Monday, November 12, 2007

Can't we all just agree on what is good yet?

I know that people tend to argue over things, and it's only natural, because everyone has different opinions, BUT there are some things that people should just be able to agree on.

And yet games continue to come out years later, when it seems like some of these things should have become apparent. Games may continue to evolve, but they are not going to go anywhere as a whole, unless there are a few things we can agree on.

I am not talking about the ability to jump, because i know that is up to personal taste, because I know I love it, but I know there are people that think otherwise.

What I am talking about is more long the lines of, say, a customizable control scheme, what the hell happened here? This seems like the simplest thing to have in the game, and it can completely change the game, for example, the game "Battlefront: Renegade Squadron" for the PSP, has 2 control schemes, the main one and the secondary one. The main one focuses on Lock on, with the secondary being the only other option, a lot people people didn't want Lock on and opted to go with the secondary control scheme, which is flawed. If they had just had an option to change the controls, everyone would be happy.

Another one of these, though I can see it taking more work then the last, is subtitles, this is an option that needs to be able to be turned on and off. A lot of games either don't have it at all, or have it on all the time, neither of which is the best fix. It's really annoying in games where the background noise makes it really hard to hear what's being said. An example of a game that could use it, is the original Halo, where there is a cut scene or two in the game where it is incredibly hard to understand what the characters are saying over the sounds in the background. And example for one that has them on all the time is Kingdom Hearts, where once in a while, the subtitles spoil the mood.

Here's another one that wasn't so much a problem until more recently, where newer games these days fall victim to this problem more then older ones. The problem I speak of is: Split screen multiplayer. This was the only way to play, all the way up until the last batch of consoles. yet, today, less and less games seem to include split screen play, even if they include online, it doesn't seem like it would be to hard to implement split screen multiplayer if you already have online. Games like MotorStorm, and DiRT suffer from this.

This one takes a lot more work, but ends up being worth it. Co-Op, when did this become such a selling feature? You'd think it would be an obvious thing to include but these days, it makes a game worth looking at, and they have games that get a of hype due to that fact that they have Co-Op. If you can remember back to the days of the "Super Nintendo" and "Sega Genesis" you will remember that a much larger percent of games had Co-Op back then, and it wasn't a big deal when a game had it. When I play a game, I personally have a loads more fun and will play it for a long time to come if it has Co-Op, because I will show my friends, and get sucked back into it myself. "Halo" and "Resistance" nailed this, hopefully more games will in the future.

This is another that would take a bit of work, but would be completely worth it, and this is, Split screen online. I don't know if "Halo 2" was the first game to have this, but it's the first game I remember having it. After playing it for a while, I would have expected many other games to follow suit, instead, it like Co-Op, became one of those feature to brag about, with only few games supporting it, "Halo 3" does, and so does "Prefect Dark Zero", also "Warhawk" has it. Along with Co-Op this really helps when playing a game with friends.

Here's another simple one: Music and sounds volume control. So many companies forget that some people enjoy listening to their own music when playing. Or what if they don't want to hear people's voices, but still want to hear the music. This doesn't seem like it would be a very hard thing to implement.

This one should have been stomped on a million years ago, but it still gets me these days somehow. How can someone making a game, not think to have an option to change between inverted and normal, be it for aiming or just camera control. We still have games that force you to play it one way. I can't see why this still stands, when it's something that should be obvious as night and day.

This one might be incredibly hard to do, especially on some games, but is another thing that can be done to make games last a lot longer. Level select, I hate it when I am playing through a game, I see a part I want to play again, and the only way I am able to do this is keep a save, so I can come back later and replay it. It's much easier to do it when selecting a level from a menu.

Overall, I may come back to this subject, but I completely lost my train of thought for now.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good goodness, I HATED how Grand Theft Auto (and by extension, Bully) would never let me replay old missions. A lot of them were brilliant works of art, lost forever because I didn't feel like starting a new game and re-earning all the other stuff I had unlocked.

I understand a lot of those missions give you awesome items and replaying them may make future missions easier, but can't we at LEAST replay them once we finish the game? Or even just watch the hilarious cutscenes over again?

Jon God said...

Cut-scene viewer, that's another one!

Anonymous said...

P.S, is Beyond Good and Evil really not going to let me take my camera aiming interface off of invert?

Jon God said...

You can, it's in the options.

Anonymous said...

Eh, whatever. I got used to it. I'll get adjusted to one, and then if I'm forced to use the other (for example, if I play Halo on a friend's XBox and don't have time to make a profile) I'll bitch and whine for about ten minutes, but by the time the game's over I'm permanently converted. Until the cycle begins again, that is.

Jon God said...

That really tends to happen doesn't it. :P