Peeve #307 - Ridiculously Hard Bits In Computer Games

[major_clanger]

I've been playing my way through The Thing on XBox for about six weeks now and in general I've been very impressed with it. It does the best job since Aliens vs Predator of capturing the feel of a movie, and has some nice unusual touches - most notably having to look after the sanity of the NPCs you need to bring along to do essential tasks for you.

Unfortunately it has a couple of flaws that I've had annoy me in other games, both related to areas of excessive difficulty. One is that it features really hard end-of-level bosses. I can see the point of making an entire game or group of levels finish with a really difficult challenge, but at times games designers seem to think "just in case someone is playing through this too fast, let's slow them down with a really nasty opponent". I like to play through games, i.e. make progress, not repeatedly try to batter my way past a triple-strength nasty.

The second problem is similar but in its way much more annoying: the otherwise minor task that's made almost impossibly difficult to do, but which is essential to progress in the game. I'm currently stuck on part of a chapter where your character has to take two sniper shots, run to another part of the building and take two more, all in a very short time window.

I just can't do it.

Now, I'm prepared to waste a lot of my time on computer games now and then, but as I said before, I like to feel I'm getting somewhere whilst doing so. Repeating the cycle of load from save, try task, fail task, load again... becomes very tedious the ninth or tenth time.

IMHO, game narratives should avoid where possible single points of failure. Single points of success, i.e. individual goals, are fair enough, but you should have more than one chance or method available to complete them. Single points of failure are tightropes that you should only ask the player to cross rarely, if at all; they have too much risk of just ending your progress through the game on an anticlimactic note.

MC

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

fail task

(OK, now I'm going to be very mean, and misquote a rather old slogan :-)

"Why Don't You Just ..."

... accept that you're dead...

"... And Go And Do Something Less Boring Instead!?!!?!!?"

(Serious bit: I've never really become hooked on computer games any more complicated than Tetris or Shang-hai, and the "save, fail, reload" thing - which you can't generally do in role-playing games - has always had a whiff of cheating about it to me :-) My biggest stress-busting waste of time is to watch stuff - favourite films and TV shows, cool new documentaries.)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I do that as well (and the arrival of Extra Features on DVD has helped no end - the extended version of FOTR has already eaten up a few hours, and I have four commentaries to go through should I ever find myself at a total loose end.) But sometimes I like something interactive and challenging, hence computer games. But I do prefer the ones where your brain is being exercised, and where the game evironment is enjoyable and interesting of itself. Deus Ex - which I have seen described as a not half bad sf novel in its own right - is probably the best example of this, in that (a) stealth and ingenuity was prized over brute force, and (b) you actually wanted to stop playing the plot for a bit and have a look around.

Of course, there's always reading. I want to de-stress so I can start enjoying fiction again, and make more headway into The Scar.

MC

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I could easily lose myself in the four commentaries on the extended FotR :-)

What I don't really understand, is why `interactive and challenging' usually seems to translate into `simulated killing'. I can see the need for competition, I just don't see why one has to literally beat (pound, pulp, trash, mash) the competition... This sort of relates back to a conversation that I was having with purplecthulhu this morning... about disbelieving Evil, and the sickening ordinariness of most `evil' people. But I think too much...

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

'interactive and challenging' = 'simulated killing'

It's unquestionably one way of making a game exciting (to certain sorts of players), by tapping into the fight/flight reflex. A related technique is with sports simulations, although those have never held any appeal for me.

Hmmm, what games have I played and enjoyed that did not involve some sort of simulated violence? Precious few, I have to admit. Even if you disregard the first-person-shooters like Doom and its offspring, I have tended to play military flight simulators, military strategy games or combat-oriented RPGs.

An interesting philosophical point: which is the most disturbing form of simulated violence - blowing a single soldier into bloody chunks in Half-Life, or launching a salvo of anti-ship missiles into a frigate in Harpoon? In the first case the simulated experience is very different from the real thing. In the second, as you click your mouse on a stylized 'enemy' symbol on a synthetic radar picture, it is all but identical...

And how much is this a man/woman thing? There's clearly a strong bias, but one female gamer of our mutual acquaintance (Sue D) is a blast-em-to-bits fan who thought Deus Ex "didn't have enough action", whilst bugshaw was for a long time a fan of Age of Empires, which featured plenty of Smiting Mightily. [But in that case it might be a strategy as opposed to violence issue; she enjoyed the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers a lot more than she thought she would precisely because it was presented in terms of strategy and tactics rather than just Orc-bashing.]

However, my latest gaming obsession is unlikely to see me becoming a psychotic maniac. I've been resisting for years, but I've finally caught Solitaire Syndrome of bugshaw...

MC

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

'interactive and challenging' = 'simulated killing'

tapping into the fight/flight reflex.

Hmm - but are there not a miriad of situations which can be simulated which tap into that reaction, without involve a physical fight to the death (probably with large, complex expensive weaponry)? I mean, I can see the appeal of being able to simulate all-out fights using the latest gadgets. Once or twice. But then... well, what about the rest of the world? How about simulating diplomacy, for starters?

Hmmm, what games have I played and enjoyed that did not involve some sort of simulated violence? ... Even if you disregard the first-person-shooters like Doom and its offspring...

Now, three times I've read that, and tried to work out how (or in which universe) `Doom' doesn't count as `simulated violence'. Then it occurred to me that you might be ruling them all out as unavoidable violent by definition?

I have tended to play military flight simulators, military strategy games or combat-oriented RPGs.

Understandable, but how about simulating the logistics of a peace-keeping mission?

An interesting philosophical point: which is the most disturbing form of simulated violence - blowing a single soldier into bloody chunks in Half-Life, or launching a salvo of anti-ship missiles into a frigate in Harpoon?

I find them both disturbing :-)

And how much is this a man/woman thing?

As much as anything is :-) There's all kinds of reasons to expect men to be more into fighting, and no reason at all why any given woman might not be into fighting too.

strategy as opposed to violence issue

Strategy is likely to be the most tense and complicated in life-or-death situations, but there is always the option of using the radio solution to pictures (i.e. let the audience fill in the gory parts for themselves if they wish).

However, my latest gaming obsession is unlikely to see me becoming a psychotic maniac.

Surely, far too late for you to become such? :-)

Actually, that's not what bothers me in any case - it's more, as I said before, that there is so much more to the world, and so many extremely important, tricky and challenging problems which need to be solved, why not spend some effort either solving or simulating them? The Sims is probably in the right direction (although I've never played it!)

I've been resisting for years, but I've finally caught Solitaire Syndrome off bugshaw...

Good intellectual challenge. I like a nice game of ... that thing with the Maj-Jhong (sp?) tiles, in the difficult configuration ... myself, when I'm particularly frustrated or low.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Often when I've become totally stuck in a game its because of a mistake I've made several steps before the apparently fatal point. Going back and rerunning from a bit earlier can be a way through this. [I could discuss a specific example from RTCW but that may be a bit boring].

When all else fails, looking at the Net for a walkthrough of the game can be an answer. A quick google shows plenty of sites discussing The Thing, so if you're desperate that may be an answer.

Of course you may already have done all this...

Happy alien killing!

[blufive.livejournal.com]

I've ranted on this subject many times to poor unfortunate fools who didn't run away fast enough. Drives me nuts too. What REALLY gets my goat is the ones that:

• Don't have any difficulty levels, so you can't just try an easier level (I-War, Homeworld)
  
• You have to know exactly what's going to happen to stand a chance i.e. it's all but impossible to beat it first time (Homeworld again, the Ground Control mission pack)
  
• Have bosses that require levels of l33t s|<illz way above the rest of the game (Jedi Knight series)

End of rant.

Now playing Serious Sam 2. Big guns, loadsa ammo, no plot and... HOW MANY bad guys?!?!?!?.