It's not quite how I want to play a game first time, but it would have been a good fallback if I had given up on the campaign.Ĭheers to Adrian for the smart and informative response - if he has anything to add, I'll update this post. You're absolutely right, Bulletstorm deserves extra credit for Echoes mode, I should have mentioned that. But Bulletstorm actually has exotic weapons and satisfying mechanics, ones that work because of player freedom rather than despite it. It's no real tragedy that Call of Duty is so riddled with set pieces - that's all it's really got left. It's a key example because the offputting forced stuff is masking a great game, one I would have given up on if that was all I had to judge it on. It's the first time in ages a bunch of people I respect have recommended something I hated when I tried it. Not because it was the worst game to do this stuff, but because lately it's the best. I'm not entirely sure why Bulletstorm was used as a main example You can still teach me the controls with on-screen prompts, you just won't have to freeze time to do so. Tell me the story once I'm invested, and get me invested by letting me play your awesome game. It's presumably a way of burning through some backstory, character development and exposition, but it comes at a time when I'm impatient, frustrated and have no investment in it. And it doesn't help for precisely the same reason it annoys the hardcore gamers: it has nothing to do with the game. But if I'm not great at this, none of that stuff helps me play the game. "Īs you say, Bulletstorm is by no means the worst offender. We can't do that." And you'd get a call, and it would be me, and I'd say " Exactly. If you made all that stuff into a cut-scene, which is what it is, you'd look at the start of Bulletstorm and think "Man, that's a 13 minute cut-scene, a 12 second fight, then an 11 minute cut-scene. It's every time my hand is forced, and on-screen control prompt shows up to pretend it isn't. It's when my walking speed is halved and my weapon disabled, as it is regularly throughout Bulletstorm - including two occasions during combat, presumably because I wasn't where the game expected me to be. The stuff that drove me to write that editorial is when my head is put in a vice (as it is at the start of Bulletstorm), when my aim is forced onto something (as it is right afterwards in Bulletstorm), when time itself slows to a halt until I press the key I'm supposed to press (as it is next, in Bulletstorm). I mentioned Bulletstorm's "Press F to look in the right direction" system as an example of how bad my reaction to this stuff has become - though I do think paying out in-game currency for swift obedience is crossing the line. And your example of pointing out the next door to go through is entirely tolerable. is TO HELP PLAYERS WHO ARE JUST NOT GREAT AT THIS. It's actually one of the most “free” games available, even offering a mode (ECHOES) that is 100% pure gameplay with every scripted event, dialogue line and cinematic removed. Except for the opening minute, you can skip EVERY cinematic, no one forces you to use Adrenaline Rush moments (just as Tim noted that itself), etc. On a side note, I'm not entirely sure why Bulletstorm was used as a main example for this editorial. THE REST OF THE WORLD: Thanks, I lost my orientation fighting all these dudes, and you saved me some time – I don't need to test every door now. “DICK” PLAYERS: Fuck you, you don't tell me where to go, I want to discover it myself. ![]() The exit door now has an arrow saying “go there”. And by “NOT GREAT” I really mean: “Don't have a hardcore gamer's mind and experience”.Įxample: enter a room. ![]() The main goal of ANY developer is not to fight “dicks” – as Tom noticed, most of the time we can't win this fight anyway – it is TO HELP PLAYERS WHO ARE JUST NOT GREAT AT THIS. That it's our ego that dictates these solutions. “You can never break through to us with brute force – morons like me will always out-dick you” – so, if “always”, we don't need to change anything, right?), the article is written under one assumption: that developers do what they do to FORCE players to experience what they want them to experience. ![]() However, apart from occasional logical problems (e.g. Luckily, the crucial sentence of his editorial is: “Let those of us who are itching to get to the game, get to the game” and not “Stop making games like this, make only games like that”. Although probably a better metaphor would be: sometimes I want to drive to wherever I want and however I want, and sometimes I want to have a clear destination and I want my GPS to tell me how to get there. ![]() And I've just realized that I don't want to be the driver all the time.
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