My OperaIf O Had A Hammer...
Monday, February 15, 2010 12:53:07 PM
Usually when I do these, which is itself becoming increasingly rare (I blame podcasts), it's some high fa-looting piece about the future of gaming. Today though it's a little different, it's purely and simply a rant about something that's been bugging me.
Unnecessary QTE's.
This isn't a rant against all Quick Time Events, far from it, a well done QTE bridges the gap between CG and in-game as well as anything. Then there's the likes of Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, the latter being one of my favorite games last gen and the former my most anticipated game this. Replicating the movements on screen has a certain appeal, not in a Daily Mail bothering school-shooting way, I suspect it's more a novelty. More than one 'Heavy Rain' a year and it might get a bit clichéd.
No, my issue lies predominantly with action games, and it's something that links Batman's saunter through Arkham Asylum with Dante's excursion in Hell. I am of course talking about the trend for making us mash buttons for menial tasks. In Dante's Inferno every door you come across requires him to jam his scythe into its chest, then yank it upwards, gutting the possibly murderous door demon. What this means to you is that you must press R1 (or Rb for 360 players), then hammer O (B) as though your life depended on it. Your life doesn't depend on it, it's just a door, a door that closes after you pass through it, meaning that if you want to back track for any reason, you must go through the whole process again.
In Batman, every time you wanted to pull a grate off the wall it involved much button pressing. Quite often Batman would have the leverage of the lower ground and his rope, given those conditions even I could fuck up an air-vent and I'm not the Batman (the truth is... I'm Iron Man). The whole process is arguably more ridiculous in Batman because he's Batman. He can sling people across the room, punch out Killer Croc, but a thin piece of metal held on tiny screws requires an exhaustive effort.
It's not even the absurdity of it that bothers me, it's how pointless it is. Dante's Inferno has a few moments that exist purely to lengthen the game, mainly its climbing between areas, but having to physically open a door yourself is just busy work. Most games manage fine by having the doors open themselves, or even not having doors - the crazy fools! The rest of the game is littered with artificial barriers that block your progress until requirements are met (kill everything), so why not apply the same logic to passing to the next room.
It's as though developers believe that if you're doing something, anything, that counts as gameplay. Technically they might be right, but I'd argue that "Fantastic dynamic door opening mechanic" isn't something you'd put on the back of the box, and so isn't real gameplay. You would't make a game based around that mechanic, this isn't an Olympics game, or even the bonus test of strength round on Mortal Kombat. Besides, the upcoming Muscle March has shown that you can make a game out of opening doors... kind of, they just weren't stupid enough to have you hammering O for the entirety of the game. There's a joke there about Muscle March's characters hammering something resembling an O, but I wouldn't be that crude.
The mechanic of mashing buttons for menial tasks is purposeless and dull. The sooner developers get it out of their system the better.
Unnecessary QTE's.
This isn't a rant against all Quick Time Events, far from it, a well done QTE bridges the gap between CG and in-game as well as anything. Then there's the likes of Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, the latter being one of my favorite games last gen and the former my most anticipated game this. Replicating the movements on screen has a certain appeal, not in a Daily Mail bothering school-shooting way, I suspect it's more a novelty. More than one 'Heavy Rain' a year and it might get a bit clichéd.
No, my issue lies predominantly with action games, and it's something that links Batman's saunter through Arkham Asylum with Dante's excursion in Hell. I am of course talking about the trend for making us mash buttons for menial tasks. In Dante's Inferno every door you come across requires him to jam his scythe into its chest, then yank it upwards, gutting the possibly murderous door demon. What this means to you is that you must press R1 (or Rb for 360 players), then hammer O (B) as though your life depended on it. Your life doesn't depend on it, it's just a door, a door that closes after you pass through it, meaning that if you want to back track for any reason, you must go through the whole process again.
In Batman, every time you wanted to pull a grate off the wall it involved much button pressing. Quite often Batman would have the leverage of the lower ground and his rope, given those conditions even I could fuck up an air-vent and I'm not the Batman (the truth is... I'm Iron Man). The whole process is arguably more ridiculous in Batman because he's Batman. He can sling people across the room, punch out Killer Croc, but a thin piece of metal held on tiny screws requires an exhaustive effort.
It's not even the absurdity of it that bothers me, it's how pointless it is. Dante's Inferno has a few moments that exist purely to lengthen the game, mainly its climbing between areas, but having to physically open a door yourself is just busy work. Most games manage fine by having the doors open themselves, or even not having doors - the crazy fools! The rest of the game is littered with artificial barriers that block your progress until requirements are met (kill everything), so why not apply the same logic to passing to the next room.
It's as though developers believe that if you're doing something, anything, that counts as gameplay. Technically they might be right, but I'd argue that "Fantastic dynamic door opening mechanic" isn't something you'd put on the back of the box, and so isn't real gameplay. You would't make a game based around that mechanic, this isn't an Olympics game, or even the bonus test of strength round on Mortal Kombat. Besides, the upcoming Muscle March has shown that you can make a game out of opening doors... kind of, they just weren't stupid enough to have you hammering O for the entirety of the game. There's a joke there about Muscle March's characters hammering something resembling an O, but I wouldn't be that crude.
The mechanic of mashing buttons for menial tasks is purposeless and dull. The sooner developers get it out of their system the better.
