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Sakurai: "Movies are better at storytelling than games."
Comments
Okay, you guys should say something next time Bastion goes on sale. My brother has already been telling me that it's awesome, and I'm convinced that it's worth money.
^I get what you're saying there. I wasn't impressed with what I'd played.
I've only played Fable 2.
It's definitely got issues, especially in its' point-based good/evil and corruption/purity mechanic, but it's certainly a lot better than most.
It leads you to define the character, though, which is definitely a thing that I enjoy, but others may not.
I thought it was pretty fun, probably because Mass Effect is my favorite series.
Fable was a good game and an okay use of the concept. Although I've only played the first one. And from what I remember, the lasting injuries were scars rather than penalties to your actual effectiveness in combat. My goal would be to present a combat system that has depth and detail while being fun, but also to provide tension by penalising failure heavily.
But I think you may have to balance frustration with tension. Games with save states and tons of save files available are pretty low on the tension level, arguably to a fault. Games that penalize mistakes with tedium (such as replaying a lengthy part of the game) can be hard to find entertaining.
I think a good compromise is including save points and allowing you to redo mistakes if you want to, but allowing players to, maybe even rewarding them for this, do an "honest" playthrough.
That's the idea of the wound system. A lasting wound would impose penalties on the player until it's healed, for whatever amount of time that takes. The player character itself would be largely immortal though -- the whole point is that a failure in combat has repercussions that death would prevent.
This general idea worked well enough for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, which are very highly-considered and well-loved games.
Heavy Rain+Dark Souls+Renaissance Italy?
It's the combination of the two characters that makes Fable so interesting.
If you have ever played the Prince of Persia games, the 'Rewind' option there was a pretty great take on this.
I haven't played it, but the concept does sound pretty interesting.
I have a few issues with Heavy Rain, but its concept is solid enough. I personally think its context-sensitive gameplay would work better as an addition to a genre game rather than as a core mechanic alone. Mixing it with a game like Dark Souls would do a lot to make me think more kindly of its approach. And Renaissance Italy is always good times, really.
-throws hands into the air-
Cue my second-favorite series, Assassins' Creed.
The more Alex talks of Dark Souls, the less I want to get it.
There's really a lot of untapped potential in video games as a medium. It's a shame to see it be neglected in favor of rehashed sequels. Admittedly, I am a fan of said sequels, but I would also like to see something new.
I don't think I qualify as a hardcore RPG nut. It's really more of an action game in practise anyway -- it's just that the action is informed by an opaque character-building system that the game doesn't both to teach you.
Resident Evil 4 used Heavy Rain's quicktime heaviness as a gameplay mechanic much better half-a-decade earlier.
Anyways, the atmosphere itself doesn't reach out to me either. But I'm not going to derail this any further.
^Better run from that there boulder/giant midget statue, Leon!
And I love me some RE4.
I disagree. As far as quicktime events go, Resident Evil easily falls on the better end of that spectrum. What I liked about Heavy Rain was the use of quicktime (although they weren't necessarily "quick") events as a means to interact with the game environment in general. Stuff like knife fights and running away from danger should fall squarely under general gameplay, in my opinion.
I can't really say that I agree with that. Or at least, not in every case. Quick-time events are pretty much the only way to do stuff like that that isn't really supported by normal gameplay controls. Take the knife-fight with Krauser, for instance. There are pretty much four ways they could have done that:
1. A normal gameplay boss battle, with the expositionary dialogue before/after the fight.
2. A knife fight with the normal gameplay mechanics. Which would be extra lame, since the game doesn't have a detailed knife system. Just swing swing swing.
3. A non-interactive cutscene where the knife fight is completely out of the player's hands.
4. Quick-time event driven knife fight, with the necessary dialogue and giving the player some control over what's going on.
The first three all serve the same purpose, but I'd argue that four is the best way it can play out, if they don't want to program a whole knife fight system for one scene.
Or the running away from shit. That would be hell in the RE4 engine, considering how movement and stuff is.
oh hey, a wall of text, i must really be tired
^^Have fun brushing your teeth. I'll be running from statues of midgets dressed like Napoleon.
^^ I agree that the fourth option was the best possible choice for the game, but I still consider it the "imperfect" option in terms of wider game design.
With that in mind, it's kinda funny how the knife does massive damage to Krauser next time you fight him.
^ well shit. guess there's no arguing with that
Wait, it did?!
Damn. That would have been good to know when I was thirteen.
Yeah. It's actually the easiest way to beat him, since it staggers him as well.
You know, back when G4 used to actually show programs centered on games.