Some things in video games just happen, they are a standard, and as players we don't question them. That door is locked, we can't break it down because we are playing a game, this isn't "real-life." It might seem stupid from the outside, but we accept it because it is part of the rule base, and when we play a video game, we play within the rule base we have been given, that is challenge.
But there are some video game constructs that we take for standard, and perhaps we shouldn't anymore. Constructs that are ingrained into our gamer minds for no reason other than they have always been there.
1. Boss Battles.
Boss battles were never a staple of video games. You will not find them in Asteroids, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, or the like. But somewhere in time, they were added as a necessity. Zelda's dungeon bosses and Metroid's big boss battles are two prime examples of differing boss types. In Zelda you often kill the boss using the equipment you just acquired, whereas in Metroid, you get better equipment for defeating the boss. Bosses in RPGs differ again, in that they are a test of your current skills and abilities. If you're dying, you probably shouldn't even be this far in the game, and you should take some time to back track and improve.
But boss battles creep into territory where they are completely unnecessary. Guitar Hero III comes to mind straight away, as do the boss races in the original Crash Team Racing. The problem with this kind of boss battle is that the rules change. You're not really playing GHII or CTR anymore, you're playing a very similar game, yes, but not the game you played to get here in the first place.
R-Type's boss battles also suffer from being a bit flawed. The level preceding the boss seems to only have the purpose of you picking up power ups for which to defeat the boss with. Compare to Ikaruga, where you don't get power ups, and the bosses are a true test of your skills attained thus far.
Bosses are necessary, yes, but only in some genre of games, and only if done well. Think Scarab Tanks, and not Jinpachi.
2. Limited progression based on difficulty
I suck at this game, so why should I be kicked out half way through? How exactly do you expect me to improve if you only let me play half the game, or with half the rules?
Selecting easy mode should be just that, a mode of the game that is easier. Metal Gear Solid is a great example of a difficulty set up. I'm sure some people are absolutely terrible at these games, but still play them for the story. Imagine if you could only find out half the story, and be kicked out after the first disc because you picked easy mode.
Plok on the SNES cut out absolutely huge chunks of the game, and then spat you out early, almost as a punishment, for playing on easy mode. Bumping the difficulty up to normal proved too difficult due to the hand holding nature of easy mode.
Most puzzle games have the easiest time circumventing this problem, as it just scales its levels in ascending order of difficulty (Lemmings, Picross DS). Whereas games like Advance Wars, where you can make the game easier by turning off the abilities of your leaders, has the obvious downside of making it extremely difficult to understand all of the factors involved when you turn them back on.
Action games too can merely just change key variables like health, ammo and damage to make the overall experience more tailored to the casual gamer.
Ideally, the difficulty of an "easy mode" should be scaled so that mastery of easier modes leads you nicely into playing in normal modes, and so on up to the highest difficulty settings. Guitar Hero has perfected this idea. You're still playing the whole game, just an easier version of it.
3. Games built around the online elements
Yes, I know for some games this is the entire point, but it is when games become so bogged down in making sure that the online element of the game is good, that is sacrifices the quality of the single player mode.
Halo 3 arguably suffers in the campaign mode due to excessive design on the multiplayer aspect. Campaign levels are linear, and need nowhere near as much design as the multiplayer levels which will be played millions of times more frequently. You could argue that Halo is a multiplayer game, and that the campaign mode is more just a training area for those that have never played it. The main problem a game like Halo has is that its multiplayer game play is so far removed from the single player experience, that they can hardly be called the same game; there are no capture the flag missions, or territory missions in the campaign.
Then take Mario Kart DS for example, which is multiplayer by default. Whether you play the AI or your mates, the game is the same. Unreal Tournament is the FPS equivalent.
Pokémon Battle Revolution should have been the foray into 3D Pokémon that the current generation wanted. But instead, unless you have Wi-Fi and friends, the game lacks somewhat. Most people buying this game would have already owned a DS and a copy of either Diamond or Pearl; I can't imagine how much they missed out on adding some offline elements to go with that game, such as fully 3D Super Contests, or some wild Pokémon hunting to aid in your Pokédex completion.
4. Unlockable extras
This is rather open to debate, but the way I see it, in games like Super Smash Brothers, why should I be forced to play for an arbitrary amount of time to unlock extra characters? This is the one thing I am not looking forward to when Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes out, is the amount of time I am going to have to put in to get all the characters.
There should be two options: One should be let the people who want to play 300 games do that. If that is the clause of unlocking hidden character X, then go ahead, let them play their balls off. Although there should be an extra option to have it unlock automatically with passcodes or what not, so that if I want to boot up SSBB and play as Lucario straight away, I should be allowed. I'm not being lazy, I just find it a hurdle to my enjoyment of the game. Nobody is really gaining anything by making the player play longer in order to unlock stuff.
Obviously this would not work for all games, racing games are a good example. But that is primarily because the unlockable vehicles far surpass the regular ones. They are rewards as opposed to extras, whereas in Super Smash Bros., the unlockable characters are of the same class, if not lower (That's YOU Pichu).
5. Save points
Look, maybe in the 90's when computer games didn't have a lot of memory and writing to a cartridge was a mission in itself, I can understand, but these days there is no excuse. If I need to stop playing NOW, I should be able to stop playing NOW, not at the whim of your stupid design.
There is an excellent system that can achieve this which isn't cheating or allows you infinite attempts at a one time event. You save using a special option, that isn't a proper save point, just an interim job, and you power down your system. When you reload your system, you can load your "mini-save" and it will put you back exactly where you were and delete the save. This means if you were to power off your system after loading a "mini-save" you would lose it, and be forced to load from your last proper save. But it also guarantees that player will not save it just before opening a chest and do it 10 000 times to get the infinity +1 sword.
Games do it already, so there is no excuse for the rest of you to not follow suit.
And finally...
The really little piddly design stuff that just irritates me no end:
Menu's should be cyclical. Pressing up at the top should send me to the bottom.
I should be able to hold a button to scroll through a list faster.
When I enter my name onto a high score board, the final character should be flashing and not live to my entry. How many times have I put FENTONA into a leader board?
I should be able to change my vertical look axis in the pause menu, and not have to exit to the front end.
And so maybe, if we can steer past these things that gamers take as staples, then maybe our gaming experience will become fresher and more exciting for everyone involved.
From the mouth of Fenton Bailey. Find his blog at http://fentonbailey.blogspot.com
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