From a gameplay and game design perspective, my overall impression was that Deus Ex: Invisible War is pretty much in the same game as Deus Ex, just improved in a variety of ways such as better graphics and more streamlined gameplay. That's not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion and I did enjoy the game. However there are numerous minor design issues I feel get in the way of the overall game. I suspect many of the problems are because of 'consolitis' having been developed for the Xbox at the same. In my game, I chose to be a African type male character focusing on stealthy non-lethal gameplay since in most other shooting games, you're forced to play a white Caucasian male that solves every thing by riddling it with bullets.
What I liked:
1) Lots of quests you can take which affects people's dialogue
2) Lots of different, weapons, gadgets and biomods
3) Well written dialogue with good voice acting
4) Game interface and inventory is clean and easy to navigate (very important for a game like this)
Issues:
1) Maps and areas are very small - This may have something to do with the limitations of the console but everything is a bit too claustrophobic and too small compared to how they would probably be in real life and when compared to the original Deus Ex. This has a rather unfortunate effect of ruining my immersion. It's hard to believe that a busy city could be so tiny. During missions I found myself often having problems finding places to hide if spotted and had to resort to turning invisible.
That being said, I do appreciate the fact that it's easy to get from your main location to where your next mission is compared to the long treks I had to make in a game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I wonder if there could be a compromise with this. Maybe have the main areas small and relatively packed with mission areas wide and sprawling? Or perhaps have a vehicle which can get you from point to point easily? Or maybe a teleport system?
2) Linear storyline seems stretched- Despite my initial hope that you would be able to play different areas etc depending on your allegiance, it doesn't really matter whose allegiance you follow in the game. You still end up in the same areas following the same major plotline being asked to do almost the same thing. If you succeed, then you move on to the next major area where the main characters will then ask you to again do something to accomplish their goals which coincidentally means doing something in the same exact location. I was hoping to have some faction specific/exclusive missions that would send me into different areas. A real wasted opportunity.
Also the main quest-givers in the game, i.e. The WTO and The Order and the later two factions seem to be a bit too forgiving to the point of being unrealistic. For example, I chose to side with the WTO early on in the game and The Order still kept trying to convince me to join them and sharing me confidential information on my next target etc. and who I should report too. Considering I had continually disobeyed their orders, I'm quite surprised they were only mildly annoyed rather than ordering my assassination except very near the end.
Also, all factions always seem to know exactly where I was and what I was up to and continuously communicated with me directly. In terms of game design, this was required in order to give me the full variety of choices and missions but in terms of storyline purposes didn't really make sense. It's hard to believe that somebody whose actions they can keep track of so well would be such a major threat to their plans. Again, breaking the immersion. Personally I think they should have design it in a way so that you had to initiate contact with the faction and there would be a faction bar indicating how trusted you were by the faction and whether they would accept you finishing a mission.
3) Faction rewards could be better handled - The game advises you to carefully choose a faction's benefits and advantages but the game doesnt' specifically what benefits you can accrue. I don't recall any particular amazing benefits to be honest. Just a couple of credits, an additional biomod and some minor additional information. I don't know, it just didn't feel different enough. I kind of wanted to for example, be able to call for backup or have access to special faction specific biomods.
4) Non-lethal weapons seem pointless - Like the original Deus Ex, it doesn't seem to be any real reward to non-lethal weapons aside from one or two characters complimenting you and the 'feel good factor'. This time round however, at least the non-lethal weapons seem relatively on par with the normal weapons and you can actually stop people fairly easily with them compared to the first game.
Also I discovered a bug where characters who were unconscious regain consciousness when you re-enter a map and then started fighting allies who have entered the scene to secure the area.
5) AI isn't very smart - AI is okay but unfortunately the AI just doesn't seem to work in pairs or groups very well and is almost suicidal which unfortunately tends to affect the game dialogue. For example, the AI often run into grenades their comrades have thrown and failing to take cover when I shoot them. Overall the environments also don't lend themselves well to any real tactical options.
Overall, storyline is good, gameplay is solid even if areas are a bit small. Factions and faction specific benefits could have been handled better. Won't be a game-changer but if you liked Deus Ex, the sequel is still very much an enjoyable story-driven RPG/action hybrid. I'm not sure why people don't like it. It's not ground breaking as the first game and there are some odd design choices at times but nothing too terrible that would make me hate the entire game like other people seem to do.
Monday, 6 June 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Shadowgrounds Survivor: Game Review
Overall, I liked the original Shadowgrounds. It offered fun shooting and interesting weapons.
Shadowgrounds Survivor seemed to have fairly good reviews and being a sequel with additional classes, I thought it would be even more fun than the original. From a game design perspective, additional classes means being able to truly draft levels and gameplay to suit a variety of players and that means that you can experiment more with the gameplay and create even more interesting game modes and situations.
What I liked:
Overall, a hugely wasted opportunity to something better, bigger and even more explosive. I understand Frozenbyte is a small independent company, but I'm sure they could have done way better with just a little more thought.
Shadowgrounds Survivor seemed to have fairly good reviews and being a sequel with additional classes, I thought it would be even more fun than the original. From a game design perspective, additional classes means being able to truly draft levels and gameplay to suit a variety of players and that means that you can experiment more with the gameplay and create even more interesting game modes and situations.
What I liked:
- Overall still fun like Shadowgrounds Survivor
- Weapons are balanced and feel right as do their new abilities.
- RPG upgrade system balanced.
- Shallow plot which doesn't even explain anything to new players.
- Grenades seem too slow for any tactical use
- Characters only have 1 special move - The developers could have easily added even more moves.
- Seems to lack any new enemies maybe even less than the original Shadowgrounds.
- No boss battles which Shadowgrounds had.
- Multiplayer needs better support - You can only play multiplayer on the same computer.
- Really short and needs more interesting level design
- Feels more like an expansion pack than a true sequel
- Ending isn't very exciting, just you defending a computer room from four directions
Overall, a hugely wasted opportunity to something better, bigger and even more explosive. I understand Frozenbyte is a small independent company, but I'm sure they could have done way better with just a little more thought.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Deus Ex Invisible War: Troubleshooting
Like many others, I encountered the menu freeze bug with audio looping. The reason for this is Deus Ex: Invisible War not recognising multiple core CPUs. Alot of advice online says to set Dx2.exe to one CPU core. This didn't work for me when I just set Dx2.exe.
The Solution
What worked was to set both DX2.exe and Ion Launcher.exe to affinity 1 (use just one CPU core ) using a program called Set Affinity from Edgemeal Software here. The website looks a bit dodgy looking but the program works fine. Note you can't play the game and Control+Alt+Delete out. The game doesn't allow you to do that during the startup sequence so you'll need this program or a program which does it before the program starts.
Also if you have an nvidia card, set the Threading Optimisation to 'Off' as well for this particular program. Not sure if this helped but it can't hurt.
The Solution
What worked was to set both DX2.exe and Ion Launcher.exe to affinity 1 (use just one CPU core ) using a program called Set Affinity from Edgemeal Software here. The website looks a bit dodgy looking but the program works fine. Note you can't play the game and Control+Alt+Delete out. The game doesn't allow you to do that during the startup sequence so you'll need this program or a program which does it before the program starts.
Also if you have an nvidia card, set the Threading Optimisation to 'Off' as well for this particular program. Not sure if this helped but it can't hurt.
Monday, 11 April 2011
Act of War: High Treason Game Design Review
Act of war High Treason is the expansion pack to the original Act of War featuring like the original a near-future RTS with detailed realistic graphics and fast paced action gameplay. You can read my impressions of Act or War here.
Here's what I like about the expansion:
If you've read my previous review on the original Act of War, nearly of my original criticisms still stand but a few couple more that have been introduced. Anyway, here are the points that stuck out for me:
Again, my overall impression is that I was playing a prettier noisier more realistic version of C & C Generals with less special abilities and variety. Its a competent game but it just can't quite compare to Command and Conquer Generals. In fact after finishing the game, I felt like installing and playing C & C Generals again!
Here's what I like about the expansion:
- AI pathfinding and grouping have been improved so troops travel now travel in a group rather than previously where the faster units would run ahead and get shot.
- The unit diversity has been improved as well
- You can hire mercenaries on the battle field which act as hero units
If you've read my previous review on the original Act of War, nearly of my original criticisms still stand but a few couple more that have been introduced. Anyway, here are the points that stuck out for me:
- Unit size makes units hard to distinguish and the explosions sometimes cover the action.
- Action is still very paced and most vehicles seem to blow up even faster in this one thanks to the new units. Both land and air units seem to die a bit too quickly and hard to replace them considering the amount of cash you get. That being said, I suspect that part of the gameplay to help balance this is capturing those POW which give you $500 per capture.
- In my previous review I mentioned healing required too many clicks. In the expansion, healing has been fixed and there is now healing hot button on the interface. All you need to do is click it and then click on the area you want and any available healing or repair units will travel there. This sounds good in theory but unfortunately, now you don't unlimited healing auras around your healing units. Instead when they appear in an area you only heal a limited amount before having to wait to recharge This is really annoying because if you have only one or two ambulances or nanowave centres, you have wait around for 10 to 15 seconds before healing troops again. This is especially a pain especially for Task Force Talon because you have to build an entirely new nanowave healing centre which is quite costly and each time you heal it costs 250! Even more annoyingly, the amount of health healed is often quite small, it's not even to get my Task Force Talon soldiers back on their feet from 'critical' condition!
- During naval battle Instead of selecting ships when click on them you select the aircraft on the ship instead. You have to carefully select the bow of the ship instead.
- With maps with naval combat, whenever you move your view back onto land you zoom right in while if you move back out to sea the view zooms right back making it quite annoying when you're wanting to order your ships to attack land targets.
- Naval combat is very fun and creates a sense of larger scale of the War. That being said it doesn't seem particularly well connected with the main game. Maybe because there's a distinct lack of interaction between land forces and naval forces. Your naval ships can pretty much tear up any land force without fear of retaliation.
- Missing general powers like in C & C Generals although the new units and mercanries partially make up for that.
- Keyboard hotkeys remain all over the place like most RTS instead of clustered together
Again, my overall impression is that I was playing a prettier noisier more realistic version of C & C Generals with less special abilities and variety. Its a competent game but it just can't quite compare to Command and Conquer Generals. In fact after finishing the game, I felt like installing and playing C & C Generals again!
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Super Meat Boy & Super Meat World Design Review
I've just finished the Light World of Super Meat Boy and just thought I would share my thoughts. It's an extremely polished old-school indie platformer. Well done Team Meat.
From a game control/gameplay perspective. Super Meat Boy feels solid as you control his jumps across the screen. It's not a game for the faint-hearted even if you're playing the normal world. If you don't like your platforming Hard with a capital H, then I recommend you don't waste your money buying this game. It practically requires a gamepad which any self respecting platform gamer should have anyway. It's one of the few games which I actually got hand cramps from all that jumping!
As always however, there always seem to slight interface issues that seem to deliberately annoy me. There are very minor minor details and in no way take away from the main fun gameplay.
1) Cutscenes keep playing - Really strange but each time you enter a world, the intro cutscenes always play and you have press start to skip it. Doesn't seem to be anyway to say "play once only".
2) Warp zones are marked on the main level selection map but not bandages - Whenever you unlock a warp zone, it shows up on the map so you can retry at any time. The optional bandages don't seem to be shown anywhere on the map meaning if you haven't collected them you'll have to remember which leve they appeared in. Most levels don't have bandages to collect so its annoying having to go back and double check levels individually if you haven't played that particular zone for a while.
3) Level selector could be easier to navigate - You can't skip area in the level selector map and have to manually walk Super Meat Boy across each one. E.g. Super Meat Boy is on level 1 and you want to go to level 18 to perfect it. On the level selection screen you have walk Meat Boy across levels 1 to 18 pressing for example right right right right down left left left left left down rather than say take a short cut by just pressing down down down to cut through the map.
4) Super Meat World - This is just released but super Meat World's interface needs to change and incorporate more features. I don't think there's a search function making it hard to search for specifics levels and you can only depend on the filters. It's okay now because there aren't that many levels but I wonder how the system will cope once users start creating more and more levels.
5) Lack of cut-scene playback - I don't recall seeing a function for this. A bit of a shame since it would have been funny to rewatch some of the boss battle endings.
From a gameplay perspective, the only thing I feel was missing was maybe more unique boss battles or maybe additional mini-boss battles.
From a game control/gameplay perspective. Super Meat Boy feels solid as you control his jumps across the screen. It's not a game for the faint-hearted even if you're playing the normal world. If you don't like your platforming Hard with a capital H, then I recommend you don't waste your money buying this game. It practically requires a gamepad which any self respecting platform gamer should have anyway. It's one of the few games which I actually got hand cramps from all that jumping!
As always however, there always seem to slight interface issues that seem to deliberately annoy me. There are very minor minor details and in no way take away from the main fun gameplay.
1) Cutscenes keep playing - Really strange but each time you enter a world, the intro cutscenes always play and you have press start to skip it. Doesn't seem to be anyway to say "play once only".
2) Warp zones are marked on the main level selection map but not bandages - Whenever you unlock a warp zone, it shows up on the map so you can retry at any time. The optional bandages don't seem to be shown anywhere on the map meaning if you haven't collected them you'll have to remember which leve they appeared in. Most levels don't have bandages to collect so its annoying having to go back and double check levels individually if you haven't played that particular zone for a while.
3) Level selector could be easier to navigate - You can't skip area in the level selector map and have to manually walk Super Meat Boy across each one. E.g. Super Meat Boy is on level 1 and you want to go to level 18 to perfect it. On the level selection screen you have walk Meat Boy across levels 1 to 18 pressing for example right right right right down left left left left left down rather than say take a short cut by just pressing down down down to cut through the map.
4) Super Meat World - This is just released but super Meat World's interface needs to change and incorporate more features. I don't think there's a search function making it hard to search for specifics levels and you can only depend on the filters. It's okay now because there aren't that many levels but I wonder how the system will cope once users start creating more and more levels.
5) Lack of cut-scene playback - I don't recall seeing a function for this. A bit of a shame since it would have been funny to rewatch some of the boss battle endings.
From a gameplay perspective, the only thing I feel was missing was maybe more unique boss battles or maybe additional mini-boss battles.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Far Cry: Game Design Review
Far Cry is an open-level FPS featuring ex-marine Jack Carver, who gets stranded in a bunch of tropical islands and who then has to find his employer and a way out of there.
Released just before Half Life 2 just released, in many ways Far Cry goes the complete opposite direction of Half Life 2. From a game design perspective, instead of linear corridors you have sprawling open areas with vegetation for camouflage and multiple entry points. It isn’t quite ‘open-world’ as there are definite checkpoints and levels but how you approach the enemies in each area is up to you.
Playing the game for a while, I found that the best way to play and indeed the only way to play the game on higher difficulty levels is to do exactly what the box art implies. You have to hide in foliage, in the water or on higher ground and ambush or sneak around enemies where possible. Map awareness and patience is a virtue in this game. I definitely wouldn't call this an action FPS, I would probably call it an ambush FPS. The AI is fairly smart and will flank and search if they hear suspicious noises which makes the game challenging.
The Good:
From a gameplay design perspective, the game designers give you a number of tools to help you sneak around.
1) You have unlimited rocks which you can throw to act as distractions and lure guards away from your position.
2) Your binoculars detects up enemies and marks them on your radar making it and intergral for planning your route in the game. I quite like this method of finding your enemies as opposed to the usual method of having a radar automatically detect opponents. In the game I found myself creeping around carefully scanning, and then carefully creeping around somewhere trying to locate the best vantage point to ensure I scanned all the enemies which is exactly what the game designers intended.
3) The radar picks up sounds and actually shows their origin on the radar (good for deaf players or gamers who don't have good sound systems)
4) The radar is smart enough to zooms in and out depending on how close you are to the enemy. The smart zoom works quite well for me.
5) You have a stealth meter that alerts you to how close you are to getting spotted.
6) Crouching, crawling are integral in the game for hiding yourself.
7) Many large open areas with multiple paths and solutions.
8) You obtain special Cryvision goggles which make enemies in the dark glow brightly which really drives home the message that this is a stealth game.
I really enjoyed 80% the game however I have one major criticism of the game. As a mentioned above the game engine and game style is best as an stealth/ambush FPS and every singe criticism boils down to the fact that designers didn't stick to this concept.
The Bad
1) Certain levels are linear and extremely difficult as a result - This is extremely apparent in one of the beginning levels where you have to climb through an old Japanese ship to try and rescue your employer. At the end of this level, you have to shoot the chains holding a boat at the top of the ship so it falls into the water below. The top level of the ship is only accessible through one small hatchway which is guarded by a helicopter and plenty of mercenaries. I must have died over 40 times before somehow managing to shoot my way through the end.
The boat is suspended far above the water at the top of the boat and its hard to know you have to shoot those chains holding the boat there unless you've already been to the boat and figured out that's the only way to release the boat.
When it comes to the indoor environments. They're harder because there isn't really anywhere to hide, spot enemies and carefully plan how to approach the situation. The binoculars ability to pick up enemies doesn't work through walls so your radar won't help you either. Sometimes there are vents you can hide in and sneak around in, but more often than not, you just have run into a room or run round a corner, run back and then try and kill the guys who follow you, or in my case run in get killed and then reload the save file.
The last few levels and the ending suffers greatly this as well. In the last level there's nowhere to run or hide in the level and there are lots of mutant enemies. I had to cram myself in a corner and cheat by firing just round the corner where the enemies couldn't fit their large bodies in. In essence they were standing there waiting for me to shoot them, unable to reach me.
2) Lack of mines or ambushing tools - It's surprising that the game doesn't have any remote mines, traps or decoys which you can lure the enemy into. It would have made the gameplay much more interesting and help even the odds quite a bit in both outdoor and indoor areas. I understand that the remakes on the consoles have included the ability to lay traps and mines so its obvious the designers realised this was lacking.
3) Lack of melee weapons, melee attacks or special stealth moves. - Your sole melee weapon, the machete takes up one whole weapon slot! You can only carry 3 weapons at a time and having your machete one entire slot makes it hard to recommend when you could be carrying a shotgun or rifle instead which do more damage!
This game would also have benefited from stealth kills similar to say Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones where if you surprise an enemy from behind you can kill them instantly. The ability to drag bodies away would also have been good as well.
Part way through the storyline Jack gets infected with a virus that is suppose to transform him into a mutant. Unfortunately this has no real effect on Jack which is real misseed opportunity because it would be interesting if he could activate some special superhuman powers. Again, the developers realised this and in the Far Cry remake they gave him a a boost of sorts and additional weapons.
4) Lack of quiet weapons/silencers- Only 2 or 3 weapons are silenced in the game so it can be hard to surprise enemies. One of them is a rapid fire machine gun so its okay I guess but its quite hard to kill people further than a room or two away without alerting people to your presence.
5) Gamestyle and atmosphere could be better -Some people have complained about the storyline. Far Cry features a rather cheesy B-grade action story line with extremely cheesey dialogue by mercenaries that is clear parody of all those action movies. All the mercenaries talk about in really evil voices all about how evil they want to be. I think they should have gone even further down this line instead and made turned into a 'GI-Joe Saturday Morning Cartoon' style game similar to Command and Conquer Renegade. I think it could have worked quite well. Its a bit too realistic at this stage.
Should you buy this? The answer is no. Games like Half Life 2 have story and atmosphere and a cinematic feel to it as a result they age fairly well like a well written novel. Far Cry however, like many first person shooters that rely solely on graphics and explosions, is only as good until something with better graphics and explosions comes along. In this case its sequels Crysis and Far Cry 2 has better gameplay and bigger worlds and many of the issues I raised here such as lack of melee attacks and special abilities is addressed in Crysis or Far Cry 2. What Far Cry has done however is change my expectations of shooters and what true 'freedom' in shooter is about.
Released just before Half Life 2 just released, in many ways Far Cry goes the complete opposite direction of Half Life 2. From a game design perspective, instead of linear corridors you have sprawling open areas with vegetation for camouflage and multiple entry points. It isn’t quite ‘open-world’ as there are definite checkpoints and levels but how you approach the enemies in each area is up to you.
Playing the game for a while, I found that the best way to play and indeed the only way to play the game on higher difficulty levels is to do exactly what the box art implies. You have to hide in foliage, in the water or on higher ground and ambush or sneak around enemies where possible. Map awareness and patience is a virtue in this game. I definitely wouldn't call this an action FPS, I would probably call it an ambush FPS. The AI is fairly smart and will flank and search if they hear suspicious noises which makes the game challenging.
The Good:
From a gameplay design perspective, the game designers give you a number of tools to help you sneak around.
1) You have unlimited rocks which you can throw to act as distractions and lure guards away from your position.
2) Your binoculars detects up enemies and marks them on your radar making it and intergral for planning your route in the game. I quite like this method of finding your enemies as opposed to the usual method of having a radar automatically detect opponents. In the game I found myself creeping around carefully scanning, and then carefully creeping around somewhere trying to locate the best vantage point to ensure I scanned all the enemies which is exactly what the game designers intended.
3) The radar picks up sounds and actually shows their origin on the radar (good for deaf players or gamers who don't have good sound systems)
4) The radar is smart enough to zooms in and out depending on how close you are to the enemy. The smart zoom works quite well for me.
5) You have a stealth meter that alerts you to how close you are to getting spotted.
6) Crouching, crawling are integral in the game for hiding yourself.
7) Many large open areas with multiple paths and solutions.
8) You obtain special Cryvision goggles which make enemies in the dark glow brightly which really drives home the message that this is a stealth game.
I really enjoyed 80% the game however I have one major criticism of the game. As a mentioned above the game engine and game style is best as an stealth/ambush FPS and every singe criticism boils down to the fact that designers didn't stick to this concept.
The Bad
1) Certain levels are linear and extremely difficult as a result - This is extremely apparent in one of the beginning levels where you have to climb through an old Japanese ship to try and rescue your employer. At the end of this level, you have to shoot the chains holding a boat at the top of the ship so it falls into the water below. The top level of the ship is only accessible through one small hatchway which is guarded by a helicopter and plenty of mercenaries. I must have died over 40 times before somehow managing to shoot my way through the end.
The boat is suspended far above the water at the top of the boat and its hard to know you have to shoot those chains holding the boat there unless you've already been to the boat and figured out that's the only way to release the boat.
When it comes to the indoor environments. They're harder because there isn't really anywhere to hide, spot enemies and carefully plan how to approach the situation. The binoculars ability to pick up enemies doesn't work through walls so your radar won't help you either. Sometimes there are vents you can hide in and sneak around in, but more often than not, you just have run into a room or run round a corner, run back and then try and kill the guys who follow you, or in my case run in get killed and then reload the save file.
The last few levels and the ending suffers greatly this as well. In the last level there's nowhere to run or hide in the level and there are lots of mutant enemies. I had to cram myself in a corner and cheat by firing just round the corner where the enemies couldn't fit their large bodies in. In essence they were standing there waiting for me to shoot them, unable to reach me.
2) Lack of mines or ambushing tools - It's surprising that the game doesn't have any remote mines, traps or decoys which you can lure the enemy into. It would have made the gameplay much more interesting and help even the odds quite a bit in both outdoor and indoor areas. I understand that the remakes on the consoles have included the ability to lay traps and mines so its obvious the designers realised this was lacking.
3) Lack of melee weapons, melee attacks or special stealth moves. - Your sole melee weapon, the machete takes up one whole weapon slot! You can only carry 3 weapons at a time and having your machete one entire slot makes it hard to recommend when you could be carrying a shotgun or rifle instead which do more damage!
This game would also have benefited from stealth kills similar to say Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones where if you surprise an enemy from behind you can kill them instantly. The ability to drag bodies away would also have been good as well.
Part way through the storyline Jack gets infected with a virus that is suppose to transform him into a mutant. Unfortunately this has no real effect on Jack which is real misseed opportunity because it would be interesting if he could activate some special superhuman powers. Again, the developers realised this and in the Far Cry remake they gave him a a boost of sorts and additional weapons.
4) Lack of quiet weapons/silencers- Only 2 or 3 weapons are silenced in the game so it can be hard to surprise enemies. One of them is a rapid fire machine gun so its okay I guess but its quite hard to kill people further than a room or two away without alerting people to your presence.
5) Gamestyle and atmosphere could be better -Some people have complained about the storyline. Far Cry features a rather cheesy B-grade action story line with extremely cheesey dialogue by mercenaries that is clear parody of all those action movies. All the mercenaries talk about in really evil voices all about how evil they want to be. I think they should have gone even further down this line instead and made turned into a 'GI-Joe Saturday Morning Cartoon' style game similar to Command and Conquer Renegade. I think it could have worked quite well. Its a bit too realistic at this stage.
Should you buy this? The answer is no. Games like Half Life 2 have story and atmosphere and a cinematic feel to it as a result they age fairly well like a well written novel. Far Cry however, like many first person shooters that rely solely on graphics and explosions, is only as good until something with better graphics and explosions comes along. In this case its sequels Crysis and Far Cry 2 has better gameplay and bigger worlds and many of the issues I raised here such as lack of melee attacks and special abilities is addressed in Crysis or Far Cry 2. What Far Cry has done however is change my expectations of shooters and what true 'freedom' in shooter is about.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Wario Land 3: Game Design Review
Before I begin, I stated in my previous review that Wario Land 2 was probably one of the best handheld action platformers ever marred only by some very slight gameplay issues. Each level was closely crafted to provide challenge, there was relatively minimal backtracking and each level could be finished in a relatively short amount of time (taking no more than 10 minutes) making it easy to pick up and play. Perfect for on-the-go travel.
Playing Wario Land 3 which was technically larger, bigger I was surprised to find that Wario Land 3 suffers from poor game level design. Make no mistake. Wario Land 3 is still a good game but the number of gameplay annoyances that cause it fall a significant step behind Wario Land 2.
Primarily the problem is the game designers seemed to have this mind set that more is better. Unfortunately this means plenty of pointless attractions. Here are the major ones I see.
1) The golf games - These are are pointless distractions and exist only to frustrate the player. In this mini game, rather than aiming and carefully selecting your power, you have a slider that moves along the bar for both aiming and power which you have to stop by pressing the A button.
This makes the game not only a measure of skill but also huge luck as the margin for error is very tiny for both power and aiming. And the golf games aren't just a distraction either, its a crucial part of gameplay as some passages are blocked and require you to win one of these as well. You have to pay 10 coins to play but it's also the only thing you actually need coins. As such I question the reason for even having coins.
2) Misleading gameplay cues in non-linear levels - In many games, such as Metroid or Castlevania, you'll usual end up in a blocked area which will mention you need some special ability or key to unlock. There are usually clear indicators of the what you'll need. Games like Metroid will usually have some symbol which will correspond with the power required
In Wario Land 3 each level has 4 keys and 4 treasure chests each a different colour. The grey key is the first key followed by the red, green and finally blue. Whenever you unlock a treasure chest you complete the level and return to the map. The keys however, can be scattered all over the level and because of the open levels its sometimes not very obvious which route to take until you hit a dead end. Its hard to know whether it is a real dead end or simply because you haven't figured out how to clear the path. As mentioned good game designers would make it obvious the direction you should take , perhaps by creating markers or changing the color of the background to let you know you are taking the "Grey Key and grey treasure chest route" or the Green key or if you're actually missing an ability. Unfortunately this is not the case at all in Wario Land 3. This can be very frustrating and I sometimes found myself wandering around trying to figure out whether I was in the right place or not.
It's interesting to note that they have some fairly obvious signage to let you know what's affected by the day/night cycle the game, which makes me question why they couldn't develop something similar for each level to let you know of the keys is a mystery.
The larger levels also mean you could potentially fall too far off a platform and into another area requiring you to backtrack all the way to where you were to try that tricky jump again. Again, causing needless delays.
Another annoying misleading cue is the musical coins scattered across all levels. There are eight in total per level and there are supposed to be collected after you've unlocked most of all abilities. But the fact that they're there acts merely as a distraction your first time finishing a level. As a player I tried to collect one or two along the way thinking they would be saved when I finished the level. i.e. I collect two now and then I can return to collect the remaining six. To my surprise I discovered that you need to collect all eight and find a special exit before you can successful complete the level. A better way to do this would have been to have the coins only appear after you've unlocked all the chests in a level and unlocked the appropriate abilities and present it as an extra hard challenge for the hardcore gamers.
3) World map requires a great deal of backtracking - As you unlock more treasures in the game world, more of the gameworld is revealed but then you have to go back to previous areas and collect treasures. Now the game does actually have in-game guides, in this case the shadowy figure that provides advice and the world map locations that sparkle to let you know which areas to visit next.
Following this advice will ensure that you are suitably equipped to handle whatever the game throws at you. You'll end up with slightly over 50% of the items collected when you finish the game giving you motivation to explore previous areas.
For example, the game will tell you you have to visit a tower and a city which are in different parts of the map and the order you have to visit them in. E.g. Tower first followed by city. Again, I don't see why this couldn't be more linear and as stated above, a simple level selector would have sufficed rather than the confusing world map where levels are scattered all over the place.
Rather than going with the 'open world gameplay concept' Why not structure the game so that the main levels are obvious and every now and then there will be optional levels unlocked whenever you get new powers like so many other action games? This ensures you're channeling the player experience while ensuring every single level they start or treasure they attempt to unlock will be 'winnable' but also giving them the option to skip the optional missions.
Conclusion
Wario Land 3 is still playable but rather than the tight perfection that we got with Wario Land we get something more bloated. It’s still very fun and has the same platforming and invincibility mechanisms which Wario Land 2 had. Having it in an open world might seem like a good idea but sometimes it backfires like in this game.
Still recommended but just not quite the classic Wario Land 2 is from design and usability perspective.
Playing Wario Land 3 which was technically larger, bigger I was surprised to find that Wario Land 3 suffers from poor game level design. Make no mistake. Wario Land 3 is still a good game but the number of gameplay annoyances that cause it fall a significant step behind Wario Land 2.
Primarily the problem is the game designers seemed to have this mind set that more is better. Unfortunately this means plenty of pointless attractions. Here are the major ones I see.
1) The golf games - These are are pointless distractions and exist only to frustrate the player. In this mini game, rather than aiming and carefully selecting your power, you have a slider that moves along the bar for both aiming and power which you have to stop by pressing the A button.
This makes the game not only a measure of skill but also huge luck as the margin for error is very tiny for both power and aiming. And the golf games aren't just a distraction either, its a crucial part of gameplay as some passages are blocked and require you to win one of these as well. You have to pay 10 coins to play but it's also the only thing you actually need coins. As such I question the reason for even having coins.
2) Misleading gameplay cues in non-linear levels - In many games, such as Metroid or Castlevania, you'll usual end up in a blocked area which will mention you need some special ability or key to unlock. There are usually clear indicators of the what you'll need. Games like Metroid will usually have some symbol which will correspond with the power required
In Wario Land 3 each level has 4 keys and 4 treasure chests each a different colour. The grey key is the first key followed by the red, green and finally blue. Whenever you unlock a treasure chest you complete the level and return to the map. The keys however, can be scattered all over the level and because of the open levels its sometimes not very obvious which route to take until you hit a dead end. Its hard to know whether it is a real dead end or simply because you haven't figured out how to clear the path. As mentioned good game designers would make it obvious the direction you should take , perhaps by creating markers or changing the color of the background to let you know you are taking the "Grey Key and grey treasure chest route" or the Green key or if you're actually missing an ability. Unfortunately this is not the case at all in Wario Land 3. This can be very frustrating and I sometimes found myself wandering around trying to figure out whether I was in the right place or not.
It's interesting to note that they have some fairly obvious signage to let you know what's affected by the day/night cycle the game, which makes me question why they couldn't develop something similar for each level to let you know of the keys is a mystery.
The larger levels also mean you could potentially fall too far off a platform and into another area requiring you to backtrack all the way to where you were to try that tricky jump again. Again, causing needless delays.
Another annoying misleading cue is the musical coins scattered across all levels. There are eight in total per level and there are supposed to be collected after you've unlocked most of all abilities. But the fact that they're there acts merely as a distraction your first time finishing a level. As a player I tried to collect one or two along the way thinking they would be saved when I finished the level. i.e. I collect two now and then I can return to collect the remaining six. To my surprise I discovered that you need to collect all eight and find a special exit before you can successful complete the level. A better way to do this would have been to have the coins only appear after you've unlocked all the chests in a level and unlocked the appropriate abilities and present it as an extra hard challenge for the hardcore gamers.
3) World map requires a great deal of backtracking - As you unlock more treasures in the game world, more of the gameworld is revealed but then you have to go back to previous areas and collect treasures. Now the game does actually have in-game guides, in this case the shadowy figure that provides advice and the world map locations that sparkle to let you know which areas to visit next.
Following this advice will ensure that you are suitably equipped to handle whatever the game throws at you. You'll end up with slightly over 50% of the items collected when you finish the game giving you motivation to explore previous areas.
For example, the game will tell you you have to visit a tower and a city which are in different parts of the map and the order you have to visit them in. E.g. Tower first followed by city. Again, I don't see why this couldn't be more linear and as stated above, a simple level selector would have sufficed rather than the confusing world map where levels are scattered all over the place.
Rather than going with the 'open world gameplay concept' Why not structure the game so that the main levels are obvious and every now and then there will be optional levels unlocked whenever you get new powers like so many other action games? This ensures you're channeling the player experience while ensuring every single level they start or treasure they attempt to unlock will be 'winnable' but also giving them the option to skip the optional missions.
Conclusion
Wario Land 3 is still playable but rather than the tight perfection that we got with Wario Land we get something more bloated. It’s still very fun and has the same platforming and invincibility mechanisms which Wario Land 2 had. Having it in an open world might seem like a good idea but sometimes it backfires like in this game.
Still recommended but just not quite the classic Wario Land 2 is from design and usability perspective.
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