I think a lot of people
agrees with me when I say that there's a trend, nowadays, to make things easier
for the common john doe. There's microwaves, robot vaccum cleaners and
selfcleaning windows... I like the idea of getting a hot plate in 5 minutes but
this idea should NOT apply to games.
Games are getting way too
easy!
I think most of this
problem is due to the wish of getting more movie like scenes into games and get
people to be apart of it. But, as you know, it's hard to get that effect that
make movies so special...
But the easiest way, game
producers found, to get both gameplay and movies together is to create several
great character action moves and some special camera effects, depending on the
game.
Now this wouldn't really be
a problem, I think everyone likes a good action game with a lot of movement and
special effects but, focusing on this, they just set gameplay aside.
What I mean is that, in
some games, the way you control your characters attacks, for example, is set
for just one button... Now, this is fine for simple games, but in the case of
assassins creed, for example, I think it makes no sense at all!! Don't take me
wrong, I love the game, but I wish it had a similar battle interface to God Of
War. Now that's a game that takes skills to kill your enemies... You might say:
"oh but if they did that then they wouldn't have enough buttons for all
the other actions" but there's a lot of combos you can make and it would
make the game much more immerging and satisfying knowing that you killed, who
knows how many enemies, using mostly your skill and because you pressed a
freaking button.
Just to give you a good
example of a game where cinematic scenes live in harmony with gameplay, there
are the Naruto game series or even earlier, the Dragonball game series. Both of them
have a great figthing interface where combos and timing is what makes you win the game. In
naruto, particularly, each press of a button is a chakra seal performed by the
character and, the faster you end the combo the faster is your attack... So the
game itself distinguishes those who practice more and it is really exciting to
play against another friend in a battle for the best, not knowing, most of the
time, who's going to prevail.
Now this is just me... But
I love to play the hardest mode on this games or any other like it, because,
sometimes, I have to defend instead of just using full frontal attack, trying
to get a perfect figth where I don't get hit even once and when I succeed, it
is so gratifying in such a way that I cannot even express it. You just have
that feeling of acomplishment where you did something using only your skills,
even though if it's just finger skills. Anyways, all this to say that in the
end, while I played assassins creed only one time, I still, sometimes, grab my
PS and try to fight my way through the monsters of God Of War, just for the fun
of it.
Now, the reason why it
works there is primarily because the camera is in third person; the cinematic
scenes are not during gameplay (gameplay stops for the brief scene) and they
did not have a huge story to think about, focusing mainly on the game interface.
But, to be fair, Naruto and DrangonBall are fighting games so there wouldn't be
any excuse for a fail on that subject. However, God of War nailed every single
aspect that I mentioned... The story is interesting and the game interface
could not be better. By the way I forgot to mention Prince of Persia, that's
another really cool game, though it differs a bit from God of War. It asks for
a bit more reasoning and timing your attacks depending on the enemy you're
facing.
ANYWAYS! Because I could go
on and on about this... I thought about making this post because I played
Battlefield 3 on a computer and when you are in the train, in the fighting
scene with the "boss", you have to press a random button to act and
move forward. You have 103 different keys on your keyboard (depending on the
keyboard you have) and from all of those they only choose mouse buttons, space
and shift! Don't remember if more, but it was basically main buttons and you
just have to press it once per each punch or move and on top of that they give
you half a freaking hour to do it! It's not it isn't hard but it's boring as
hell... Actually, apart from the multiplayer and the visual effects, the whole
game is boring... I won't go on talking about this but believe me, I have my
reasons.
So DO NOT MIX! If you want
to have a cinematic scene then just do it and let the player enjoy the
effects...
GAMES ARE MENT TO BE CHALLENGING!
