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#5.
Thou shalt not force repetition on the player.
Violators:
Here's a very simple rule: Humans only find repetition enjoyable when they choose it. Let's say you sit on your bed one afternoon and, out of boredom, fling playing cards at a hat for two hours straight, just to pass the time. You amuse yourself trying to hit 10 in a row. Now imagine it's later in the evening and you're about to have sex with your girl. Suddenly she sits up, her boobies hanging out, and says, "Wait! We can't do it until you fling 10 cards into that hat over there! It's a rule in the obscure religion I practice!" Will you enjoy the card flinging this time? No, and in fact the repetition you found enjoyable before will become maddening, as you flip cards around your frustrated, wilting manhood. Well some video games are like tossing cards: sports games, fighting games, racing games. The fun is in repeating and practicing them. But other mission-based games are like having sex. There's a specific progression and goal in mind, and repetitive interruption only ruins the mood. Such as ... Having to replay levels due to limited save points. This is a throwback to the arcade/NES days when physical limitations in the system wouldn't allow you to save your progress just anywhere. There is no reason for this now. None. We're busy. We've got work, appointments, phone calls. We shouldn't tolerate an inability to save our progress in any piece of software.
Half Life 2 did this perfectly--it auto-saved every few minutes, behind the scenes. You didn't have to worry about it and you didn't have to re-fight enemies you had already defeated. There are people who say that preventing saves adds to the "tension" of the game. Sure, in the sense that the fact that your 360 could catch on fire at any moment also adds to the tension. Face it, if the only way you can think of to add suspense to your game is to disable a feature of the hardware, then you suck at making games. This is almost as bad as when you ... Force us to watch cutscenes repeatedly. This should be the law: If you've programmed your cutscene so that we can't skip it, then you should have your game programming license revoked. If you have placed your cutscene right before a spot where we're likely to die, and given us no ability to save after it, then you deserve a beating. God of War: Chains of Olympus does this. And you'd better hope you don't die during the long-ass Bowser fight at the end of Mario Galaxy, because you've got to listen to his fucking monologue every fucking time you start over. Unskippable cutscenes killed Nights: Journey of Dreams, as sure as a bullet to the back of the skull.
Seriously, what could be worse than this? Oh, wait ... Instant failure quicktime events. This has got to be one of the most diabolical inventions in the history of gaming. If you're not familiar with the term, this is when in the middle of a cutscene, suddenly the words "HIT THE A BUTTON OR DIE!" flash across the screen.
If you fail to hit the right button in that split second, the consequence isn't that you lose damage points. No, the consequence is that you have to watch the fucking cutscene again. And again. Until we turn off the game, get in our car, and drive to your office to deliver your beating. |
"By the way, some of you are scratching your heads about having the obviously single-player Mario Galaxy up there on the list. Well, it turns out Nintendo included an option so that at any moment, a friend can pick up the second controller and, with the pointer, help the first player collect items and shoot at enemies. It's a small thing, but it means a guy can get his girlfriend in on the action and cut off her complaints that his gaming is taking away from his time with her. "
YES!!!!! Finallly! get off my back women!
I bought the game Pure.
No multiplayer.
I had motostorm.
No Multiplayer.
I bought MotoGP08.
No multiplayer.
Brand New nostalgic golden axe.
No multiplayer.
Whats next?
Mortal Kombat that doesn t support multiplayer.
F U C K Y O U ! ! !
All I have to say is that on page seven: A-f*****g-MEN!
Motorstorm IS multiplayer you can play on a split screen (im' in europe but I don't think that changes anything)
I think skatoolaki is a whore.
Only idiots will hate the Wii and/or its games.
I f*****g hate escort missions in a certain game called z*lda (damn straight i use that asterisk!) no matter how good you are at it, if the ai loops, the carriage f****n goes to the bats and you end back uo at kokoro gates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought Gears was a horrendous game, though I won't go off on you for liking it. However, I have a problem with your proclamation that "Epic is god" and they make games for the "hardcore" crowd. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
Epic has made it a point over the years to tell their true hardcore fans to f**k off and die (see Unreal Tournament 3) and have only made efforts to advance the graphical aspects of their games over the years. I can't really blame them for that - I mean, half of what they're selling is their engine. On the other hand, there are companies who work diligently on improving the visuals without sacrificing gameplay. Look at Valve's Source Engine...pretty games that also deliver brilliantly with their gameplay.
There's also the fact that Epic has a brigade of talking heads whose sole purpose is to spout off idiotic, ass-brained comments in the press (CliffyB, Mark Rein, Mike Capps). It seems like every week one of these colossal morons is waxing vitriolic about PC piracy, PC games dying, etc. etc. despite the fact that PC gamers constitute the majority of their customer base.
But at the end of they day, I guess it's all about how you define "hardcore crowd"...if you mean the people who like to whack off to the latest advances in bloom in glorified engine tech-demos, then Epic does a very good job in supporting you. If you mean "hardcore crowd" as in the people who play games competitively for 5+ years with no patch support, anti-cheat, or what have you from the developers, then Epic is doing a very bad job.
Regarding the rest of your post, Lampshade, I definitely disagree with Capp's statement about how developing for the Wii would be regressive. If there's any console right now that could completely redefine the way FPSes are played, it would be the Wii. Unfortunately, like you said, Nintendo and other devs have done little to harness the console's incredibly unique hardware. Brawl, the biggest game for the console, can be played with a Gamecube controller. It's a shame really.
Gears of War rocked and cutting edge graphics certainly made it better. For a company like Epic Games (God bless em) that focuses on making kick ass shooters for the hardcore crowd going to the Wii would be a step backwards. Look at Call of Duty 3 for the Wii.
The Wii had a few good games but the problem is there is nothing good coming out now.
Lemme tell ya: when I spent a hundred and fifty years in a Lithuanian prison camp for eating the face of a screaming child in public last week, the only thing that really kept me going was Zelda 3. That's right, they made you play video games while beating you with your own spinal cord and insulting your mom in their own bizarre barbarian tongue, all in the hopes that when you finally escape during their drunken orgies with pigs, those video games will carry such painful associations that you'll never be able to play them again. Like in 1984, except with Zelda. But for me it backfired. It was Zelda that kept me going in there. Zelda that drove away the demons at night, the ones that saw me standing over the grave of another dead president. It was Zelda that made me finally take part in one of their drunken pig orgies and find out that at the end of the day--they weren't such bad guys after all.
I agree with the last one.
Everybody sing it with me... 'Metal Gear Solid'
that franchise never fails to deliver... its got an amazing story line, its always had 'ahead of its time' graphics and lets face it...god must be proud to know that the people he created, have created metal gear solid!
Ok, I've just got two things to say about number 4. First of all, the wrench in Bioshock was awesome. It almost made the game believable, and we're talking about a game in which a man willingly hops in a submarine that takes him down to some lost Atlantis-esque city where he proceeds to inject himself with insane chemicals that he picked up off the floor. Secondly, I find it much more gratifying if you don't use a weapon in Oblivion. The feeling of killing a rat with one well-placed punch is extremely gratifying, even if it is a video game, and it also relieves you from the "why did that guy's arm not fall off?" paradox.
And don't get me wrong, I think this is an awesome website full of hilariously useless information, but that was just bugging me.
I look back at gaming history and I still conclude that oldschool games like Zelda III and Castlevania S.O.T.N where way better than most of the high tech s**t they created today. Unless its something like Fable?
How is Halo 3 not mentioned on this list? It breaks commandments 5 and 4, and it absolutely rapes number 3, regarding Space Marines.
If a guy put in GTA IV, he could totally touch my boob. Screw Mario Galaxy.
how about being able to replay cut scenes?
I think the most chintzier ending wasn't the original Metroid, but the one in Contra where after you finally destroy the main boss. You end up getting a dark screen with the words CONGRATULATIONS! flashing across the screen.
Then the game resets, making you wonder, 'What th? I just wasted several hours beating this game, and this is ALL i get?!?'
You forgot that all RPGs must have a random treasure-chest/box monster that can kill your entire party with a "claw" attack, meanwhile the last boss is a demi-god who shoots lightening from his eyes and rains fire down from outer space, yet somehow you can still beat it like a black stepchild.
..... then put the rest into dumpsters. shhhh. lawsuit.
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snarfoogle
Oh god, 7 is one of my greatest pet peeves. Duke Nukem 64 had f*****g split screen, and the XBLA port doesn't.
I swear, if Resident Evil 5 does this I'll choke a b***h.