games to enjoy, but I might put this in for my girlfriend who enjoys laura croft but hates how laura loves to re-enact scenes from "the happening"
The video misses the whole point really that the fun from a game at its core comes from being presented with a challenge, not being able to beat/solve it, then overcoming that challenge. Sure there is story line and there is fun in knowing your so awesome that what is supposed to be challenging isn't for you, but at its core thats what games are about and that is how they are entertaining. Thats why games have had multiple difficulty levels for a long time. If its too easy, its boring. If its too hard, its frustrating.
The wasted time as he put it is the idea that you get punished for failing, and helps create tension and a moderate amount of stress. Some people don't like that, some do. In many cases, there is a game mechanic that the player should be learning that they may not need to if the game is too easy. Either way, the punishment serves as a means of heightening the reward, but only if the punishment / reward is balanced properly. Its simple learning.
In fact, his basketball example is terrible. If your shooting hoops and you miss, the ball could bounce far away from you. You have to go get it. If you make it, it will fall underneath the hoop. Thats a punishment/reward system that is a lot like most video games. If someone has a bunch of balls and there are a bunch of people getting the balls for you and throwing them to you while you stay in the same spot then that is simply practicing. You'll learn quicker (for that spot) but it isn't necessarily a game with dynamic challenges. It'll also get boring very quickly if all you do is the same thing for an extended period of time, and it teaches you absolutely nothing about the game mechanic of shooting when someone is trying to steal the ball or block the ball while you shoot it.
Another thing he doesn't consider is that many games teach you a concept in an area where you can learn it without punishment, then put you in an area where you apply what you learned with punishment. Going back to basketball, you practice shooting free throws, then in a real game you only have select, spaced out moments where you get to shoot them. If you make it under pressure, its rewarding. If everyone just stared at you until you inevitably made your free throws then there is no reward.
The way to improve playability in strategy wargames, and so-called 4X games especially, is to use variable degrees of abstraction to address issues of game scale. There is NOTHING more annoying than playing a huge game of, say, Sword of the Stars, with hundreds of stars and countless units and economic factors, AND HAVING TO DEAL WITH ALL OF IT PERSONALLY. So-called "micromanagement" is fine in the early game, when a single less-than-optimal action could decide the game against the player, but later in the game it simply isn't practical, nor is it a reflection of reality: if the player represents an emperor or five-star general, such a figure would NOT be dealing with all that minutia personally at that point. Nowhere is this failure more evident than in so-called "real time strategy" games (which are almost all really "real time tactics"), where not only is the player forced to micromanage but the time required to do so costs him in terms of the game, because the computer AI opponents at least don't suffer from this problem.
Sadly, I know of no single game that employs this level of intelligence in the player interface, and the game I mentioned, Sword of the Stars and its sequels, is actually one of the biggest recent failures in this regard. It also has bugs that persist across sequels and a dev team with no coding discipline, which may or may not be related to the aforementioned failure.
The '10 awesome hours vs. 40 hours of padded crap' reminds me of when I shut my xbox360 down (and stopped playing)
After getting into Hexic and playing it fairly regularly, I checked the leader boards and someone had clocked a cumulative 2 week game of Hexic with a score that was probably close to MAXINT on a 64bit system.
I realized that, there's someone out there who's monomaniacally going to become the world's best at whatever video game and no matter what I do I will never, ever, be as good as them. Probably because I couldn't be, but more likely -- I don't want to sacrifice my time to something so trivial.
Which brings us back to 10 awesome hours vs. 40 frustrating ones. Yeah, I guess hard games are cool if you want that kind of performance stress during your gaming time. I'd rather play some ETQW to get that type of excitement.
Single player games should be interactive movies as far as I'm concerned. Don't punish me for buying your game. Reward me by showing me the cut-scenes. Give me cheats so that if I get bored with the overall effort I can just zip through and see the end.
I'll leave it to the poop-sockers to be the world's best hexic players.
I like my sox. They're comfortable.
You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of trash.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Prince of Persia is a huge bomb sales wise.
Now the question is why?
This analysis would lead us to understand that it was on the wrong console then.
Especially this tidbit from the OP: "as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks."
There is the problem. The audience to whom this was adressed, is not on PS3 or XB360. The game didn't solve anything, as the people scared by these modern controllers just won't buy the consoles that come with them. There's only one home console this generation that solved this, and this is the only one where Prince of Persia wasn't released. Go figure.
So basically, they published a game that solves only half of the problem, but unfortunately, they released it for the wrong audience.
The audience on PS3 and XB360 is not scared by these old mechanics, and don't want what they think are dumbed down mechanics. Those that are veterans but still wanted this to change also bought a Wii, but they're not the bulk of the audience needed.
This just shows this PoP was a very stupid move, these 3rd parties look more and more stupid as time passes.
'Cmon...all time with Prince of Persia is wasted time :-D
It's the same as why watch a film when there's no risk involved in the outcome of the plot?
I play some games this way, I treat them as interactive stories, that doesn't mean I need risk, it just means I'm more immersed in the story than I would be a film and the stories usually last longer and are hence more interesting- many people hate film adaptations of books because they have to cut so much, this is less of a problem with games as the player creates large
Games don't have to be about challenge, they can equally be about story telling as movies and books are but with a form of interactivity and hence immersiveness that can improve the story telling. In a book you might get a description of a beautiful scene (coastal Thailand on Tomb Raider: Underworld for example) which is great, but in a game you can spend time looking round that scene and admiring it.
That's not to say I don't play games with risk as well, I always play through the Call of Duty series on veteran difficulty for example. I find games with little risk nice to relax to sometimes though and unlike playing Call of Duty on Veteran you're not stuck in the same place over and over for 30mins+ so the story flows much better and is much more suited to those of us who don't have 50 hours to burn on a single game. Dead space was a good example of this, as was Bioshock- I didn't find either game very hard at all (even on hardest difficulty) and hence I would say these are games with little risk, (certainly there was no part that required repeating more than once which is in contrast to Call of Duty on Vet.) yet they were still absolutely excellent.
I agree with the article, punishing people for a minor slip up is not something that should be implemented in every game, nor is it something that should be taken too far. An example of an excellent game, completely destroyed by the risk of an improper save system is Dead Rising- the gameplay was superb, the story was good, the graphics were great, but the save system made the game simply too frustrating to play. Even autosaves/checkpoints have made gaming so much better than it used to be without them- I recall the frustration of losing hours of play if you forgot to/couldn't save all too well.
Lego Star Wars has been doing this for years... Even my wife can play and beat the game.
... if you cannot lose?
How about predictability?
I understand and agree with the analysis made by the author, but it seems to be based on the idea that the enjoyment comes from the discovery within the game. The first time someone plays a game, it's a new experience. After that, they learn the topology and it comes down to refining your ability to reflexively work through the game. I believe the rise of multiplayer gaming has in part driven more people into games since it's a slightly new experience every time you log on. Sure, you can learn the map and objective, but you never know quite what you'll get.
I can only think of one title in Video Game History that had both dynamic maps and interactive elements that were different every time: Larn. It's a 20 year old DOS title that used nothing but ASCII characters. But hey, it rocked since it was new every time.
Can you imagine what a typical shooting game would be like if the enemies were moved around on the map every time? How about a driving game where the road was always different?
There's nothing innovative about this kind of game. As a video game...maybe. But please put "video-" prior to the word "-game" if your talking about a video game. Most tabletop games do not punish you to do what you already did if you die (there are some exceptions; in "Zombies", for example, you can "respawn"; but in games like DnD and Magic, death or mistakes just means you get to try again, usually with a whole new experience no one else other than you will have).
Tabletop Games, especially roleplaying games, are still the dominant force in innovation and the most enjoyable games I've played in my life. They are games custom tailored to suit me and my needs, and can be played in a group of any size--from 2 to 14+.
As for solo adventures, online roleplaying has allowed for many new innovative systems reguarding the use of "personal chapters" that, although graded by humans for experience points at a later date, are itself "played" by yourself. Although this seems like its just creative writing, limitations on character and random encounters by enemies whose stats are given to you little-by-little can actually make the seemingly "impossible-to-lose-at-task" suprisingly challenging and rewarding.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
The point of dying was to add some form of realism: it taught you that you needed to not suck at this game, you needed to come up with strategies or else you will lose progress (sometimes the progress was based on when you last saved, and not just a checkpoint). If you never lose progress, you really have no incentive to play with any style except run in there mashing buttons like a maniac until everything dies.
It seems like a grand waste of time; why even bother playing? Just go on youtube and watch the cutscenes, if any, and there you go. You just put as much effort into the game as they did.
I got a copy of this game recently, and it looks neat (once I got my PC controler working), but it give me vertigo and a bit of a headache.
does anyone else have this problem, or any advice on how to enjoy the game without losing my lunch?
...from Lucas Arts had the same idea - the player cannot die, cannot get stuck doing things in wrong order, and is not restricted in time.
Very, very good game.
Avoiding Wasted Time With Prince of Persia
So, how exactly can I avoid wasting my time by wasting my time playing video games?
-- Chaos, panic, pandemonium... My job here is done!
I think PoP is anodyne, and the handholding took away any feeling of risk. FC2 I love. Played on hard, just getting to the required map point is brutal but always interesting due to the savagely smart, hard to see soldiers at checkpoints, road patrols, etc. It forces you to think, proceed with caution, and engage the enemy in a real seeming way. If you get gunned down, you are going to retry, and that half hour of terrain doesnt seem boring, none of it does, because the scenery, enemies, and weaponry, are just fun to hang with.
You may not agree with what I say, but you should fight to the death to allow me to say it, by modding me up.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Is the mountain climber who doesn't make it to the top being punished?
If you play a superior chess player, is he punishing you by not letting you win?
The new prince of persia is my biggest gaming disappointment for 2008 -- ubisoft (whom I'm willing to forgive this one mistake because of their past laurels) have gone insane with the formula of replacing actual gameplay with pretty graphics. The game itself looks stunning, but all the fantastic control that you used to have in the previous games (especially the second one - warrior within) are GONE. Want to run along a wall? Simply jump towards it. Want to do a double jump up to a higher platform? Simply jump up once. Want to try something crazy and stupid without any consequences? Do it anyway and we'll bring you back to where you started from. Where is the tension and excitement of the Dahaka chasing me down corridors and through traps that I have to perform intricate maneuvers in order to navigate?
/rant. Time for coffee.
As for this comment:
"Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game"
Okay, this *may* appeal to some gamers who suck at their games in general... if developers were clever about it (as they have been in the past) you would be given several opportunities to figure out the next move before having to go back to a checkpoint. In anycase, this becomes a moot point, as the new POP relies quite heavily on you navigating through an already completed level all over again in order to collect those life-flashy-things. While this may be a cheap way to extend gameplay, they could have done it in a much more friendly/intelligent manner as they did in the earlier games. (I keep pointing out Warrior Within here because I ended up replaying that after being disappointed with this new one).
Navigating through a level again just to collect tokens does not a fun game make, and destroys this theory of using invincibility as a means of cutting "into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game".
Oh, and since when does making the character invincible make a game "the most innovative". Ever play an adventure game? Save words like "innovative" when describing platform games like Psychonauts.
You insert the CD, and "You Win!" pops up on the screen.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
That's a pretty poor example, seeing as SMB Frustration is a custom fan made level.
True, but it used elements from the game; hidden blocks n'such.
All that shows is that the game engine is capable of frustration. That's why Nintendo's level designers made the wise choice to use these potentially frustrating elements much more sparingly. I don't remember ever seeing anything but an out-of-the-way 1-up mushroom in any of the official invisible blocks of SMB1, but then I've never played all the way through SMB2 (J).
If you buy games (rather than pirate them) console gaming is no more expensive than maintaining a gaming PC
What about if I download games with the author's permission? I play games developed by amateurs in their spare time in addition to games developed by commercial businesses. On the PC, this is easy: download, unzip, run exe. But if I wanted to play games developed by amateurs during the early days of the GBA scene, I had to buy a $200 flash card for a $90 system. (Now GBA flash cards are down to $20, but that's beside the point.) The NES has the same problem: most NES games go for well under $10 used on online trading sites, but the "PowerPak" that runs homebrew games costs $135 and is often sold out.
If there's no challenge, there's no game.
Excellent point, maybe you shouldn't call a game without the chance for a failure a game at all. And while you (or anyone for that matter) "playing" without risk of failure doesn't make you a bad person, it does strongly imply that you are not that good at video games. I think this topic is more about revealing psychology thru games then people seem to realize.
Because "not losing" isn't the same as "winning"...
Yup. Ask McNabb about his weekend in Cincinnati.
How about avoiding wasted time by having a page of text that I can read at my speed, rather than a video that I have to watch at your speed?
I am still waiting for a game that plays like real life. You have ONE life. If you die, the game is over. There are no spawn or save points. Start the game over.
I envision a mystery/thriller game that forces you to slow down and BE CAREFUL to solve the mystery. I personally get tired of run & gun games or games that force you to die or google a walkthrough to beat it...where you can't possibly know what the next stage is unless you buy a game guide, search online, or just save and go for it, knowing if you die, so what?! You'll just restart and now you know not to do X or that you have to do Y or whatever to beat the level.
I'm looking for something that offers plenty of clues and information to the player upon investigation and exploring with relatively little danger (kind of like Myst) and something that will reward a player for that work by giving you the strategy to defeat enemies up front.
But I realize a game like this that forces slow, methodical, problem-solving, exploration and discovery well before engaging any enemies would probably bore the hell out of ADHD kids even though they'll gladly spend three hours customizing their stupid Guitar Hero character.
You missed one point: PROCEDURAL CONTENT GENERATION.
Let me explain. Games serve only one purpose - to give as much fun as possible. We all agree that playing through the same game content multiple times is boring (not fun). Please notice that there are two possible solution to this:
1. When player dies - move back in time few seconds just before the death. (in some games that's an obsessive saving-loading sequence, which makes playing unfun, in Prince of Persia this is automatic).
2. When player dies - make sure that the game content (in new game) is totally different.
Solution 1. is the simplest one, so no wonder that everyone does it, but also it makes gam unattractive to play again, after it is finished (even without dying).
Solution 2 makes game always attractive to play, because even after it's finished, a new play will be totally different. Placed in different time, with different randomly generated quests and different.. everything. It's crazy difficult to make such a game.
Currently only roguelikes provide Solution 2. The "text" game interface makes it possible to do so, because it simplifies a lot level generation, removes a LOT of 3D graphics work, etc. It's a LOT because to have 3D graphics one would have to draw thousands of 3D tiles, and write extremely difficult level generation algorithms. And this is the sole reason why roguelikes have such a great following among those who tasted it. You live once, but each life is different. My pick is adom, and I tell you - no other game can give me the same fun and excitement because I live just once. Adrenaline gets high when I'm in tight situation and could die. It makes the experience a lot more real, and I like it.
Have a look here - it's a long read about that topic, but if you made such a long documentary addressing Solution 1, the perhaps reading through 6 pages about Solution 2 will be interesting for you: http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-of-level-designer-procedural.html
(wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation )
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Not insightful. He clearly hasn't watched the video and notes he hasn't played the game.
If levels are less cumbersome then it will take drug dealers' accountants less time to get to level 10 to do their nefarious spreadsheet deeds.
Stupid casual gamers and their dumbing down! Rarrrrgh! If you can't operate a modern gamepad you might as well start doing crossword puzzles and reading the obituaries instead.
There is a thing called good sportsmanship, apparently you've never heard of it. If either of you called each of names, rubbed it in each others faces, or took your ball home- you've failed. Teaching good sportsmanship is good parenting.
Punitive time wasters are there to extend the amount of time you play the game to make you *think* that you've enjoyed the game for a long time. It's a way to make the game seem longer than it actual is, and to conserve resources that might be spent writing content for the next time-wasting game. I am very into games where there is an extended storyline rather than a grind, and it's one of the reasons that MMOs didn't work for me for very long.
I used to play video games when I was younger, but the last console I owned was a SNES. I'd play the odd game here and there since then (excluding MMORPGS), but generally found that most games for the PS2/XBOX and now the next-gen seem to fall into the category of "geared towards gamers that have been playing games for years".
Trying to get into games like God of War, Resistance, etc generally leaves me with a sense of just being over-whelmed and not wanting to play them. Now and then some games come along that capture my interest and hook me - ones that come to mind are : God of War, Katamari, Okami, Jade Empire, Fable, Final Fantasy 12, and a few others.
These are games that I generally found, struck a nice balance between difficulty / ease of getting into / penalty for failure (if applicable) / etc.
Now and then I'd be in the mood for a more challenging game, and would load one up. But, at the end of the day - what I'm usually looking for when I'm playing a game, is a brief moment of escapism, to run around pretty / neat / imaginative environments and losing myself in the game to ENJOY myself.
Yes, there needs to be some challenge so you have a sense of 'reward', but I don't think that challenge needs to come at the cost of frustrating the hell out of your players. Things that are frustrating for me are
An example of this is the Final Fantasy for PSP. I initially started the game on easy mode for a bit, and was finding it to be too easy. So, I quit and re-start in hard mode. And, for the most part - I was finding this to be a more enjoyable way of playing until I ran into the problem of hitting a 'hard' part that was not close to a check-point and had a load screen or two AND two cut scenes.
I'd die, then have to sit through that crap over and over again, and eventually made me switch back to easy mode. That is frustrating, not challenging - I'm fine with biting the bullet and dying in a game now and then, just don't make me want to throw my console across the room as I'm forced to sit through a cut scene for the 5th time.
What I'm enjoying about Prince of Persia - it's easy to get into, it has a fast pace to it, and its just a joy to run around, jump around, try new things without that constant fear of getting the loading screen yet one more time. I'm more inclined to jump around, try new things, explore the world and try different routes to do things.
When doing general running around - I know if I miss a jump from being lazy, it's not going to set me back that far. This is very handy when you're doing runs for light seeds and just 'pissing around' in the game - it's fun, its relaxing, its enjoyable. I know if I miss that jump it's not the end of the world.
Once you start leaping around the power-plates and getting into longer jumping-runs : I'll get onto my toes a bit more. It sucks when you see the end of a series of jumps in site and make a miss-press and get whipped back up to the start of it. But, this is simply just a check-point system without the "loading" screen, and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's challenging but not frustrating. What indicates to me that it's challenging? That I didn't get it right on my 1st try, and that it changed my mind-set from being relaxed/lazy to being more focused during that portion of the game. I don't need to get mad at my game to let me know it's challenging.
There are hard-core gamers who love the deeply involved/complex/challenging to the point of sometimes frustrating games - and there's lots of games to pick from for there, maybe PoP isn't for you. Then, there are the super-casual gamers, and hell - there's pretty much an entire console (Wii) dedicated to them. But then theres people like me that fall in between - and PoP (and some of the other games I listed above) seem to fill that niche rather well.
Sounds familiar, Dune 1 I think? When do my geek points arrive? :)
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
Why do people keep saying stupid stuff like "Prince of Persia is the most innovative game of 2008"? With Wii Fit, Mirror's Edge, Little Big Planet, games that have a totally unique experience he picks Prince of Persia because you don't die? The mechanic is pretty much the same as the Sands of Time except it's automatic. Why do videogame journalist seem to be getting more and more stupid as time passes?
Let's see... he said he would take it easy on him if he played and then didn't (deceitful check). Continue playing against him in such a way that you know he isn't having any fun (griefing) would in my mind fit the brutal and unkind (check).
Already been done:
<snip>
The game ends only when one of the players decides that the pain is too much to bear and lifts a hand off the PEU. All of which sounds straightforward, but in truth games often continue long past the point where common sense has given way to stubborn machismo.
</snip>
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2002/03/50875
http://fc57.deviantart.com/fs17/f/2007/189/3/a/The_Fresh_Prince_of_Persia_by_Chill91.png
Don't be too hard on the kid, he's just a teenager after all. What guy that age doesn't have some angst to vent?
Nobody likes to get their ass kicked in a game - take some time to play it by yourself then have a re-match with him and kick his butt(in a nice way). You'll have more fun and he'll respect you for beating him on his own turf.
But there are games you're never going to win at, so if he wants to play with you, then make sure to play some games where you are the expert. This will ensure no one is always winning (or losing) and give you the feeling of fairness you're looking for.
I very much liked the game, and as others have pointed out, the 'not being able to die' can as well be seen as constantly autosaving yourself.
;-)
The thing that -did- bother me is that this 'saving before falling to your death'-animation is your companion quickly flying down to grab you and drop you back on the last ledge you've stood on.
Ok, so I'm a guy, trying to save that same princess from something evil, but before I can face the main boss, I'd have to swing, jump, slide etc towards it: Why isn't that freaking woman instantly flying me there in the first place?
No, only when I make a mistake can she be bothered to show off her amazing flying skillz.
*grumbles* bitch *grumbles*
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
Personally, I think that auto-quicksaves take a lot of the fun out. If there's no penalty for faliure, there's no risk to any action. I like that little feeling of trepidation when you think, "Will this work? I hope so..."
Failure penalties don't just penalize mistakes, they reward forethought. Sick of being sent back in the level? Maybe you should stop charging into the middle of firefights like an idiot and try to actually preserve your character's life by taking cover and using a bit of tact.
I've been playing POP on the PC with the 360 controller. I really like the game and it's one of the best I've played in a long time. But the never dying feature really reduced the difficulty of the game so much that there was no sense of tension from failure.
There are points in the game where they try to create tension by having platforms crumble just as you pass them, or by having poisonous gas released into the air which should eventually "kill" you. But with the lack of death, these things seemed laughable since there was no chance that they would actually kill you. They were all for show.
Despite this, the battles are done really well I thought. Even though you can't die, every time you fail the enemies' life bar gets refilled a bit. So some battles can take half an hour simply because the enemy is owning you so badly.
I would have preferred a difficulty option where timing was required. I would also have preferred sending you a few platforms back upon failure, not just from when your feet left the ground. Right now the game just seems like "well I'll just see if I can jump that way and see if it works."
At one point in the game the prince says to Elika, "If you don't value your life, it's as if you never cared about everything you lived for." This is pretty analogous to the difficulty of the game.
My "gamepad" has 101 buttons on one side, and three buttons, a wheel, and a positional sensor on the other. And don't talk to me about your "boss" levels, I've got a real boss to worry about.
Stupid console gamers and their dumbing down. If you can't operate a modern compiler you might as well go out and shoot hoops instead.
To be blunt, the summary of the article just sounds like more of the trend to make games easier for the newbs. Since I have less time for gaming, I don't hate this as much as I did. But I also find myself going back and playing 10 and 15 year old games more and more. Thank god for the classics. By the way, if you like street fighter and own the ROMs (I'm no legal expert, but I wonder if you bought it on 3 different systems if that means you own the ROMs?), try out GGPO. The net code is AMAZING and makes it almost perfect as if you are playing in the same room. I still don't know how they do it.
Except that it isn't "a game without the chance for failure". It's a game where failure isn't expressed as the death of the protagonist, and the retry process is automated and integrated into the narrative. In no way, however, do these things keep failure from being a possibility.
The game you are looking for is called Nethack. It has been around since 1987 and is probably the world's champion time-suck. When you're dead; you're dead. You start the game over from the beginning. Since it does save if you quit, you can, of course, copy the save file, but that is considered cheating by most players. The original is ASCII, but there are newer versions that use graphic tile sets. You have been warned. @
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
It isn't losing that gives a game more thrill, it's the threat of losing. The losing part actually kinda sucks. It can be frusterating, it can ruin immersion and it can turn off those who are new to gaming.
Ideally, a game should provide you with the thrill of losing while rarely allowing you to do so. Some ways to do this would be the use of dynamic difficulty and level design. Kind of like how Left 4 Dead's engine will spawn zombies or health and ammo depending on your current situation.
The problem with Prince of Persia is that this 'helping hand' needs to be invisible to avoid ruining immersion and insulting the less casual gamers that play the game
avoid the new prince of persia entirely. Well lets not be too harsh I bought the game for several reasons, I loved the recent three installments of the series and I loved the fact it had no DRM.
The good point about this game is that the graphics are amazing, but that is the only good point.
Well not dying is an issue which I personally do not despise because you cannot die but at the same time you do, by being transported back to the last platform or by resetting the boss to the start point.
This is a no issue on the positive or negative side, but that is the last positive I have to say about this overrated boredom.
The reason why I call it despite the load of work which obviously went into the game is following.
The game is more or less the easy version of dragons lair, the entire game mechanics are without thinking just pressing the correct button at the correct time. Gone are the days of having to think your way through the surrounding, gone are the days when it was hard to trigger the right button at the same time. Think of it as a jump and run which forgives everything within a timing of 3-4 seconds and which has almost all the puzzles removed which made the series great!
Add to that the voice acting which seems to be straight out of the Zelda cartoons, gone are the days of having a rather depressive british speaker, and it is replaced with an actor who sounds exactly like the one who seems to have spoken the dreadful zelda cartoons (excuuuse meee princess)
Ok now to the second bad part, the boss battles, dont get it wrong they are boss battles, but the designers tried hard to make the game more like a gods of war and again failed. The reason this time, you constantly have to fight the same bosses again and again, they almost do not change their strategies, so you have to fight for instance the dreaded concubine 5 times at the end of each section, while the first fight is fascinating you want to throw your mouse back into the moonitor the fifth time. No change in pace no change how to fight her, the same lousy in fight jokes nothing new.
Now to the level design, while excellent graphically it bored me seriously to death, they basically used the same 10 different types of background obstacles ad nauseum.
Well the two good points i am not sure if they can hold up against the myriads of bad points the game has to offer. That it still got mid 80 ratings while the far superior Tomb Raider Underworld got 10% less does not really speak for the reviewers nowadays. I personally think while Tomb Raider Underworld has probably the better game mechanics and is a master of environmental puzzles it has some small graphical glitches PoP does not have but it is an excellent game which should be rated way higher than the new PoP.
Overall the new PoP probably is the Asassins Creed of the Prince of Persia while graphically highly impressive, the game behind it is highly boring and repetitive...
Second try Ubisoft second faile with the same engine! Same high ratings of reviewers who probably seem not to get it, that a good game needs more than impressive graphics!
Please UbiSoft do us a favor, hire the old voice actors again and do a decent (non idiot user) remake of Sands of Time with the new engine!
Or get Jordan Mechner back on board, he seems to know how to do a decent Prince of Persia!
You obviously have the talent in programming and some good ideas but you need some serious overhaul in the game design departement!
I've been really impressed with GTA IV. I have been playing the GTA series since the original, and in fact it was the game that pushed me to get a 3dfx card. Ahhh, memories. Anyway, one of the features that I like about the most recent iteration of the game is the ability to quickly replay a failed mission. After failing a mission, you are presented with the option of trying it again. Exercising that option automatically takes you back to beginning of the mission. In the past, you had to waste time travelling across the city to start all over again.
I have to wonder if a trend is forming. Maybe game designers are catering to the older crowd? They realize our time is limited and we aren't going to play games if we have to waste huge amounts of time.
And very wrong too. It's simply in the nature of failure that the task is not considered done, in real life if you screw up and the only consequence is getting another chance that can't be called punishment of any kind, punishment is not receiving another chance or far worse things.
The problem is not death but instant death. Death should not be the consequence of a single mistake but the result of a chain of accumulated failures, by the time the player dies he should have a very good idea of why he died, he should feel he "earned" his death.
But there's more, different kinds of failure should result in different kinds of "punishment" for instance failure to aim results in reduced ammo in your guns, failure to grab healers results in reduced health, failure to kill some enemies results in those enemies coming after you.
The first reason is of course realism, the second and most important one is that it adds to the gameplay, the kind of tactics you use when you've got a full health bar and fully loaded plasma cannons of are different than the ones
you use when you are injured and using a kitchen knife.
The idea is that the player should follow a long curve into his deathbed.
It also gives the him another incentive to play well besides reaching the credits screen faster, overcoming his limitations don't just allow him to die less, but allow him to play more gracefully and enable him to attempt harder stuff, not just because he is alive, but because he is fully armed and more skilled.
And it goes without saying but, don't surprise-kill the player, its cheap.
Constant autosaving or simply making immposible for your character to die is not the solution, it only makes the game boring, it reduces the game into a movie, you may say that movies are still great but consider we're talking about a *video game movie*, since when any of those are good?
Immortality is only the solution when the game fails to proportionately "punish" the player, when all your blows are death blows and cheap kills then you may turn on god mode, but it will be boring.
And your son is an ass, Halo has co-op campaign, its a great trainer and builds team-ship.
But... the future refused to change.
So-called "micromanagement" is fine in the early game, when a single less-than-optimal action could decide the game against the player, but later in the game it simply isn't practical, nor is it a reflection of reality: if the player represents an emperor or five-star general, such a figure would NOT be dealing with all that minutia personally at that point.
Hm. The way that ought to work is that the player gets to appoint "subordinates" to various jobs, each of whom has an identity and a back story. The subordinates all have different personalities and decision styles; some favor military action over negotiation; some don't. Some are bold generals; some overprepare on logistics. (Do you want Montgomery or Ike in charge?) The player has to monitor how they're doing, and be prepared to fire or move around subordinates.
This is what a CEO of a big organization really does. It's a good skill to teach.
Arcade type games, like streets of rage or metal slug do it right: when you die you lose a life, but respawn right away. You're punished, because you have fewer lives and can therefore not progress as far in the game, but you don't lose any time because you pick up exactly where you left off. Unfortunately the idea of 'lives' seems to be taboo now for video game developers, so this wonderful mechanic is pretty much dead.
I hated Prince of Persia IV, but not because it was a terrible game. The art is gorgeous, the boss fights are over-the-top, and the jumping puzzles are inventive (although extremely easy, with the Quick-Time-Event mechanic). The "not dying" mechanic is just a streamlined, limited version of what the previous three games offered.
But I cannot forgive the game for not being Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
It's streamlined to tell a mystic and magical story. Like a Disney movie. But for me, the Prince of Persia series was all about platform puzzles and jumping around in realistic looking environments. I felt like I was running around in amusement park rides in Prince of Persia IV, rather than ancient ruins or stately Arabian buildings. I realize that the game designers have moved away from the puzzling to "let's make the player look awesomely cool in messed up worlds". But that isn't the kind of gameplay that I'm looking for, so it is a lesser game in my eyes. I want to emphasize that I can see how this game can be fun for other people (it certainly has a "God of War" vibe to it which is quite inticing), but it wasn't fun for me because it lacked the thoughtful platforming of the first remake.
It took me a while to understand why the save system is actually quite wonderful for Dead Rising. Like many gamers, you and I both probably wanted to be able to *save everybody* and kill each boss.
An important thing to realize is that the game is likely impossible to clear perfectly on the first play through. This wasn't obvious to me at first, but I could appreciate it more once I accepted that fact.
You can *finish* Dead Rising without ever leaving the roof in the beginning of the game. Just stand there and wait for the helicopter to come back. But, the fact that the events happen in quasi-real-time means that you have to pick and choose which ones to attend to. As you get more skilled and better gear, you'll be better able to try to do it all in subsequent playthroughs.
Know things work this way makes for a better appreciation of how it saves the game. Sure, you won't be able to save half of the people, because you just saved the game... But, big deal. You can try to see that content next time.
I don't get why they have a checkpoint system, its totally useless to me. Since im used to games like Half-Life and any other game you simply hit F5 or F6 to save your exact spot. Games like Mass Effect on 360 have save game manually still (through hitting pause) but sooo many games now only save your checkpoint, they don't save your exact location after battling a horse of monsters/enemy's and having 10life left. If you save after some chaotic moment and the checkpoint/save spot is through even more chaos, you absolutely cannot save where you desire. I hate redoing things ive already done in a game (Call of Duty 3, 4, 5 are good at this annoyance) I would still prefer to be able to hit start and SAVE my EXACT location with my ammo and life bar where they are at. So when i die i dont have to redo some stupid fight with 100 soldiers poking their heads out of a trench tossing grenades at me.
Video games are about interactivity. That's what separates them from say, film as a medium. When you are interacting, by definition the story cannot progress, since the story is a non interactive element presented to you. In your example, yes, you could be looking around at the scenery of the coast, but the story is at a standstill during that time. Games cannot have a sense of pacing because of this, and tend to tell their stories in 3 second bursts (half life 2) or in cutscenes. If all you care about is the story, then why are you PLAYING a game? By watching a movie, you can get a directed story, with pacing. You absolutely cannot have the same pacing in a videogame: it's a fundamental limitation of the medium.
I used to be big into console games, but I stopped because I could no longer afford to waste 50 or 60 dollars on each game I wanted, so I gave up all together. This more than anything puts games away from people knowing they have to spend at least 300 dollars or more to even start to play, and if they want to play with a friend, buy a controller if they don't have one. I am 28 now and at Christmas time I played Call of Duty- World at War on 360 with my cousins of course they kicked my butt, but I am sure if I had time at least would have been respectable.
Gambling games are more 'addictive' if the player loses than if they win every time, even if they are winning money.
love is just extroverted narcissism
As Nintendo and others discovered, the serious user of the game is hooked by the game and not happy with just end credits; they want more levels and sequels. Some like collecting, skill challenges such as racing the clock, or high scores etc. and some feel they must master or complete the whole game. A few like storyline in which case they should be reading more books or maybe playing RPGs.
Most Mario Games (a good example because they influence everything:)
Usually setup so that with little planning you can get bye without being able to do everything. It gives a sense of accomplishment and hope that 80s games lacked (many which went on forever until you died.)
They include elements of all the above human desires to motivate people to go beyond the simple path:
Star collecting is also a form of score.
Coins are a score but have more worth because you get rewarded (in an easy to identify way) plus most the time you collect many of them in the game.
Minor Easter eggs are often so easy you wouldn't think of them that way (but to a child it is--even then its still rewarding.)
Levels / mini games where you race or have limited time.
They've added more "story" to shut up a minority and everybody jokes or bitches about it.
Extra levels or areas within levels that are more difficult and likely unseen by beginners.
Mechanics:
You press ONE button to jump but as you get better you realize the subtle timing involved... not that you couldn't do the whole game without realizing it. The controls try to limit buttons and cover 90% of what needs to be done; skilled users find better shortcuts. Additionally, context plays a part. Throwing fireballs also has you run; many games tend to think this is limiting and give you separate buttons.
Proper punishment system for death; although, they give too many lives in the modern games... Better players are bothered more by death especially when something is hard and those lives do run out. They know they can beat the game but they know they can do better than a 7 year old and not cut corners.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
In my experience, the difficulty of older games wasn't purely about difficulty, it was about making a small amount of content entertaining for a long time.
I'm a fan of older Super NES games. Going back with a modern emulator, such as SNES9x is a very interesting experience. The emulator not only allows you to save state, but also to fast-forward through boring parts, or rewind slightly, to just before a fatal mistake.
In my experience, when dieing and grinding are eliminated, most older games are surprisingly short. Many old shooters can be completed in the course of an hour or so. RPGs may take longer, but not nearly the 80 hours they used to consume back in the day.
Modern games can eliminate the grind thanks to the vast amounts of content. Completing half-life 2 takes nearly 4 hours when played straight through, with minimal deaths or saving and loading. The entertainment factor in modern games is about the environments, obstacles, and stories. It's about a good twitch, rather than the pleasure of overcoming an extreme challenge (Contra 1?)
I keep hearing people say that modern games have controls that are "too complex"...and that confuses the hell out of me. A control has, at most, twelve buttons and two sticks; most games use six or fewer buttons and just the left stick. If you can't handle learning how to play a game on a console and you don't have some sort of mental or physical disability...kill yourself for the good of humanity, you're too stupid to live. Sure, not everybody is great at video games, not everybody is a pro, but at least you can do okay with them.
For that matter, how is it -less- complex to operate a car than play a game, which has more buttons and not only that it requires a certain degree of familiarity with how to accelerate, brake and generally avoid accidents? Just because you drive more than you game, and are thus more familiar with the operation of a car, doesn't mean operating a car is easier.
Did anyone else think this was going to be a warning to gamers not to waste their time playing Prince of Persia, because it was awful?
are we talking about that rewind feature..you know..the one that was introduced in Prince of Persia sands of time in 2003...?
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends."
The Humblest Mollusk on the Net
OK, it seems a few posters have got the points mixed up.
The innovation is the respawn system after failing. Elika simply restores you to life, no loading, no stoppage in gameplay. I think that is a bonus and works well in this game.
If that alone gives it praise for most innovative game of 2008, then I'm shocked.
The game does have its frustrating points, though. Sometimes the player runs in the wrong direction on a wall (up instead of down), the fighting system is par, at best. Elika having to jump on my back when I get into a wall-climb is annoying. Fighting a boss is annoying, because if you 'die' they get a little bit of their power restored. It's better than starting over, but I would rather have better boss battles.
My main complain is that the jumping puzzles are repetitive and an joke... no actual difficulty to the game.
All in all, I would rather play an amped-up shadow of colussus.
2. Wait til someone else develops a game that does it.
3. Sue them
4. Profit!
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
I just picked up the 3rd Prince of Persia game a few days ago, I beat it on PC a couple years ago, but it was cheap. Anyways I am a little more than halfway and I've been stopped dead by 2 bosses, and just to get to them every time I must beat a tedious race, which takes about 8 intense minutes. it is very frustrating to have to get through this just to see if I can ever beat these bosses.
FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!!
It's pronounced FERT-IL
NOT FER-TILE
Speaking of Call of Duty. There is a level in COD4 that relates to this article well. There is the sniper stage on one level where you just have to take out one target, but if you fail, you have to go through the whole scripted scene again. I just found it annoying. And when I got the target after a few tries, I wasn't thrilled that I had beat it, just thankful that the damn thing was over and I could move on to something more exciting. I've replayed the game a couple of times, and I still find that stage a chore, rather than a challenge, even if I do make in on the first shot.
His other works include Rollercoaster Bowling and DM of the Rings
Very worthwhile stuff, and an all around cool guy.
My response to him was to quit. After trying to play with him for at least 30 minutes, I just quit and told him I would never play against him ever again because he was brutal, unkind, and deceitful.
You got frustrated with the game, so you acted like a baby, quit, and insulted your son.
The Parent of the Year award is headed your way... well done!
I started playing Club Drive on the Atari Jaguar (pretty crappy game-wise, but interesting enough, and it really entertains my 2 year old son). It has a Rewind feature where you can rewind the action at any point. (It also auto-rewinds to bring you back onto the road if you fall off a cliff and into the ocean, in the San Francisco world, for example.) This game was from 1994. "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" came 9 years later.
Sorry, the Atari fanboy in me is showing.
A lot of good points, but I probably would have done without calling his son, who's probably a child, an ass. Then again, I have had the misfortune of playing with quite a few little jerks on Xbox live, so...
They seem to be going about this wrong. The trick isn't to remove danger, it's to balance the damned difficulty such that it doesn't take a tireless obsessive to beat it.
millions of people can figure out these controls. i somehow doubt these folks are somehow smarter than the rest. many of the folks who can't handle it just really aren't interested in gaming in a way that would matter. these are folks that buy a wii and after the 15 minute novelty session toss in in the corner to collect dust. controls are complicated because it lets you do more. people spend dozens if not hundreds of hours playing a good game. its not a matter of just "jumping in", its a matter of making the controls good enough to handle such a depth of game play that will last a long time, not just enough to let the n00bs in for 15 minutes of tossing around a bit. basically he's asking to dumb things down. the creator of the wire had it right when he said that he didn't give a sh*t about casual viewers. he wrote stories with long season arks that rewarded those who stuck with the series. who wants a casual viewer? his response was correct, the question people have is wrong. why is it better to cater to people who don't give a squat or can't be bothered. perhaps its better to just ignore them and do your own thing as well as it can be done. leave them to decide whether it is worth it.
Many of us play games for an entertaining experience, not to challenge ourselves with the possibility of failure. I use games to relax. Why, why, WHY would I introduce an element that could suddenly exchange joy for rage, and put me under more stress than I ever experience when not gaming (having just wasted any amount of leisure time tends to send me to the heights of fury).
That said, I play a lot of games where I can fail. But I do NOT play ANY game where I would have to repeat more than 10 minutes or so of play, or replay extremely difficult sections. At that point, the acrimony far outweighs any eventual reward for success. The thoughts that go through my mind after failing a section and having to repeat it:
- I've seen this already
- I've done this perfectly already and I may not be able to do so again
- The x minutes that I spent doing this already would have been better spent doing nothing but quiet breathing
- The developers of this POS game are so incompetent that they couldn't make a long enough game, so they artificially inflated the play time by making me repeat things occasionally
- I want to find said developers and slap them in the face (palm, backhand, repeat) until they either convince me that they honestly thought it would be fun to reverse players' progress as an additional injury to the insult of failure, or admit the real reason, at which point I will educate them in better game design.