Monday, March 14, 2011

VIDEO GAMES: Notable Games That Are Dead to Me.

Having been gaming since the era of the NES, I've found that two things have changed my tastes in gaming. First, a natural change that's occurred simply from getting older and having experienced much. Second, a change in the industry and the way games are made. There's a bit more too it than that, but these are the base causes of change for me.

So, I dedicate this list to games, series, or even genres that I used to like that are effectively dead to me, along with the reasons for why.

Let's begin...

Dragon Quest series (previously known in the U.S. as Dragon Warrior): As one of the series I considered my favorite, and one that holds a game I regard as one of my top three favorite games of all time (Dragon Quest 4), it's only fitting that I start here.

This series only recently died to me. After finishing Dragon Quest 9, I've found that the direction they've taken with the series leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of its core mechanics haven't changed, but what they've tacked on has created a lot of tedium in the series. Considering that just a year ago I played and loved Dragon Quest 5, I know it's recent additions that have caused my recent dislike.

Much as I'll miss the good times early games brought, this series is essentially dead to me...

Final Fantasy series: This series lasted an even shorter time than Dragon Quest did, though still noteworthy. It died for me after I finished FF9, which is a tad ironic considering I didn't necessarily dislike 9 (I wasn't that big a fan of it either). When I saw the tedious and boring direction the rest of the series was headed in, I knew I'd find no more enjoyable games therein.

And since this bears mentioning, for me this series' pinnacle was Final Fantasy 6, not 7. The combat felt more interesting, the artistic direction was far better, the plot more engaging (and less narrowly focused), and the characters more interesting from personality to back-story. It's no surprise this is one of my top favorite games.

But with the rest of the games failing to live up to the pedigree of its SNES fore-bearers (excluding the surprisingly boring FF5), the series is now dead to me...

FPS genre (mostly): I'll try to keep this short. Started with Descent series (if that counts), moved on to Doom (shareware), Quake, Quake 2, jumped ship to N64 for some Golden Eye and Turok 2, came back to PC for Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and some Counter-Strike, had some Halo in there somewhere, and finally some Half-Life 2 (episode add-ons included) and Call of Duty 4.

This genre is dead to me mostly due to lack of substance, overkill of violence and gore (which, ironically, I appreciated more as an early teen), lack of story (or lack of story that appeals to me), and simple boredom. Given that I've lost my interest in competitive, and that the genre has very little online cooperative play, there's multiple reason why this genre is dead to me.

(Note: Wondering about the "mostly" bit? I may have a last dip in the genre, courtesy of Golden Eye for the Wii. Being the cheap person I am, I'm waiting for it to drop in price).

World of Warcraft: Yeah... for all intents and purposes, this should have been one I never got into in the FIRST place!

For those familiar with the series, I got into it during the implementation of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Started with a 10-day free trial to see what all the fuss was about. My initial impressions of it were poor, but having researched the game a bit before delving in, I had one goal before I intended to quit: Getting druid cat form at level 20. Much to Blizzard's luck, that was what essentially hooked me in, and what followed would be a bittersweet experience.

The sweet parts consisted of traveling. I'm a sucker for exploration, and this game had plenty. The game had a plethora of fun stuff for the exploration fan.

The bitter parts came mostly at the end, and set off a bit of a reaction and a "eureka!" moment. Spending some time at the level cap trying out some end-game content that I teetered from enjoying to disliking, it all came to a head about a year or two after my initial first steps into the game. First, I realized the game wasn't really all that fun, and that my choice of character sort of duped me into ignoring its rather glaring shortcomings. Second, end-game content echoed of something that I've come to despise in games: grinding, though at this point it stealthily replaced it with repetition-based gear grinding rather than the "see the world, do different things" feel of level grinding (it's all about execution). Third, I had become withdrawn from the social atmosphere of the game... though I wasn't really pulled into it that much to begin with.

So, after much teetering back and forth, going in and out of the game, I can officially declare it dead to me and avoid going back ever again.

Though it's left a bit of an empty spot for me, and I can only hope it's replaced by the no-subscription-fees Guild Wars 2.

Castlevania series: Started from the early days, and loved Castlevania 4 and Symphony of the Night, as well as some handheld entries in the series.

But for loss of direction (notable in the 3D titles), increased macabre atmosphere, and... other things, this series is dead to me.

Mega Man series and closely-related spin-offs):
Played all entries from 1 to 8, though felt that after 6 it lost its stride.
Entry 9 returned some luster, but so hardcore it was I could not abide.
X spinoff series got me through SNES era, and these I found more divine,
Though once it hit the Playstation era, even these began to decline.
The Zero series for GBA created a spark, a rekindle, though just a little,
But it was never strong enough to last, and my interest did finally whittle.

Many great memories it held, playing a boy robot, blue from toe to head,
But with all its best moments behind him, to me, this series is now dead.

Golden Sun series: Admittedly a short series, so I'll keep this shorter. First game, okay. Second game, great story, but not exactly engaging in terms of gameplay. Third game said to be too easy... and that translates into a series that perhaps just died for me.

I may be early in writing its personal epitaph, but it's not likely to get better than it ever was...

Elder Scrolls series: These games grabbed my attention more than they should have, but in the end I realized how little value I found in them, and how simplistic they were in areas they shouldn't have been. They are now dead to me.



So, with many series, and even full genres, that are dead to me, what do I look forward to? I'll save that for my next post, perhaps...

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Video Game Design Thoughts, part 1: Accessibility and Feedback.

Game design thought of the day *** break-it-in versus one-size-fits-most.

Having played video games since the NES days, I've noticed that games often fall into one of two camps: simple to get into and feel your way around, or something where you have to learn the nuances of what the game expects you to learn. Or, to over-simplify, easy to learn or hard to learn.

Let's do a comparison here. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana, the latter being the inspiration behind this post. They're both very respected games, one being considered one of the best games of its era, while the other is a less-known title beloved by those few who stumbled upon it. Both games utilize similar perspective, movement, and even gameplay... except that this is where I start using quotation marks.

Legend of Zelda is a simple game for the most part, with combat being straightforward, the menus being quite simple, and overall being very accessible; something that strong enough for a hardcore gamer but made for a casual. Its only real drawback in terms of accessibility is some rather bizarre puzzles that probably shouldn't have been included in the first place.

Secret of Mana, on the other hand, is quite a bit more complex. The beginning highlights this quite notably, as the first moment you're thrust into combat can be a confusing ordeal depending on your background. Being someone that's played plenty of RPGs in the past, particularly from this game's developer, I figured out rather quickly what was going on: the game was programmed such that the player had to wait a certain amount of time between weapon swings for full effect (which is pretty much required), had to time attacks based on how recently the enemy had been hit (more critical for later enemies), and had to realize that actual hits to an enemy weren't shown on an enemy until roughly once every two seconds. I actually had a friend who was a Legend of Zelda fan, but couldn't get into Secret of Mana because of how complex and inaccessible it was in his eyes. Beyond that, the menu system likely didn't help matters much either.

So with this comparison out of the way, here's the design thought for today: How easy is it for a player to get into your game? Is the game giving player cues and feedback as to how he/she is doing? Or does the game has a bit of an invisible learning curve, where the player is expected to learn certain rules and nuances?