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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.
Don't buy it and don't play video games if you don't want to waste time.
Had to be said.
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.
If you're going to hit the quicksave button all the time, then you might as well make it automatic, like they have done here.
The game isn't easy because of this, it's less frustrating. Forcing the player to restarting huge segments at the smallest error is a very cheap way to make something "difficult".
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
In Monkey Island, you could never die either. But it was still a lot of fun to play!
-- Watch me working: www.magerquark.de
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.
Isn't what they implemented basically what was the biggest complaint against Bioshock, that dying is more of a minor inconvenience than anything else?
Agreed. While Yhatzee's Zero Punctuation may be seen as somewhat abrasive, he does hit the nail on the head when reveiwing games that seem to lack this feature.
I know myself, when I play a game for a bit of fun, I want to do just that... have fun. Not be PUNISHED for a simple error, or not knowing the level.
I reccomend anyone who enjoys gaming to watch his reviews. They are abrasive, but they are also down to earth. He pretty much spells out what really sucks about modern gaming (and, yes, he does praise what's right).
Sure in MMOs and the likes you are "punished" at times, but it's not for not knowing, it's for not working together. Solo, I don't want to be punished by some want-to-be benevolent programmer with a sadistic nature, I want to have fun.
No the whole point is to have fun.
If you think the point is to waste time, go play World of Warcraft. And no, that isn't meant as an insult to WoW. It is just WoW is built around having fun by wasting time. However, that is not the only way to have fun.
If you don't want to waste time, I suggest to press "quit".
I have a better solution. If you enjoy wasting time, restart the game every time you fail in a task. Heck, you can even give yourself three lifes before you have to restart (or any other set of rules). Real hardcore players know how to challenge themselves. It is the hardcore whiners that try to force their idea of gameplay onto others.
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.
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.
If you don't repeat the game's content, then how are you supposed to get good at the game?
Agreed. But what is the point of repeating the content you already mastered?
Lets say I kill 3 guys, then jump through a window, land on the ledge, dodge the whirling blades, evade the fire trap, kill 3 more guys,...[six more minutes]... jump onto the pole before the floor collapses, all flawlessly and then mis-time my jump onto the swinging rope and fall into a pit trap and die.
What do I need to get better at?
"make the jump onto the swinging rope"
or
"kill 3 guys, then jump through a window, land on the ledge, dodge the whirling blades, evade the fire trap, kill 3 more guys,...[6 more minutes]... jump onto the pole before the floor collapses, then make the jump onto the swinging rope."
???
Making me repeat the lengthy sequence of stuff I already figured out and beat just to take another shot at jumping the rope is just more annoying than anything. I've played games where I couldn't figure out the boss, but had completely mastered the 6 minute level to reach him... WASTING 6 minutes between each attempt to try a different attack pattern on the boss is just annoying.
People who want to prove their skills should have difficulty mode with one life/ no respawns/ etc. But while learning the game or the first time through... What's the point?
You get killed, you try again, and you get better.
You try again to get past what killed you. Why exactly do you need to re-do several minutes worth of stuff you've already mastered?
If you're not enjoying the challenges that the game is giving...
The primary challenge in such games is simply one of my patience. The enjoyment comes from beating the parts you got stuck on, not on replaying the parts you were good at. I don't mind taking several tries to figure out a boss or a jump or a puzzle, but I do get pissed if I have to spend hours replaying the parts I've mastered just to retry the parts I'm stuck on.
When I go mountain biking and have trouble with a section I'll back up a 100 meters and take another run at it, I don't go back and restart the entire fucking 10km trail. And sure, there is definitely a feeling of satisfaction upon reaching the level that I can do a given trail in one clean pass... but I certainly don't want to get to that level by restarting the entire fucking trail every time I have to put my foot down.
then the technical term for your state is "burned out"
No. That's the state I get to when I have to restart.
Abrasive I will agree with, and they are also enjoyable and entertaining, but down to earth is not something Yahtzee exudes. If anything he's got one of the hugest egos of any reviewer. He does point out a lot of things that suck about modern gaming, but it seems like his reviews are more intended to be negative for the sake of being negative rather than making a decent review. I wouldn't recommend Yahtzee to find out whether a game is good, but more to find out the flaws in a game, and check other reviews to find out whether you should buy the game.
All your base are belong to Wii.
One of the main points in video games for me is the excitement and fear of failing. For example, System Shock 2 and Jagged Alliance 2 were both really good games for me, because they punished the player for too many saves (by adjusting the amount of stuff the enemies left behind). The constant fear that I have to play the whole stage again if I die makes the winning also much more satisfying. Another thing is that when you play the stage again, you can do everything better than the last time and feel more advanced. That is the case in the Mega Man series. Of course this means that the stages must have replay value (which was not the case in the last boss of Shadow of Colossus).
That's awesome. So when your son was better at something than you, you called him names, took your ball, and went home. I'm sure that when he was growing up and you two would have little competitions, when you were better than him you rubbed it in his face. Am I right?
That's just great parenting. Keep up the awesome work. Try crying more, too.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I agree it's about immersion, but even decent stories can be ruined by a lack of auto-save. My wife gave me Final Fantasy IX for the DS (Yeah, yeah. Insert "wife-giving-me-final-fantasy" joke here *grin*) and while I enjoy it, the fact that death happens so damn often is annoying. It's tough to get into a game when one member of your party dies at the beginning of a battle, which leads to two dying which leads to a wipe, to use WoW parlance. I find myself heading back out of a dungeon after a couple of battles to make sure my party gains and saves experience, rather than dying (or, heading out of the dungeon to use the "tent" (aka heal/rest feature)) as saving isn't an allowed option inside of the dungeon. It got to the point where I set the game aside for a bit because of the frustration level.
Bark less. Wag more.
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.
Oh, I knew "the other side are whiners also" argument would come up as soon I had posted my first response.
There is a difference however. The "hardcore whiners" as I prefer to call them could easily restrict their actions to emulate a more difficult game. They however choose not to, because what they really want is everyone else to have as difficult a time as themselves. What they enjoy is to finish games when others can not. They are basically the "my car is better than yours" type of people.
The opposite is not true. Players who enjoys gameplay that flows along can't simply tune down the difficulty of a hard game. Actually, there is quicksave, but letting a hardcore player save once at the start of each level and then reload if the game doesn't "punish" him enough breaks immersion less than having the non hardcore player press quicksave every minute in a difficult game.
>It's about immersion. True, basketball isn't about immersion, but some games are.
I find it sad that people are playing BASKETBALL on a gaming console? Whatever happened to going outside and shooting some hoops? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
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.
No. Games are for wasting time ENJOYABLY.
Significant difference there.
Those elaborate 6 minute timesinks are just for frustration/stupidity. It is an elaborate game mechanic to simply waste time. Kinda like not giving you an option of skipping a stupidly long cutscene before fighting a boss in a game.
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?
I find it sad that people are playing BASKETBALL on a gaming console? Whatever happened to going outside and shooting some hoops? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...
A bit off-topic, but people always try to use this argument to say that guitar hero is stupid. Because you are playing a game that emulates some real-world activity, that game is stupid because you could be doing the real world activity.
But look at it this way, you're going to be playing video games no matter what right? So why not play the game that entertains you the most? It doesn't matter if that game happens to exist in the real world. It's FUN.
Many a time my band and I got tired of jamming, so we'd head in my house and play guitar hero. What's wrong with that?
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
Playing against a opponent who consistently out-classes you, and is being a dick about it, is no fun at all.
"Hey, what button do I hit to reload in this game?"
-BANG RESPAWN
-"Ehr, the reload button, could you tell me where it is?
-BLAM RESPAWN
-"I just remembered, I've got this netflix dvd at home that I should really see. So, like, bye."
The feeling of humiliation was not a factor... I didn't have time to feel humiliated. I was trying to learn to play just as I played Halo2. Halo3 is not THAT different, but the weapons and the maps are and knowing those two things are key. When someone knows where all the weapons are as well as the best locations in the map, a person can rule a one on one game. My son does not know the meaning of fair play. When we were playing Halo2 as team members, his favorite tactic was to hold back until he heard one of the others engaged in fire and then come in at an angle to clean up and get the kills. That is a very good strategy if you are only looking out for yourself... which appears to be a personality trait he picked up from his mother. But I digress.
I am not easily frustrated by games at ALL. But when the opportunity to even learn to overcome is denied, I have to take issue. If you can't learn, then there is no point at all.
As someone else put it, yes, I effectively took my ball and went home. The point was to teach him the behavior wouldn't be tolerated. He has asked me to play with him a few times in the past and I reminded him of that day. It's not a grudge and it wasn't even anger. I simply disagree with a personality trait he exhibited and need a way to show him that it is wrong. Since when is taking advantage of others "fun" or part of a game? I have three sons and the other two "get it" as we play games happily together. Unfortunately, the oldest spent too much time with their mother to understand fair play and cooperation.
That's the rationalization I used to use, to make the endless save/restore cycle seem tolerable. But I'll venture a guess here - you've never regretted hitting save, but you HAVE regretted getting into the game, really enjoying things, and FORGETTING to save. You get hit hardest for being the most immersed. Saving is an unnatural act in gaming - it breaks the metaphor.
Oh, and that rationalization? About constantly choosing to save/not save? That's a variation on the too many choices fallacy. I don't really need more anxiety in my life. Save/Restore should die. I applaud games such as BioShock that are moving towards its abolishment.
I haven't played PoP yet, but from this discussion, I'm going to be doing so soonest. Here's to letting go of mechanisms that hinder our immersion in the game.
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Did you watch the video? It's evident that mashing buttons would never get you past an obstacle in Prince of Persia.
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.
Forcing the player to restarting huge segments at the smallest error is a very cheap way to make something "difficult".
Seeing as this is modded to (5: Insightful) I am going to have to assume that no nethack players have mod points today.
> Wiping out lets you keep all items and XP you've earned, but costs you 50% of your money. Take out the word "items" and it sounds like my divorce ... ;)
Perhaps the cause of the divorce might be found here as well...from what I've heard most wives wouldn't like it if their husbands considered making love to them as "leveling up".
I've also heard they don't like to hear "For The Win!!" during the most intimate moments.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I wouldn't care if it was a stranger. I saw what I identified as bad character traits in my son. I found those character flaws worrisome.
But this is going way too far off topic. If the game itself were less punishing in nature, that sort of dominance wouldn't be a problem. But these problems are clearly identified in other aspects of the games by effectively partitioning player levels and ranks in the xbox live arenas. Unfortunately, this was not one of those cases.
But to go with your sports analogy, if I were to play basketball for the FIRST TIME EVER against Michael Jordan, I would expect him to win... I expected my son to win too. But I would still expect to see some moderation and a sense of fair play at the same time.
What I have gathered from this discussion is that people have truly started to lose their own sense of fair play and morality as things progress. Just because it is in a video game does not make certain behaviors and tendencies less immoral. People presume the same notions on the internet. These immoral people are the same ones who think it is okay to exploit weaknesses in Microsoft operating systems to build their botnets and spew their spam costing the world trillions of dollars in extra costs on ultimately ineffective technologies. These immoral people are the same ones who think it is okay to exploit unintelligent or elderly people out of their money in confidence schemes, ponzi schemes and the like. These immoral people are the same ones who think that "legal" equates to "acceptable behavior."
Sure, "it's just a game" but you have to look at the character flaws that are exposed in play situations. There is a reason it is not acceptable to beat up women and children. That reason is morality. We don't beat up on weaker people less capable of defending themselves. We generally know this instinctively. But when did it become not immoral to beat up on beginners? Is it not the same thing? We have all heard "pick on someone your own size" but do you appreciate what it actually means? I would be seriously surprised if I could not beat the crap out of you in person. I am not small. I am very physically active and pretty adept at physical contact, not to mention military trained. Should the fact that you are most likely less capable be a deterrent in my attacking you? I would have to say YES! But the difference you are indicating is only about "the arena" and speaks nothing about the morality of the thing. To me, the morality is everything and the arena is not important. Morality and character are things that start from within yourself, not a set of rules that change with the environment.
If I were to break it down, as far as my son is concerned, I would have to say that witnessing the character flaw was the most disturbing part of the experience. The family thinks we taught him better than that. But the problem is obviously much more wide-spread as indeed, generationally speaking, there is a tremendous lack of character and morality and has been that way since the 80's. But this sort of immorality has led to the collapse of the financial system as I am sure you are well aware of. Rules regulating behavior were ignored. Securities were created backed by extremely risky loans and the collapse was plain and evident to see by all observers who were not morally corrupted by the get-rich-quick mentality of the market. Don't stop at the arena when looking at a problem. The source of a problem has to be identified to effectively understand and address a problem. People don't get headaches because they have an aspirin deficiency. They get headaches because something is wrong. The source problem should be identified and addressed... some problems become worse beyond control when ignored.
And if the message didn't get across to you in all that, let's try it another way. Let's talk about sex. In a game between two people, if only one is enjoying it, there is something wrong. In sex, when only one is enjoying it, there is something wrong...
You, my probably-not-graduated-from-HS pup, are free to run your mouth, but the fact of the matter is, as you grow up, fewer and fewer of the women your own age won't have some sort of baggage from the past.
I'll take one with a kid and hope you enjoy the herpes-infested frathouse gang-bang leftover you end up with.
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.
Sure, Yahtzee is overly negative, but every other game reviewer is overly positive. When was the last time you saw a game get reviewed lower than 5? Shouldn't 5 be the median?
At least when Yahtzee you know what you're getting. And honestly, I'm one of those games-as-art guys, so I am more interested in hearing about the game's flaws than whether or not I should buy it.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
"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."
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