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 | Re: XBLA Assets (and a Retrospective) | |
| Posted By: PerseusSpartacus | Date: 12/2/17 6:58 p.m. |
| In Response To: Re: XBLA Assets (and a Retrospective) (nevets01) : Ugh, tutorials. I still am of the opinion that you should just toss the
Totally agree with you here. It's nice to be able to dive in and not feel like you're being treated like a kid. Having a giant text message appear on screen saying something like "Press X to Punch" isn't just immersion-breaking; it makes you feel like the game designers are patronizing you. If there's one thing that modern game designers could learn, it's that players can always figure stuff out own their own. Rather than making everything obvious for the sake of making the game "accessible" to a wider audience, it would be nice if they'd opt to leave basic game tips (like what button does what) outside of the gameplay, maybe in the manual, and then let the more moment-to-moment help (here's the best or only way to kill this particular enemy) be hinted at in clues or something. : And as for cutscenes, I will never stop loving terminals. They do away with
Yeah, I've never liked cutscenes. Video games aren't movies, and they shouldn't always try to be like movies. Sure, Mass Effect was great, and it really felt like a Hollywood sci-fi action movie, but it made that work because it let you really identify with a particular character, thereby allowing the movie-like sequences to have weight. But not every game should try to be Mass Effect. That example worked because of the interactive and immersive component, something that not every game can or should even try to pull off. If the story isn't something you can change or interact with, just something static to tie together the gameplay, then it needs to be very different. Marathon nailed this – the story of Marathon is not something you affect, not something you can change or interact with. Rather, it is something you explore; it is static, unchanging, but it is so deep that you can, as this site proves, spend literally years pulling it apart and never feel like you've explored it 100%. The fact that this can be achieved merely with a bunch of monochromatic text terminals, with no audio and minimal visuals, makes modern video game cutscenes feel like the biggest waste of money ever. : All that said, there ARE annoyingly slow places in Marathon. Colony Ship For
Yes, but I think Marathon does manage to use those slow points to good advantage – they offer a break from shmup-type gameplay, give you a chance to work your brain rather than your reflexes, and soak in the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere. It struck me recently just how much Marathon reminded me of Aliens – the feel of it all, especially on the Pfhor ship, is very similar. And nothing Aliens-related would work if it were just non-stop action – the slow moments of building tension are vital to the experience. Vale,
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