After getting my Wii in June, I’ve been on a streak with one great game after another. I like non-linear adventure puzzle games. I don’t mind blowing the heads of zombies, but pure fighter, shoot-em-ups and the likes bore me. I also get frustrated when there’s an obstacle that must be passed and having no other way to go to spend time while trying to figure out how to deal with that obstacle.
Anyway. There are a few things in common which I think are really, really, really dumb and it seems it doesn’t matter which company produced the title, the conventions are still there.
During the run of the game, the hero picks up enough stuff to need a van to haul it around, yet, it all fits in pockets, a small backpack (Lara Croft) or maybe under a pointy cap (Link). Leon Kennedy has his brief case that grows to a suit case, but getting around, even with the smaller case, wouldn’t be possible.
Who are these people going around stick money in ceramic pots? Yeah, I’m looking at you RE4. BTW, Spain shifted to € in 2002 and the game was released in '04 IIRC. Sloppy. In general, I find it annoying when games that try to make themselves have some connection to reality (human heroes, takes place on Earth), there is a ready supply of medkits and ammo conveniently dumped in the hinterland for our heroes to pick up and keep going. (Yeah, yeah, the concept of saving and re-trying in case the hero dies is cheating too)
Everything is always there for a Reason. If something can be manipulated, it must be of use in the game somehow. An empty bottle just sitting there on the shelf, is never *just * an empty bottle. 30 minutes later, it turns out that the hero will need it in order to stash some liquid and do a MacGyver. And If I, as a player, missed the damn bottle, I have to backtrack forever.
The bigger the enemies, the bigger the weapon. As the game progresses, the hero will always pick up just the right weapon and up the life force just enough to be able to beat the big monster. In Zelda I enjoyed the Darknut plain swordfighting much more than the ever bigger monsters that are easily defeated by using the latest addition to the arsenal (though the double hook shots are cool).
Videogames are hardly a new artform anymore and we’ve gone from theclassic (and still fun) plattformer with obstacles to being able to create immense worlds with amazing graphics. But the stories still feel very '95 and Doom to me.
That reminds me of my own hated cliche from role-playing games. If you are eating apples and Pies you find in an old crate, in an abandoned dungeon filled with spiders and slime monsters, you should die of intestinal distress within 24 hours, not get a health bonus.
Everyone dies the minute you arrive. Some games do this all the time and it pisses me off to no end. This is so ludicrously stupid I can’t even fathom it.
And let’s not forget nobody minding if you break into their house, steal all their worldly goods, and pester them mercilessly for information.
Even worse when you play an entire game, realize you missed a ton of non-obvious stuff, and have to go track down a complete walkthrough and play it again to find out what the heck you’ve missed.
This is even worse combined with the “infinite payload”. Now I basically have to pick up every damn item I can because it’s gonna be important. If I could only carry what a real person could carry (even with a backpack or something), then I have to pick and chose what items are actually useful. Also, give me more than one way to finish a task - don’t make me have a particular bottle, any container that’s big enough will do.
Yeah, I wish there were more games where if you take somebodies shit they kill you (or at least beat you up and take it back). And where if you ask random people on the street about the kidnapped princess they just look at you funny, mumble under the breath, and walk away.
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[li]Since when do you always know how to open every door? This ranges from knowing which key goes to which lock to not being stymied by a door that sticks in the wet unless you really lean into it.[/li][li]Bugs just aren’t that dangerous. I can usually deal with things that much smaller than me by stepping on them, a skill video game characters seem to lack. Failing that, I can reach onto my head and pull the damned thing off before it gets a good foothold.[/li][li]How come nobody else needs ammo? Maybe in more modern games this is alleviated, but in the standard FPS enemies never run out of whatever it is they shoot. Some of the thugs I’ve taken down must have been storing clips up their ass all the way to their liver. Never does me any good.[/li][li]How many areas really need unsorted boxes and/or barrels? Usually, wooden boxes and barrels of chemical ooze are labeled clearly and stored away in a warehouse for future use (or so they remain sequestered). They are not strewn willy-nilly in research labs, sewers, city streets, or houses with gigantic basements. What would be the point of that?[/li][/ul]And this is all ignoring the really obvious ones which are required for the genre as a whole to work, and the ones that I can generally wink at (such as how many energy weapons are less effective than a simple pump-action shotgun, especially considering rate of fire and availability of ammunition).
My hated cliche is “escort the helpless, frail human bullseye to the exit.” And the damn person you’re forced to escort seems to have a death wish or something; he/she just stands right out in the open during a fight, blunders off cliffs and into monsters…
Nope, and it hasn’t really gotten any better, which is my point. There are still energy tanks floating around mid air.
I know Half-life tried to work around this and making it more realistic in having Gordon look for actual ammo storages.
Problem is, there where a bit to many of them, and a bit too conveniently located, so even if it worked better at Black Mesa, it still wasn’t good enough.
Actually opposite is as cliched, or even worse. In many games - mostly cRPG - when you enter somebody’s house and take something, they instantly become homicidal maniacs. I mean, team of six armor-clad and armed up their teeth warriors enter home where is only one unarmed little girl and take apple from the table. The “red circle” around girl lits up and she charges into them in maniacal rage to fight them to death. The same goes for choosing bad line of dialog. Suddenly nice old man become hostile and attacks in a mindless 24-hours-later style despite zero chances of winning. Are all those NPC bipolar or what?
I one came across a webpage which was devoted entirely to the tradition of random crates. Specifically, crates without pallets. If you’ve ever really worked with crates at all, you know crates don’t show up without pallets. How did the crate get there? How are we going to move it again? Crates and pallets are like peanut butter and jelly. Chickens and eggs. Graveyards and ham.
Hear hear on both counts. I love Twilight Princess to death, but I openly acknowledge that the new gadgets are gimmicks. They’re cool, but they’re so blatantly gimmicky that it’s just kinda sad. Fighting the Darknuts towards the end of the game, on the other hand, made any possible drawbacks TP has worthwhile. That was just pure fun.
If the game has any action cut scenes, your player will be able to do things that you can’t make him do in the game, weather it’s cool killing moves or taking out 5 or 6 baddies in 10 seconds with minimal shots. That being said, you can be kicking the ass of every NPC in the world, but there will come a time when they beat you up without actually beating you up and you’ll have none of your items left until you find them again.
Also, when you know that your partner is going to turn on you and you can’t just shoot him in the head 3 levels earlier than it lets you. That’s just sloppy.
This is why I love Morrowing and Oblivion. People do not so much care if you come into their house or business but if they see you steal stuff they try to fight you and then when you go outside the guards will try and chase you.
[QUOTE=Derleth]
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[li]Since when do you always know how to open every door? This ranges from knowing which key goes to which lock to not being stymied by a door that sticks in the wet unless you really lean into it.[/li][/QUOTE]
Equally bad is the opposite cliche, in which you absolutely can’t open an ordinary door without finding the right key, even though you’re carrying a crowbar, an axe, three pistols, a shotgun and, somehow, a motorized Gatling gun.