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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!
-- Watch me working: www.magerquark.de
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".
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.
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.
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."
If you watch the video you'd se how it works. Instead of respawning at a checkpoint, you respawn at the point that your feet left the ground. This allows you to try the particular challenge you failed again without the tedium of getting there first.
Is getting good at a game a transferrable skill then? I tend to find that the 'thinking elements' and the problem solving elements are the bits that are of most interest. They're also the bits that carry on past the game. All too often though, I find it's less about the game, and more about the interface - your 'getting killed and try again' is a substitute for a well designed game.
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.
Anybody play Prey? "Death" was a mechanic used to get more ammo. That's a really good way to cheapen what's supposed to be a rather major mechanic of gameplay. In my opinion, Half-Life 2 got the perfect balance. *VERY* frequent auto-saves (and it keeps 2 of them) with the capability to quick save anywhere you want. Obviously things are different for a console game, but I feel that Half-Life 2 hit the sweet spot where you wanted to avoid death, but weren't frustrated by it.
That's my point, man - you're not playing the game, you're sitting around criticizing it and trying to get inside the head of whoever made it. If you sit around bitching about design, then you're probably burned out and would benefit from a change of hobbies.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
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.
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.
"WASTING 6 minutes between each attempt to try a different attack pattern on the boss is just annoying."
You should not be playing games with that attitude. If you go in looking to use time wisely, you're not PLAYING a game. Unless you get paid to review games, stop caring about the time wasted, because that's what games are FOR. Wasting time.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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.
You don't master a game just because you passed a level. You think people doing speed runs just did the level once? What you're talking about is removing any penalty for failure. Heck, if you want that, then perhaps something like Animal Crossing is more your style. You're also talking about reducing the total number of hours spent on a game. Let's face it, people buy a game based on hours of gameplay - why else would it be splashed across the box? If games are trying your patience, then you've probably outgrown them, and need to move on to more mature pursuits. It happens to everyone sooner or later. Playing games is about playing the games...not getting frustrated because the game you're playing requires you to play the game.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
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.
Maybe you should learn to do those 6 minutes quicker? I've seen a friend of mine complete the first map of Duke Nukem 3d in 18 seconds.
Well, that, and most of the time when I first reach the boss, I already have lost hit points. So I need to do the level again without losing HP that I need against the boss.
More seriously though, I like save option in linear games, and I like open-ended games even better. Ones in which I don't need to repeat the same 6 minutes after dying, but can do something different instead.
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.
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.
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.
... 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.
Games can also lead to developing skills such as writing, graphic design, computer programming, mathematics, statistics, history...
Oh wait, that's tabletop games.
Video Games on the other hand...I guess can help eye-hand-coordination and reflexes...but really not as much as working out or driving.
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?
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!
You should not be playing games with that attitude. If you go in looking to use time wisely, you're not PLAYING a game. Unless you get paid to review games, stop caring about the time wasted, because that's what games are FOR. Wasting time.
Semantic problem. Games are for passing time pleasurably. Time passed pleasurably is not wasted.
Now, if I find the boss fight fun, but I don't enjoy replaying a level to reach the boss - than that game is wasting my time.
The difficulty for games designers is that people have different tastes. I know other people might enjoy that stretch that I find dull. So I'll pick another game and leave this one to them.
For example, I used to think that RPGs were making a terrible error in having all those grind battles. Then I discovered that lots of people actually enjoy that stuff. So I don't play RPGs, and I let other people enjoy them.
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.
What you're looking at is completely unrelated things, and trying to put them together. Nice job with the blanket statement! What the hell does computer programming have to do with tabletop games? 0. Likewise, what the hell does working out or driving have to do with video games? Honestly, you're pulling stuff out your ass here. You know, that preview button is there for a reason. Maybe slashdot should read the comments before you submit them too.
A more accurate example would be how video games can help a musician who plays an instrument such as a piano, guitar, cello, any of them via playing video games. Or how a tabletop game can (just like any other video game or just by definition, a game itself) help you in critical thinking/reasoning.
Also as far as using physical rehabilitation via the wii for paralyzed people or for general health improvements? Yeah, I'd love to see a tabletop game that does that.
All games have their place, and so does your head. Burying it in the sand is not that place.
"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.
Would Mario be fun if every time you died, you would start at that same spot instead of the beginning of the level?
Ohh... bad example... flashbacks of the original SMB with some tricky jumps where if you missed, you would start right before the jump. Good thing, right? Wrong. In the original SMB you couldn't scroll left, so you essentially respawned without the needed running room to make the jump without a great deal of luck... A perfect example of "Nintendo Hard"
World 8-2, from hell's heart, I stab at thee...
If you don't repeat the game's content, then how are you supposed to get good at the game?
What's the point of having to constantly repeat the content you ARE good at, though? That's the thing. When you can get from the checkpoint to the Jump-o'-certain-death in 5 minutes in your sleep, constantly repeating it isn't going to earn you anything. It makes more sense to do what this game does... make you try the Jump-o'-certain-death again...
Games can also lead to developing skills such as writing, graphic design, computer programming, mathematics, statistics, history...
Oh wait, that's tabletop games.
Can I have more of what you're smoking? Programming from a table top game?
And if you think video games can't lead to using mathematics/statistics effectively, you've never done 100 runs of each to determine the relative profitability between farming Underworld or Tombs for ectos.
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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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.
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.
And for the equally questionable counter-example; Let's say we're playing a game of tennis which I suck at. Each time I miss a point I can just say "oh no, that didn't count" and we continue the game as if nothing happened. No matter how much I suck or how good you are I will still beat you easily because there is no punishment or even possibility in losing. Exactly like with most modern games that you can play through in a few hours because they give you unlimited retries everywhere.
Football Odds
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!
Yeah, these game mechanisms are holdovers from arcade games where they needed a way for you to be interested in investing another quarter. It felt *ok* to repeat the stuff, because, "hey, 6 minutes of entertainment isn't bad for 25 cents".
But, death is no longer an essential component to a video game. There's nothing wrong with having an uber mensch who solves problems unrelated to merely *staying alive*.
Comic book heroes have been doing it for over half a century. The video game medium is just evolving to this form of narrative.
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
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?
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.
The crybabies aren't going to like your argument.
They think games are all about "unlockables" and watching cut scenes. Maybe they don't understand that the pleasure in playing the game should come from...the gameplay!
You're a lonely voice, my friend.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
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
Not true, I watched a review online and read the critique on Wired.
Man, you've nailed it precisely. I picked up Mirror's Edge the other day on sale. I just quit in frustration after finally completing one particular bit.
At the autosave point, you're under fire from a helicopter gunship, while you then have to do a wall-jump up to a platform, another running jump, turn 180, then do a running walljump across to another platform. About a 1/3 of the time, she jumps *through* the wall surface and falls to her death. If you make it past the random walljump of death, you run round a corner, drop kick a cop off the edge, fall down a hole, then do another really long jump across a gap. Normally, this is about where you'd get another autosave point, but no. You now need to clamber up the building, defeat two more cops with shotguns - at which point I failed repeatedly. So every time I failed to get the 2nd cop before being killed (which you only get 1 go at before they kill you) I had to do the 'dodge the helicopter fire while trying to make the random walljump of death' for a minute or two before I got to fight the two guards, the bit I was actually stuck at. After that, there was another couple of massive leaps, which if mistimed would have sent me back to the helicopter section again. I think it took me about 25 attempts to complete this section.
It really, really, made me pine for the new Prince of Persia method. If you screw up, you only go back slightly to tackle the bit you're stuck on, instead of having to do the same stuff over and over again you've already mastered. And if you're going to rely on edge detection, you shouldn't force the player to repeatedly redo something because your code is broken and you can't reliably tell whether to bounce them off a wall, walljump, or just jump through the wall entirely then insta-kill them for it, then force them to go back a long way to try again.
I play games to enjoy them, not as some exercise to improve my rage-control.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
That's way off. You cannot win at tennis by missing the ball. You cannot win at PoP by missing the jump. In tennis, your partner will immediately serve another ball to you and you immediately get to try again -- trying again is not winning, it's trying again. In Pop if you miss a jump, you get to try again immediately too, but you still have to make the jump.
... in other words, you get to try 6 times/hr to hit the ball and spend most of the game just killing time. In real life, you'd be trying 60 times/hr. because you don't get sent home for missing the ball.
In most video games, and this is precisely why I stopped buying them, if you miss that tennis ball, you are transported back home, have to drive 10 minutes to the tennis court where your partner will serve another shot. Miss, you get transported home
Game designers have conflated "time consuming" with "challenging". Many challenging things in life are time consuming and doing the work to meet the challenge is satisfying. Not all time consuming activities are challenging and satisfying, e.g., standing in line to get a new license at the DMV. I'm sure not going to spend $40 to be bored. When the gaming industry figures this out, it'll do better.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.
You don't master a game just because you passed a level.
Perhaps not, but after repeating the level 7 times without taking so much as a scratch to get to the part I'm stuck on, I'm comfortable saying I've mastered that part of the level. And I certainly don't need to do it 13 more times for the privilege of trying the part I actually am stuck on.
You think people doing speed runs just did the level once?
You think people doing speed runs have any bearing on the conversation at all? Those people practice the level endlesslessly, analyzing it for shortcuts and optimum routes. They aren't even part of the discussion.
You're also talking about reducing the total number of hours spent on a game.
So? I reduced it by removing the hours I had no interest in. And their is nothing stopping them from having a 'challenge mode' where you have to do the entire game on a single life to soak up the hours from the hardcore players.
Let's face it, people buy a game based on hours of gameplay - why else would it be splashed across the box?
People buy games on the expectation that those hours of gameplay are actually new content. Making people play through the same level 140 times doesn't count as more gameplay. Otherwise Pac-Man has infinite hours of gameplay.
If games are trying your patience, then you've probably outgrown them, and need to move on to more mature pursuits.
Or they are poorly designed games, and I'm mature enough to recognize this.
Playing games is about playing the games...not getting frustrated because the game you're playing requires you to play the game.
I find it odd that you have made no provision for recognizing badly designed games. I guess no matter how arbitrary and stupid the game is, the developers are always right, and if you don't enjoy it then you've outgrown games?
I disagree.
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.
Maybe you should learn to do those 6 minutes quicker? I've seen a friend of mine complete the first map of Duke Nukem 3d in 18 seconds.
Maybe I have no interest in doing that.
I have nothing against speed runs, and in games I really like I have taken to that level. But that shouldn't be mandatory. Plus for a lot of games, that simply isn't an option - shmups for example typically scroll at one speed. I've been playing R-Type on the Wii Virtual Console, and I quite enjoy it... I get to the 5th level unfailingly every time I play now, and then promptly die. Its a game of learning the attack patterns.
It took me quite a while to master the the level 4 boss. But primarily because I could only try a couple times an hour. It takes 10-15 minutes to play through the first 4 levels of the game to reach the level 4 boss, and after you die you lose all your power ups, making the battle that much harder, and then after a couple deaths you have to restart the ENTIRE GAME, not the level, the entire game. And its a fixed rate scroller so there's no 'going faster'.
So now I've beaten the level 4 boss, and can reliably reach level 5 on one or two lives with both my 'continues' available, and die before reaching the level 5 boss.
I really just need to practice level 5. Having to replay levels 1 through 4 every half dozen deaths just sucks back a lot of time. I've played level 1 probably hundreds of times now. I really don't want to have to play it over and over again just for the privilege of taking another crack at level 5.
Well, that, and most of the time when I first reach the boss, I already have lost hit points. So I need to do the level again without losing HP that I need against the boss.
Yep, if I reach the boss and think I need to go back and redo the level to reach him with more ammo and health, by all means I should have that option. But it should be an OPTION.
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
And for the equally questionable counter-example; Let's say we're playing a game of tennis which I suck at. Each time I miss a point I can just say "oh no, that didn't count" and we continue the game as if nothing happened.
I happen to have a tennis game. Here's how it works:
When you miss a point: the game CONTINUES -gasp-. You don't have to go back and restart it from the beginning!
You can even lose a game or two, and still win the set. And win or lose the set, you are assigned a score and rank. The point of the game is to play more sets of tennis to improve your score and rank, and unlock additional courts, players, uniforms, etc...
To actually win requires skill. But it doesn't prevent you from finishing a match if you suck.
I actually quite enjoy it. I would enjoy it a lot less if every time I dropped the ball I'd have to go back and restart the entire fucking game.
No matter how much I suck or how good you are I will still beat you easily because there is no punishment or even possibility in losing.
Only if you define winning as "getting to the end". That doesn't define "winning" in tennis, now does it? The fact that a game of tennis was played to completion doesn't imply that you won it.
It doesn't define "winning" in mountain biking either - when riding solo a win would be a clean run, or even a clean run within a time limit. Its generally assumed you'll reach the end.
Similarly 'story games' and 'platformers' shouldn't be about 'reaching the end'. Winning is doing it clean and/or fast, but anyone should be able to reach the end. Mountain biking is little more than a real world platformer after all. Game devs should look how people approach that, and model games the same way.
My shelves are full of games that I've never seen the end of, because I got bored of doing level 1 to see level 2, then doing level 1 and 2 to see level 3, then doing level 1,2,3 to see level 4... the more I played the worse it got. I had to keep repetitively replaying increasingly more of the game to see just a little more of it, until it just wasn't fun anymore to keep going. Playing for 10 minutes that you've seen 100 times for a chance at seeing another 15 seconds of new content... ? forget it.
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.
I edited slightly to show how I tend to treat saving in a game. I frequently start out trying to go for the latter, and quickly retreat into quickload-itis. Whether it's re-loading until I can kill that patrol in Far Cry, or get past some segment without losing health, or until I've managed to get the short series of jumps from Ledge A to Ledge B and then to Ledge C right that One Time, I inevitably end up spamming attempts until I've gotten it just right.
I'm not sure I've learned it, though, or mastered it. Sure, sometimes there's a particularly annoying portion of a level, where developers cheat, or where it's just a very slim margin of failure on a jump. I feel that I'm missing something, though, compared to if I were not depending on that crutch. Call of Duty 4's auto-reload mechanic is something I rather like, yet at the same time it's still a quicksave disguised. On harder difficulties, I was frequently finding myself loading, trying something, and failing -- repeating that checkpoint eight or ten times before getting to the next one. In a sense, I feel that I was lying to myself, a little: I didn't "beat" the level, I managed to squeak by a successive series of checkpoints. Unfortunately, I don't really have the inclination to go back and try to master it. (The hidden airliner level at the end is a good example of a place that has no save points in the middle, that I remember, and so it really challenges me to improve.)
Repeating a gauntlet often sucks, especially when you've mastered the early part (which is now a time sink), but are wiping on the later part. As long as it's not the only way things get done, though, I still think it has value.
I think that, for games like Prince of Persia, where the game is wrapped as "storytelling", or a game where time manipulation plays a part, the ability to go back and rewind is VERY nice. (I still found myself not using that feature much in Sands of Time, though, since it was just depleting a different player resource.) However, rather than rewind a set amount (what if your mistake was just before that?), or restarting to a quicksave (or milestone), I think it would be really neat if the degree of setback was randomized. Always to a semi-safe spot (so, before you've jumped, and probably not in the middle of a fight), but to a time that is maybe 15 seconds ago, or 30, or 60. This preserves a "storytelling" or similar integrated play feeling, but helps prevent the repeated tedium of "jump, jump, jump, flip, jump -- and now the hard part I haven't mastered yet". It'd make players like me actually re-play some, so that we'd likely end up learning more.
Then again, button-mashing quicksave monkeys (like me!) will still find it frustrating, especially when it kicks you back to a point you had trouble with previously. ;)
If you watched the video, then you'd know your complaint doesn't really follow for this discussion (and instead you creating a tangental topic which would be offtopic), and therefore you should get modded down as off-topic.
Yeah, look around for how many janky programs are out there for tabletop gamers. Map making programs, online dice rollers, online grids, PDF library sorters based on statistics in various places...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
It's punishment for failing. You don't get the cheese if you hit the "shock" button.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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
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
If you do that, and you're playing against me, I won't care one bit. You can define your terms of "winning" the game however you want, and if they involve ignoring any of your screw ups, then that's your choice.
*My* definition of winning any game is to not make any (unforced) screw ups of my own. My goal is not affected in the slightest by your choice of rules.
If your enjoyment comes from reaching some arbitrary point total before I do, then more power to you. However, my enjoyment comes from personal improvement, not proving that I can beat you.
How does this relate to PoP and being "invincible"? If the game is fun and I'm kicking ass at it, it doesn't matter if there's an auto-rescue feature, because I won't be using it anyway. You might get to the end of the game being saved 1000 times and getting to the end might be all that matters to you. My goal might be to get to the end being saved fewer than 20 times.
So, really, someone else's childish, insecure version of "winning" doesn't mean jack to me.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
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.
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.
Oh 8-2 is child's play. Now 8-3 with all those god damn hammer brothers...
Still an incredibly fun game, and not too hard if you do the trick to get many 1ups at 3-1, assuming you're playing all the levels of the game.
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!
..after a couple deaths you have to restart the ENTIRE GAME, not the level, the entire game. And its a fixed rate scroller so there's no 'going faster'.
Oh. Ouch. Well, that just sucks on a level I didn't think possible in more modern than maybe NES games..
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.