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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
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.
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.
What Prince of Persia does different is that it in cooperates its reset mechanic into the game world. In other games you die, then see a game over screen, then restart the game at the last save point, in Prince of Persia on the other side you simply can't die, there is no game over screen, its all handled fluently without interruption in the game.
He SAID he wasn't an experienced gamer and that is precisely what qualifies him to make the statements he has made.
He challenges the concept of how games are played and analyses the psychology of gaming. He supposes that a great deal of it is likely stuff that was carried over from more simple times when game systems were less complex.
He also never claims that Prince of Persia was the ONLY one doing what he believes is unique and/or innovative. What he claims is that Prince of Persia is a very good example of a departure from what quite often puts off new gamers to the scene. And I have to agree completely.
I recall my first experience with Halo3. I consider myself to be a somewhat experienced gamer though I no longer keep up with the latest anything. I was playing against my son who had been playing it for quite some time and was already very adept at it. I had played Halo2 and was reasonably comfortable with the game. However Halo3 is a different game and has some different features and different tools and weapons and of course different maps. These differences represent a learning curve. My 17 year old son was killing me left and right and I asked him to take it easier on me but he refused (though he said he would). I knew nothing of where to find any given weapon on this arena of this new game. I knew nothing of how to use many of the new tools and weapons. I was defenseless because I had no base knowledge of the environment or how to use it. This made playing with him significantly more frustrating than it needed to be. I played with my son for as long as I did attempting to learn but was effectively prevented even from learning due to the punishing nature of the game... get killed, lose everything, reset to original spawn location, meanwhile other players keep what they had, their location and everything. 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. But how many other gamers have this sort of experience with games or other gamers? Overcoming challenges, having some learning curve and some degree of difficulty is indeed part of what gaming is about...part of it...but by no means is it ALL of it. But how much is too much and for whom?
The psychology of gaming needs further analysis. Some games compensate by running you through tutorials and lessons to get you up to speed. I do not recall this in Halo3 -- my first experience with it put me off considerably. I may try again at some point in the future, but for me, I prefer games I can play alone where my only foe is the game itself because even though there are variations in complexities and learning curves and that sort of thing, at least I am granted opportunities to learn that are generally acceptable by me. But I can most certainly identify with the author's perspective on the matter and how some people have a lower tolerance for things that are too difficult to overcome and punish the player too much for failure.
Punishment. What an interesting choice of words. It brings new meaning to the old word itself and also adds new meaning to understanding gaming psychology and philosophy. Punishment can drive people to overcome or it can drive people away. I suppose the key is to moderate the degree of punishment so that it doesn't cross the line to driving people away.
Other Console annoyances include:
Those really have little to do with consoles, PC games had plenty of all of them as well and the video in the last issue isn't even a real game, its a ROM hack meant to be nearly impossible to solve.
Well, what made Braid one of the best games of 2008 was the fact that it continually expanded the scope of this feature in order to never allow it to be used for exactly the same purpose level by level.
I saw it as one of the most inspired uses of current generation of hardware (speed of caching and disk storage). The insinuation that it was "for the casuals" is off-base imo because even I, an extremely seasoned gamer was enthralled by the mechanics which pushed me to expand my way of thinking about games and level design (and story telling) in order to finish.
pop is a far better system.
Although I find it completely useless without push, personally.
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.
I think pressing the quicksave button is itself part of the challenge. Do you want to overwrite your last save with this new one? What if one of the choices you made between it and where you are now was what determined your game ending?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
" like they have done here."
;)
"Your comment has been submited." doesn't count as quicksave
Bark less. Wag more.
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.
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.
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
I simply have a modded xbox360 controller that waxes my kids and nephews. I only bring it out when they are being selfish in the game. I silently switch the controller on to my rapid fire and hacked mode and then own them hard over and over and over using my cheating.
They whine and I say, how do you like it? Gaming is about fun for everyone. It's not about being an ass.
It works, and I only have to do it maybe once a month.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
>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...
Yeah, immersion in DEADLY ULTRAVIOLET RAYS.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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...
I find it sad that people are playing GTA on a gaming console. Whatever happened to going outside and shotting some hoes? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
> 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
Bark less. Wag more.
Yep, emulator is the only way I play old games now. I ditched my NES since I would rather play most of the games on PC.
Some games are playable without it, but even simple games like Mario can benefit--sure, you shouldn't need a save file to beat the game the quickest possible way, but what if you want to go through Mario 3 playing every single level? Who the hell has time to do that in one go (assuming you don't die) aside from young kids on summer break?
Most JRPGs--even modern ones--have terrible save systems, IMO. Boring as hell to repeat sections, and painfully easy to die. Too long between saves, so you have to block out a huge chunk of time to make sure you can get to the next save, then, even if you still want to play, you have to stop if you don't have enough time left to get to another one. I play them in spite of this, but it does raise the bar significantly for how good the game must be for me to bother with it. I'll play through a shitty PC FPS because it's probably short and I can (generally) save at any time, but I'll quit a JRPG after a couple hours if it's not really, really good.
Ditto for the Zelda series; I'm finally playing through Ocarina of Time because I can use an emulator and save-states. It's worth the occasional graphical glitch for that feature. I have the cartridge, but I don't use it.
I keep trying to play WindWaker (no 'cube emulator worth using yet, unfortunately) and losing 30 minutes to an hour of progress, then putting it down for a couple weeks out of frustration. It's going to take me a couple years to get through it at this rate :(
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.
Not all gamers feel the need to learn the intricacies of each game they play. I used to have hours and hours to dedicate to a game to 'get better' but now it's virtually impossible to find extended periods of time when I can play without having a toddler trying to help me push buttons. Most of my gaming is short duration, iPhone or Flash games, emulated console games that I can freeze/thaw so that I can pick it up EXACTLY where I left off, etc.
:)
The best games for me are ones where things keep flowing along or happen in nice tidy chunks. I want to experience what the developer put together in the short time I've got to play, but if I'm punished constantly and made to replay the same piece over and over, I'll give up long before I get to see all of the marvels of the game's world.
WRT inexperienced gamers, I think they're worth listening to. They're a lot more interested in 'fun' rather than overcoming never ending frustration. Hardcore gamers never seem to be able to get the same sort of glee out of something like Katamari Damacy or Guitar Hero. They're way too jaded.
I think everyone is misunderstanding the problem entirely.
The problem is not that when you die, you must repeat content: the problem is that the content is fixed.
I can engage in a sport, lose, and then play again right away. I never say "Oh, that's the same game we just played" because every game is different. Few video games offer that.
I don't know about that...
One morning when my girlfriend and I had her daughter at the sitter's, we were spending some quality time together. Just as we finished, that damn robotic car warranty telespammer called my cell phone. My generic ringtone is the Final Fantasy victory fanfare.
I think it took us 20 minutes to stop laughing.
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.
"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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